Notices by Karthik Srinivasan (skarthik@neuromatch.social)

Just heard the news that the great great James C Scott is no more! A singular figure, who created fields of inquiry all his own.

Reading "Seeing like a state" was one of those worldview-changing works. His idea of "metis" (i.e., experiential and practical knowledge) as opposed to epistemic knowledge (science etc.,) along with "legibility" are still relevant. In a world salivating about AGI etc., etc., metis (as this adaptive, and ever changing knowledge system) tells us something very profound about human societies, and knowledge (ultimately illegible to machinations, thus helping freedom to thrive).

If you haven't read his works, I encourage everyone to. And if you want to want to start somewhere, and know how he writes (and eviscerates), here is a sample:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n22/james-c.-scott/crops-towns-government

#PoliticalPhilosophy #State #Anarchism #Metis #ComparitivePolitics #Anthropology #Modernism #Knowledge #Politics #Power

Good riddance to what was a colossal waste of money, energy, resources, and any sane person's time, intellect, and attention. To even call these as exploratory projects is a disservice to human endeavor.

"Future of humanity", it seems. These guys can't even predict their next bowel movement, but somehow prognosticate about the long term future of humanity, singularity blah blah. This is what "philosophy" has come to with silicon valley and its money power: demented behavior is incentivized, douchery is rationalized, while reason is jettisoned.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/28/nick-bostrom-controversial-future-of-humanity-institute-closure-longtermism-affective-altruism

#Longtermism #EffectiveAltruism #Futurism #Philosophy #ExistentialRisk #ArtificialIntelligence

I was interviewed by The Economist's Babbage podcast on their series, "The science that built AI" last month. My hour long conversation was edited to about six minutes!

I am glad they edited/fit my conversation as taking the perspective that this big data, big compute driven deep-net approach is orthogonal to human/biological vision. And that, without incorporating biological principles (in this case, vision), autonomous visual navigation systems (i.e., self-driving cars) are unlikely and/or limited.

Unfortunately, the podcast requires a subscription to The Economist (I too had to access it from my university account!). But if you do have access, let me know what you think!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4adN2gVRkQctA55Q0xswiO

#Neuroscience #History #AI #Deepnets #BiologicalIntelligence #BiologicalVision #HumanVision #MachineVision #TheEconomist #Babbage #MachineLearning

@jonny @NicoleCRust

Reminded me of this:

https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how-not-to-excel-at-economics-13646

@phiofx @johncarlosbaez

Hard to say, let's just say there might be some "universals" to the notes that make up an octave/scale to our tonotopic map, and their relationshiip to what we "perceive" as dissonant/consonant intervals.

Good day to remind everyone of the guy who will be feted, mourned, and deified nationally and internationally as a "Grand strategist", "Mr. Realpolitik", 'Statesman", "Great Man of History" etc., etc.,

Everyone knows about the Vietnam war, and what happened in "Indo-China", much less so around the same time what happened in South Asia from 1970-71. Remains one of the toughest books I have ever read.

#Bangladesh #Kissinger #Nixon #Pakistan #India #History #Geopolitics #TheBloodTelegram #Genocide

For those who might not know, following a week after the Russia-Ukraine wheat embargo, there are even bigger and ominous signs hinting at global food insecurity and the catastrophic agricultural crises coming our way.

India last week banned export on all non-basmati rice varieties.

I repeat: EXPORT BAN ON ALL non-basmati RICE varieties.

[Aside: export of basmati variety will continue, the demand for which is relatively small in India when compared to the nearly 15 major varieties of rice (it's home to at least a 1000 varieties) consumed by very large populations everyday(these are the ones which are now banned). Basmati is a "festive" and only occasionally consumed variety in India. It is largely exported to the richer nations, many of whom think it is the only variety of rice from India.]

Why is India banning rice now?
Answer: global warming.

What’s happening in India (and South Asia at large) should both terrify you and wake you up

Here’s more (facts? trivia? bothersome news? how the world actually works?).

1/9

#GlobalWarming #PoliticalEconomy #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #RiceBan #India #SouthAsia #SubContinent #Agriculture #Food #AgriculturalCrises #Inequality #EcologicalCrises

With erratic monsoons now a regular feature, intense floods are followed immediately by heatwaves that have caused the entire agriculture cycle to go haywire, crop yields to plummet, and near droughts across all major food basket regions in India.

Tamilnadu, my home state, used to be rice-country, historically recorded by both the Tamils and later the Brits as giving three harvests a year. Now it is barely struggling to give a single harvest.

West Bengal, one of the largest rice producers has reported highest levels of aridity in its arable lands.

Punjab, and Haryana, the heartlands of most agriculture have had multiple crop collapses, the worst top soil degradation because of intensive practices, and fertilizer polluted irrigation ways (not to mention the highest levels of cancer).

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the two most populous states, and heavily reliant on agriculture as both economy and livelihood have had one of the worst years on record for yields on almost all food crops.

Riverbeds, lakes, and canals that depend almost exclusively on the monsoons are drying up.

All across the country, groundwater has plummeted and deep wells are now dug that reach waters from a few million years back.

2/9

#GlobalWarming #PoliticalEconomy #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #RiceBan #India #SouthAsia #SubContinent #Agriculture #Food #AgriculturalCrises #Inequality #EcologicalCrises