Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw

David Deutsch is an awesome thinker. His day job is that of a physicist involved in cosmology and quantum physics. He is considered the “father of quantum computing.” Quantum mechanics is far above my IQ level; I couldn’t possibly understand it. Quantum computation too is beyond my reach.

Deutsch is a genuine genius. What was previously called the “Church-Turing thesis” is now called “Church-Turing-Deutsch thesis.”[1]

Deutsch is a proponent of the “many-world interpretation” of QM proposed by Hugh Everett. For an accessible introduction to MWI I recommend the article on “Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Being a physicist is Deutsch’s day job, as I mentioned before. He moonlights as a deep thinker on other important matters. In an interview on economist Tyler Cowen’s podcast, Tyler characterized Deutsch as the first and only “philosopher of freedom.” I will provide a link to it later. Continue reading “Karl Popper”

Thus spoke Milton Friedman:

“In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from grinding poverty are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.”

A few years ago when I used to waste time on Quora, I couldn’t resist responding to someone who asked, “How has capitalism ruined the world?”

Here’s my response, for the record.

Continue reading “Capitalism Has Ruined the World”

I love cars and I love driving. Not to brag too much but as it happens, I think I’m the second-best driver in the world. The US is perhaps the best place in the world for road trips. I’ve been fortunate enough to have dozens of road trips under my belt in the US, a few of them across the continent.

Recently a friend in the valley bought a mid-sized SUV, a 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid. It has three rows of seats. This one is very luxurious, with all sorts of bells and whistles. Fancy seats. Great sound system. Cameras and sensors all around. Lots of nice driving assist features. I look forward to driving it one of these days soon. The specs are great.[1]

Hybrids are a very clever idea. They have a gasoline engine and also electric motors and batteries. Pure electric vehicles (EV) don’t have the gas bits and regular cars don’t have the electric bits. Continue reading “Hybrid Cars”

Bill Watterson created one of the most loveable characters in modern American fiction. I suspect that the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes is probably more well-known than Mark Twain’s characters Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. I conjecture that Twain would have enjoyed Watterson’s creation.

About C&H I wrote in 2022, “The protagonist of our beloved strip is named after the French theologian, John Calvin (1509 – 1564), and his sidekick is named after the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679). I don’t know much about Calvinism but I am familiar with Hobbes’s work Leviathan, as I have an interest in political economy theory.”[1]

Our precocious Calvin’s pronouncements are funny for certain but frequently they are accurate as well: “People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.” I relate to that sentiment all the time. I can’t stand retards.

Though I am not a super genius, or even a genius, I do find average people aggravating. I think geniuses who are also good-natured are extremely rare. Continue reading “Calvin & Hobbes”

Growing up in India, I was taught that democracy was the great good that we have to be eternally grateful for. Democracy was the Holiest of the Holy Cows and it was the gift that Gandhi and his lackeys had given to the people of India through their wisdom and generosity.

It seemed that democracy was so precious that the terrible poverty of India was a price worth paying for it. The link between poverty and democracy was never explained but the claim was that India was poor because it was a democracy.

Allow me a bit of personal reflections. It was pretty late in the day that I learned to think critically about our world. How should we live, how should we organize society to be peaceful and prosperous? How to think about those questions is at least as important—if not more—as the question of the structure of chemical elements and learning calculus. Continue reading “Popper and his Theory of Democracy”

I think that the English have the most delightful sense of humor. It’s dry, irreverent, subtle, often rude but in a sophisticated sort of way, and—most importantly for me—intelligent. An explanation for why I love English humor could be that I grew up reading PG Wodehouse.

On arriving in the US, I got introduced to English sitcoms. This was decades before the internet. Therefore, most of the visual entertainment at home was broadcast TV. We’d gather around the TV in the living room every evening to watch our favorite shows. Public TV carried a lot of BBC programming. I loved a whole bunch of them.

• • • Are You Being Served?
    • Keeping Up Appearances
    • Blackadder
    • Fawlty Towers
    • Monty Python’s Flying Circus
    • Waiting for God
    • Yes, Minister
    • Yes, Prime Minister
    • Bean
    • ‘Allo ‘Allo
    • As Time Goes By
    • Bless Me Father
    •  A Bit of Fry & Laurie
    • The Two Ronnies

Continue reading “Funny People”

Carl Sagan was one of the greatest popularizers of science the world has seen. Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1934, he sadly passed away relatively young in 1996 in Seattle, WA. A trained astronomer and astrophysicist, he inspired generations of scientists through his popular books and his brilliant TV series, Cosmos, one of the most beloved science programs ever made.

Sagan authored, co-authored, or edited around 20 books total, along with hundreds of scientific papers.[1] One could not read him without being moved by the poetry and the lyrical quality of his prose. It was inspired and inspiring. I believe that reading his popular books is great training on how to express oneself verbally.

He had a distinctive speech style. His soft, resonant voice had a melodic and resonant intonation. It was punctuated with pauses for emphasis. Most memorable was how he said the word “billions” — which he had to do with some regularity since his subject involved astronomical numbers. Though he never uttered the phrase “billions and billions,” it was associated with him in the popular mind. The title of the final book he wrote, “Billions & Billions,” shows that he did not lose his sense of humor even while suffering terminal cancer. Continue reading “Carl Sagan”

Today is “May Day,” the first of May. In many European cultures, it’s a traditional spring festival holiday, celebrated since ancient times. For communists and socialist, it’s the “International Workers’ Day” and they too call it “May Day.”

India being a socialist/communist country, 1st of May is “Labor Day” and is a public holiday.

It’s kind of fitting that the communist/socialist celebrate “May Day” because “Mayday” is the international life-threatening distress call for mariners and aviators. It’s derived from the French m’aider (which means ‘help me’ and is pronounced “mayday.”) That use originated in 1921. Continue reading “First of May”