Category Archives: Culture
The potential energy of being entertained
Netflix just published a report drafted by its Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, estimating – among other things – its environmental footprint for operations during the year 2019. According to the report, as The Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi writes: Binge-watching Netflix doesn’t just fry your brain; … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged cable, carbon accounting, climate change, climate change journalism, doomsday scenario, DVD, hope, neoliberalism, Netflix, positive news, social isolation
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The fascist’s trap
The following lines appear in the opening portion of G.S. Mudur’s report in The Telegraph about government opposition to student protests: “The people protecting our democracy are the people in JNU. They’re taking beatings on our behalf,” K.S. Venkatesh [a … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged anti-national, army, body politik, fascism, fascist body, homogeneity, IIT Kanpur, martyrdom, soldiers, The Telegraph
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The chrysalis that isn’t there
I wrote the following post while listening to this track. Perhaps you will enjoy reading it to the same sounds. Otherwise, please consider it a whimsical recommendation. 🙂 I should really start keeping a log of different stories in the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged British Medical Journal, chrysalis, experiments, gender discrimination, industry of science, modern science, patriarchy, publish or perish, science and society, scientific enterprise, scientific literature, scientific method, scientific research
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Science v. tech, à la Cixin Liu
A fascinating observation by Cixin Liu in an interview in Public Books, to John Plotz and translated by Pu Wang (numbers added): … technology precedes science. (1) Way before the rise of modern science, there were so many technologies, so … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Bernhard Riemann, Cixin Liu, glass ceiling, Large Hadron Collider, mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry, particle physics, Riemannian geometry, technology, Three Body Problem
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The mad world
Kate Wagner writes in The Baffler: What makes industrial landscapes unique is that they fascinate regardless of whether they’re operating. The hellish Moloch of a petrochemical refinery is as captivating as one of the many abandoned factories one passes by … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged aesthetics, architecture, art brut, HR Giger, industralism, infrastructural tragedy, JC Hallman, Jean Dubuffet, Kate Wagner, picturesque theory, psychology, varelse, world-building
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A sympathetic science
If you feel the need to respond, please first make sure you have read the post in full. I posted the following tweet a short while ago: With reference to this: Which in turn was with reference to this: But … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds, Science
Tagged human condition, Kiran Bedi, NASA, pseudoscience, science communication, scientism, sympathy
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Injustice ex machina
There are some things I think about but struggle to articulate, especially in the heat of an argument with a friend. Cory Doctorow succinctly captures one such idea here: Empiricism-washing is the top ideological dirty trick of technocrats everywhere: they … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Tech
Tagged anti-intellectualism, artificial intelligence, capitalism, Cory Doctorow, Evgeny Morozov, globalisation, machine learning, middle-class aspirations, nationalism, populism, technological solutionism
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Sci-fi past the science
There’s an interesting remark in the introductory portion of this article by Zeynep Tufekci (emphasis added): At its best, though, science fiction is a brilliant vehicle for exploring not the far future or the scientifically implausible but the interactions among science, technology … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Arthur C Clarke, Elon Musk, human condition, human spaceflight, Jeff Bezos, politics, sci-fi, science fiction, social science, Zeynep Tufekci
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The rationalists’ eclipse
The annular solar eclipse over South India on December 26 provided sufficient cause for casual and/or inchoate rationalism to make a rare public appearance – rarer than the average person who had decided to stay indoors for the duration of … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Against Method, annular solar eclipse, BR Ambedkar, Caliban and the Witch, capitalism, myth, Paul Feyerabend, Periyar, pseudoscience, rationalism, science communication, scientism, solar eclipse, superstitions, superstitious beliefs, Sylvia Federici
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The Star Wars dynasty
The latest ‘Star Wars’ movie, The Rise of Skywalker, is worth a watch if you’re a committed fan interested in staying up to date with the franchise. Otherwise, all you’re missing is a movie unsure of what it’s supposed to … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged Ben Solo, dynasticism, dynasty politics, Emperor Palpatine, Jedi, Kylo Ren, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Rahul Gandhu, Rey, Sonia Gandhi, Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker
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