Category: Technology

Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white”? (c)

This is the next article in the series “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white”, “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white” (a)”,  Razib’s  “Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act on Affirmative Action“, and “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white” (b)”.

A growing part of the global caucasian intelligentsia are attacking Hong Kong protesters as far right fascists. This is part of a growing trend among xenophobic caucasians attacking Asians for “white supremacy”, “nazism”, “racism”, “oppression”, “patriarchy”, “imperialism”, “colonialism”, “hegemony”, “exploitation.”

Why is this happening? Is it just jealousy? Is it that many caucasians fear that “darkies” own a growing percentage of global wealth, earn a growing percentage of global income? Is it fear that “darkies” have growing competence, capacity, merit, mental health, intelligence? Is it fear about improving “darkie” academic outcomes?

I am not sure. Can everyone share their thoughts?

How should us “darkies” react?

I believe in loving and respecting our enemy with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds and all our might. This includes everyone who is disrespectful, not loving, racist, bigoted, prejudiced, white supremacist, Nazi, facist, oppressive, hegemonic, exploitative, patriarchal towards us. And everyone who accuses us of being disrespectful, not loving, racist, bigoted, prejudiced, white supremicist, Nazi, facist, oppressive, hegemonic, exploitative, patriarchal. And everyone who labels and mislabels us. And everyone who falsely accuses us.

Everyone has the right to freedom of art and thought. If we truly love and respect others, then how can we not respect their right to disrespect and not love us?

The sweetness of love will gradually melt their hearts.

Some might say that this works for most people who are mean to others, but is insufficient for dangerous people. For particularly dangerous people, we can combine the deepest of love and respect with dialogue. And for the most dangerous people, we can combine love, respect, and dialogue with other things.

Can there be any other way?

This topic is one of the reasons The Brown Pundits Podcast would like to interview Irshad Manji:

Irshad Manji has touched the sweetness of the heart, the silence that is always with us. And while I agree with her that we should respect and love others, and not label others. I don’t think we have the right to limit the freedom of art and thought of others by asking them not to label and mislabel us.

One example that inspires me is how Krishna dealt with harsh bigotry, criticism, false allegations, others mislabeling him, disrespect, bigotry, prejudice, white supremacy, Nazism, fascism, oppression, hegemony, exploitation, patriarchy. Krishna insisted that others be allowed to criticize Krishna.

I would be curious to listen to Irshad Manji’s thoughts about this.

The masses hitting the internet


Back in the mid-90s people on the newsgroups and message boards we would complain about people with AOL addresses. More recently, I think one reason Twitter is a problem today is that so many people are on the platform, and that means more stupid people are on the platform.

Another aspect I’ve noticed is the prominence of “Indian Twitter.” India is one of the top countries for the platform. Many of these people are quite dumb and inane…but most people are that way. The chart above shows how many people from India are on the internet. It strikes me that a bit of the “OMG AOL people are on the internet!” effect is going on. This too shall pass.

Note: In the last few years Bangladesh has apparently zoomed up the list of internet penetration due to various initiatives. The ranking surprised me, especially in light of the fact that Bangladesh sends very little traffic to this website even compared to Pakistan.

Magic and advertising

This is to alert BrownPundit readers to a series I’ve begun on Zenpundit, my other punditry-posting place. It’s about Ioan Couliano’s argument in his book Eros and Magic in the Renaissance that the Renaissance art of Magic was essentially a matter of conjuring desire in the recipient by means of visual imagery, and that the Art has been revived with great success in the present day, in the form of commercial advertising.

Roughly speaking, then, Magic is the defendant, modernity-secularity-technology is the prosecution team — who don’t bother to call witnesses because, m’lord, it’s plain obvious that magical thinking is superstitious nonsense — and a bucket-load of TV commercials form the evidence presented by the defense.

**

But wait a minute — here’s magic:

**

Whether you’re secular or a devotee, that photographic image is magical in that a simple hand-gesture conjures up a flute. The flute isn’t there, objectively speaking — and yet there’s a flute, Krishna is quite obviously playing it, and indeed its mellifluous power of enchantment has drawn the lovely Radha to his side.

About Krishna’s flute — you may know far more than I, but at least I can point to Denise Levertov and Edward C Dimmock’s poem in Songs in Praise of Krishna — from the Bengali:
.

Radha is terrified on her way to the forest

O Madhava, how shall I tell you of my terror?
I could not describe my coming here
if I had a million tongues.
When I left my room and saw the darkness
I trembled:
I could not see the path,
there were snakes that writhed round my ankles!

I was alone, a woman; the night was so dark,
the forest so dense and gloomy,
and I had so far to go.
The rain was pouring down —
which path should I take?
My feet were muddy
and burning where thorns had scratched them.
But I had the hope of seeing you, none of it mattered,
and now my terror seems far away. . . .
When the sound of your flute reaches my ears
it compels me to leave my home, my friends,
it draws me into the dark toward you.

I no longer count the pain of coming here,
says Govinda-dasa

**

And what does all this have to do with advertising?

My response is that the Krishna and Radha in this photo were captured, and Krishna’s flute conjured, by the eye of a pro commercial guy:

JEREMY HUNTER began his career in advertising – as a television creative, working for Young and Rubicam, Leo Burnett, Ogilvy and Bates, along the way winning a number of international awards in Cannes, Venice, New York and Los Angeles. During this time he worked with some of Britain’s most iconic film directors – John Schlesinger, Ken Russell, Tony Scott, Dick Lester, Nic Roeg, Richard Loncraine as well as Oscar-winning Editor Jim Clark and photographer Terence Donovan.

That’s the resume of a contemporary magician.

**

In case you’re interested, the posts in my Magic and Commercials series on Zenpundit to date are:

Advertising series 01: Music
Eros, the Renaissance and advertising
Authentic, spiritual magic!
The magic of advertising or the commercialization of magic?
Here’s magic!
The magic of miniatures

I imagine there will eventually be about twenty posts in the series — but more and more evidence keeps turning up in favor of the defense.

Magic, court observers seem to think, is likely to be vindicated.

Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white”? (b)

This is the next article in the series “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white”, “Is it time for Asian Americans and Latino Americans to ask to be considered “white” (a)”, and Razib’s  Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act on Affirmative Action.

I think the world of Asian Capitalists and would advise everyone to watch their other posts. Is there an interest in inviting them on Brown Cast? They and many other Asians say that Asians will not bend the knee to the post modernist cultural marxist. Within a decade half the world’s billionaires are likely to be Asians or people of Asian ancestry who live elsewhere in the world  and the full power of the post modernist cultural marxist will be brought to bear against Asians. What will happen then?

The Chinese have a term for post modernist cultural marxist caucasian intelligentsia. The word is baizuo. Should the Brown Pundits start using the term in solidarity with our Chine bhai bhai (Chinese brothers)? Can everyone vote below?

For a long time the rest of the world laughed at and made fun of the baizuo. But now the baizuo are becoming a major global threat that is significantly hurting poor, lower middle class, middle class and upper middle class people all over the world. Including by:

  • lowering ceteris paribus global income and total factor productivity.
  • colonizing the minds of non caucasians with inferiority complex to damage their self confidence and keep them down. This is also sometimes called the hard bigotry of low expectations.
  • frequently demonizing any non caucasians who slightly disagrees with them of being racist, bigoted, prejudiced, nazi, fascist, sectarian, islamaphobic, hegemonic, oppressive, exploitative, imperialist, colonialist, a collaborator, an uncle tom.

This is turning the entire non caucasian world against the baizuo. It is perhaps the largest single cause of anti European and anti American sentiment among people who are not European or American. Europe and America will pay a very heavy price for this. I for one don’t think it is worth paying this heavy price of global anti European and anti American sentiment. Europeans and American need to bring the baizuo under control. No European or American who travels internationally should have to endure large numbers of people looking at caucasians with suspicion.

One of the smartest, most perceptive and wisest global thought leaders John McWhorter described the baizuo phenomenon far better than I could. I would read his whole article on “The Virtue Signalers Won’t Change the World.” And many of his other articles too.

Sadly the baizuo control much of the global establishment and they demonize any darkie who has the courage to stand up to them. For example our very own co founder Razib Khan. And John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Coleman Hughes, Desi-Rae, Narendra Modi, .  Most darkies are too afraid of the baizuo to speak openly. But one day this dam of fear and baizuo politically correct mind control will break; and I fear the consequences for the world.

How to bring the baizuo under control and stop them from greatly harming the world? Through loving and respecting them with all our hearts (devotion), all our souls (wisdom), all our minds (the royal road of yoga) and all our strength (service). By melting their hearts with the power of love. By awakening their own intrinsic deep intelligence. I am reminded of this baizuo video:

When a Jewish person tells Queers for Palestine baizuo about West Bank and Gazan policies towards LBGTQ, it is like their hearts falls out and they want to cry. It causes baizuo so much personal anguish and pain to hear painful facts that it is incredibly tempting to patronize them by not talking honestly with them. I know I am contradicting myself. What should we do?

Please share your thoughts below.

India Still Rising

The Honorable former U.S. ambassador to India David C. Mulford’s summary of why India is rapidly becoming a great global superpower and why PM Modi might become the best PM in Indian history. My estimate is that India will have more billionaires than America in less than a generation. When this happens what is to stop post modernists from decrying “Asian supremacy”, Asian hegemony, Asian exploitation, Asian empire, Asian imperialism, Asian oppression, Asian racism/bigotry/ sectariansim? How to reduce jealousy of Asia? Or is this dark future inevitable?

Is American culture sharply increasing crime?

The US is currently experiencing the second largest increase in crime since statistics began to be tabulated, the largest increase in crime being in the 1960s and 1970s. From “Crime in California 2016” Table 5, page 9 in document, page 13 in PDF, the total number of forcible rapes in California increased by 49.3% between 2014 (8,562) to 2016 (12,785). From Table 1, page 5 in the document, page 9 in the PDF:

  • Homicides increased 13.7% between 2014 (1,697) and 2016 (1,930)
  • Robberies increased 12.6% between 2014 (48,650) and 2016 (54,769)
  • Aggravated Assault increased 13.8% between 2014 (91,681) and 2016 (104,307)

To better understand the massive US crime wave, I decided to calculate crimes committed  by various ethnic groups.

This article will use California crime data since US national level data on crime for Latino Americans and Asian Americans is usually not publicly released by the US government; perhaps for fear of what such data would show. I suspect that US and Canadian nationwide data would show similar trends. California demographic data by ethnicity is taken from 2015 US Census Bureau estimates. From “Crime in California 2016” Table 30, page 33 in document, page 37 in PDF, “Felony and Misdemeanor Arrests” 2016:

  • Caucasions were 4.99 times more likely to be arrested than Asians
  • Hispanics were 5.91 times more likely to be arrested than Asians
  • Blacks were 17.04 times more likely to be arrested than Asians
  • Non Asian Others (mostly native Americans) were 3.38 times more likely to be arrested than Asians

Arrest data by Asian country are also available; but Asians commit so few crimes that such data would be skewed by the law of small numbers. However you are free to research it yourself. The spreadsheet used for these calculations is available upon request.

Total crimes committed by caucasions, hispanics, blacks and “other” are released by category. “Other” is not broken down into Asian and non Asian other. However if we assume that non Asian others commit 3.38 times as much crime as Asians (a stretch to be sure), then:

Total homides by race from “Crime in California 2016” Table 31, page 34 in document, page 38 in PDF:

  • Caucasions were 2.44 times more likely to commit homicide than Asians
  • Hispanics were 4.44 times more likely to commit homicide than Asians
  • Blacks were 17.23 times more likely to commit homicide than Asians

Total robbery by race:

  • Caucasions were 4.63 times more likely to commit robbery than Asians
  • Hispanics were 7.96 times more likely to commit robbery than Asians
  • Blacks were 44.19 times more likely to commit robbery than Asians

Total rape by race:

  • Caucasions were 3.13 times more likely to commit rape than Asians
  • Hispanics were 5.44 times more likely to commit rape than Asians
  • Blacks were 12.24 times more likely to commit rape than Asians

Total assault by race:

  • Caucasions were 4.44 times more likely to commit assault than Asians
  • Hispanics were 5.48 times more likely to commit assault than Asians
  • Blacks were 15.44 times more likely to commit assault than Asians

Total kidnapping by race:

  • Caucasions were 3.92 times more likely to commit kidnapping than Asians
  • Hispanics were 6.52 times more likely to commit kidnapping than Asians
  • Blacks were 18.42 times more likely to commit kidnapping than Asians

If we assume that non Asian others are 3.38 times more likely to be incarcerated than Asians, then from 12.31.2.10:

  • Caucasions were 4.18 times more likely to be incarcerated than Asians
  • Hispanics were 5.8 times more likely to be incarcerated than Asians
  • Blacks were 25.2 times more likely to be incarcerated than Asians

Continue reading Is American culture sharply increasing crime?

Intellectual Dark Web

I would define the “intellectual dark web” as the confluence and convergence of leaders from classical European enlightenment, hard sciences, technology (including neuroscience, bio-engineering, genetics, artificial intelligence), and east philosophy streams. Among the intellectual dark web’s many members are Dr. Richard Haier, Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Ben Shapiro, Weinstein brothers, Sam Harris, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Yuval Noah Harari, Thomas Friedman, Maajid Nawaz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku , Dr. VS Ramachandran, Steven Pinker, Armin Navabi, Ali Rizvi, Farhan Qureshi, Peter Beinart, Gad Saad, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Dave Rubin, Joe Rogan, Russell Brand.  If Steve Jobs were still alive, I would include him among them. They defy easy labels and are high on openness. I hesitate to label others without their permission, but our very own Razib Khan strikes me as a potential leader of the “intellectual dark web”; although I will withdraw this nomination if he wishes. 😉

Some see the intellectual dark web as the primary global resistance to post modernism. I don’t agree. Rather I see them as ideation and intuition leaders thinking different:

Continue reading Intellectual Dark Web

Welcome back Mahathir Mohamad, Hero of Asia!

Welcome back Mahathir Mohamad, our favorite 92 year old PM of Malaysia! Malaysia was one of the centers of the great Arya civilization for thousands of years; now enriched by Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, Islam, and expats the world over. One of the most diverse and immigration friendly countries in the world. One of the most pro business, pro capitalist, pro globalization, pro neo-liberal, pro enlightenment values, and pro moderate Islam countries in the world. A country that fought against the full might of the Soviet Union, China and the global communist block and won. A shining city on a hill. A self assured, self confident Asian Tiger without inferiority complex. One of last great bastions resisting the global post modernist wave.

Continue reading Welcome back Mahathir Mohamad, Hero of Asia!

Modern Love

(The post by Razib about encountering racism in the US reminded me of a short story, part memoir part fiction, that I wrote last year. I feel that fiction is a better tool to understand complex issues and tried my hand at it).

 

Imagine that you are a Pakistani man living alone for the first time in an American city. How do you cope with it? All your friends are back in Pakistan, the time difference affects your relationship with even your closest comrades and for the first time in your life, you stop berating your insomniac friends; they are all you have right now because of the eleven-hour time difference. Living alone is fantastic but it gets quite boring after a while. You go and watch a good movie, attend a stand-up comedy show and go sight-seeing. You have spent close to a month in the city and yet you don’t know anyone here. There are days when the only conversation you have is with the library staff who ask you for ID every time you enter. How long can you survive like that? You need to find people to talk to, share jokes with, learn from, cry with. Listening to playlists of your favorite music seems like a drag after the umpteenth time. Netflix loses its charm after a few weeks. Distant friends stop replying to your messages. You are studying for an exam which is unpredictable and even if you pass it, there is no guarantee that you would get the job you want.  You descend into a state of sub-clinical depression. You can’t go up to people studying in a library and engage them in a conversation, especially if they don’t know you at all. The way most people meet other people in the United States is through their workplace or in school or college. One can also find people to hang out with in bars and clubs. However, what do you do when you have no money, no job, no friends and you live in a one bedroom apartment with your brother, and his wife.

 

Your brother doesn’t have these issues; he is married, to the girl your parents chose for him. You finally understand why he never really opposed that idea. He and his wife come back from work late at night and neither of them has the energy to indulge in conversations with you. You don’t have any issues with Alcohol but you have never been to a bar alone and you tend to drink only if you have company. It’s a chicken and egg type situation. You have tried talking to random people on the street, in the metro or at the University campus where you use the library but you feel shy starting conversations with people whom you don’t know already. You decide to try the world of online dating. Statistics show that almost 40% people in the United States are meeting new people through online dating. You have read Aziz Ansari’s book titled ‘Modern Love’ dedicated to online dating and have a cursory knowledge of the whole thing.

 

You decide to launch a frontal attack and download Tinder, Zoosk and Match.com. They are the top three online dating apps in App Stores. Something’s gotta work. The first issue that you face is that of finding a perfect picture. You discover for the first time in your life that you don’t have a perfect picture, or even a good picture. You have deliberately shied away from the camera all your life and now you rue your life choices. Your friends and well-wishers have always told you that your personality is very different from your appearance. You find some half-decent pictures of yourself and upload them in hope your profile is good enough for someone to ignore your bad looks (and worse pictures). You create a profile that lists your interests, likes, dislikes, idea of a perfect date and what you are looking in the other person. You have never been in a stable relationship for long so you write whatever comes to your mind. You also buy the Service Packs on Zoosk and Match so that at least you can see who has viewed your message and the ability to send replies.

 

Valentine’s Day is approaching in a week and the sight of red balloons, gifts and valentine-themed treats at every store sickens you and worsens your loneliness. You right-swipe every second girl on Tinder, press the ‘Heart’ button on Match and Zoosk, in hope of at least having a conversation. You take advice from Aziz Ansari’s book and try sending personalized messages to everyone (after carefully perusing their profiles). It takes a lot of work though. Every break that you take from studying, every minute that you spend at home, even the time spent on the metro station, you are right-swiping, pressing ‘Hearts’ for anyone within a five-mile radius (since you don’t have a car) and with mutual interests (which you can always lie about). You have seen ‘Masters of None’, the TV show based on Aziz Ansari’s book and you think that anything could happen.

 

A few days pass by and you have received no replies, no right-swipes, a few spam messages asking you to contact girls (based in Russia) through email. You constantly alter your profile, adding new photos, deleting old ones, coming up with funnier descriptions of yourself, trying to sound funny. You discover some distinct patterns emerging from your time on the apps: Most girls are looking for Caucasian men with a certain expectation regarding income. You are a lighter shade of brown and don’t have much income to speak of. A week goes by and you are stuck in the vicious cycle. There are times when you wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the screen of your mobile. You wish you lived in the futuristic world of Spike Jonze’s movie ‘Her’. After ten days of signing up to the dating apps, you have received a total of two replies. One day, you get a reply from a girl who lives slightly further but is well-travelled (according to her pictures) and looked good. You chat with her on the app for two days and then you asked her number. She gives it to you. You think you have made it. You forget all the misery and felt on top of the world. You ask her if you can call her and she tells you to call her the next day. The next day is Valentine’s Day.

 

You are excited to talk to this White American girl for the first time. You have talked to many White, Black and Brown American girls before but never like this. Never in an ‘online dating’ context. You call her on the decided hour and she picks up after two rings. She sounds nice, your inner monologue starts. She tells you that she is a massage therapist and works at a spa. She went to school for learning massage therapy after working as a Barista for many years. She has also visited India in the past, which you think is really cool. You tell her that your best friend got married that day in India and you couldn’t have attended the wedding, even if you were back in Pakistan. You joke about high rates of open defecation in India and then tell her about yourself, how you ended up in the States and what had you done on your previous visits. She hears you out and doesn’t say much. You are about to end the call and before saying goodbye, she says, Oh and Happy Valentine’s Day. You are elated, overjoyed, over the moon. You text her the next day and she doesn’t reply. You wait for a full day, try to call her and send another text. She texts you back, apologizes for the delay and ‘regrettably informs you’ that she doesn’t feel this could work. According to her text, she wanted the relationship to be more about her than you and all you talked on the phone was about you. You suppress your anger and don’t tell her that you asked her everything about her and that she didn’t have anything to say. Your dream shatters and you are back on your knees, swiping, clicking on ‘Hearts’, changing your photos and updating your profile.

 

You also sign up for a speed-dating event in the city. Maybe in-person interaction will work better than online interaction? You arrive slightly later than the designated hour because of terrible traffic in the city. The venue is a small bar with five tables and chairs on both sides of them. There’s barely space to walk when all five of those chairs are occupied. You see that there are five ladies and seven men. You’ll have to be better than at least two other people if you are going to match. It is Darwinism at its finest. Everyone gets six minutes with each girl and then you have to move on. Everybody has ‘scorecards’ and assigned numbers. At the end of the night, you are supposed to write down your top five matches and if any of them put you in their top five, you’ll get their email and can contact them. You sit opposite the first lady. She is very good looking (and your standards are miserably low) and is wearing a low-cut dress. You can’t keep your eyes off her. She is a cosmetician with an 11-year-old son. You find it hard to concentrate on her face. You try your best though, and try to have a decent conversation. By the time you have composed yourself, your time is over. You move on to the next lady.

 

She works in marketing and seems to have an imposing, bossy personality. You try your best to survive those six minutes. The third lady is a cross-fit trainer and massage therapist. You hit it off instantly with her. She has seen all your favorite TV shows and you spend most of those six minutes talking about them. There is a break in between during which you go and talk to the ‘men’. One of them tells you that for online dating, you need excellent photos and that you should get them professionally taken. The event resumes after a ten-minute break. Your next potential match is a Nursing student. You decide to ramp up the charm offensive and do some stand-up comedy material for her (you have always wanted to perform stand-up on stage). She can’t stop laughing at the jokes and those six minutes pass by before you could even breathe. The last lady works as a data analyst and you try some of the jokes with her as well. You also talk about the city and she tells you her experience living there for the last five years. Times flies by and the event is officially over. You feel good. Even if none of them picks you as a match (and you secretly hope it is the cross-fit trainer/massage therapist). Once you get out, you are approached by a lady wearing a suit and a charming smile. She works for a company that ‘grooms’ people for dating, providing them with suggestions on how to work on their personality. You are in high spirits so instead of rejecting her offer, you joke with her, calling her the ‘Love Guru’. She gives you her company card, just in case. You take a cab, reach home and start waiting. You receive an email next day from the Speed dating company with two names and email addresses, the cross-fit trainer is not among them. It’s the two girls whom you made to laugh. You email both of them, only the nursing student replies and after a day or two even she stops. Your self-esteem goes down the gutter. You wish you were a white guy. You go back to reading Aziz Ansari’s ‘Modern Love’.

 

 

Brown Pundits