Abhijit Naskar's Blog, page 50
May 22, 2023
Manhood Diaries (The Sonnet) | Kanima Akiyor Kainat
Onun için cennet ol, cehennem değil.
Vicdanlı bir adam ol, hayvan değil.
Sé una bendición para ella, no una maldición.
Onun yaralarına ilacı ol, tuz değil.
Be her paradise, not prison.
Be her man, not master.
Be a miracle to her maladies.
Be her crown, not custard.
There is no alpha male and beta male,
There is only man and baboon.
Decency defines a man’s character,
Not the virility of his heirloom.
Partner on the streets,
Slave between the sheets,
That’s what a real man is.
Undaunted in danger,
Uncompromising in calamity,
That’s what a real human is.
Vicdanlı bir adam ol, hayvan değil.
Sé una bendición para ella, no una maldición.
Onun yaralarına ilacı ol, tuz değil.
Be her paradise, not prison.
Be her man, not master.
Be a miracle to her maladies.
Be her crown, not custard.
There is no alpha male and beta male,
There is only man and baboon.
Decency defines a man’s character,
Not the virility of his heirloom.
Partner on the streets,
Slave between the sheets,
That’s what a real man is.
Undaunted in danger,
Uncompromising in calamity,
That’s what a real human is.
May 21, 2023
Originality vs Convenience (Excerpt on Generative AI) | Vande Vasudhaivam
Architecture is a reflection of the human spirit, poetry is a reflection of the human spirit, painting is a reflection of the human spirit. And difficult though it is to admit, modern generative AI can now do all of that on its own. So the question is, do you want to live in a world where when you look around, the human spirit is nowhere to be found – not in poetry, not in paintings, not in buildings, nowhere! If not, then never trade in your originality for some two-bit convenience of AI.
If I Were Head of State (The Sonnet) | Vande Vasudhaivam
If I were the head of state,
my first act in government will be,
to dissolve the government,
and redistribute all powers of society,
to experts in their respective fields.
Civil servants and experts run a nation anyway,
While brainless politicians take all the credit.
Time to give credit and power where they’re due,
Putting an end to the circus of representatives.
Instead of trading one incompetent fool for another,
We gotta rotate the civil servants office to office.
In a civilized democracy, civilians are the law,
Never you forget that, never let anyone forget it!
If I were the head of state, that is the end of state.
Dictatorships empower leaders, democracy empowers citizens.
my first act in government will be,
to dissolve the government,
and redistribute all powers of society,
to experts in their respective fields.
Civil servants and experts run a nation anyway,
While brainless politicians take all the credit.
Time to give credit and power where they’re due,
Putting an end to the circus of representatives.
Instead of trading one incompetent fool for another,
We gotta rotate the civil servants office to office.
In a civilized democracy, civilians are the law,
Never you forget that, never let anyone forget it!
If I were the head of state, that is the end of state.
Dictatorships empower leaders, democracy empowers citizens.
May 20, 2023
Sonnet 1143 | Vande Vasudhaivam
Give me some sunshine,
Give me some rain!
Why the hell am I asking you,
When I’m the steward of my own reign!
Ship of society is sinking,
O Young and Bold, now hail the helm!
Come to the rescue of those lost at sea,
To hell with the nonsense of shame and fame!
My religion is to rescue the fallen,
My creed to care for the persecuted.
Faith, reason, nation, I heed none,
Obliterated in love heart is illuminated.
Shedding all fears both ragged and posh,
Let’s go play in the courtyard of the cosmos!
Give me some rain!
Why the hell am I asking you,
When I’m the steward of my own reign!
Ship of society is sinking,
O Young and Bold, now hail the helm!
Come to the rescue of those lost at sea,
To hell with the nonsense of shame and fame!
My religion is to rescue the fallen,
My creed to care for the persecuted.
Faith, reason, nation, I heed none,
Obliterated in love heart is illuminated.
Shedding all fears both ragged and posh,
Let’s go play in the courtyard of the cosmos!
May 18, 2023
We All Have Imaginary Friends | Vande Vasudhaivam
Dear believer, I don’t believe in an Almighty God.
Do you hate me for it? If yes, you have
learnt nothing from your faith.
Dear atheist, I don’t believe in supremacy of facts.
Do you hate me for it? If yes, you have
no mind but machine, my friend.
Everybody has imaginary friends,
My imaginary friend is my late teacher,
And I find it therapeutic to talk to him,
Whenever I hit rock bottom during disaster.
Quite like air, water and food,
It’s something we humans need to survive.
Last thing this world needs is more war
to prove whose imaginary friend
bears the greatest of might.
Militant atheists are no more humanist,
than religious fundamentalists are religious.
Secularism is not the absence of religion,
secularism is the absence of religious intolerance.
Do you hate me for it? If yes, you have
learnt nothing from your faith.
Dear atheist, I don’t believe in supremacy of facts.
Do you hate me for it? If yes, you have
no mind but machine, my friend.
Everybody has imaginary friends,
My imaginary friend is my late teacher,
And I find it therapeutic to talk to him,
Whenever I hit rock bottom during disaster.
Quite like air, water and food,
It’s something we humans need to survive.
Last thing this world needs is more war
to prove whose imaginary friend
bears the greatest of might.
Militant atheists are no more humanist,
than religious fundamentalists are religious.
Secularism is not the absence of religion,
secularism is the absence of religious intolerance.
May 17, 2023
Soulmine | Vande Vasudhaivam
You are sanity, you are sentience,
You are the lifeforce of destiny.
You are conscience, you are concord,
You are the end of animosity.
Give up your chase of goldmine,
Labor in the caverns of soulmine.
You shall be rich where it really counts,
Beyond the dreams of animalkind.
If you must love, love without any agenda,
If they love you back, your heart grows softer,
If they break you, your heart grows stronger,
Either way, in act of love there is no failure.
Our mutual vulnerability is our greatest strength,
Across all insecurity let us be vulnerable together.
In hopelessness we are each other's compass,
In vulnerability we are each other's vigor.
United we are alive,
Divided we are dead.
Integrated we're lovers,
Divided we are duffers.
Intellect is not the answer,
Belief is not the answer.
These only amplify what we really are,
Good becomes great, jerk becomes jerker.
Be love and be light -
watch the fall of worldly fright.
Be free and be responsible -
watch the society take its flight.
You are the lifeforce of destiny.
You are conscience, you are concord,
You are the end of animosity.
Give up your chase of goldmine,
Labor in the caverns of soulmine.
You shall be rich where it really counts,
Beyond the dreams of animalkind.
If you must love, love without any agenda,
If they love you back, your heart grows softer,
If they break you, your heart grows stronger,
Either way, in act of love there is no failure.
Our mutual vulnerability is our greatest strength,
Across all insecurity let us be vulnerable together.
In hopelessness we are each other's compass,
In vulnerability we are each other's vigor.
United we are alive,
Divided we are dead.
Integrated we're lovers,
Divided we are duffers.
Intellect is not the answer,
Belief is not the answer.
These only amplify what we really are,
Good becomes great, jerk becomes jerker.
Be love and be light -
watch the fall of worldly fright.
Be free and be responsible -
watch the society take its flight.
May 12, 2023
Cardiomyopathy Sonnet (Medicine and Metaphor) | Vande Vasudhaivam
Person’s worth comes from
their pulse, not from their purse.
It’s okay if your purse is anemic,
so long as your veins got plenty pulse.
It’s your pulse that brings the world to life,
Pulsating heart is radiator during this ice-age.
Ice-age never went away, it just got internalized,
As outwardly in appearance we became less savage.
Human heart is in dire need of a green house,
All the warmth is escaping rapidly.
Melting ice caps will drown us later,
We’ll have kicked the bucket long before,
from frostbitten cardiomyopathy.
Brain’s death is death of the body,
Heart’s death is death of the being.
Kindness keeps the being alive
long after the heart stops beating.
their pulse, not from their purse.
It’s okay if your purse is anemic,
so long as your veins got plenty pulse.
It’s your pulse that brings the world to life,
Pulsating heart is radiator during this ice-age.
Ice-age never went away, it just got internalized,
As outwardly in appearance we became less savage.
Human heart is in dire need of a green house,
All the warmth is escaping rapidly.
Melting ice caps will drown us later,
We’ll have kicked the bucket long before,
from frostbitten cardiomyopathy.
Brain’s death is death of the body,
Heart’s death is death of the being.
Kindness keeps the being alive
long after the heart stops beating.
May 6, 2023
World History 101 – The Actual History | Vande Vasudhaivam
History is not a record of truth, history is a record of triumph. The triumphant writes history as it fits their narrative – or to be more accurate, history is written by the conquerors for maintaining the supremacy of the conquerors, while the conquered lose everything.
Let me give you an example. In a commendable endeavor of goodwill and reparations a descendant of the British conquerors, President Lyndon Johnson started Hispanic Heritage Week, which was later expanded into a month by another white descendant, President Ronald Reagan – fast forward to present time – during the Hispanic Heritage Month the entire North America tries to celebrate Native American history. But there is a glitch – Spanish is not even a Native American language.
Native Americans did not even speak Spanish, until the brutes of Spain overran Puerto Rico like pest bearing disease and destruction, after a pathetic criminal called Columbus stumbled upon “La Isabela” in the 1500s.
Many of the natives struggled till death to save their home – many were killed by the foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. Those who lived, every last trace of their identity was wiped out, by the all-powerful and glorious spanish colonizers – their language, their traditions, their heritage, everything – just like the Portuguese did in Brazil.
The Spaniards would’ve done the same to Philippines on the other side of the globe, had they had the convenience to stay longer. Heck, even the name Philippines is not the original name – the original name of the islands was (probably) Maniolas, as referred to by Ptolemy. But when the Spaniard retards of the time set foot there, they named it after, then crown prince, later Philip II of Spain.
Just reminiscing those abominable atrocities makes my blood boil, and yet somehow, the brutal “glory” of the conquerors lives on as such even in this day and age, as glory that is.
That’s why José Martí is so important, that’s why Kwanzaa is so important, that’s why Darna is so important – in the making of a world that has a place for every culture, not just the culture of the conquerors.
No other “civilized” people have done more damage to the world than the Europeans, and yet, on the pages of history books their glory of conquest is still packaged as glory, not as atrocity. Why is that? I don’t know the answer – do you?
Trillions of dollars, pounds and euros in aid won’t suffice to undo the damage – but what just might heal those wounds from the past, is if the offspring of the oppressors and the offspring of the oppressed, both hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, unravel the history as it happened, not as it was presented – what just might heal the scars of yesterday, is if together we come forward to learn about each other’s past, so that for the first time in history, we can actually write “human history”, not the “conquerors’ history” – so that for the first time ever, we write history not as conquerors and conquered, not as oppressors and oppressed, but as one species – as one humankind.
Let me give you an example. In a commendable endeavor of goodwill and reparations a descendant of the British conquerors, President Lyndon Johnson started Hispanic Heritage Week, which was later expanded into a month by another white descendant, President Ronald Reagan – fast forward to present time – during the Hispanic Heritage Month the entire North America tries to celebrate Native American history. But there is a glitch – Spanish is not even a Native American language.
Native Americans did not even speak Spanish, until the brutes of Spain overran Puerto Rico like pest bearing disease and destruction, after a pathetic criminal called Columbus stumbled upon “La Isabela” in the 1500s.
Many of the natives struggled till death to save their home – many were killed by the foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. Those who lived, every last trace of their identity was wiped out, by the all-powerful and glorious spanish colonizers – their language, their traditions, their heritage, everything – just like the Portuguese did in Brazil.
The Spaniards would’ve done the same to Philippines on the other side of the globe, had they had the convenience to stay longer. Heck, even the name Philippines is not the original name – the original name of the islands was (probably) Maniolas, as referred to by Ptolemy. But when the Spaniard retards of the time set foot there, they named it after, then crown prince, later Philip II of Spain.
Just reminiscing those abominable atrocities makes my blood boil, and yet somehow, the brutal “glory” of the conquerors lives on as such even in this day and age, as glory that is.
That’s why José Martí is so important, that’s why Kwanzaa is so important, that’s why Darna is so important – in the making of a world that has a place for every culture, not just the culture of the conquerors.
No other “civilized” people have done more damage to the world than the Europeans, and yet, on the pages of history books their glory of conquest is still packaged as glory, not as atrocity. Why is that? I don’t know the answer – do you?
Trillions of dollars, pounds and euros in aid won’t suffice to undo the damage – but what just might heal those wounds from the past, is if the offspring of the oppressors and the offspring of the oppressed, both hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, unravel the history as it happened, not as it was presented – what just might heal the scars of yesterday, is if together we come forward to learn about each other’s past, so that for the first time in history, we can actually write “human history”, not the “conquerors’ history” – so that for the first time ever, we write history not as conquerors and conquered, not as oppressors and oppressed, but as one species – as one humankind.
May 4, 2023
AI – The Whole Picture | Vande Vasudhaivam
In medicine, we have a condition called oxygen toxicity, which means, even oxygen can do harm if inhaled excessively. Imagine that – we usually associate oxygen with life, yet that very oxygen can literally kill you if your lungs are overexposed to it. The same is going to happen with our brain from unrestrained use of AI. With the rise of AI, machines may or may not become sentient, but one thing is for certain – human mind will soon turn into vegetable.
We became an intelligent species by solving problems, and now that we are entering a technological era where we no longer need to solve problems on our own, leaving the key physiological functions of running the body, eventually the brain itself will become a vestigial organ, like the appendix. As we no longer need to think and act on our own, the cortex will begin to shrink, quite like unused muscle, and eventually, once again after millions of years, the primeval lizard brain, i.e. the limbic brain will gain full control of the new human animal. The rise of AI will be the end of “I”.
But there is also another side to the picture. It’s that, we cannot achieve much more, as a species, than what we already have, without the application of AI. So, the question is not whether AI is good for us – the real question is, are we mature enough to use AI for good.
So how do we use AI without destroying ourselves?
Here’s how.
Use AI to enhance capacity, not to avoid difficulty.
Use AI to accomplish tasks that are otherwise impossible.
Prioritize AI to solve real-life problems, not to make life more comfortable.
We became an intelligent species by solving problems, and now that we are entering a technological era where we no longer need to solve problems on our own, leaving the key physiological functions of running the body, eventually the brain itself will become a vestigial organ, like the appendix. As we no longer need to think and act on our own, the cortex will begin to shrink, quite like unused muscle, and eventually, once again after millions of years, the primeval lizard brain, i.e. the limbic brain will gain full control of the new human animal. The rise of AI will be the end of “I”.
But there is also another side to the picture. It’s that, we cannot achieve much more, as a species, than what we already have, without the application of AI. So, the question is not whether AI is good for us – the real question is, are we mature enough to use AI for good.
So how do we use AI without destroying ourselves?
Here’s how.
Use AI to enhance capacity, not to avoid difficulty.
Use AI to accomplish tasks that are otherwise impossible.
Prioritize AI to solve real-life problems, not to make life more comfortable.
May 3, 2023
Fact is a state of matter, Truth is a state of mind | Vande Vasudhaivam
Truth and facts are not the same, because facts alone don’t make the truth. Truth requires insight, truth requires wisdom. Facts can contribute to that insight and wisdom, but access to facts doesn’t necessarily entail access to wisdom. The best example I can think of is that of love. Love is truth, whereas lust is fact. Lust may be a part of love, but it’s not the whole of love. In fact, in many cases lust is not even part of the picture. The same goes for truth and facts. Fact is a state of matter, truth is a state of mind. Matter makes the mind – sure – but to fathom the matter behind mind in its fullest intricacies will take us millennia more.
