fauji
3mo ago
Now this is a wild theory, but how about a quid pro quo between Macron and Le Pen. Macron takes care of the accusation so that Le Pen is cleared and NF supports the amendment for increasing the presidential term limits.
fauji
3mo ago
If the establishment's goal was to prevent the rise of Right in France(and more importantly Europe) then conviction of Le Pen and removal of her candidature on such shaky ground was clearly a bad move and will definitely come back to bite them one way or the other. On a short term basis yes this removes a long standing thorn on their side by the name of Le Penn and energizes the left leaning base with that sweet sweet nectar of schadenfreude, it does nothing but push away the patient fence sitter mulling which side they should take. Even worse it gives the Right all over Europe an agenda to rally around and a martyr to celebrate. How will the left, positioning itself to be fairer, more democratic and incapable of abusing sacred institutional machinery(positioning not related to actual behaviour) deny comparison to Erdogan's similar disqualification of his own rival using state machinery. Saul Alinsky in his influential book Rules for Radicals laid down the rule "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.", and it certainly seems that the opposition painting the Left violating their own values for political gains will reduce their power. Add in to that the fact the Gaullist positions have recently been vindicated does will also contribute to the rising Right in France.That being said it remains to be seen how the Le Pen and her allies play this situation out.
fauji
3mo ago
It occurred to me as I was transferring everything over that I have barely changed how I use a smartphone since I bought my very first over a decade ago. I can emulate more games consoles now, and I grudgingly use some of the digital wallet features, but otherwise all the years of development doesn't seem to have changed anything at all. Are there cool features or applications that I'm missing out on?
I have been trying to find the same since past year and my conclusion is, not much. There are some interesting apps I use on daily basis that might be of interest-
- QuickCursor - It just adds the ability to whip out a cursor when you perform a simple swipe at the bottom end of the screen. Very basic functionality but intutive to use and something that has defintely improved my user experience
- NFC based automation - Triggers a preconfigured task when a certain, already mapped NFC tag is swiped. for example scanning a NFC tag attached to your washing machine that sets a reminder when the clothes have been washed
- Swipe based gallery cleaners - left to delete, right to keep
- URLChecker - Let's you set the app to open or delete any trackers when opening a URL. Would only appeal to people concerned about privacy.
- Task automation(ifttt/tasker) - Fully featured task automater can make your life quite easy. For example, when unplugged from your car's bluetooth turn on wifi and connect to home network(vice versa). Opens out tons of possibility in a Phone.
- SMS Organizer - Automatically sorts your messages according to the type of message(personal/financial information/promotions(spam))
- Buzzkill - Good notification management app
- P!n -> Tool to pin text to remember on notifications
I think we have hit the saturation level on what a smartphone can do with the current app based UI design and just improving software wouldn't work. I find app based design very constricting since to chain different abilities of what a phone can do needs to be packaged as an app and then what is the point of having just another app on your phone. I see a lot of potential in new innovation regarding how we interact with our mobile to unlock new age functionality rather than bringing new ideas to current ecosystem. Something like this for example - https://sxmo.org/
fauji
7mo ago
Two big thing I noticed while going through liberal coagulating spaces for schadenfreude is an acceptance that-
-
Illegal immigration might be a real issue rather than covert racism. The large scale shift of Latino voters towards republican definitely befuddled the traditional Democrat voters ideological worldview. Would this result in bipartisan support for tougher immigration policies or less resistance in enforcement of border security is to be seen.
-
Maybe the trans issue has been pushed too far. There seems to be an implicit understanding that even with many reaffirming the rights of trans individuals, the push for transition therapy and other CW issues such as trans being allowed to use Women's bathroom has alienated a lot of people. Another thing that commonly came up was regret about the trans movement's confrontation of even people supporting lesbian/gay rights for not supporting far left trans talking points.
I do think that the rank and file Democrats would eventually adjust their messaging regarding these two for sure, but what I am more interested to see is how the far left reacts to these adjustments.
fauji
8mo ago
Hey I have previously worked on the same thing, I would highly recommend this book as a reference-
fauji
8mo ago
I have found western understanding lacking about India, and that extends from mainstream normies to academic intellectuals to even the denizens of the motte. The broad strokes surrounding a current or historical events are observed, and yet they end up with such a lopsided interpretation that makes my jaw drop. That includes both supporters and detractors. Part of it is because India is difficult to understand. It's diverse, it's complex, has a ton of history and just came out of a millennium where the populace's civilizational psyche was shattered. I just cannot stress enough how paradoxical this place is, where you would find extremes of everything. Though complexity in and of itself cannot block understanding, another equally important obstacle is how everything and anything the west learns about India is heavily through its elites.
I do not want to delve much in history, so I will keep it as brief as possible. The way the British operated in the Indian subcontinent was through vassal states(a few were under direct British rule), who were able to keep their titles though lost control of the state. To integrate India into the empire, they went around creating an education system centered around English as the second language to produce anglicized Indians who would serve as intermediary between Britain and India. In Thomas Macaulay, the implementor of this policy in its own words-
We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.
Limited educational opportunities meant that the ones who could enroll and receive an education were people with significant wealth or who could save such an amount. The children of the vassal states and elites of the elites would receive their education in the boarding schools modeled after the ones in Britain like Eton College. Eventually they would go on to study in Cambridge and Oxford, and those are the people who end up running India. Numerous leaders of the Indian Independence movement, the civil service, established industrialist all were London educated and by god were they English in tastes, opinions and morals. Especially the English left. No one exemplified this more than our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. It came no surprise that India after Independence took such a large leftwards turn. One of the more major consequence of this is that holding views closer to the western left became a status symbol among the intelligentsia and the elites.
This group of elites were so cut off from the general populace that their lack of understanding of the Indian society and reckless policies kept backfiring at them. A lot of them well-meaning, the sheer arrogance of their confidence in their intellectual powers resulted in something reminiscent of the Soviet Union's excesses in the 30s. The License Raj which inhibited free enterprise was finally dismantled in the 1990s in face of economic reality and frankly speaking is the best thing that has happened to India since the Independence. But the leftward intelligentsia was able to maintain their control over the elites. Already a status symbol, being Westernized also became an economic necessity when a lot of capital flowing in from the west wanted to capitalize on the country's large English speaking educated labor market.
Why am I telling you all this? Because the most important thing you need to know about India is the huge inferiority complex the Indian identity has. We have baggage, lots of baggage. The last millennia wasn't kind to us, the brutality of Muslim and British rule was horrific and ironically that hangs as an albatross over our heads. I know a lot of people instinctively roll their eyes when they see the word "genocide" but for a lot of Hindus especially and Indians at large that's the feeling the previous millennia evokes. This in addition to the Westernization being a status symbol has resulted in a lot of Indians carrying a huge inferiority complex, especially towards the west. This is the reason for a lot of people in India prizing west as a migration destination in addition to the opportunity. Studying and settling in the west is still an enduring status symbol ever since the British Raj. You guys get most of your information about India from people who have internalized this world view. From this lens, any accomplishment in India must be gauged in comparison to current Western standards and zeitgeist. These are the people who in less flattering terms want to be white and see others without Western tastes, opinion and morals as inferior. Like it or not, these are the people who are primarily providing background information and happenings in the country. And they are just so cut-off from the general populace that there are a lot of things that they just don't understand why.
See I am long on India, and the way this top-level most prompted me to write this wall of the text as he also captured some strokes of reality and building a picture that I know to incomplete. There are loads of problems we face, casteism is still is a major issue, vested interests are blocking reforms and a populace whose ideal is to have job where you have no work and still get paid massive amount of money. But instead of bemoaning of the issues we have, we should consider whether they can be solved or not.
I am long on India because of two things that we have going for us-
-
A robust democratic system
-
A fairly competent political leadership
In an unstable world where major powers are dealing with one form of political crises or other, India has been relatively stable. Our inflation has held steady with the debt level under control. Relative to the world, we are in a much better economic position. Diplomacy wise, we are stationed comfortably in neither camp and have maintained our options. Modi, has shown will the will to push reform and is political astute enough to not sacrifice his grip on power for it. I don't see a chance of opposition to defeat him as their policies are just so ridiculously fucking the states that they are ruling (ex HP, Karnataka). I am betting on the fact that the labor and corporate law reforms would be pushed by the current government. If reforms are pushed, I do think that our own standards for not only labor skills and businesses but also behavior would improve.
fauji
8mo ago
Hey, are you trying to run tiny ML models on low powered and cheap SOM? If so could you share why you selected that specific board?
fauji
10mo ago
Bangladesh was originally a part of Pakistan but had a sizeable Hindu population. Even in the infamous Bengali genocide which was committed by Pakistani Army, the Bengali Hindus were dis-proportionally targeted. So there is a large history of communal tensions in Bangladesh. Infact, when in India, the controversial Babri Masjid was demolished by a crowd of mobs, there was a backlash in Bangladesh where Hindu minority was targetted.
As many would know recently there was an uprising in Bangladesh which overthrew the reigning PM Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the Founding Father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Sheikh Hasina in power had made changes to election process which gave the reigning PM power to overlook the election rather than an interim government which was traditionally done. The sham elections that followed gave her quite a bit of power. The student protests which were originally about Freedom Fighter reservation quotas in government jobs, spilled over into a popular uprising resulting in her ouster.
She occupied a more secular space in the Bengali polity and was pro-India, and kept extreme Islamists in check. So after her ouster, the Hindu community without state protection and being seen as a Hasina supporters were especially vulnerable. Though in Urban areas protesting students took upon themselves to protect vulnerable communities from Islamist backlash, this is much less the case in non-Urban areas.
The situation is still developing and we cannot say if the interim government will able to reign in the chaos, but probably hope so.
Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus chosen as the interim leader is a well respected figure in Bangladesh, but his political ability is unknown. On the other hand Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami are fuming over the lack of control over interim government.
It's quite clear that tariffs were introduced by Trump admin to address trade deficits rather than to reduce the other countries tariffs. This means that the biggest risk to US according to Trump administration is creation of a new reserve currency or rather a group of currencies(Like BRICS) that replaces the US dollar and triggers a balance of payment crisis in the US over both its trade and budget deficit. This also means that Trump Admin views creation of such entity as inevitable. US's earlier moves to consolidate dollar's position in international trade via threats also point to the same.
Now that has been said, what's the endgame? This is by any measure a ballsy move since the associated risks with these move. Inflation all over the world being one. Pushing Europe towards China being second. And a consolidation of anti-America alliances being third.
On the flip side, there is no guarantee that USA would lower its tariff just because you lower yours, especially for economies with higher spending power with protectionist measures like Europe. For the world the lesson remains the same as the one in cold war, being the enemy of US is dangerous and being an ally of US is fatal.
More options
Context Copy link