The new identitarianism

Q: Are you a Bayesian or are you a Frequentist?

NF: I am dear sir, but an Opportunist.

We the citizens

I am a patriot because I am a premium consumer.

Pop quiz

When Milton Friedman made the comment about the equivalence of two theories (implicitly chracterized by assumptions they're based on, say realistic versus unrealistic) if they predicted the same outcome, was he not being merely tautological? Is he not simply stating that theories predicting the same outcome form an equivalence class over the set of competing theories?

Discuss.

Moving images, fast and slow

Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani are 'scholar filmmakers'. The scholarly aspect is as important as the film in which the visuals are embedded. Satyajit Ray was a scholar too but he wore it lightly and didn't burden his films with academic tedium. This could explain why the films of the former are so heavy and laden with semaphores, references and visual leitmotifs, oozing with symbols and pregnant with meaning. Ray's ouevre on the other hand is lighter in texture, more accessible and direct in its overtures to the viewer. Pather Panchali [Ray, 1955] remains perhaps the greatest debut of all time. (And if you want to extend the list, other pretenders to the throne ought to include Uski Roti [Kaul, 1969] and Court [Tamhane, 2014].) 

Silent Spring

He never disclosed his opinions, fearing people would think him mad and foolish. And after all, what was more distateful than sharing dear-held ideas to an unreceptive crowd? He donated to Greenpeace but thought it absurd that the best they thought possible was no growth, which in his view would only be the first step. He worried about the future and thought hard about which candidate to vote for, but the range of opinions considered mainstream in his society was too narrow for his top choices to ever manifest. He once considered but rejected an idea to join the Al Qaeda or ISIS because while they spoke a lot about eschatology, it was only meant as rhetoric, and they would abandon paths towards it once the caliphate was established. This, seemed to him a most tedious and roundabout way to his ends. Yet, he could use them in the future for his purposes if needed, he mused.

पृथ्वी की गंध

 The superlative living master Amit Dutta at his most direct, and most accessible in the 2 minute 'The Scent of Earth' [मिट्टी इत्र]. 

Go forth and prosper, o successor of Mani Kaul! 

Yellow yellow dirty fellow

'Yellowface' by Rebecca F Kuang is an unputdownable, wickedly funny book that's worth devouring in one sitting. This is how great storytelling reads like. Rebecca Kuang and Sally Rooney are capturing the zeitgeist like no one else in their generation. Splendid stuff! Well done.

And Kuang's next project "Katabasis" made NF cackle:

[...] she is also working on her sixth novel, a fantasy about two magical PhD students as they travel to Hell "to rescue the soul of their advisers so that they can write their job recommendation letters".

Godspeed!

The Reading List: Jan 2023 to Jan 2024

1. The Exile (Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott)
2. Platform (Michele Houellebecq)
3. A Crown of Swords (Robert Jordan)
4. Conversations with Friends (Sally Rooney)
5. The Man from the Future (Ananyo Bhattacharya)
6. Corridor (Sarnath Bannerjee)
7. Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler)
8. Armageddon Averted (Stephen Kotkin)
9. End of the fxxxing world (Charles Forman)
10. The Worldly Philosophers (Robert Heilbroner)
11. Atomic State (Jahnavi Phalkey)
12. Path of Daggers (Robert Jordan)
13. Triumph of the City (Edward Glaeser)
14. Men of Mathematics (E T Bell)
15. Slouching Towards Utopia (Brad DeLong)
16. The Revolt of the Public (Martin Gurri)
17. Winter's Heart (Robert Jordan)
18. Adi Parva (Amruta Patil)
19. Dead Lions (Mick Herron)
20. Dostoyevsky: The story of liberation (Joseph Frank)
21. मुद्राराक्षस (विशाखदत्त)
22. Crossroads of Twilight (Robert Jordan)
23. The Wages of Destruction (Adam Tooze)
24. बेताल पचीसी 
25. A life in the shadows (AS Dulat)
26. The housekeeper and the professor (Yoko Ogawa)
27. The IPCRESS file (Len Deigton)
28. Knife of dreams (Robert Jordan)
29. The Gathering Storm (Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson)