Complexities of war

Despite all the complexities of war, even a simple question like "Why did Israel-USA attack Iran (all of a sudden) on 28 Feb 2026?"

There are so many different perspectives:

1. Change the focus from Scandal perspective - Over the previous 1 week 7 big names have come out and maybe the next was DJT. Hence, he needed something bigger to distract the media and the accusations.

2. The China angle - DJT was to meet Xi in late march to negotitate and he wanted 2 main keys of oil before this meeting. One was Venezuela and the other was Iran, both of which do a lot of oil selling to China. He blocked Venezuela with picking up Maduro and hoped that Iran would be controlled with the leadership gone and internal infighting/ upraising.

3. The Military Intelligence angle - Israel-USA got to know that there is going to be a meeting of 50 senior leadership of Iran on 28 Feb 2026 and although both were preparing for war, this opportunity was too irresistible to not bomb.

All this, when there was no Imminent threat to USA (As per the counterterrorism chief who resigned) and the war was not winnable (according to both the USA agencies - their intelligence and the Pentagon).

Sly description

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Layers of knowledge and secrets

Over the last few years, after coming across many new data channels and sources of information, I have come to the conclusion that there are layers of knowledge and many layers are hidden from common view and there are certain types of knowledge which are not written any where so as to protect the lives of the elite people involved.

It is difficult to come into these new layers of knowledge but not impossible. Be it Finance, Economics, Religion, Society, Marketing, Humanity, Power, etc.

To come across these layers, we need to read very different kinds of categories of books / podcasts / youtube interviews and some non-famous and maybe some controversial books too.

Based on these different true knowledge sources, we are then able to understand what is true and to listen/see and what is propoganda and to be avoided. But many things will never be clear as there are multiple logics to each side and different motivations to each side to spread their versions.

1 simple example is of contact with extra-terrestrial beings.

Learning areas

There are so many things to learn. 

This are the areas I am learning and / or applying myself and will continue to in this year.

Biggest areas: 

Where is humanity headed? What are the underlying power struggles whose symptoms are seen in war,  hoarding, policies, deception of masses, etc.? How is technology/ rich people moves going to affect humanity?

The Arena:

Global markets - commodities, companies, stock markets, innovations, the underlying assumptions, the unknown games big entities are playing.

Company:

Technical details, organisation of information, defining optimality and tuning business flows and functions to this optimality.

Human nature - Theories / Frameworks / Philosophies:

To understand human behaviour, purpose, power games, persuasion, logics, focus, getting better.

Self:
Identity, Purpose, Skillsets.

Evolution or Manifestation

The interesting case of the spider tailed horned viper.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MkYluH1BtvU

The above video made me question the Darwinian theory of evolution.

Among all the snakes, how did this grow such an animal looking tail? Doesn't look like an evolution from anything near by.

I asked ChatGPT to explain the evolution of the spider tailed horned viper.

Its response:

Evolution does not “plan” spiders. It selects incremental advantages.

Stage 1 — Slightly Modified Tail Scales

Random mutations cause:

• Slight enlargement of tail tip scales

• Irregular keratin projections

If these movements vaguely resembled insects, birds may have approached more often.

Even a 5–10% hunting advantage → strong selection pressure.

---

Stage 2 — Selection for Leg-like Projections

Over generations:

• Mutations producing elongated, movable scale extensions

• Enhanced muscular control of tail tip

Birds (especially insectivorous passerines) mistake the motion for arthropods.

Snakes that looked “more spider-like” ate more.

They reproduced more.

Trait frequency increased.

---

Stage 3 — Fine-Tuned Mimicry

Eventually:

• Tail morphology became highly specialized

• Behavior evolved alongside structure

• Neural circuits adapted for rhythmic, spider-like twitching

This is co-evolution of morphology + behavior.

What I am not able to digest / understand is this: The mutation might have occurred with 1 viper. And it somehow became a dominant gene and that snake mated with so many other snakes that it managed to create a species eventually? 
Sounds more like Genghis Khan. 8% of Asian men have ancestry of Genghis Khan.

Or did the viper manifest a spider like tail and got it?

Descending the mountain of people connections

Having crossed 41 years old, I am very sure my half life is over.

I have come across thousands of people in this timeframe (family, extended families, school/college friends,  school/college seniors/juniors, neighbours, hostel mates, colleagues, customers, vendors, staff, acquittances, landlords, random strangers, business people networking, etc.)

2 years ago, 2 classmates died (one of whom was close) in the same year and in the last year another close friend classmate passed away. This got me thinking of the pattern and looking at the situation, I think this pattern is only going to be increase as most of my contacts are in the second half of their lives. I am going to regularly encounter deaths of known people irrespective of whatever happy or not situation I am in and I am going to have to accept it.

It looks like I have reached the mountain peak of people I would get to know in my life and now onwards, it is about descending the mountain of people I know.

A poem on Risk

There was a young girl of Nic’ragua,

Who smiled as she rode on a jaguar,

They returned from the ride,

with the young girl inside,

And the smile on the face of the jaguar.

- Salman Rushdie

Commonality of strength

Be so strong that the other party withdraws and you don't have to fight at all. If it comes to it, then fight and win.

Same thought echoed by Sun Tzu, Jack Reacher (movie), Col. Shivender of 7 Para SF and of course, India's political and military though process

Repudiation rates in Life insurances

About 1.5 decades ago, when I used to read every magazine of Outlook money and do in depth research of the topics of personal finance, I came across 'Repudiation rate' for Life insurances.

The repudiation rate in insurance is the percentage of claims that an insurance company denies out of the total number of claims filed during a specific period. These denials can occur for various reasons, such as claims being filed after the policy has lapsed, improper paperwork, policy exclusions, or the suspicion of fraud.

For some 'only' online life insurance companies these rates to be about 40-50% and were untrustworthy from an insurance point of view. Why were these having such high repudiation rates compared to 3-5% for other insurances? Because they were the ones who used to run gimmick ads of dirt cheap insurance and then when the claim time came, they used to give some silly reason to reject the claim (that too, when the person insured is no longer alive).

I used to get these repudiation rates from the Insurance regulator -  IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India) in its annual report.

This month, I was thinking of getting a term insurance and wanted to check the repudiation rate from the last year's annual report.

But, alas, they have stopped giving the individual companies repudiation rates and are only giving a category wise repudiation rate. Rate for Public companies and for private companies.

This is severely allowing the bad players to hide their bad work and not allowing the customers to know and choose wisely.