Category: Open Thread

Open Thread: From Floods to LaBal

A few updates from this week:

Sri Lanka is facing severe flooding. Sbarkkum reports major damage to rail and road networks, with Dutch support expected for reconstruction.

Sana Aiyar’s “World at MIT” video touches on her life and work

Sam Dalrymple has a clip on Lahore and Delhi—another reminder of how closely the two cities mirror each other despite partition.

Pakistan’s minority rights bill is worth watching. Continue reading Open Thread: From Floods to LaBal

AI vs Poet (Open Thread)

A University of Pittsburgh study presented participants with poems by ten renowned English-language poets—including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, Dickinson, and Plath—alongside AI-generated poems in their style using ChatGPT 3.5. Interestingly, AI poems were rated higher in overall quality than the human-written ones, contrary to previous findings.

I am perplexed about how we can assess an AI-generated poem as inferior to a human’s. As when we read a poem, we read it for its content, irrespective of anything else. The emotional valence of Iqbal’s Shikwa has nothing to do with his circumstances; whether he were a general in the British army or a debauched drunk, the poem would still be there to be read, cherished, and savoured. Extending this logic, how can AI-written poems be rated lower simply because they were not written by a human? I don’t know.

Anyone who wants to explain their take on this.

Bihar Elections (Open Thread)

A Sweep in the Making as NDA Leads on 200+ Seats; RJD Ahead on Only 24 

This thread is for your thoughts on the election results in Bihar.  You can also use it as an Open Thread.

I will not be heavily moderating this thread but-as always- egregiously anti-Pakistan comments will be summarily deleted. Otherwise, go for it.

 

 

Open Thread

The boycott has made Brown Pundits quieter, almost peaceful. I don’t mind it. Every few years the site reaches this point; it grows, gains noise, and starts to feel less like a hobby and more like an obligation. Then it falls back to something smaller and saner.

I’ve also realised that the Indo-Pak frame doesn’t really fit my life anymore. It was useful once because that’s where the conversation was; it gave the blog an audience. But most of that talk is stale now; the same arguments, just louder.

What interests me instead are the wider patterns: how post-colonial societies move in a world that is no longer unipolar. The Gulf’s rise, Africa’s experiments, China’s reach, India’s own breadth. How old hierarchies break down, and new ones form.

I don’t like following the news. So perhaps BP will drift in that direction. Fewer posts, less noise, more reflection. A space for thinking about what comes after the post-colonial age, when the world starts to finally balance itself again.

Brown Pundits