Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts

Monday, 13 January 2020

What I've Been Reading, November & December 2019

Links

Miscellaneous

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

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.

Eco-Modernism, Decoupling and the Religion of Progress

,

Collapse

Responding to Collapse,

Peak Oil

Climate Change

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

Food

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.

Practical Skills

Politics

Linguistics

Debunking Resources

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

Pseudoscience, Quacks and Charlatans

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.

Gender and Sexuality

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.

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

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

Artificial Intelligence

Education

Books

Fiction

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

Non-Fiction

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Thursday, 1 November 2018

What I've Been Reading, October 2018

Links

Miscellaneous

Collapse

  • Technofantasia in action, by Tim Watkins, The Consciousness of Sheep
  • Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent Demise, by Nafeez Ahmed, Medium—Insurge Intelligence
    A climate change-fueled switch away from fossil fuels means the worldwide economy will fundamentally need to change
  • Is America at Rock Bottom Yet? By Umair Haque, Medium— Eudaimonia
    "If the Rise of Political Violence Doesn’t Make Society Reject Authoritarianism — What Will?"
    Sadly, if all the problems Umair points out were corrected, we'd still face the effects of declining surplus energy, for which there is no solution.

Responding to Collapse,

A Paradise built in Hell, The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster
I'm borrowing the title of Rebecca Solnit's book for this section of links. There is a deep human need to come together in crises to take care of each other. And contrary to the horrific picture of typical reactions to disaster painted by the "disaster mythology", in fact communities often do come together to help themselves in the most extraordinarily positive ways.

A transcript is included with each of these podcasts.

Peak Oil

Climate Change

  • Global heatwave is symptom of early stage cycle of civilisational collapse, by Nafeez Ahmed, Medium—Insurge Intelligence
    "Collapse does not arrive in this scenario as a singular point of terminal completion. Rather, collapse occurs as a a series of discrete but consecutive and interconnected amplifying feedback processes by which these dynamics interact and worsen one another."
    "It is not a final process, and it is not set-in-stone. At each point, the possibility of intervening at critical points to mitigate, ameliorate, adapt, or subvert still exists. But it gets harder and harder to do so effectively the deeper into the collapse cycle we go."
  • We are heading for a New Cretaceous, not for a new normal, by Peter Forbes, Aeon

Economic Contraction

  • Our Bonus Decade , by Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
    "As a shorthand way of speaking about these four related factors, we at PCI have begun speaking of the “E4 crisis” (energy, environment, economy, and equity). It’s no longer helpful to focus on one factor to the exclusion of the others; it’s far more informative to look for ways in which all four are interacting in real time."

Energy

Emergency Preparation

Agriculture and Food

  • Farm Babe: My story: Why I advocate for agriculture, by Michelle Miller, Farm Babe
    "The reason I share my story with you; the reason I am so passionate about this, is because I want people to know I get it. I was once very misinformed and wasted a lot of money. I see how crazy and confusing it can be to only want what’s best for your family, the planet, and the animals. I want people to understand that farmers are real people who just want to connect with you. Behind the corporate face of “big ag” are real family farmers. Good people who want you to understand what we do and why."
  • Is Organic Really Better? 4 Food Myths Debunked By Science, by Victor Tangermann, Futurism

Practical Skills

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.

Politics

Free Speech

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.

  • How To Make A Relationship Last, by Kris Gage, Medium—Relationships
    As a guy who has been married over 41 years, I'd say this is pretty much spot on. Although after you've done it, the work doesn't seem like such a big deal. It's the work that remains to be done that's the big deal.
  • Six science-backed techniques to help you make hard decisions, by Aytekin Tank, Medium—The Startup
    There is a lot of the "business speak" that I find so irritating in this one, but the techniques it presents are solid.

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 avoid 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.

Intelligence

  • The elephant as a person, by Don Ross, Aeon
    "Elephants might have the necessary capacities for personhood – we just need to help them acquire the cognitive scaffolding"

Refugees and Migration

Poverty, Homeless People, Minimum Wage, UBI

  • Dunkin' Donuts Employees Just Got Involved in Another Disgraceful Incident. This One Could Be the Worst, by Chris Matyszczyk, inc.com
  • How to Be a Better Neighbor to Homeless People, by Matthew Gerring, Medium—Better Humans
    "...in my home city of San Francisco, about 70% of people experiencing homelessness were housed residents of San Francisco before becoming homeless. They worked and paid rent just like everybody else before some catastrophic event, like a job loss or an eviction or a natural disaster, led to the loss of their home."
    "It’s one thing to call the police when someone is in danger, or causing danger to others. It’s another thing to call the police (or to vote to give new powers to the police) just because someone is doing something that annoys you."

Autonomous Vehicles and Artificial Intelligence

Education

  • Why it’s so Hard to Help With Your Kid’s Math Homework, by Jessica Lahey, Medium/Washington Post
    This is why parents get frustrated with their kids’ math homework, and why kids may end up thinking they are not “math people”
    This one was almost amusing to read. Apparently, Canada, or at least Ontario, went down another road from the US, and tried to give kids "math sense" while largely eliminating the rote learning of number facts and basic procedures. The results, I can assure you, are just as bad. Somehow, in elementary school in the 1960s, I was forced to do the rote learn and also managed to develop a strong math sense. Both are needed. And a large part of having math sense is having those number facts memorized so well that it feels like intuition when you use them. You'll never get math sense without that foundation to to base it on.
    When discussing these issues with friends I am frequently given examples of supposedly hard math problems that I can do in my head in a matter of seconds. I am no rocket scientist, I just have a pretty good grasp of the basics.
  • You Have to Adapt, or Die Trying, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
    "Nobody succeeds at anything without adapting. In order to adapt, you have to realize what’s missing. In short, identify why you currently suck."
    I could just as easily have put this in the "Lacking a Manual" or "Responding to Collapse" section, but since it's from the viewpoint of a teacher, I'll leave it here.
  • Flawed thinking has hijacked early childhood education, by Kendra Bell-Hayes, Medium—Education
    This one got included because the same points could be made in any situation where adversaries try to communicate. That's something we all need help with.

Humour

Books

Fiction

Non-Fiction

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Monday, 1 October 2018

What I've Been Reading, September 2018

Links

Miscellaneous

Collapse

Peak Oil

Climate Change

Economic Contraction

Emergency Preparation

Agriculture and Food

Genetic Engineering

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.

Refugees and Migration

Puerto Rico

Poverty, Homelessness, Minimum Wage, UBI

Books

Fiction

I re-read Kim Stanley Robinson's "Science in the Capital" trilogy this month.

Non-Fiction

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Sunday, 1 July 2018

What I've Been Reading, June 2018

This note used to say that the links below appear in the order I read them and was meant imply that they were more or less random in their subject matter, other than being of interest to me. Recently I started a few new sections at the bottom of the links on subjects that are of particular interest to me. But I can see that as time passes I am moving to a greater degree of "curation", which the dictionary tells me is about organizing and maintaining a collection. Applied to this collection of links and books I guess this will mean selecting links less randomly and trying to make them relevant in the context of this blog and whatever is going on in the world during the month.

But my originally statement still applies to the first section of links—they are pretty much random and just in the order I read them.

Links

Intelligence

Refugees and Migration

  • Five myths about the refugee crisis, by Daniel Trilling, The Guardian
    "...how likely is it that states which treat migrants with such callousness will behave similarly towards their own citizens?"

Poverty, Homelessness, Minimum Wage

Books

Fiction

Non-Fiction

I'm still wading slowly through The Bell Curve, in order to be able to criticize it with some degree of credibility. Almost half way through at this point. This has also lead to reading some scholarly articles about IQ on the web, further slowing down my other reading. I did read a couple of short non-fiction works this month, though.

  • This is Water, by David Foster Wallace
    "Some thoughts, delivered on a significant occasion, about living a compassionate life."
    As a committed atheist, I don't agree with the author's thoughts on the impossibility of not worshipping. I do agree that many people do worship things other than God, that are a bad or worse than God. But the important part is what the author has to say about the importance of seeing things from the other guy's viewpoint.
  • Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, by David Graeber
    An excellent little book about anarchism.
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Tuesday, 5 June 2018

What I've Been Reading, May 2018

This note used to say that the links below appear in the order I read them and was meant imply that they were more or less random in their subject matter, other than being of interest to me. Recently I started a few new sections at the bottom of the links on subjects that are of particular interest to me. But I can see that as time passes I am moving to a greater degree of "curation", which the dictionary tell me is about organizing and maintaining a collection. Applied to this collection of links and books I guess this will mean selecting links less randomly and trying to make them relevant in the context of this blog and whatever is going on in the world during the month.

Links

Intelligence

  • The unwelcome revival of "race science", by Gavin Evans, The Guardian
  • Socioeconomic Status Modifies Heritability Of IQ In Young Children, by Eric Turkheimer et al, University of Virginia
    "Results demonstrate that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse."

Poverty, Homelessness, Minimum Wage

Puerto Rico

Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles

Books

Fiction

  • Step to the Stars, by Lester del Rey
    I originally read this when I was about 10 years old. Re-read it purely for nostalgic reasons.
  • Nemesis Games, by James S. A. Corey
    Book five of the Expanse series.
  • On a Red Station Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard
  • Into the Fire, by Elizabeth Moon
    Another episode in the "Vatta's Peace" series
  • After the Last Day, by Don Hayward
    The author is a fellow I actually know, who lives in Goderich, the next town south from Kincardine along Lake Huron. What mainly attracted me to the book, though, is that it is a story of life after the collapse of civilization in the area where I grew up. It starts in the town where I went to high school, and then the plot expands to include most of Southern Ontario and a small part of Northern Ontario. Don has done a pretty good job of sketching out the events following a major financial collapse.

Non-Fiction

I'm still wading slowly through The Bell Curve, in order to be able to criticize it with some degree of credibility. This has also lead to reading some scholarly articles about IQ on the web, further slowing down my other reading. So I didn't read any other non-fiction books this month, even those I have a growing pile that I'd like to get to. To make up for this lack, here is a short list of some gems from my bookshelf:

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