soumithri

2026 white supremacy is 1776 white supremacy.

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New poem day!

strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

i'm with you on this. it tastes like mildly sweet water in weird fruit form.

As the boom recedes, the concept of NFTs increasingly feels like something from a lost Borges story. Five elegantly written pages about a Buenos Aires grocer who owns the spring rain. (He can't control the rain, and it falls on everyone - but only the grocer somehow, ineffably, "owns" it.)

what is so funny about this is that for some people this question is "if you could be sachin tendulkar and pick any one game-winning century to have scored which one would you pick" and obviously the correct answer is laxman's 281 at eden gardens

(of course, in many south Asian Sufi traditions (Kabir's especially) the Divine is inseparable from the body. from the thing we are.)

but the crux of the matter is this - you cannot make something real without making it. no amount of discourse about it will change this.

in the poem, Taji is referring to the Divine -

मौला मौला लाख पुकारे, मौला हाथ ना आए
लफ्ज़ों से हम खेल रहे हैं, माना हाथ ना आए

tens of thousands call to God
but God does not appear
we all play with words
but meaning does not appear

if you realise that real things are things you make, then you understand that making them yourself is what makes them real.

and this is very easy to understand. but people who are obsessed with the names and words for things, rather than the things themselves, will never get this.

Taji then says

शोला शोला रटते रटते, लब पर आंच ना आए
इक चिंगारी लब पर रख लो, लब फ़ौरन जल जाए

chant fire over and over, no heat will touch your lips
place a single ember, and they will instantly burn

Fareed Ayaz says - it is actually very easy to see the truth. to make real things. but you have to do it right.

saying that LLMs produce things just as valuable - if not more - as people is like saying the image of the Taj Mahal is just as valuable as the Taj Mahal.

that which is real is made by people. even a photograph has human artistry in its development and production. but an LLM does none of this.

LLMs are perhaps the epitome of the problem Sufi poet Zaheen Shah Taji recognises. He says -

जो पानी के नाम को पानी जाने, यह नादानी है
पानी पानी रटते रटते, प्यासा ही मर जाए

those who know water by its name are fools
let them chant water water, they will still die of thirst

man, they really have invented the great automatic grammatizator from the hit story don't invent the great automatic grammatizator

something something 'good art is the privilege of the few, what about those people who can't afford to be good at art' sorry to tell you this but have you considered the eons of people who have, in fact, made incredible art because they have chosen not to worry about whether rich people will like it

oh the post was deleted. f.

it was some AI apologia (by someone who is ostensibly lefty) about how the ability to be good at art is itself privileged, because talent is something only rich people have the space to develop.

the act of creation, which is a human act, has been undertaken throughout human history, by those of all classes, castes, genders, experiences.

creation not just of artistic things, but of things with "real" use. cloth, food, furniture - these things too are created by humans.

to _make_ something - to create it from your body - is a human endeavour. it does not simply arise from tools, nor can it be produced by mere desire.

the idea that engagement with generative ai is the same as engagement with art is false on its own terms.

bulleh shah tells us that to be good, one cannot merely ape goodness.

you wear a cap, but your mind is false
why bother wearing a cap?
you turn your rosary, but your heart is still
why do you worry those beads?
you fast and pray, but god does not meet you
for what purpose do you fast?
without a starter milk will never become curd
no matter how much you boil it

patient : doctor i am depressed .
doctor : solution is simple , watch the muppet show special with sabrina carpenter
patient : ohh good idea !! i actually perform as a clown named pagliacci so im big into comedy

DOCTOR: I told him he needed to get out to a show, that was how he would cure his depression.

CHOTINER: So you learned this technique in school?

DR: No, not— listen it was good advice. Pagliacci was in town.

C: Right. Is it standard to give advice before learning a patient’s name?

DR: Now look

cc @zohebmashiur.bsky.social whose PhD was about this.

apple

Something that is very hard to deal with in this era is how absolutely unserious these people are. They are deadly, yes. And also just deeply unserious.

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

world-famous author of the shamshine blind also revealed as impeccable stage performer

Duane Kearns Puryear, holding his panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt. It reads, in block letters: "My name is Duane Kearns Puryear. I was born on December 20, 1964. I was diagnosed with AIDS on September 7, 1987 at 4:45 PM. I was 22 old. Sometimes, it makes me very sad. I made this panel myself. If you are reading it, I am dead..." There are several great resources to learn about Duane, his advocacy, his family, his panel, and the politics of memory and re-creation, especially this one by The Dallas Way: http://www.thedallasway.org/stories/written/2021/9/19/duane-puryears-and-the-quilt-panel Duane Puryear died in 1991.

It's your birthday, Duane.

the apocalypse world campaign is weird and insane. if you want a show about how the post-post apocalypse could change one's priorities, genders, and ethics, this is for you.

or, you know, if you want a train that's a mall on wheels. that's there too.

janet why did we do this. janet it's 7.30 am. JANET COME BACK HERE