A song from the Gitanjali: https://youtu.be/_wpZPz8pycI আমার এই পথ-চাওয়াতেই আনন্দ।Just looking at the road makes me happy. খেলে যায় রৌদ্র ছায়া, বর্ষা আসে বসন্ত ॥Sunlight and shadow play along, monsoon comes, spring. কারা এই সমুখ দিয়ে আসে যায় খবর নিয়ে,People in front of me come and go carrying news. খুশি রই আপন মনে– বাতাস বহেContinue reading “Translation: আমার এই পথ-চাওয়াতেই আনন্দ”
Author Archives: kazisiddiqui
Disagreement with ideas that pass for common sense, Part 1
Re: https://youtu.be/HmCvw-TJyb0 By opposing socialism, religion prevents the creation of a society that feels meaningful.
Translations from Bengali
I occasionally post translations from Bengali with linguistic glosses in this thread: https://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?t=1695
What is to be done?
First America backs the Islamists. When the Islamists come to power, America says they’re violating human rights. Then America use that as a justification to buy weapons. This is how they create jobs. Why can’t we create jobs by vote? The purpose of this proposal is to free the poor from dependence on the capitalistsContinue reading “What is to be done?”
A Critique of Pure Subjectivity
There is a fundamental reason I don’t like vilifying the objectification of people. In order to understand the world in terms of abstract systems, we can’t do without a minimal gesture of objectification. For example, if poor people are not objects, then it trivially follows that either they have freely chosen to starve or evilContinue reading “A Critique of Pure Subjectivity”
Direct Evaluation of Implications in Boolean Algebra [PDF]
“Is there a regular pattern governing the simplification of nested implications in Boolean Algebra?” That’s a train of thought I typed up as a LaTeX paper back in August: I’d be very interested to know where to find published results like these, especially if they cover the special cases I omitted.
Doubts
Santanu loved the mountains. Though he would never have admitted it, the sight of mist climbing a hillside offered an innocent substitute for his own failed aspirations. He worked a dead end job he didn’t believe in. But one day, it paid off being yelled at by his boss and even being called in forContinue reading “Doubts”
Populism is the Opposite of Democracy
In recent times, it has become fashionable to accuse anti-populists of being anti-democratic. I will argue that this position crumbles under scrutiny. Argument: Democracy is obeying the will of the people. This presupposes that the people have a consistent will, which is not the case: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/economics/#CollRatiSociChoi As there is no collective will, democracy can onlyContinue reading “Populism is the Opposite of Democracy”
An Outline of Slavoj Zizek’s Theory on the Structure of Subjectivity as the Foundation of Leftism
Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues against mystical attempts to alter states of consciousness. Instead, he says we should “censor our dreams” and engage in emancipatory struggle as the only road to salvation. These comments might seem perplexing, but they are based on an underlying theory of what a subject is. This post is an attemptContinue reading “An Outline of Slavoj Zizek’s Theory on the Structure of Subjectivity as the Foundation of Leftism”
Snapshots of the Labyrinth
I occasionally write long philosophical musings. This is where I will share them with the world. Sometimes there might also be fiction, conworlding, linguistics or science.
Snapshots of the Labyrinth 