Kids… don’t fight!!
On the 29th and 30th of last month, there was this conference organized by the Computer Society of India in Bangalore. I was asked to attend this conference, and in a nutshell, it was THE most mind-numbing conference I ever sat through. The theme was “IT in Defense”, and it was the fourth of its boring kind in the country.
There was one clear message that I did get from the eleven hours I spent in that auditorium. Through the maze of technicalities – NCOs and communication networks and motes – I could see millions of dead people, and the intellectual cream of the country, these people in front of me, sitting in an air conditioned hall and planning the murder of a million others. How to guide ICBMs to hit there targets more accurately, how to coordinate attacks so that the enemy wouldn’t know what hit them, how to kill, kill, KILL… What did I ever do to deserve a sponsorship from college to attend such a horrid sitting?!
Later, back in the confines of my own imagination, I sat thinking. And this is what came to mind: We have, as a human race, come a long way. We’ve dreamt things into existence, things scientists a century ago deemed impossible. We’ve given up bows and arrows and picked up automatic rifles; ballistae have given way to missiles. And through all of this, our collective mindset still remains the same: Although our tactics might have changed, we’re still fighting the same old wars. When will we ever grow up?
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