Rajesh Veeraraghavan

Now you have raised the ante. 😀 I may visit Providence in the fall... Hoping the timing works out...

I am still waiting to have my kaapi with the man ...

@geomblog.bsky.social is showing how humans need to be multimodal to stick it to AI. He can talk, hold a mike and a pen, express his concerned opinions about the AI world and predict the number of days to see a result in the oval cricket game. Wish he was holding a kaapi cup too...

What if tomorrow’s utopia isn’t as neat as we imagine?

I had the opportunity with Kate Chandler to reflect a bit on the question of
Can We Resist the Appeal of Technological Utopias?

We put our thoughts into a short piece called
"Messy Utopias"
globaldialogues.georgetown.edu/responses/me...

Heart broken. I lost Michael Burawoy, a dear mentor and advisor to a tragic accident! He was the best teacher I have had in my life. His passion for scholarship and solidarity for the marginalized workers is unparalleled in academia. I know many others feel the same...

The Kumbh Quest - Open The Magazine LIKE THE JERSEY OF A FOOTBALL PLAYER in the last minutes of a hard-fought game, the winter sky outside my window is a patchwork of colours, a witness to some celestial frenzy and scuffle. The blue and...

openthemagazine.com/cover-story/... such brilliant writing and reflections on religion. To confront the binaries of tradition and modernity. Happy Pongal

"The fundamental problem, as I see it, is not that social media misinforms individuals about what is true or untrue but that it creates publics with malformed collective understandings. That is a more subtle problem, but also a more pernicious one. Explaining it is going to require some words."

"If we think that the big problem is disinformation, which might persuade individuals that what is false is in fact true, we are likely to look to one set of remedies. If we think of the problem as malformed publics, then we are in much bigger trouble, without any very obvious technical fixes"

We're getting the social media crisis wrong The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics

www.programmablemutter.com/p/were-getti... Brilliant piece by @himself.bsky.social

The last specialist cricket-book seller in the world #cricket

indianexpress.com/article/spor...

#cricket

I agree, there is no confusion here, and we should find ways to work together, across all political and other perceived (and real) differences wherever you are.

Mixing wheat and rice, sort of a desi peace...

Indeed internet is a human designed and maintained interconnected miracle.

This should be good. Looking forward.

Thanks for expressing this clearly. And for what it is worth, I fully resonate, hence my suggestion to not keep notes that can be tracked back.

ha. On a different note, If you replace "coal" with "AI", that's how some people (I don't, for the record) feel about AI's potential to be a useful tool.

Has Switzerland Built the Best Public Transportation System in the World? The joy of when governments works

New, from me:
Bit of a timeline cleanse; how great it can be when government works well - Swiss transportation edition. open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

Don: wonderful writing! I am inspired to make a trip. will ask you for more details :)

My understanding: I cannot imagine that "law" or the research norms is going to compel you to report on the people you study intimately, whether directly or through a proxy. Probably best not to keep receipts!

interesting question about field research and its ethics on bribery etc @raulpachecovega.bsky.social @emendenhall.bsky.social @grundrza.bsky.social

Gosh, I did take field notes, but it was private to me, and didn't name people/location etc. but, training others is a tricky matter as well as they writing about it to be potentially legible to you etc. I don't know whether there is going to be an easy answer.

This is NOT an absolute position of course, it depends on the context, and the stakes, etc. hard to generalize.

if you study "corruption", and study it deeply, you may witness acts of it ( like I did!) and I did not report them to the authorities.

I don't quite understand the general context to this question, what is the qualitative research angle to this, as opposed you asking a general ethical question?

Ha. I have met a few developers, who are actually poets, in code.

Definitely true in India, when I grew up. Interesting proxy, why you got into trouble though. Will I get into trouble for echoing your question?

I agree, these bots are a pain.

Human Rights Watch is Hiring a senior digital rights researcher

indianexpress.com/article/spor...