What I've Been Reading, June 2021

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

• Our Civilization is Dying Because It’s Addicted to Fossil Fuels, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
  "Why We Need to Treat Clean Energy as Our Moonshot, Or Everything Collapses"
  Umair is right that our civilization is dying because it's addicted to fossil fuels. But he's wrong about finding a clean alternative. Even if we could, it would create as many problems as it solved.
• No, We Can’t Just Leave Assholes Alone Anymore, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
  “Left unchallenged, assholes took over America—along with most of the world. Now this class of assholes dominates our politics. They steer our economies. They run our media. They dole out promotions to other assholes, and punish anyone for trying to do the right thing. They tell us what to do and how to think. Now they’re even trying to tell us how to vote, and how to love.”
• The Myth — and Liability — of America’s Obsession with Rugged Individualism, by Scott Galloway, Medium—Marker
  “The Ayn Rand image of the solo entrepreneur — Hank Rearden toiling alone in his laboratory to invent a new kind of steel — is a pernicious deception.”
  Many of my fellow Canadians will feel smug that we suffer much less from toxic individualism than the USA, but being better than the USA is a pretty minor achievement.
• If You Think Socialism’s Unaffordable, You Don’t Understand Capitalism, by UmairHaque, Medium-Eudaimonia
  “How Hidden Hyperinflation Left Americans Broke, and What to do About It”
• We Can’t Afford for Everyone to Have Their Own Opinion Anymore, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
  “It’s getting us killed.”
• Why the American Right is Having a Meltdown About Race, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
  “How White Rage Happens, And Why It Still Defines American Life”
• Lies and honest mistakes, by Richard V Reeves, Aeon—Psyche
  "Our crisis of public knowledge is an ethical crisis. Rewarding ‘truthfulness’ above ‘truth’ is a step towards a solution"
  "Working against this constitution are the forces of what Rauch labels ‘troll epistemology’. Trolls seek not the truth, but the destruction of an enemy, ideological or personal. Trolls not only fail to display the virtues of sincerity and accuracy, they work in precisely the opposite direction, deliberately offering up distorted visions of reality, based on cherry picked information."

Miscellaneous

• Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet, by Allen Tager, Aeon—Psyche
• Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare, by Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker
  “How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life—and have held on to it for thirteen years.”
• A Deadly Mosquito-Borne Illness Is Brewing in the Northeast, by Oscar Schwartz, Medium—One Zero
  “EEE kills almost half of its victims, and cases are on the rise”
  Fortunately, there are only a few cases.
• Unraveling the Secret Origins of an AmazonBasics Battery, by Sarah Emerson, Medium—One Zero
  “One of Amazon’s smallest and most popular products has a surprisingly large footprint”
• Things My (Danish) Husband Still Doesn’t Get About America, by Anastasia Frugaard, Medium—P.S. I Love You
  “Two polar-opposite people from two polar-opposite countries”
• What Quitters Understand About the Job Market, by Derek Thompson, Medium—The Atlantic
  “More Americans are telling their boss to shove it. Is the workplace undergoing a revolution — or just a post-pandemic spasm?” YOLO=You Only Live Once
• Inside the Revolutionary Treatment That Could Change Psychotherapy Forever, by Ben Blum, Medium—Elemental
  “IFS therapy is upending the thinking around schizophrenia, depression, OCD, and more”
  IFS=internal family systems therapy
• 5 Looming Environmental Crises That Rival Climate Change, by Dustin T. Cox, Medium—Climate Conscious
  "Humans are transgressing planetary boundaries on several fronts"
  "Even if carbon sequestration and other technologies catch up to climate change, we must still learn to live on far less if we hope to survive the coming environmental crises."
• I’m an Environmental Scientist, and I Don’t Care If You Recycle, by Ono Mergen,
  "Here is what you can do instead"

Coronavirus

• The Last–And Only–Foreign Scientist in the Wuhan Lab Speaks Out, by Michelle Cortez, Medium—Bloomberg
  “Virologist Danielle Anderson paints a very different picture of the Wuhan Institute”
• What Parents With Unvaccinated Kids Need to Know About the Delta Variant This Summer, by Alina Dizik, The Wall Street Journal
  "Is summer travel OK? How vulnerable are younger kids? Doctors answer your questions."

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

• Are Mexico’s Zapatista rebels still relevant? by Duncan Tucker, Aljazeera
  “Twenty years after the uprising, activists say Zapatistas have influenced radical movements around the world.”
• The Zapatista Revolution Is Not Over, by Kurt Hackbarth and Colin Mooers, The Nation
  “1994 saw one of the most significant indigenous rebellions of the 20th century. Today, their political experiment continues.”
• How Capitalism Taught Americans Exploitation Was Good For Them, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimnia
  

The New Fascism, the Far-Right and Antifa

I hear a lot of well educated people saying that the people some of us are calling fascists don't meet all the criteria for being "real" fascists. Others have even accused us of calling anyone we disagree with a fascist. I predict that a few decades (maybe just a few years) from now those same people will be saying they wish they hadn't been quite so fussy with their definitions, and had acted sooner to oppose these "new fascists", even if they weren't identical to the fascists of the twentieth century.

• What “White Privilege” Really Means is We Live in a Fascist World, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
  “How We Live in a Fascist World — and White People Have No Idea”

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 Phosphorus May Be More Alarming Than Climate Change, by Dustin T. Cox, Medium—Climate Conscious
  “Phosphorus is essential to life and the world is running out of it”

Climate Change, or rather, actually, Global Warming

• This is Why We Should Stop Calling it Climate Change, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
  “The Words 'Climate Change' May End Up Being The Biggest Lie Ever Told”
• This Is What the Earth’s Climate Will Look Like in 2050, by Julia Slingo, Medium—One Zerp
  “The future under climate change can seem frighteningly vague and variable. A top climatologist explains what to expect in 2050.”
• Debunking 25 arguments against climate change in 5 sentences or less (each), by Fallacy Man, The Logic of Science
  "Climate change is arguably one of the most misunderstood and controversial topics among the general public. Misinformation abounds, and many people are left debating whether or not we are causing it, and even whether or not it is happening at all. Among scientists, however, there is no serious debate, and there hasn’t been for many years. The evidence for climate change is extremely solid, despite what many blogs and politicians will tell you. Therefore, I want to try to correct some of that misinformation. Yesterday, I posted an extremely lengthy article debunking 25 myths and bad arguments about climate change. Today, I am posting the same information, but in a much more condensed form. I have attempted to address each argument in under 5 sentences. Obviously I had to leave out a lot of information, so if you want the more detailed explanations, please see the original post (each short response is accompanied by a link for the full-length explanation)."

Gardening

• the deep roots of the vegetable that ‘took over the world’, by Gemma Tarlach, Atlas Obscura
  “A study digs up the origin of the single species that gives us turnips, bok choy, broccoli rabe, and more.”

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.

• 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.
• Soil proprietor: Do GMOs promote dirt conservation? by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
  " Genetically engineered crops are supposed to make it easier for farmers to protect the earth by plowing less. But the record is spotty."

Practical Skills

• How to Free Up Space in Gmail, by Boone Ashworth and Lorne Goode, Wired
  “Google offers 15 GB of free storage with every account, but many users are hitting the limit. Use these tips to clear some room, and tidy your inbox while you're at it.”
  I've had a gmail account since shortly after gmail cameout, but I only recently switched to using gmail for all my email. Lots to learn.

American Politics

• Republicans Have Dug Their Grave, Biden Can Bury Them, by ED Mathews, Medium
  “3 things Biden can do to ensure progressive wins for years to come”
• Is Trump Crazy Or Just Stupid? by Caren White, Medium—Politics
  “His statements the past few days make very little sense”
• The Democratic Establishment is Panicking About Nina Turner, by Lauren Elizabeth, Medium—Politics: Fast and Slow
  “And it could be too little too late.”

Dancing on Graves

• How Rumsfeld Deserves to Be Remembered, by George Packer, The Atlantic
  “America’s worst secretary of defense never expressed a quiver of regret.”

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

Gender and Sexuality

• Nigella Lawson mobbed by transphobes, by Gemma Stone, Medium

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.

• Scientists: There Is No Life After Death, by Clem Samson, Medium—The Haven
  Yes, I know this is supposed to be humour. As it happens I seriously agree with pretty much all of it.

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

• The Rent’s Too Damned High, by Cory Doctorow, Medium—Gen
  “A human right, commodified and rendered zero-sum.”
• Here’s Why You’re Broke, According to Wealthy Americans Who Skim My Articles, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
  “The view from the top is judgmental.”
  “These people are straight up bullies, and what they need more than anything is a hard punch in their pocket books. They need to be reminded that all their 'hard won success' was supported by an infrastructure that no longer exists for the vast majority of Americans.”

Humour

These are great times for political satire.

• Oh, That’s Why The Police Opened the Gates and Let the Trump Rioters in the Capitol! by Simon Black, Medium
  “The Purge was going to begin in two minutes!”
  I've chosen to classify this as humour. I could be wrong.
• The Letter From Donald Trump to Joe Biden Left in the Oval Office, by Jay Sizemore, Medium—Satire

Books

Fiction

• The Dreaming Stars: Book II of the Axiom, by Tim Pratt
• The Forbidden Stars: Book III of the Axiom, by Tim Pratt
• One Day All This Will Be Yours, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The Expert System's Champion, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Non-Fiction

• What Makes Civilization, by David Wengrow
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
  Not so good. As one of the Amazon reviewers said: "Fast food for the mind."

What I've Been Reading, January 2021

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

• Ending Poverty in the United States Would Actually Be Pretty Easy, by Fran Quigle, Jacobin Magazine
  An interview with Joanne Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox
  "We have just taken capitalism to a really toxic extreme in the United States."

Miscellaneous

• Beyond the !Kung, by Manvir Singh, Aeon
  "A grand research project created our origin myth that early human societies were all egalitarian, mobile and small-scale"
  I don't agree with this one, but I did read it, so here it is.
• Why Silver Isn’t a Stonk, by Rob Walker, Medium—Marker
  "The meme investor mob came after a physical commodity, and it didn’t go well"
• Will Canada and the US merge if Canada had the opportunity to retain its healthcare system (where citizens of Canadian provinces can have a single payer system) and we already have similar gun laws? by Joan Vredik Broadley, Quora
• Why It’s Not Okay To Throw Out Usable Furniture And Buy New (Just Because We Can!), by Allison Licence, 1 Million Women

Ecological Footprint, Impact, Carrying Capacity, Sustainability

• Ecological Footprint FAQs, Global Footprint Network
  Of all the pages I read on the Global Footprint website, this was the most informative.
• The Ecological Footprint is the only metric that measures how much nature we have and how much nature we use, by the Global Footprint Network
• World Maps of ecological deficit/reserve by country, by the Global Footprint Network
• Data and Methodology, by the Global Footprint Network,
  "Global Footprint Network bridges science, policy, and economics to change how the world manages its natural resources and creates a sustainable future."
• Global hectare, from Wikipedia

Coronavirus

• The Sputnik V Vaccine and Russia’s Race to Immunity, by Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker
  "When the pandemic struck, scientists in Moscow set out to beat the West."

Agriculture

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 products. Millions of dollars are being 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 sustainable.

• Only eat organic? You’re paying too much, and it’s not worth it, author says, by Robert Paarlberg, The Harvard Gazette
  "Not safer, better nutritionally, or likely produced by small, local farm, Robert Paarlberg argues in new book."

Recipes and Cooking

• How to enjoy coffee, by Jessica Easto, Aeon—Psyche
  "Smooth like chocolate or fruity like a berry, coffee has as many tastes as wine or beer – you just need to know your beans"

Genetic Engineering

• 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.
• Golden Rice: Fool’s gold or golden opportunity? by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
  
• Golden Rice: Lifesaver? by Amy Harmon, The New York Times

Practical Skills

• Shaving Horse from 2X4's, by Rick Mayotte, YouTube
  "This shaving horse is made from a couple of 2X4's, a few feet of 2X6, roughly 4 feet of 1X2 material and a few turned 1X1 pieces (3/4 inch dowel could be used instead.) The pivot is about 8 inches of 1/4 inch threaded rod. The shaving horse is compact, light weight and works well."
• Spoon Mule Attachment for the 2x4 Shaving Horse, by Rick Mayotte, YouTube
  " Making a spoon mule attachment for the base of the 2x4 shaving horse. It is made entirely out of dimensional lumber."
• Making Gouges and Chisels Part I, by Rick Mayotte, YouTube
  This is how I make my own wood gouges and chisels. I'm making these for an upcoming carving project that I am going to carve using only chisels and gouges that I have made myself.
• Making Gouges and Chisels Part II, by Rick Mayotte, YouTube
  "Part II of me making a few gouges and chisels for an upcoming wood carving project. This is how I make my own gouges and chisels."

American Politics

• Trump Wanted a Big Sendoff—and Didn’t Get It, by Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker
• Biden’s inauguration might help you sleep better, but don’t become so complacent that you accept a meager status quo. We’ll meet for brunch later, there’s work to do now! by Dawn Allen, The Legal Reader
  

Canadian Politics

• The fall of Jason Kenney, by Bruce Livesey, The National Observer

Linguistics

• Most consonants, fewest vowels, by The Generalist, The Generalist Academy
• Technology now lets us document and preserve indigenous speech, by Guy Clapperton, Medium—Culture
  "The Internet Is Helping Save Forgotten Languages"

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

Science

• Astronomers confirm orbit of most distant object ever observed in our solar system, by Northern Arizona University, phys.org

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.

• Why Learning a Foreign Language Is the Ultimate Brain Workout, by Markham Heid, Medium—Elemental

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 makes atheists deny Christianity and the Bible? by Barry Goldberg, Quora

Humour

These are great times for political satire.

• Premier Ford still not convinced flames shooting from neighbour’s house is sufficient evidence to call fire department, by Staff at the Beaverton,
  
• Philosopher doesn’t feel so smart after getting run over by trolley, by Filipe Dimas, The Beaverton
  Given my low opinion of philosophers and trolley dilemmas, I had a good laugh when reading this one. They even took a shot at Plato and his stupid cave.
• Ford: Thousands more COVID Cases worth it for chance to partially re-open economy for a couple months before shutting down again, by Luke Gordon Field, The Beaverton
• Realtors warn that if housing market collapses everyone could one day afford house, by Jacob Duarte Spiel, The Beaverton

Books

Fiction

• The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson
• Next to Last Stand: A Longmire Mystery, by Craig Johnson
• The Dark Spring: Hard Science Fiction, by Brandon Q. Morris
• The Enceladus Mission: Hard Science Fiction (Ice Moon Book 1) , by Brandon Q. Morris
• The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction, by Brandon Q. Morris

Non-Fiction

I am currently reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of America". Good Stuff!

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.

What I've Been Reading, September 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 You Don’t Have to Feel Too Sick About What Happened Last Night, by Douglas Rushkoff, Medium—Gen
  
• How much money you need to be among the richest 10 percent of people worldwide, by Kathleen Elkins, CNBC Make It
  
• Winning is for Losers: Enspiral and the Politics of Consent, by Douglas Rushkoff, Medium—Team Human
  "How a collective in New Zealand is pointing the way to social change from the bottom up"
• America is a Smoking Fascist Dystopia, by Umair Haque, Medium—Eudaimonia
  "America Has Less Than 50 Days to Save Itself From Even Greater Disaster"
• The Big Myth: Republicans Are Better Managers of the Economy, by JP Kobel, Medium—The Startup
  "Based on historical data, Democratic Presidents have a much better economic record than Republican Presidents."
• We can’t have billionaires and stop climate change, by Jason Hickel, The Correspondent
  "Over and over again, the evidence points to the fact that billionaires—and millionaires, for that matter—are incompatible with planetary boundaries. If we want to live on a safe and habitable planet, we need to do something about inequality."

Miscellaneous

• Neither nasty nor brutish, by Cathryn Townsend, Aeon
  "The Ik – among the poorest people on Earth – have been cast as exemplars of human selfishness. The truth is much more startling."
  This article makes some very good points about selflessness and generousity as basic human traits.
• The self is not always selfish: Mary Midgley takes on Richard Dawkins, video interview with Mary Midgley on Aeon
  I don't agree with everything she says, but yes, selfishness is certainly not the central element of human fitness, just the opposite.

Coronavirus

• Just as predicted by many Donald Trump claims to have miraculously recovered from COVID-19 after just a few days. While we know from all the best medical advice that recovery takes far longer. Is anybody in any doubt that he is faking?, by Steven Haddock, Quora
• Trump’s COVID: Some People Never Learn, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
  "Trump’s COVID diagnosis is the result of a politically-motivated, cavalier attitude towards masks and distancing, but the Right will offer no ‘mea culpa.’"
• Identify the Different Symptoms of the Flu and Covid-19, by Donald G. McNeil Jr., The New York Times
  "With fears of a “twindemic” in the United States this fall, here’s a guide to understanding what’s making you feel terrible."

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

• Late-Stage Capitalism and the Pedagogical Resurgence of Anti-Fascism, by Colin Jenkins, Hampton Institute
  

Collapse

• Here’s What The Real Future Probably Looks Like, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
  "It’s not all starships and robots."
  The author is clearly not a kollapsnik, and is missing out on some of the basics, but even so she is catching on surprisingly well.

Responding to Collapse,

• Mutual Aid, RBG, and Where We Go From Here, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
  "Our rights never should have rested in RBG’s hands alone. The recent surge of mutual aid groups may help prevent that situation in the future."

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.

• Forget Peak Oil Demand, Supply Crisis Could be Hitting First, by Cyril Widdershoven, Yahoo News

Climate Change

• New Study Casts Doubt On The Climate Benefits Of Natural Gas Power Plants, by By Alexander C. Kaufman, HuffPost US
  "The emissions and methane leaks from new gas plants zero out the CO2 cuts achieved from closing coal plants, a peer-reviewed analysis found."
• Where To Live Around The World To Escape Climate Change—Expanding my analysis beyond America, with a sobering conclusion, by Danny Schleien, Medium—Climate Conscious
  "Stop saying that we are all in the same boat. We’re all in the same storm. But we’re not all in the same boat."
  "In essence, the best places to escape climate change are also the world’s most economically prosperous places. The correlation is uncomfortably tight."
• Climate-Related Events Could Force Millions to Migrate in Next 50 Years, by Now This Earth, YouTube
  

Economic Contraction and Growing Inequality

• Forget Shutdowns. It’s ‘Demand Shock’ That’s Killing Our Economy, by James Surowiecki, Medium—Marker
  "Gyms, restaurants, and movie theaters are all reeling for the very same reason"
  Evidently, declining surplus energy is not the only thing that can cause economic contraction. The current pandemic is quite effective, and "opening things up" doesn't help much when people are still concerned about exposing themselves to a very real risk.

Energy

• Energy Transitions: Global & National Perspectives, by Vaclav Smil, YouTube

Agriculture

• On the Necessity of Land Reform, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
• The Minimum Human Habitat, Zero Input Agriculture
  "Trialling and breeding crops and livestock that can produce without irrigation, fertiliser and imported nutrients"

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.

• 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.
• Elephant in the room: Why getting the GMO story straight is so hard, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist

American Politics

• Modern Conservatives Have Nothing To Offer America, by Dr. Thomas J. West III, Medium—Politics
  "A recent op-ed from a noted conservative thinker exposes the moral and intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of conservatism."
• Why I dropped ‘conservative’ from my Twitter profile, by Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post
• The Rules for Displacing an Ailing Presidential Candidate, by Brian C. Kalt, Lawfare
• Just How Disastrous Are the Latest Polls for Donald Trump? by John Cassidy, The New Yorker
• Corruption: What Does It Mean To You? by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
  "Political corruption used to mean fraud, bribery, and the abuse of power for personal gain. To some of us, it still does."

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

Pseudoscience, Quacks and Charlatans

• Moon landing deniers show an image with a crosshair behind an object. How can this be explained by someone who doesn't believe the conspiracy? by Krister Sundelin, Quora
• I recently heard this flat-earth argument: "If the Earth were spinning 1,000 mph, a hovering helicopter would get left behind as the Earth rotated away underneath it, or it could simply wait for its destination to come to it." How do I respond? by Daniel Steadman, Quora
• Does the Bedford canal experiment prove the Earth is flat? by Brennan Herring, Quora
  

Gender and Sexuality

• Transgender kids’ brains resemble their gender identity, not their biological sex, by Alex Bollinger, LGBTQ Nation
  "We might literally be talking about girls' brains trapped in boys' bodies, and vice versa, according to a new study."
• The number of trans people killed in the United States has hit an all-time high. 2020 isn’t over, by Daniel Villarreal, LGBTQ Nation
  

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.

• Does everything happen for a reason?, by Kelly Corrigan, Medium
  "Looking at how we respond to the terrible fact that hard and horrible things happen to perfectly lovely people"
• One Book Explains Everything That’s Wrong with America in 2020, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium—Apeiron
  "“The Secret” inscribed a toxic ideology we must undo."

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

• A B.C. research project gave homeless people $7,500 each—the results were 'beautifully surprising', by Bridgette Watson, CBC News
• Affordable Housing in a Rebuilt Economy, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
  "Affordable housing was an issue even before COVID-19. Now we must decide what homes are for: sheltering people, or making a profit?"

Humour

• How to Grow & Harvest Your Own Organic Corn Syrup, High Mowing Organic Seeds

Books

Fiction

• Attack Surface, by Cory Doctorow
  I haven't actually read this one yet. The link is to a review. Sounds like I'll be reading it next.
• Emergence, Foreign 19, by C. J. Cherryh
• Resurgence, Foreign 20, by C. J. Cherryh
• Divergence, Foreign 21, by C. J. Cherryh
• A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, by C. A. Fletcher
• Articulated Restraint, by Mary Robinette Kowal
• First Flight, by Mary Robinette Kowal
• For Want of A Nail, by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Relentless Moon, A Lady Astronaut Novel, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Non-Fiction

Didn't finish any non-fiction books this month, but I'm working my way through a couple of good ones and hope to finish one or maybe both by the end of October.

What I've Been Reading, November & December 2019

Links

Miscellaneous

• You're not going to believe what I am about to tell you, by Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal
• Nick Brown Smelled Bull, by Vinnie Rotondaro, Pocket— Narratively
  " A plucky amateur dared to question a celebrated psychological finding. He wound up blowing the whole theory wide open."
• Should We Stop Keeping Pets?, by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, Pocket—The Guardian
  As a pet owner and a guy who grew up on a beef farm, I disagree with this. City dwellers have a tenuous grasp of what animal life is like in the wild. Dogs, and cats in particular, domesticated themselves because it was a soft touch.
• The idea ancient people didn’t live until old age is a myth, by Christine Cave, Quartz
• Kansas City becomes first major American city with universal fare-free public transit, by Martin Cizmar, 435—Kansas City's Magazine
• UC Berkeley’s Ultra-Popular ‘Adulting’ Class Shows Just How Badly Our Society Has Failed Young People, by Minda Zetlin, Medium—Inc. Magazine
• The marvel of the human dad, by Anna Machin, Aeon
  Among our close animal relatives, only humans have involved and empathic fathers. Why did evolution favour the devoted dad?
• How White Feminists Oppress Black Women: When Feminism Functions as White Supremacy, by Monnica T. Williams, Ph.D., ABPP, Chacruna.net
• The Unimaginable Reality of American Concentration Camps, by Masha Gessen, The New Yorker
  "The debate over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the term “concentration camp” is not about language or facts. It is about how we perceive history, ourselves, and ourselves in history."
• 6 Dangerous “Urban Survival Myths” About Water, Survival Cache
• Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers backfires, by Jerry Z. Muller, Aeon

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

• ‘When the revolution becomes the State it becomes my enemy again’: an interview with James C.Scott , by Benjamin Ferron, Claire Oger and James C.Scott, The Conversation
• Why was East Germany so 'Poor'?, by Bad Mouse, YouTube
• Welcome to the Global Rebellion Against Neoliberalism, by Ben Ehrenreich, The Nation
  "All of the countries recently experiencing popular revolts—and most of the rest of the planet—have for decades been ruled by a single economic model, in which the “growth” celebrated by the pedigreed few means immiseration for the many..."
• Don’t misread Darwin: for humans, ‘survival of the fittest’ means being sympathetic, video by University of California, Aeon
• The Anarchist Daughter of the GOP's Gerrymandering Mastermind Just Dumped His Maps and Files on Google Drive, by Alex Lubben, Vice
  “I won't be satisfied that we the people have found everything until we the people have had a look at it in its entirety,” she said.

The New Fascism, and Antifa

I hear a lot of well educated people saying that the people some of us are calling fascists don't meet all the criteria for being "real" fascists. Others have even accused us of calling anyone we disagree with a fascist. I predict that a few decades from now those same people will be saying they wish they hadn't been quite so fussy with their definitions, and had acted sooner to oppose these "new fascists", even if they weren't identical to the fascists of the twentieth century.

• Vikings were never the pure-bred master race white supremacists like to portray , by Clare Downham , The Conversation
• The Future Is Fascist, Unless We Act Now, by Dawn Allen, Legal Reader
  Lots of links to good resources in this one. Also an explanation of why a section on fascism belong on this blog.
• Is the Future Fascist?, by Umair Haque, Medium-Eudaimonia
  "Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Inequality, and Stagnation All Fuel Fascism. But Those Define This Century. Now What?"
• The Future is Fascist, by Rhyd Wildermuth, A Site of Beautiful Resistance

Eco-Modernism, Decoupling and the Religion of Progress

,

• The Wikipedia article on eco-economic decoupling
• Dark Thoughts on Ecomodernism , by Chris Smaje, The Dark Mountain Project
• Ecomodernism: a response to my critics, by Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future

Collapse

• The end of civilization will be painted green, by Tim Watkins, The Consciousness of Sheep
• Australia teeters on the brink of a humanitarian crisis as food, fuel and water run low in bushfire-ravaged regions and the NAVY is called in ahead of horror 46C weather predicted for Saturday, by Brittany Chain, Daily Mail Australia
• Dennis Meadows, The Limits to Growth, a Peak Prosperity podcast wherein Christ Martenson interviews Dennis Meadows
• Scientific Models and Myths: What Is the Difference? by Gail Tverberg, Our Finite World

Responding to Collapse,

• Scientists: it’s time to get serious about degrowth, by Vitaliy Soloviy, Sustainability Times

Peak Oil

• Oil Shocks. Airplanes are energy gluttons. Shut down the airports. Refine crude for ships, trains, and trucks, by Alice Friedemann, www.energyskeptic.com,
• From Boom To Bust: Permian Shale Towns Face Exodus, Zero Hedge

Climate Change

• What Would Net Zero Emissions by 2025 Look Like?, by Dave Pollard, How to save the world
• Want to Stop Climate Change? Start With the US Military, by William Astore, The Nation
  "Our endless wars are taking countless innocent lives and destroying the planet itself."
• Autralia's "Black Summer" Fires, photo shared on Facebook.
• Australia's "Black Summer" Fires, a visual aide to understanding the magnitude of the problem.

Economic Contraction and Growing Inequality

• How the Finance Industry Fueled Four Decades of Inequality in America, by Ken-Hou Lin, Medium—Marker
  "The credit market has been revealed as a regressive system of redistribution benefiting the rich and devastating the poor."
  This is an excellent description of the effects of economic contraction (primarily inequality), without ever admitting that that contraction is happening, or venturing any idea about what might be causing it. In my opinion the contraction is indeed happening and is driven by decreasing surplus energy. Growing inequality is a result of the upper class manipulating the economy to retain a growing slice of a shrinking pie.
• The Market Is Huge! Revisiting The Big Market Delusion, by Aswath Damodaran, Seeking Alpha
  One of the ways in which markets malfunction, bubbles get blown and eventually collapse. I can;t say I agree with the author's conclusion that bubbles are, on balance, a good thing.

Energy

• It Bears Repeating: Renewables Alone Won’t End the Climate Crisis, by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee
• Tesla—Semi. The people at Tesla claim their truck's energy consumption is less than 2 kWh per mile.
• Given the laws of physics, can the Tesla Semi really go 500 miles, and what will the price be? Alice Friedemann, at the Energy Skeptic blog, reckons a 30,000 lb. battery would be needed. Some of her realistic/pessimistic assumptions appear to account for this being the heaviest battery estimated by any of the people on this list.
• Key Specs on Tesla’s Electric Semi-Truck Still Secret. Jerry Hirsch at trucks.com figures on a 700 kWh,10,000 lb. battery.
• In The Truth About The Tesla Semi-Truck, in which the people at the You Tube channel Real Engineering say 900-1000 kWh would be needed for a 500 mile range, requiring a battery weighing 17,380 lbs., costing about $180,000
• You might also want to read Tesla's Quest for Better Batteries, wherein Real Engineer explain how he believes Tesla may be able to increase the energy density of their lithium ion batteries up to 300Wh/kg in the future
• Why Tesla’s Electric Semi Truck Is the Toughest Thing Musk Has Attempted Yet, according to Julia Pyper at Green Tech Media
• Tesla’s Newest Promises Break the Laws of Batteries, according to Tom Randall and John Lippert at Bloomberg, who talk about an 800 kWh battery, weighing more than 10,000 pounds and costing more than $100,000.
• Electric trucks like the Tesla Semi are 'pointless both economically and ecologically,' according to vehicle-tech experts at Business Insider.

Food

• Magical Microbes: How to Feed Your Gut, by Amy Fleming, The Guardian
• Time to change aid to give people sovereignty over their food, by Preet Gill, Open Democracy
  "The world has more than enough food, but current UK aid policy helps concentrate power over it in corporate hands."
• Philippines approves Golden Rice for direct use as food and feed, or for processing, International Rice Research Institute
• USDA Pesticide Data Program Report – Year After Year Consistency, The Alliance for Food and Farming

Genetic Engineering

Before jumping to the erroneous conclusion that this section was paid for any of the big bio-tech companies, 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 yearly to convince you that genetically engineered organisms are dangerous, while the scientific consensus says just the opposite.

• Panic-free GMOs, A Grist Special Series
  "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.
• The genetically modified food debate: Where do we begin?, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
• Statement by the AAAS Board of DirectorsOn Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods, by The American Association For The Advancement Of Science
• CRISPR Cheat Sheet: The Most Important Gene Editing Stories of 2019, by Emily Mullin, Medium—OneZero

Practical Skills

• How To Spin Yarn Using A Drop Spindle, by Christine MacLeod, YouTube

Politics

• What ‘The New York Times’ Got Wrong on Bolivia, by Greg Grandin, The Nation
  "By endorsing a military coup against a democratically elected government, the Times betrayed its values and its journalists."

Linguistics

• English is not normal, by John McWhorter, Aeon
  "No, English isn’t uniquely vibrant or mighty or adaptable. But it really is weirder than pretty much every other language."
• Dogs hear words the same way we do, by Virginia Morell, Science

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

Pseudoscience, Quacks and Charlatans

• Wikipedia article: Electromagnetic hypersensitivity
• Wikipedia article: nocebo effect
• Pain science.com: Electromagnetic Sensitivity Absurdity
• Rational Wiki: Electromagnetic hypersensitivity
• Science based medicine, search results on emf sensitivity. There are some excellent articles near the top of the search results.
• Quack Watch: "Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity" Is Not a Valid Diagnosis
• A major funder of the anti-vaccine movement has made millions selling natural health products, by Neena Satija and Lena H. Sun, The Washington Post

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.

• Real love stories, by Sue Johnson, Aeon
  "Romantic expectations are often ridiculous and unhelpful, but attachment science can guide us to real and lasting love."
• The Hardest Part About Learning Hard Things, by Scott Young, Pccket Worthy
• Relationships Fail Because Most People Have Conversations Like This, by Nicolas Cole, Medium—P.S. I Love You
• Your Bedroom Is Too Hot—What is the ideal temperature for sleep? by James Hamblin, The Atlantic
• To Become Super-Likable, Practice “The Ben Franklin Effect”, by Barry Davret, Medium—The Startup

Gender and Sexuality

• The XX & XY Lie: Our Social Construction of a Sex and Gender Binary, by Sara C, Medium
  "When a scientific system misses millions of people, is the problem with the people who don’t fit or the system itself?"
• The B Word, by Trista Mateer, Medium—Human Parts
• Is “cis” offensive? by Cursed E, Medium—Equality

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 many confused and incorrect ideas.

• Common Sense Atheism, by Barry Goldberg, Quora
  "Because you shouldn't need a Ph.D to defend your lack of belief"
• The Secular Religions of Progress, by Robert H. Nelson, The New Atlantis

Intelligence and Consciousness

• The consciousness illusion, by Keith Frankish, Aeon
  "Phenomenal consciousness is a fiction written by our brains to help us track the impact that the world makes on us."

Puerto Rico, Venezuela

• Venezuela Is Fast Becoming World's Biggest Refugee Crisis, Zero Hedge

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

• What would happen if we randomly gave $1,000 to poor families? Now we know., by Francisco Toro, The Washington Post
• What 60 Minutes Missed: 44 Percent of U.S. Workers Earn $18,000 Per Year, by Charles Mudede, The Stranger
• Working As An Escort Helped My PTSD, by Laura LeMoon, Medium—The Establishment
• Poverty Grew in One-Third of Counties Despite Strong National Economy, by Tim Henderson, PEW
  A rising tide, it would seem, does not float all boats. Something that many of us have known for a long time
• Supreme Court leaves cities with one option on homelessness: More housing, by Benjamin Oreskes, LA Times
• Here’s What Most People Don’t Know About ‘Being On Food Stamps’, by Nin McCollum, Huffpost Personal
  "Despite the supposed 'low unemployment' numbers touted by politicians and talking heads, almost half of Americans are working in unskilled, low-paying jobs. Many others are unemployed and/or underemployed and can’t even secure a part-time job. I’m one of those people, but I’m not a unique case. And I believe it’s important for people to hear my story so that they can have a better and more complete picture of what’s really happening in America and why."
• Among the World’s Most Dire Places: This California Homeless Camp, by Thomas Fuller and Josh Haner, The New York Times
• New study finds most Americans don’t really care about inequality, by Annalisa Merelli, Quartz

Artificial Intelligence

• Facebook's Head of AI Says the Field Will Soon ‘Hit the Wall’, by Will Knight, Wired Magazine
  "Jerome Pesenti is encouraged by progress in artificial intelligence, but sees the limits of the current approach to deep learning."
• What Elon Musk Got Wrong With Artificial Intelligence, by Anne Gherini, Medium—Inc. Magazine
  "Experts agree that we may not be ready for fully autonomous solutions."

Education

• Finland has the most efficient education system in the world, by JennyAnderson, Quartz—Northern Lights

Books

Fiction

Except for one new book (Little Coffee House of Kabul) onloan froma friend, I've been re-reading old favourites.

• Little Coffee House of Kabul, by Deborah Rodriguez
• Look to Windward, by Iain M. Banks
• Vacuum Flowers, by Michael Swanwick
• Triton, by Samuel R. Delany
• Quarter Share, by Nathan Lowell
• Half Share, by Nathan Lowell
• Full Share, by Nathan Lowell
• Double Share, by Nathan Lowell
• Captain's Share, by Nathan Lowell
• Owner's Share, by Nathan Lowell

Non-Fiction

• Two Cheers for Anarchism, by James C. Scott