Neoliberal capitalism at quantum scale

 

Whenever there is discussion, or new findings (and philosophical speculations), in quantum field it also attracts worst kind of people as they try to sell decked up ridicules of religion and compare these as scientifically advanced. The all-knowing squatter frame is activated to usurp the space as entitlement “something that we knew 5000yrs back and the west is just catching up”. This from a bunch that even lacks basic sense or humanity. I blame West, specifically britishery, for nurturing these dimwits. Eastern philosophy is hinged mostly in Tao-Buddhist refined thoughts, some of Upanishad too carry enlightened thoughts but one has to clearly understand, in no uncertain terms, that these are accumulated thoughts (like yoga and ayurveda) of saints and seers over centuries and is being appropriated into squatter’s inbred frame of waste. Much of Upanishad remains source of humanist tradition and enlightening stream from Buddha to Kabir to Nanak. Squatter mediated Hinduism that normalize caste is a degradation and an assault on humanity. It has nothing to offer, least claims of meditative insights, these should be shooed away from civilized circle. Ofcourse the threat to the world is from severely degrading one book miracle religions that shake core of humanity significantly because of the spread and clear instructions that easily manipulate humans into herd. Squatter decked Hinduism remains a threat and shouldn’t be allowed to pussyfoot into enlightening thoughts and sophisticated understanding like quantum physics.

So, lets come to the issue at hand. To put it succinctly the transactive nature of capitalism finds itself unhinged from all moral bearings and state control (through rule of law and rights of citizen) in neoliberal values. Everything is evaluated as disposable profit extracting entity in a greed filled world of insatiable needs. These have severely diminished humanity and degraded environment. What we see is broader impact through annual reports of rising inequity and polarization with wanton consumption as growth while human induced natural disaster is shifting to geological catastrophes. As common people we experience these daily dealings with transactive values that seep into human relations and our disconnection with nature. State -elected by people or authoritarian, use their power to extract and consume to work progress and development. Though we experience these in daily deterioration it remains abstract in neoliberal sophistication. This is where Trump emerge as important case study. He is posited as aberration, which he is not, and is indeed a natural evolution (turbocharged through social media) that values extractive opportunism. What is important here is the crudeness of neoliberal values finding expressions in individuals holding responsible positions. This is not an accident but a deliberate accumulative nurturing of the system. Each one gaining from neoliberal system shares little bit of trump that they desperately try to morph in liberal posturing or conservative concerns. The system is incapable to nurture better people.

Since Trump is elevated into the world stage by the system as a powerful entity he is in spotlight. Every action he takes, every move he makes, is closely scrutinized. His choice of words, his mannerism, his concerns…everything is also the scrutiny and expressions of the system that elevated him as successful. Narrators entrenched in system are appalled by his naked ambitions and uncouth ways and try to distance themselves giving the impression that he comes from alien place. He is very much extension of their being that they are trying to hide. This is observing neoliberal capitalism at quantum level. How it creates extractive mindset and transactive values evaluating every opportunity to gain control and grab and monetize. This crude way is what capsulates into sophistication of economic system that they try to enamor us with narration of development. His every thought and action define the pattern that create success in neoliberal capitalism. This then leads to degradation of societies and exploitation of nature. With Trump lens you can see through sustainable efforts and concern for nature as farce. It’s a deeply flawed system that is running on sophisticated semantics. Natural system no longer sustains this extractive system and are collapsing while transactive debauchery produces money -the value of which will be fiction when faced with reality.

The system is so entrenched that it is impossible to reform or replace, common people and biodiversity will keep on paying the price while the elite isolate themselves as long as it keeps benefiting them. This is how neoliberal system programmed its own survival favoring few and firmly hinging the hunter gatherer imprint. This also makes Trump case much interesting. He is nurtured by the very values of the system that is also self-destructive. It will perpetuate till the end to self-destruct. Immense power with crude value system has created a narcissist mutant that is on self-destruction mode to extract as much benefit from the system as he could. Which is not bad at all provided the world realigns and reforms. Fiction of development has to align and factor in fast changing reality.                          

 

 

Brilliance of Transformer Neural Network

 

More you read about neural network more you are in awe. And then you read about how Transformer architecture of Neural Network works that is essentially driving the present AI mainstream interface -the generative AI. I am especially amazed by the process of embedding words, the three dimensionality of a word in context space. Vectorization of words i.e., converting words into codes, while maintaining the meaning in its changing comprehensive context is an enviable, indeed seemingly impossible, task. It's amazing that you start by working out how much some words are popular and then create an equation to see how they are connected, this word-to-word correlation creates a pattern, and if code is able to emulate this pattern, that is, it shows similarity, then that means it has captured the context, the essence of its reality. Well, it is much elaborate than this but this is the crux of self-attention. To place a word in space and use matrix of codes to connect other words and create a map of meanings from these intricate relationships is brilliance. Instead of linear the parallelized understanding not only effectively works the emergent essence but suits powerful computation GPUs hence can be scaled. And more you feed more it sharpens and is ready for future!        

“Attention Is All You Need”, the seminal 2017paper, is now recognized as landmark in AI development and most cited paper in modern AI (visit me https://depalan.blogspot.com/2024/03/attention-is-all-you-need.html). Though I feel ‘Team Transformer’ is not widely recognized as they should be, especially Jakob Uszkoriet, Ashish Vaswani, Illia Polosukhin and Noam Shazeer. They surely are front runner for Turing prize. Meanwhile I was quite shocked during an interview I was conducting two years back that even a recent alumnus (NIT Mesra) was not aware of Ashish Vaswani. If he was involved in non-engineering work then it is understandable, but here he is at the core of tech that is at the center of AI revolution. Indian government speaks about AI education they need to start by recognizing the pioneers Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar.                      

Time out for monster mullahs of Iran

 

Sabarimala: an open case of faith nurtured fraud

 

Among the 190 odd countries in the world there is a country called India, and in this vast country there is a little state (about 1% of land mass) called Kerala tucked in southern tip. In here there is little hill, that is part of western ghats, wherein is located a small temple that has its own local god who goes by the name Ayappa. Embarrassingly, despite claims of miraculous control over universe and fate of humanity, people across world are unaware of this god, indeed most Indians too are unaware (in the stampede of millions of gods!) and are least bothered. This ‘powerful’ god has a backstory worked by sinister squatters (who squatted by evicting local tribes – who in the right mind can believe that inbred mediocre squatter had the courage to reside in these thick forested hill even a century back!) and is conveniently related to local nincompoop (read king) -the connection to power and wealth to awe the herd on blessing. The story weaves the miracle of god riding a tiger (of all possible choices!) -wild animals are deemed as compliant to blessing and easy disposable props to work narration to impress herd. Whatever cringe the so-called faith or religion carries if it presents possibilities for herd to evolve and help find their humanity then it is tolerable. Far from it these conceptions are meant to trap hapless people into worst possibilities. To start with the feudal connection of the god -an acknowledgment of power as blessing, as also intrinsic framework that makes it impossible to value wildlife that must be cared and respected as part of biodiversity. What makes this temple, that is located in eco-sensitive zone (vandalized by hordes of visitors), particularly sinister is barbaric practices and misogynist ways that it seeks to nurture among herd. Few years back there was movement against these barbaric practices but fizzled out since the politicians and media realized the worth of herd as voters and viewers, and the judiciary too worked the lowest denominator to please herd. Religions, practices or traditions, that nurture discrimination or promote degradation in the garb of faith should never find place in liberal space. Aware sane people must be vigilant against sinister forces (like clever corrupt politicians and legacy media with entrenched self serving narration) that seeks to patronize herd and nurture lowest denominator. There is an immense loss to humanity if these barbarians find breathing space. They have been constant threat to humanity over centuries.

Crude forms of religion and faith devolves into cruder followers as they get further enmeshed in deceit and trapped in their misery and fate. What we see among most religion is absence of space for contemplation, self-reflection, aspire for better self and collective empathy, instead there is a stampede to trap people into herd and grow for influence, values of exceptionalism and supremacism that infects as it grows. Sabarimala presents crudest possibilities therein. Instead of austere values and evolved simplicity in the midst of verdant forest what we see is vulgar display of wealth i.e. gold -again a wink at power and wealth as definitive indication of blessing for herd to awe and pray for. In this deviant construction God is necessarily an embodiment of power and wealth presented in all its crudeness to herd to ingrain and create deviant aspiration for the same. Add to it toxic misogynism that amplifies patriarchy and ever-present degradation of squatter that normalize caste -putrid pit that is carefully nurtured. Crony capitalist nepotistic businessmen gift gold to further dig the pit and please the herd controllers. They therefore become favored in tapping state largesse and pose as industrialist ready to take GDP to stratospheric heights to make India proud. One fellow who is now a fugitive and hiding in UK presented gold door to temple while he actively denied salary to his employees nor returned loans and tried to use nepotistic contact with powerful people to troll the system as he fled. Ideally these ‘gifts’ must be confiscated from temple by authorities or if there is any morality the temple itself must return it. Morality has lowest compliable denominator in adept exigencies. In sabarimala case the corrupt foundation attracted all kind of devious people. Squatter priest finds himself arrested for embezzling temple gold while another one used these golden paraphernalia to make easy money by lending it for ritual to powerful insecure herd members looking for more blessing in their miserable incorrigibly vacant life. While legacy media adroitly works out narration to keep the herd riveted and controlled to please their paymasters devious politicians work semantic flourish for the same. Nobody is interested in finding out the truth since there was never any truth in the edifice constructed on lies and deceit, it’s all a ritual that replicate meaninglessness and utter immorality of sanctum. Meanwhile soul wrenching songs praising lord Ayappa blares from nearest speaker. The stench of a society that is incapacitated to evolve is unbearable. They even degrade ideas of democracy into their fold that outsiders mistake as vibrant. The reason why Kerala has high HDI and literacy can be pointed to early Christian influence -that is 2000yrs old, all other factors are only cascading influence including communism, early egalitarian Islam and free flowing traders from across the world. Despite these Kerala remains a case study for contemporary world on why literacy cannot become education, healthy body cannot guarantee healthy mind. It’s a putrefying pit with middle class aspirations showcased as modernity and consumption as progress. Though one must add, public space etiquette, collective decency and hygiene standards, are much higher than most part of the country. Youngster, though primed in putrid pits, have better chance to evolve as most travel to West for higher studies as also influence of social media. Further, a thin crust of highly creative and vibrant subaltern is always present and gives hope -these sometimes do break into staid cringe mainstream.

As human vultures stampede sabarimala to milk spiritual yearnings of common people with claims and counter claims on wanton corruption, the judiciary laments “you did not even spare god”. There is another annual hoax that is normalized but never discussed since it will rip the mask. A celestial light is supposed to appear on assigned day and time over the temple (nice) as spontaneous supernatural event that the devotees/herd see it as divine sign of Ayappa’s blessing. There is a stampede to witness this miraculous ‘prediction’. So, while rest of humanity goes about blissfully ignorant, a divine miracle, especially conjured by blessed with otherworldly connections and a humble acknowledgment of their unknowable entitled wisdom, is being sent directly from cosmos to a little hillock in south part of India with enviable precision. The only hitch is that it is lit by temple authorities (essentially state) from a hidden spot! Poet and writer Sugathakumari, much respected and loved who passed away during covid, wrote “it is a sin to commit this fraud”. Some call it state sponsored ritualistic superstition. When I was a kid, I distinctly recall there used to be a oversized magazine called “Illustrated Weekly” -it used to be quite popular and carried big photographs that I liked to stare at and flip through in the library, they once exposed this fraud at sabarimala. Even communists participate in this sham without any shame or irony. Meanwhile inbred herd controlling legacy media ‘report’ this as main news! Interestingly while communist controlled media use word “thelichu” legacy media mentions it as ‘thelinju’. Technically both are correct, one says “was lit” other says “lit”. The difference is in deviousness, while ‘was lit’ is correct description, “lit” keeps it subjective hence an option for divine interpretations -a miracle to keep herd rivetted. Ideally a responsible media must show transparency and should not latch on to the narration of ‘divine miracle’ or else they too are complicit in this fraud. 

*I rarely read newspaper (it took pandemic to shed the habit, and I am quite thankful) nor do most people, the other day I went to reading room to check how this sabarimala hoax was reported, and presto there we have good old wily Kasturi&sons adept in their game. They ‘reported’ it as “celestial light appears”. Imagine these sc*undrels had major influence in setting narration and defining news for this vast nation before social media. It is not a wonder that Indians suffered, languishing at bottom of HDI and quality of education, while lacking any redeeming quality and character they played caste and fed West with tales of mahatmas and pandits visiting earth. The degradation is such that even now Indian youngsters do not have access to quality education and have to migrate to West. What a disgrace.                         

International community has failed Iranians

 

As Iranians, particularly the idealistic youth that represent the hope of the world, are wantonly massacred by brutal regime the international community, especially multilateral organizations, have failed the people. This is much more than failure it shows absolute disregard to people's plight that they couldn't even take basic actions like immediately calling for UN security meet, suspend Iran from UN bodies (imagine barbarian ruled Iran continues to be part of Human rights organizations) and International organizations. Mullahs in Iran must be prosecuted for crime against humanity. Iranian protest, courageous people who know values of freedom and liberty, urgently eviscerates and exposes hypocrisy of liberal posing forces in West who made profitable business out of other people's misery while cleverly positioning as champions of human rights and freedom. They created narrations that placed themselves as benign arbitrators and successfully synced their narration with angst everywhere and created entrenched forces meant to showcase conscience that is  now exposed as mask.

In nature evolution is a slow process. Lifeforms many a times bypass these through mutation to survive. Mutation is high stake hit and miss that connects to changing reality with epigenetics playing a significant role. When systems are too entrenched that there is a possibility of its collapse it creates drastic possibilities to survive. Climate collapse in such a scenarios that is attempting to self correct, and a warning to humans. Similarly when internationally community is too entrenched in hypocrisies and opportunism as political correctness, self serving polarizing ways as democratic debate while misery spread, it will ultimately create/elect an agency that exhibit collective reactiveness of "doesn't give a f*ck" to blast it from within. What is of serious concern is that this incumbent agency -that is now a powerful force, is byproduct of extractive opportunism of the system and out of sync with humanity. Nevertheless it will serve the purpose of Iranian people. Trump serves as caution and possibilities...         

 

Pray for Iranians

 

Common people in Iran are exhibiting stupendous level of courage against extremist theocratic state that has unleashed untold misery over the decades. Basic freedom is curtailed under the guise of religion driven morality. World community must acknowledge these immense daily sacrifices by common people and intervene. It’s unfortunate that multilateral organizations like UN are made ineffective. Even an international alliance of conscience could intervene, or else this will be manipulated by forces who may not have best interest of common people’s aspirations. Meanwhile it needs to be noted in bold letters and underlined for future reference on how pretentious western media is underplaying these significant happening in Iran into sidelines. One left-leaning-adept-in-britishery is working persistently to make it an economic issue. Western media and its insular leaders posing as liberal are compromised and trapped in the self-sustaining morality of their grand narrations. They are too entrenched in carefully constructed ideas of diversity and spurious ways of inclusiveness that not only severely degrade society but spread immense misery to common people while emboldening worst of humanity and devious systems. This construction of exotic other -that must be included with all flaws and horror, is being challenged. The other is patronized (that in itself redefine subconsciously embedded western racism in modern setting) into lower standards of humanity (indeed beneath human for many). That some people, in the superior reckoning of liberal posing West, don’t have the agency to evolve or the basic sense to understand their state of degradation and therefore must be kept coddled in their exotic world in all its barbarianism that is immune to any human progress is being severely questioned by Iranians. This is what is scaring liberal posers in West. They are so entrenched in their self-assured bubble that they are incapable to comprehend the reality, this pathetic self therefore needs nod from the other to formulate moral conscience. The reality that has moved well past them as they are left stranded in shame. Unfortunately, this vacuum is being filled by rightist elements and revivalist forces.

Iranian uprising is essentially true meaning and aspiration for liberal values that is unfolding before us. It is a protest against oppressive religion and systems of control. It needs courage and immense sacrifice to assert individual freedom against brutal murderous forces. Something West has gone through in the last few centuries and does understand the value. Liberal foundation stands on immense sacrifices of best of people over centuries. West has become too lazy and entitled and to hide their pathetic selves, wallowing in luxury and exceptionalism, they nurture worst (akin to breeding exotic pets) as their diversity pointers to showcase their superior bearing as uncompromising liberal. The more uncompromising (indeed plainly stupid) part give them belligerence for moral superiority among stampeding peers and debating circles devoid any connection to reality. For common people these powerful people carelessly nurturing worst is a horror that is hurtling towards them. It’s britishery that while unleashed horror of exploitation nurtured and normalized the worst in native populations and deviously undermined humanist traditions (for all its carefully crafted nonviolence nonsense narration -that is essentially britishery and squatter devious creation, Indian subcontinent saw worst of human tragedy during brutal racist colonialism). The deceit was passed on to the narrational foundations of nascent nations emerging out of colonial rule to nurture corrupt nepotistic societies in the garb of democracy (even as simple as game of cricket carry all the pointers and values of this deceit called britishery). Monster mullahs and caste cannibals are just few of the worst references that are emboldened by West and unleashed back to native land to degrade. It is payback time for entitled West and their fattened diversity minions. The diversity that undermines humanity, threatens liberty, curtail freedom, segregates gender, and nurture medieval systems of control by willfully undermining normal humans into herds, is not acceptable. Insipid insular lazy West must keep its patronizing self with itself. Come out of your savior syndrome and scrutinize the reality. Common people across the world are severely affected by your irresponsibility that percolates due to colonial reach and economic control. Stand up for people in Iran. As the world watch events unfolding in Iran and pray for lives of courageous common people you are also being watched and judged.              

   

Naked vulgarism of self-perpetuating extractive system

 With optimizing technologies, increasing per capita demands and ever-increasing human population the world is changing at faster pace than ever before. Since the framework of development is extractive and wanton consumption normalized as progress the world is increasingly edging collapse. It has severely stressed institutions of collective responsibility and individual care. Scaffoldings are snapping at an alarming rate. It seems we are on the course for a perfect storm that will have debilitating impact on majority of people and life on earth. This has not happened suddenly but is culmination of value system nurtured for decades. What was once morphed in liberal sounding democracy affirming play of words, while they hid their real sinister intentions in semantics of concern and sophisticated posturing, is now naked vulgarism of transactional system.  

While herd get stupider, and simultaneously fortuitously find themselves empowered through latest technologies, their increasing grouse fall for fantastical claims orchestrated by charlatans who get elected as leaders. As their number keeps increasing genuinely distressed common people too gravitate towards these narrowing options as it atleast seems -in their estimation through limited means, concerned about them in the increasingly insular world. Meanwhile sinister forces posing for higher morals aim for ridiculous to position their arrogant entitled selves as they weaken rule of law (and even common sense) and social contract of collective responsibility by encouraging worst in the name of democracy. They use humanist concerns to undermine local population -the majority gets increasingly marginalized; this gets exaggerated in social media. Any dilution of rule of law is weakening of scaffoldings of democratic society. It is the norms of interaction that bind into laws. Humanist concerns cannot be taken to ridiculous to not only undermine rule of law but severely degrade society through regressive consolidation that instigates revivalist xenophobic forces to augur worst primal instincts in humans and create fertile ground for herd to unleash. These severely restricts liberal space and threaten liberty and freedom. Any society will value and immensely gain from migrants (refugees are different matter) who add value -who are professionally skilled and carry progressive value, and assimilate to a welcoming culture with a sense of gratitude and enthusiasm to learn and capitalize on this opportunity to grow as a human. This brings genuine diversity and valuable addition to progressive society. What we have seen in the last many decades is mostly vandalism on welcoming societies and simultaneous exaggerated spread in social media. With weakening of rule of law -assertion of liberty and liberal values, to appear humanist the worst of humanity are empowered; the backlash is being sinisterly capitalized. These opportunists pose in left or right spectrum of deal depending on proximity of gravy and intensity of their gargantuan crave for power and influence that seems to be defining characteristic of transactional value system. What is seen at local level very soon find expressions at international level. Trump is no accident. He is carefully nurtured by forces that are severely denting progressive values for decades. There are little Trumps all across the world nurtured as successful by extractive system. The vulgar and uncouth is an everyday expression that is monetized and now urgently weaponized for bigger role. Much of the world is not shocked by the development in Caracas. We smirk in disgust and feel defeated in every possible way.  

Trump is a vulgar extension of what was already dormant. While there are oppositions in US and you can very well see through their hypocrisy. To begin with recall the amazing lackadaisical attitude of Democrats when dire predictions of Trump election was apparent. Meanwhile comedians in US play a significant role in ridiculing the powerful (and this couch potato semiliterate is particularly sensitive to TV show image ratings and easily miffed) until you realize it is mostly against individuals and not powerful systems that nurture these since they too are complicit and gain by playing along (one influential standup comedian mentions these times as “bit of wobble”, while in an amazing lack of awareness of foundational ideas of US, affirming for british monarchy!). Criticism of the system if ever is mild, in an apologetic tone so as to not ruffle feathers of deep state. Entertainment is a big part of American idea of democracy, as consolidation of narration of free society with free choices orchestrated by corporates that is now a template in most part of the world. It has all become a show while harsh reality gets delegated to people. Charismatic Reagan was a pawn of neoliberal capitalism who eased into his role as a best actor. Don’t forget Trump too learned his tricks in entertainment industry. There is nothing in what Trump is doing is not extension of what was already dormant and executed with finesse by political actors over the years. If Bush was stupid and not entirely dislikeable Trump is vulgar and hated. They are puppets extending the need of the deep state that is very clearly oil rich oligarch control. Trump is belligerent and arrogant in a way that shows acute awareness of smallness of his being hence easily controlled.

As progressive societies reel under weakening of rule of law, ostentatiously as accommodating the barbarian other to vitiate liberal space, the onslaught of revivalist regressive is persistent. The damage is severe and has repercussions across the world where nascent democracies that try to institutionalize progressive values face tribulations for egalitarian claims. Elois in West have severely damaged the world by their irresponsible entitled ways and made it difficult to assert humanist concerns. When might is deemed right brutal brazen acts undermine international laws and civilized consensus, it is a severe jolt to the scaffoldings that keep the world together. These are deep fissures of vulgar transactional values that define everyday into fracture of such scale. When Bush (and Blair -the torchbearer of britishery) undermined the international law more than two decades back they unleashed mayhem and misery and faced no consequences whatsoever for their breach of humanity. Self-assured vulgar Trump clearly stated that it is about oil, indeed “our oil”. Imperialistic exploitative forces and ideas that sustains this impunity were not dismantled (as is the cases with feudal institutions) but were kept active in morphed semantics and insidiously dormant in thriving ideas. Also note, by undermining and humiliating Maria Machado (her own character trait is shockingly embarrassing) Trump doesn’t seem to be bothered about reinstating democracy in Venezuela. This is flagrant attempt to convert Venezuela into vassal state so as to capture oil reserves, he has weaponized rogue power into international relations. By blatantly undermining international law he has emboldened worst from across the world and pushed the world into increasingly perilous situation.  

It is also not surprising that West which overuses semantics of humanism and egalitarian values to impress is deeply divided over this serious breach of international law and civilized consensus. They recognize opportunist material concerns and transactional advantage. This is how it is. And then we look towards these in expectation of cooperation to address urgent global challenges. Be worried people. Be very worried. The system has failed us as it continues to self-perpetuate despite worst possibilities for humanity. Meanwhile think about this: Isn’t it possible for even an LLM based AI to effortlessly replicate this template of self-preserving self-perpetuating extractive system at the peril of humanity?

*I had bit of argument with chatbot on the usage of ‘barbarian other’. Chatbot found it highly objectionable in the light of historical context of the word and its usage, arguing subjectiveness of civilization. I found this line of argument contentious. This obscuring contemporary concern into traps of history I find objectionable. Word has to define what it is meant to define. In the contemporary context anyone or anything that stands against values of liberty and freedom is barbaric. Not recognizing this is dilution of human progress and a detestable patronizing position that undermines common people’s aspiration for elitist concerns.