The Problem With The Juggernaut Is Its South Asianness

Razib Khan · March 19, 2020 · 27 comments

For whatever reason, Facebook recently thought I might be interested in the subscription South Asian themed webzine and newsletter The Juggernaut. I don’t mind paying for media. I pay for The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. But why should you pay for The Juggernaut? Here’s a snippet from their about page:

It’s like your other email briefings. But browner. Join thousands and get the newsletter that curates the best global news on South Asia(ns) every Sunday. We also send updates on events, giveaways, our original reporting, and more. Unsubscribe anytime.

There are some good stories in The Juggernaut. I especially liked “Not Indian Enough” by Sabrina Malhi, a Guyanese American of East Indian ethnicity. This is a good piece of journalism because it shines the light on a topic and experience that’s underexposed, the liminality of being of Caribbean East Indian background. I learned a lot.

But the problem with The Juggernaut is that it strikes a pose as “South Asian,” which like “Social Justice” or “Family Values” is innocuous on the face of it, but connotes particular affinities, identities, and preoccupations, which are exclusionary of vast swaths of its potential audience. Back when the Sepia Mutiny blog was a thing I went to some meet-ups, and one thing that I noticed is that despite the focus on inclusive South Asian language on the internet, privately most people were conventionally nationalistic in regards to where their parents came from.

People didn’t talk about Desi or South Asian, they talked about Indian identity.

Since then the political and social cleavages have polarized. The Juggernaut is a pretty conventional distillation of progressive Diasporic poses. It focuses a great deal on marginalized elements of the brown experience and is lockstep with the global Left in a deep skepticism of Hindu nationalism.

There is nothing wrong with that. But it’s just one viewpoint and a viewpoint that seems extremely overrepresented among the Diasporic media class. There are potential readers who are somewhat outside of this progressive South Asian American exoteric box. I wish publications like The Juggernaut had enough viewpoint diversity to reflect and attract them.

Browncast episode 86: Harsh Gupta on Hindutva, Indian Economy, etc.

Omar Ali · March 18, 2020 · 33 comments

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify,  and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

You can also support the podcast as a patron. The primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else. This website isn’t about shaking the cup, but I have noticed that the number of patrons plateaued a long time ago.

I would though appreciate more positive reviews! Alton Brown’s “Browncast” has 30 reviews on Stitcher alone! Help make us the biggest browncast! At least at some point.

In this podcast we talk to Harsh Gupta (@harshmadhusudan on twitter) , an investor in Mumbai (he has an MBA from INSEAD and is also a Dartmouth alumnus) who is bullish on India and its prospects and is (at least at this point) a Modi supporter. We talk about Hindutva, Indian economy, Indian Muslims and whatever else pops up. I had my share of “L’esprit de l’escalier” after this episode, but we hope to have Harsh back to talk about some of those thoughts 🙂

US Stock market, plus Boeing

sbarrkum · March 17, 2020 · 9 comments

I thought it would be a War in the mid-east that would get the dominoes falling. Turned out a real black swan. However much many think that the US stock market was on solid foundation, false premise. The underlying instabilities that caused 2008 crash never went away.

Injection of trillions, low Fed Interest rates almost free (now zero rates, i.e free)  helped the stock market soar and insiders to take their money of the table. Middle class Tax payers, Pension funds, the small retail stock buyers are left holding the bag.

I expected a probable drop to 20K and a somewhat probable to 15K. The collapse and drop even surprises me, and other skeptics. Now even 15K seems highly probable. Thats why I say read alternative media, like ZeroHedge, RT and Unz (aka Fake news) to see the other side of the spin.

Boeing:
When Boeing management said it was the fault of foreign pilots (in other words non white) spelt their own doom.  I said Boeing should drop below 100, I did not expect this fast.  Hedge fund operated Boeing, cutting corners to maximize profits. Stock buybacks, were the norm to push up stock price. Investment in safety measures, research and development, was not part of management decisions.

Maybe Trump will inject money into Boeing to get the stock price up. The insiders will sell. Retail idiots who believe Boeing is a great American Company will buy, not knowing Hedge Funds, Bezos and the like are not real Americans, i.e. those who care about the deplorables and others.

Now Trump, like the Boeing guys wants to deflect his responsibility, saying racist Chinese Virus. I think going to end much like the Boeing management.

Unhappily for the US, the alternatives in leadership are equally horrible. Biden another Trump probably worse, in the stages of Dementia and will be a puppet. If Sanders is able to get the nomination (anyone opposing Trump will win), he will be blocked by his own party the Democrats.

Update:  Article by Raghuram G. Rajan, Uni of Chicago Professor and former Governor, Central Bank of India.  He was one of the first (only ?) academic to warn against  proliferation of MBS (Mortgage Backed Securities) and derivatives and the instability they would cause.  The first domino to fall in the 2008 Financial crash.  A peer reviewed journal article (2005) so was very toned down.   (Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier? (2005)  abstract and full article)

When Raghuram G. Rajan or Satyajit Das write I sit up and read and re-read carefully.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid19-economic-weaknesses-by-raghuram-rajan-2020-03

Dow Jones (DJI)
No photo description available.

No photo description available.

India and COVID-19

Razib Khan · March 12, 2020 · 44 comments

India Is the World’s Second-Most Populous Country. Can It Handle the Coronavirus Outbreak?:

India has conducted nearly 5,000 COVID-19 tests so far, according to the World Health Organization, which says that the “country is responding with urgency as well as transparency.” But so far, India has only reported 74 confirmed COVID-19 cases and one death, on Thursday. Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute tells TIME that count is “just not right.” He believes there must be many more cases, but they have just not been identified. “I’m deeply worried that there’s a lot of community transmission and we are just not aware of it because there is not widespread testing,” he says.

Kushal Mehra assures me the hospitals don’t report anything crazy. It’s been a while, how come there hasn’t been a major outbreak? Some researchers suggest a warm climate (others are skeptical).

What are you guys hearing? While India and Pakistan have very few cases, Iran is now above 10,000 (likely far more). There are mass graves being dug outside of Qom.

Browncast Episode 83: An evolutionary anthropologist on the GRE, Bo Winegard and the nature of his discipline

Razib Khan · March 10, 2020 · No comments

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify,  and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above! d

You can also support the podcast as a patron. The primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else. This website isn’t about shaking the cup, but I have noticed that the number of patrons plateaued a long time ago.

I would though appreciate more positive reviews! Alton Brown’s “Browncast” has 30 reviews on Stitcher alone! Help make us the biggest browncast! At least at some point.

This week I talk to Cody Moser, an evolutionary anthropologist with strong opinions on the GRE (against) and the firing of Bo Winegard (sad about). But when it comes to what his field of study is…that’s a little vaguer.

In relation to the GRE discussion, Cody has provided a document with references. Enjoy!

Rock and Roll of Sri Lanka; Papare

sbarrkum · March 9, 2020 · 1 comment

I would assume some here who watch Cricket have heard the Sri Lankan music at the Cricket matches. The Rock and Roll of Sri Lanka; Papare a mix of kavadi (old indigenous beats), African beats and the adoption of trumpets with gusto.

Kavadi is age old music/tribal drums for dance that was a catharsis of the psyche of frustration and repression.

Do discos and drugs play a similar role in modern society. Holy water, Holy ash, Talking in tongues, Possessed by the Spirit all the same sides of a coin.

In Europe, Christianity  almost able eradicate and replace the ancient Gods, Woden, Thor.

Unhappily, the agnostic philosophy of the Buddha never eradicated or replaced the ancient gods.

People need God/Gods, be it the rock and roll, or some theoretician like Marx or Adam Smith or variations of those.

This is the Western Christian version of being possessed by the Spirit.

A quote from the Video above
The power of Gods sometimes moves them to dance before the Lord .. (They get drunk in the spirit).

Replace above with Kali
The power of Kali sometimes moves them to dance before the Goddess .. (They get drunk in the spirit (of Kali).

==

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9R4c_RZ1N4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFdBn7O2ocY

Many who do these “dances for gods/s” in style, i.e family, extended family are probably doing the rituals to atone for “sins”. Plus a big donation to the temple/priests.

In a mainstream Christian context, like donating a wing for a Church or University.  Evangelical church context, like singing and dancing and making a big donation for the pastors Jet-stream plane.

Many think the world has become more rational. Maybe the minute, even then I doubt it.

===
This is a secular Papare band

 

The ancient and the modern music meet at one of the oldest cricket matches in the world.  The Royal–Thomian played since 1879.

A North Indian in Uzbekistan at 1550 B.C.

Razib Khan · March 6, 2020 · 11 comments

I was rereading the supplements for Narasimhan et. al. for the purposes of trying to adduce the best model to calculate “steppe” proportions in Iranians (someone asked I do this). In the process, I noticed this passage again:

Third, we find that one of the outliers, Bustan_BA_o2, is consistent with being admixed between an individual related to people on the Indus Periphery Cline and Middle to Late Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists, a type of admixture event we also observe in the Late Bronze-Iron Age Swat Valley that we will examine later, suggesting that the admixture events that led to the formation of the SPGT in Pakistan also occurred between outlier individuals at the BMAC and Steppe pastoralists who arrived at the end of the 2nd millennium.

Here is some detail on the site of the sample: UZ-BST-015, Site 4, Grave 4, 57-27 (I11520): Date of 1613-1509 calBCE (3280±20 BP, PSUAMS-4605). The earliest date possible on the Swat samples is 1200 BC (though 1100 BC is more likely). That means that this outlier individual is the earliest example of the genetic mix that would come to characterize much of northern India. A mix of steppe, and Iranian-farmer-related, and Ancient Ancestral South Indian (AASI).

The text of the supplements seems to imply that this individual is sui generis, a mix of Indus Periphery and steppe, which prefigures what was to come later in South Asia. But I will offer another hypothesis: this individual is a migrant, or the child of migrants, from the earliest phase of the ethnogenesis of the Indo-Aryan matrix of Northwest India.

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