Metaphysical Musings

Tahrir Square, Cairo, 2011 Middle eastern states agued by previous economic crises and political disunity became “modern” as they were subsumed by the greater world system through the forces of integration, peripheralization, defensive developmentalism, and imperialism. However, as this system progressed, modernity changed from being a Eurocentric concept to a universal conduct that found a unique place in Middle Eastern empires and nation states. Over 19 th and 20 th centu

If you’re a Bruin Baddie, Baudrillard’s for you! Sharing the first article I wrote for the Bruin Review, an independent alternative, opinion and satire (just be everything why don't you) magazine. Check it out here: https://bruinreview.wordpress.com/2025/12/20/if-youre-a-bruin-baddie-baudrillards-for-you/ With the rise of UCLA’s social media presence, false realities confront us everywhere. UCLA is losing its physical sense of self in favour of online culture. UCLA’s symbolis

Gertrude did not know of her sex, skin, or self. She was everything at once. You lost your spark Shiraz. She worked in aesthetics, in the shapes and sounds and spaces in between, the way odd combinations flurry your semantic sense and memory. She believed we had, or at least ought to have, moved past the idea of a “story”. Of “plots”. My period’s late. This time makes it too many times. What could that mean? I saw her for the first time, her and her gorgeous cheekbone, buckle

My last book was awful. Pretentious, frivolous, wordy, turgid, and horrible. It has been 7 years since its publication. I still hate it. I used to think big words would lead me to literary fame - land me amongst the literati. Instead, it has led to 7 years of refusing to put ink to paper, afraid that I’ll create another ugly collection of uncomfortable sentences. I couldn’t refuse my controversial ideas though, that’s why I write my secret story from time to time. There are f

The portrayal of female characters in fiction can be simplified to an admixture of stereotypes. Stereotypes inform the gender roles that female characters are often written into a piece of literature to fulfil. It starts with a material role to which some broader social expectation is imputed. In older classic texts, rarely is the woman something beyond a wife, a mother, a widow or a servant. In playing stereotypical roles, they provide love, support, maternal sympathy and ot

What is a custodian? A custodian has a responsibility to protect a field of knowledge. Through that responsibility, a custodian has the power to influence this field of knowledge by controlling what affects it. Custodians appear in many forms: critics, researchers, academics; executives in large firms and high-ranking officials in governments. A custodian has a connotation of being ethical, moral, and one with expertise in their field. The consensus of custodians should theor

1) What is P(Doom) and how do we assess it? 2) Is there anything systematic we know that impacts these assessments? 3) How do naive people versus tech professionals make these assessments? P(Doom) is the probability that artificial intelligence will lead be an existential risk to humanity. The subject of existential risks of AI has been trending recently, with many senior and well respected figures in the field giving worrying views on it (this will be discussed later on). T

I look from afar, Ablaze, aglow, askance, I see the tears crawling down And I see the rancour of ecstasy, The rancour of misery, Arraigned to the chain of Dancing bodies, in trance, In the bear’s snare. Trap. Trapped. I see the rose madder on the cheeks and around the eyes and on their lips, Dry and drier. I see the indwelling rose bud, it swells with desire, it blooms, it blooms, and then the monophthong strikes and the petals darken and fall off and it diffuses into the smo