Tag Archives: capitalism
Pseudoscientific materials and thermoeconomics
The Shycocan Corp. took out a full-page jacket ad in the Times of India on June 22 – the same day The Telegraph (UK) had a story about GBP 2,900 handbags by Gucci that exist only online, in some videogame. The Shycocan product’s science is … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged capitalism, consumerism, eco-economic decoupling, flygskam, Greta Thunberg, Gucci, infinite growth, Michael Liebrich, nationalism, negative entropy, NFT, non-fungible tokens, pseudoscience, Shycocan, thermoeconomics
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UAE’s spaceflight shortcut to making history
This post benefited from valuable input and feedback from Thomas Manuel. In an hour or so, the UAE’s Hope probe, currently en route to Mars, will beam a signal to Earth about whether it managed to get into orbit around … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis
Tagged billionaire class, capitalism, Hope probe, labour rights, spaceflight, UAE Hope, UAE Hope mission, UAE Mars mission, United Arab Emirates
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“Enough science.”
Edit, 6.04 pm, December 15, 2020: A reader pointed out to me that The Guardian may in fact have been joking, and it has been known to be flippant on occasion. If this is really the case, I pronounce myself … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged arts, astrology, capitalism, democracy, empowerment, humanities, pseudoscience, The Guardian
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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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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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Accumulation then philanthropy
Peter Woit’s review of a new book about Jim Simons, the mathematician and capitalist who set up the Simons Foundation, which funds math and physics research around the world but principally in the West to the tune of $300 million … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Bill Gates, capital accumulation, capitalism, Donald Trump, income inequality, Jeffrey Epstein, Jim Simons, philanthropy, Simons Foundation, wealth inequality
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Exploring what it means to be big
Reading a Nature report titled ‘Step aside CERN: There’s a cheaper way to break open physics‘ (January 10, 2018) brought to mind something G. Rajasekaran, former head of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, told me once: that the future … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged capitalism, classical physics, cyclotrons, Large Hadron Collider, laser wakefield acceleration, tabletop accelerators
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Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to the rise of capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving one’s … Continue reading