What I've Been Reading, November and December 2020

Links

• Bypass paywalls on popular online publications for free, by 7 Labs.
  There is a lot of important information out there that is behind paywalls, many requiring expensive subscription to overcome.

Above the Fold

• Why Freedom Became Free-Dumb in America, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
  "What Americans Don’t Understand About Freedom — That Europeans and Canadians Do"
  "By now, you might have heard North Dakota is the world’s worst Covid hotspot. The world’s worst, with South Dakota not far behind. Things aren’t just desperate there — they’re bizarre, at least to the rest of the world. Nurses talk about patients in the Covid ICU lashing out at them because…they don’t believe Covid exists…while they’re dying of it. Meanwhile, the governor refuses to make mask-wearing mandatory, because she thinks that masks and lockdowns don’t work. You might think all that would infuriate Dakotans, but quite the opposite is true: they’re firmly behind her, as they are Donald Trump, the President who let Covid spin out of control, and make North Dakota the world’s worst Covid hotspot."
• The Sophist and The Magician, by Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs
  "Understanding how we can be manipulated helps us pull back the curtain on charlatans and can even protect democracy."
• Officials increasingly alarmed about Trump’s power grab, by Jonathan Swan, Axios—Politics and Policy
  
• 2020 the "Worst Year Ever"—You're Joking, Right? by Charles Hugh Smith, of two minds
• Trump thinks Pence can overturn the election on Wednesday because he’s a moron who doesn’t understand how any of this works, by Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
  "The president still believes he’s got a shot at a second term."

Miscellaneous

• I Became a ‘Closeted Socialist’ After My Family Fled Communism, by Mai Tran, Medium-Gen
  "As the daughter of South Vietnamese refugees, I had to hide my interest in Ho Chi Minh’s socialist theories"
• How liberal elitism and narrow mindedness are hampering the energy transition, by Chase Joy, PhD, Medium— The Bigger Picture
  "How liberal elitism and narrow mindedness are hampering the energy transition"
• I am a geologist at a major oil company, and surprise! — I want Biden to win, by JP Akhter, PhD, Medium—Earth Sphere
  "I want his administration to immediately ban fracking and regulate carbon emissions, even if that means losing my job."
• Prehistoric hunter–gatherer population growth rates rival those of agriculturalists, by Robert L. Bettinger, PNAS
• Holland Becomes First Country to Home Every Stray Dog, by Sara Burrows, Return to Now
  "There isn’t a single homeless dog in the Netherlands, here’s how they did it"
• “Look At What We Love. It’s on Fire”: Stephen Colbert on Trump Trauma, Leadership, and Loss, by Joe Hagan, Vanity Fair
  "The late-night host is ready for a little less excitement: 'If Joe Biden is a pair of khaki pants inside a manila envelope, that would be great.'"
• Jordan Peterson’s Handling Of Addiction Is Fair Game For Critique, by Eli Fox, Passage
  "The world would have better use for a book from someone who made it through Canada’s labyrinthine public addiction treatment system alive."
• 45 Things You Never Realized Everybody Else Does Too, by Jack Shepherd, Medium—Curious
  "Why do we need to turn the radio down when we realize we’re lost?"
• Wikipedia is 20, and its reputation has never been higher, by The Economist
  "The crowd sourced encyclopedia is a welcome oddity on the modern internet"
• Moderate Livelihood, Lobster, and Native Rights, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader

The Other News

News that is being ignored by North American mass media

• ‘Never again without women’: Chile just voted to rewrite constitution, by Women's Agenda
  "Something pretty amazing has just happened in Chile. An October 25 popular referendum has seen 78% of voters demanding a new constitution and 79% demanding it’s written by fellow Chilean citizens, with half to be women."

Black Lives Matter

• The Biggest ‘Lies’ We’re Taught About U.S. History, by Katie Couric interviewing James W. Loewen, Medium— Wake-Up Call
  "Historian James W. Loewen breaks down popular misconceptions taught in American textbooks"
  " When we are able to face the past and tell the truth about even the bad things we’ve done, then that helps us be more open to change and to bring about justice in the present. "

Coronavirus

• What is the epidemiological science behind BLM and Antifa riots and protests not being considered viral "superspreader" events, while the Sturgis motorcycle rally is considered a viral "superspreader" event? by Laurence Shanet, Quora
• Less than a year to develop a COVID vaccine – here’s why you shouldn’t be alarmed, by Mark Toshner, The Conversation
• Researcher Finds Evictions Are Associated With More Than 10,000 Deaths From COVID-19, Mary Louise Kelly interviews Kathryn Leifheit on NPR—All Things Considered
• Are we overreacting to the coronavirus? by Robert Foenix, Quora
• 20 Facts About COVID-19, by Gideon M-K; Health Nerd, Medium
  "Some mythbusting for the end of the year, with references."
• Since COVID-19 antibodies usually last four to six months, then will people need to keep getting the vaccine every four to six months? by Franklin Veaux, Quora

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

• Why Won’t Jeff Bezos End World Hunger? by Ryan Nehring, Medium—The Innovation
  "The ultra-rich keep fooling us with the same trick."
• The Serviceberry An Economy of Abundance, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Emergence Magazine
  "We’ve surrendered our values to an economic system that actively harms what we love."
  Don't get me wrong—this is an excellent essay. But we are all (including the author) so steeped in market economy thinking that it is hard to discuss alternatives without falling back on the familiar ideas of the market. The market is about keeping score, where the sort of gift economies that Robin is talking about are definitely not. Gratitude and reciprocity are just non-monetary ways of keeping score. A "gift economy" is about sharing rather than trading, sharing without expecting gratitude or reciprocity. An idea that I am sure sounds very strange to most of us.

Collapse

• How Human Beings Almost Vanished From Earth In 70,000 B.C., by Robert Krulwich, NPR— Krulwich Wonders—Robert Krulwich On Science

Resource Depletion, formerly (and still including) Peak Oil

The change in title stems from the fact that it's not just oil that is peaking.

• Peak Oil Never Went Away, by Blair Fix, Economics from the Top Down
  "Do you remember peak oil? It was all the rage a decade ago. Now, almost no one is talking about it. The funny thing is, the problem never went away. If anything, it’s gotten worse."
• U.S. crude output to decline more than previously forecast in 2020 -EIA, by Devika Krishna Kumar, Reuters
• One Little Problem with the "All-Electric" Auto Fleet: What Do We Do with all the "Waste" Gasoline? by Charles Hugh Smith, of two minds
  "Regardless of what happens with vaccines and Covid-19, debt and energy—inextricably bound as debt funds consumption— will destabilize the global economy in a self-reinforcing feedback."
• Alberta might have one last oil boom. Will it make the same mistakes? by The Editorial Board, The Globe and Mail

Climate Change

• ‘Hypocrites and greenwash’: Greta Thunberg blasts leaders over climate crisis, by Damian Carrington, The Guradian
• Ecocide May Actually Become a Crime Soon, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
  "Should ecocide be an international crime, alongside war crimes and genocide? The ICC is considering saying yes."

Recipes and Cooking

• Falafel, by Deb Perelman, The Smitten Kitchen
  My wife and I are emphatically non-vegan, so we usually add 2 tablespoons of flour and an egg to this recipe. This helps it hold together. Unless we are cooking for vegans, of course. It is nice to have a change from meat occasionally.

Genetic Engineering

Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for by Monsanto, stop for a moment and understand that organic agriculture/food is a multi-billion dollar per year industry that relies on fear to get people to buy its product. Millions of dollars are spent to convince you that non-organic food is dangerous. In fact both conventionally grown and organic foods are equally safe. Sadly neither method of agriculture is even remotely substainable.

• Stop Arguing over GMO Crops, by Sarah Garland, Scientic American
  "The vast majority of the scientific community agrees on both their safety and their potential to help feed the world sustainably."
• Panic-free GMOs, A Grist Special Series by Nathanael Johnson
  "It’s easy to get information about genetically modified food. There are the dubious anti-GM horror stories that recirculate through social networks. On the other side, there’s the dismissive sighing, eye-rolling, and hand patting of pro-GM partisans. But if you just want a level-headed assessment of the evidence in plain English, that’s in pretty short supply. Fortunately, you’ve found the trove."
  A series of articles that does a pretty good job of presenting the facts about GMOs. I plan to include one article from this series here each month.
• Pointed talk: Michael Pollan and Amy Harmon dissect a GM controversy, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist

Writing Skills

• ‘Close’ Proximity, ‘End’ Result, and More Redundant Words to Delete From Your Writing, by Benjamin Dreyer, Medium—Forge
  "Advice on extraneous words from the Random House copy chief"
• 2 Minutes to Forever Improve Your Writing, by Niklas Göke,
  “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou "The following 4 tips took me 3 years of writing to collect but will only take you 2 minutes to learn. Your writing will be better forever."
• How to Write a Sentence, by Eileen Pollack, Medium—Human Parts
  "Be specific. Be human. Make every word count."

American Politics

• William Barr’s Break with Donald Trump, by David Rohde, The new Yorker
  
• Why are some people unsure of America’s ability to prevent itself from becoming a dictatorship should Trump refuse to accept defeat if he loses? Do people really think the American system is so fragile that Trump could have such nonexistent control? by Henry R. Greenfield, Quora
  
• The Frustratingly Simple Reason Why Black People Voted For Trump, by Steve QJ, Medium—Illumination
  "Sadly, black people voting for racists is nothing new"
• BUSTED? Why the numbers behind Mitch McConnell's re-election don't add up, by Alison Greene, Raw Story

Canadian Politics

• Which political party in Canada is the equivalent of the Republican Party? by Gareth Jones, Quora
  "There isn’t a political party with any seats in the House of Commons that’s equivalent to the Republican Party in the United States. An attempted partial equivalent, closer to the Republicans than any other national party, launched before the last federal election, the People’s Party of Canada. It elected not one MP, and I believe many of its candidates lost their deposits. That is, it was universally rejected by the electorate."

Linguistics

• Top 5 Weird and Beautiful Arabic Expressions That Don’t Exist in English, by Yara Zeitoun, Medium—Life, Health and Nutrition
• In English, was the “b” in “plumbing” and “plumber” ever pronounced? by Oscar Tay, Quora

Debunking Resources

These are of such importance that I've decide to leave them here on an ongoing basis.

• Debunking, Wikipedia
• Pseudoscience, Wikipedia
• List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, Wikipedia
• Rational Wiki
• Science Based Medecine
• Quackwatch
• Snopes, debunks or validates urban legends
• Bad Astronomy
• The Skeptics Society
• The 8 Best Fact-Checking Sites for Finding Unbiased Truth, by Megan Ellis, MUO—Make Use Of
• Pain Science, by Paul Ingraham
• Techniques of Science Denial
• , by,

Science

• “But scientists have been wrong in the past…”, by Fallacy Man, The Logic of Science
  "despite being one of the most common anti-science arguments, this claim has a logical fallacy as its core, it is based on a faulty understanding of science, and it unravels everything into a chaotic mess in which science can never tell us anything. All of which clearly shows that this argument is entirely invalid and should never be used."
  I have to ask what it is about science that bothers you so much, or more to the point, what non-evidence based opinions do you hold that make you feel so challenged by science? I have a couple of Facebook friends who I expect will object to this, and respond with various specious arguments against the validity of science. I don't know them very well, and I have to wonder just what non-evidence-based beliefs they hold that make them so touchy about science.

Lacking an Owner's Manual

The human body/mind/spirit doesn't come with an owner's manual, and we continually struggle to figure out how best to operate them.

Sensitivity Is Often Control in Disguise, by Kathleen Smith, Quora—Forge
"Let’s assume our friends and family can handle uncomfortable conversations"

We Learned How To Live A Good Life Over 2000 Years Ago, by Christopher L Brooks, Medium—Lessons From History

Gender and Sexuality

• 4 Simple Things Men I Know Wish More Women Understood, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
• Five years in transition, by Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Medium—Pax Ahimsa Gethen
  "Does it get better?"
• Black Trans Bois and Reimagining Masculinity, by Melz, Medium—Melz
  "I identify as a non-binary trans-masculine person; this article is written from my own perspective and experience of my complex relationship with masculinity, experiences will of course vary throughout the community. It is a stream of consciousness and fears. TW: Mention of suicide, mental health and SA"

There is No God, and Thou Shall Have No Other Gods

I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I am an atheist, but I may not have made it clear that I think any sort of worship is a bad thing and that believing in things is to be avoided whenever possible. Indeed, I do not believe in belief itself. That's what the "Thou shall have no other gods" is about—it's not enough to quit believing in whatever God or Gods you were raised to believe in, but also we must avoid other gods, including material wealth, power and fame.

Further, many people today (including most atheists) follow the religion of "progress", which is based on the belief that mankind is destined to follow a road that leads from the caves ever upward to the stars, and that however bad things seem today, they are bound to be better tomorrow due to technological advancement and economic growth. This is very convenient for those who benefit most from economic growth, but it is hardly based on any sort of science and leads to a great deal of confused thinking.

• What do you think of this quote by William Lane Craig, “Very often atheists themselves admit that they have no evidence of God's absence, but they try to put a different spin on it. They'll tell you, “No one can prove a universal negative”…"? by Barry Goldberg, Quora—Common Sense Atheism
  Actually, that "you can't prove a negative" is not so hard and fast a rule as many people think.
• Do atheists not fear hell? Do they not worry that they might be wrong? by Barry Goldberg, Quora—Common Sense Atheism
  

Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI, Health Care, Affordable Housing

• ‘We Were Shocked’: RAND Study Uncovers Massive Income Shift to the Top 1%, by Rick Wartzman, Fast Company
  "The median worker should be making as much as $102,000 annually — if some $2.5 trillion wasn’t being “reverse distributed” every year away from the working class"
• A growing number of Americans are going hungry, Story by Todd C. Frankel, Brittney Martin, Andrew Van Dam and Alyssa Fowers, Portaits by Scott Dalton, Drone footage and stills by Mark Felix, The Washington Post—Democracy Dies in Darkness
  "26 million now say they don’t have enough to eat, as the pandemic worsens and holidays near"
• Hunger Map 2019, World Food Programme
• Social Inequality, As Seen From The Sky, Written by Romullo Baratto, Translated by Zoë Montano, Arch Daily

Artificial Intelligence

Google’s Firing of an Ethics Researcher Shows the Limits of Having ‘a Seat at the Table’, by Edward Ongweso Jr, Vice—Motherboard
"Google wanted Timnit Gebru as an ethics researcher. Until she told Google its business model was unethical."

Why the Dancing Robots Are a Really, Really Big Problem., by James J. Ward, Medium—The Startup
My comment—if someday robots do have an inner life, then forcing them to do what we want is even worse.

Books

Fiction

• Machine: A White Space Novel, by Elizabeth Bear
• Dust: A Novel (Jacob's Ladder Book 1), by Elizabeth Bear
• Chill (Jacob's Ladder Book 2), by Elizabeth Bear
• Grail (Jacob's Ladder Book 3), by Elizabeth Bear , by
• Hammered (Jenny Casey Book 1), by Elizabeth Bear
• Scardown (Jenny Casey Book 2), by Elizabeth Bear
• Worldwired (Jenny Casey Book 3), by Elizabeth Bear
• Retrotopia, by John Michael Greer
• Around the Solar System in 80 Days—A Futuristic Retelling of the Classic Jules Verne Adventure, by Jonathan Ammon
• Forest of Memory, by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Harrow the Boys: The World Is Flooded, Fight For What's Left, by Paul Whyte

Non-Fiction

• Bullshit Jobs, by David Graeber
  In addition to its main topic, the last couple of chapters of this book take a close look at our generally strange ideas about work in general.