m a n u s c r y p t s | A work life balance sheet

The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction

As the title suggests, the book is a collection of 28 works – some prose and some poetry, from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I liked the premise of quite a few, but in many cases, it didn’t fulfil the promise. If you have a deep interest in science/speculative fiction from this region, go for it.

A digital multiverse

It was towards the end of 2020 that I came across Roblox and wrote Metaverse : Get a second life. Since that post, Mathew Ball has written the definitive primer on the Metaverse¹, and if you’re interested in the subject, it’s a must-read. The word “metaverse”, ICYMI, was coined by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, and the book is being referenced in many recent conversations. In fact, Stephenson has been quizzed for years, each time we seem to take a step in this direction, and his comments continue to be prescient, insightful and hugely creative. This one, from 2017, in Vanity Fair, is a favourite, and contains, among other succinct gems

The purpose of VR is to take you to a completely made-up place, and the purpose of AR is to change your experience of the place that you’re in.
Neal Stephenson

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Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O’Neil does a great job of highlighting the dark side of “software is eating the world” as biases are being codified into systems as Weapons of Math Destruction. Multiple examples are used to understand the three characteristics of this phenomenon – scale, opacity and damage. “Algorithms are opinions embedded in code”, and right now, we’re not doing a great job of it.

Subjective Objectification

D and I watched Crime Stories: India Detectives on Netflix a few days after it was released. The episode that saddened both of us was “Dying for Protection”, which was based on the murder of a sex worker. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be the subject of discussion on a Saturday late evening, which these days are spent on the balcony, in the company of spirits, watching the sun and the world part ways. Yes, that is privilege.

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How Fascism Works

Even as liberal democracy is broadly accepted as the best form of political order in this era, the threat of fascism looms large. Recent events in US, India, Myanmar etc show how vulnerable we are. Using the lessons from the past and viewing it through a contemporary lens, this book lays out the playbook that fascism uses to thrive.