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The best part of this article is the last paragraph, the whole story is about western academics not acknowledging eastern influences. Ironically, the publicati

The best part of this article is the last paragraph, the whole story is about western academics not acknowledging eastern influences. Ironically, the publication had to issue an erratum due to omitting credit for the Indian professor CK Raju who first published these findings.

phendrenad2 6y ago
Wow that is funny. I think that the world is still somewhat disconnected. How do you find prior research that happened on the other side of the world? There might not be good tools to do so, if we're stuck with simple keyword searching or something like that. I think it's likely that ancient (or not-so-ancient but far from the roots of European civilization) scholars invented a lot of things before the so-called inventors. Many more than we'll ever know about. I usually say something like "It's really dumb that we recognize the inventors of things, because if not for that person, someone else would have discovered it in a year, or a decade, or a hundred years, and those potential inventors get no credit" but in this case it might sound like a Westerner trying to downplay the accomplishments of non-Western scholars.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Well... "discovered", by itself, doesn't do much. "Discovered, and told the world" changes the world. We care more about the latter than the former.
  - morekozhambu 6y ago
    Well... "told the world" by itself doesn't do much as in change the world without actually "discovering" or "inventing" it. Giving credit where it is due actually changes something.
- sigmaprimus 6y ago
  I tend to agree with You but think it probably goes much further back in time. The article also mentions the fact that "Jesuits were in the area during that time." It is well known that in the west during that time, the church kept a vast array of knowledge closely guarded from the general population, potentially a cause for the dark ages. It is entirely possible that the Indian innovations were actually in fact passed to them from the Jesuits, only to be published by the Indian school and then eventually making its way back to the European masses. And before that it's most likely the same discoveries were made by the Syrians and so on and so on...
johnnujler 6y ago
To the west India is nothing but a cheap labor centre that is here for the service of the west with its thick accent and bad tech support. It’s difficult to change it, and you see it even persist in popular culture with the likes of Tim Ferriss glorifying this culture with books like “The four hour work week” asking people to outsource the trivial stuff to countries like India. Accuse them of it and they will evasively mollify the situation by talking about the rich culture(while thinking derisive thoughts about the ever-growing population) and yoga/meditation(while mentally smirking about how insignificant a contribution it is compared to their own). Nothing will change until we change fundamentally in our approach to viewing people.
- anaganisk 6y ago
  Funny enough, my company. Follows a four day work week here.
  - xellisx 6y ago
    The comment used the title: “The four hour work week”. 4 day work weeks are common (wish they were more common).
  - raminoestult 6y ago
    But what is it representative of? The few who can afford to or the 1.3 billion? Until you can bring up the majority to a position where they wouldn’t have to rely on moving to cities like Bangalore and Delhi, there is no point in looking down at people whose wildest dream is to get a Govt Job(still the major job provider in India). You need startups and researcher centres at smaller towns, not everyone flocking to the same select seats in IITs and NITs(which is obviously not enough a number for so many kids that still want a good life) or to the same select cities. If you want to be in Thrissur and create a nation-wide startup you should be able to, but can you now?

phendrenad2 6y ago

Wow that is funny. I think that the world is still somewhat disconnected. How do you find prior research that happened on the other side of the world? There might not be good tools to do so, if we're stuck with simple keyword searching or something like that. I think it's likely that ancient (or not-so-ancient but far from the roots of European civilization) scholars invented a lot of things before the so-called inventors. Many more than we'll ever know about. I usually say something like "It's really dumb that we recognize the inventors of things, because if not for that person, someone else would have discovered it in a year, or a decade, or a hundred years, and those potential inventors get no credit" but in this case it might sound like a Westerner trying to downplay the accomplishments of non-Western scholars.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Well... "discovered", by itself, doesn't do much. "Discovered, and told the world" changes the world. We care more about the latter than the former.
- morekozhambu 6y ago
  Well... "told the world" by itself doesn't do much as in change the world without actually "discovering" or "inventing" it. Giving credit where it is due actually changes something.
sigmaprimus 6y ago
I tend to agree with You but think it probably goes much further back in time. The article also mentions the fact that "Jesuits were in the area during that time." It is well known that in the west during that time, the church kept a vast array of knowledge closely guarded from the general population, potentially a cause for the dark ages. It is entirely possible that the Indian innovations were actually in fact passed to them from the Jesuits, only to be published by the Indian school and then eventually making its way back to the European masses. And before that it's most likely the same discoveries were made by the Syrians and so on and so on...

johnnujler 6y ago

To the west India is nothing but a cheap labor centre that is here for the service of the west with its thick accent and bad tech support. It’s difficult to change it, and you see it even persist in popular culture with the likes of Tim Ferriss glorifying this culture with books like “The four hour work week” asking people to outsource the trivial stuff to countries like India. Accuse them of it and they will evasively mollify the situation by talking about the rich culture(while thinking derisive thoughts about the ever-growing population) and yoga/meditation(while mentally smirking about how insignificant a contribution it is compared to their own). Nothing will change until we change fundamentally in our approach to viewing people.

anaganisk 6y ago
Funny enough, my company. Follows a four day work week here.
- xellisx 6y ago
  The comment used the title: “The four hour work week”. 4 day work weeks are common (wish they were more common).
- raminoestult 6y ago
  But what is it representative of? The few who can afford to or the 1.3 billion? Until you can bring up the majority to a position where they wouldn’t have to rely on moving to cities like Bangalore and Delhi, there is no point in looking down at people whose wildest dream is to get a Govt Job(still the major job provider in India). You need startups and researcher centres at smaller towns, not everyone flocking to the same select seats in IITs and NITs(which is obviously not enough a number for so many kids that still want a good life) or to the same select cities. If you want to be in Thrissur and create a nation-wide startup you should be able to, but can you now?