Friday 10 April 2020

What I've Been Reading, March 2020

Links

Above the Fold

Miscellaneous

Coronavirus

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

Collapse

Responding to Collapse,

Peak Oil

Climate Change

Economic Contraction and Growing Inequality

Energy

Emergency Preparation

Recipes and Cooking

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.
  • Genetic engineering: Do the differences make a difference? by Nathanael Johnson, Grist

Practical Skills

American Politics

Canadian Politics

Debunking Resources

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

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.

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.

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

Artificial Intelligence

Humour

These are great times for political satire.

Books

Fiction

Non-Fiction

I am reading currently "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth", by Benjamin Friedman, which was lent to me by a friend. Written by a conventional economist who doesn't even seem to know what causes economic growth, or what its consequences really are, it is pretty tough going. Important to know how the other side thinks, though, I guess.

Here are a few non-fiction works that I can recommend. And appropriate to the season, as well.

4 comments:

Bev said...

Your 'what I've been reading' posts keep me going in bedtime reading for days LOL. Some of the items I've already read, because we're on the same wavelength and read and share the same things, but there's always something new. So thanks for that.

The 'emergency prepping/what to buy' article is interesting, not so much by what it says, but by the fact that such advice is even necessary in this day and age of living in a complex, networked society. It seems, from all the panic buying, that many people just don't figure that there may be a problem with the system continuing to work and preparing for that 'just in case' scenario when it may all stop working. Whatever happened to the Boy Scout motto "Be Prepared"? Ever since I discovered peak oil and thought about the consequences, I've kept the cupboards stocked with food and other essentials (and naturally, been thought a bit 'weird' when I mentioned it).

I don't think everything is going to get back to 'normal' anytime soon. What will be interesting is to see what happens when the '2 weeks supply' of stored food we're being recommended to put aside has gone and supermarkets are still having trouble stocking the shelves, due to the multitude of networked production problems caused by the lockdown.

I have so much stored food that I've lost touch with what's on the rear shelves, so I spent the last rainy day sorting it all out and creating a database of items and quantities and useby dates. I'm still adding to it (the bathroom cupboard is now a pantry extension LOL).

Re the article on Outlook. I've always used Thunderbird and never had any problems. Also use Mozilla's Firefox browser. Anything to get as much as possible away from Windows stuff.

Brecon Quaddy said...

In polite societies, people wear masks if they have or suspect they have a cold or the flu. It's a reasonable expectation. But if everyone wears masks all the time, when do we stop? On the word of an official. On national mask-off day (like taking off winter tyres in some countries)?

Humans have several million years of evolving mechanisms for co existing with viruses in a way that allows over 99% of people to survive encounters with new ones, often without noticing it.

Masks merely tip the odds very slightly if you're I'll or in constant close contact with others who are ill. Besides, the design and fit of most masks I see people starting to wear would hardly keep out a gooseberry, let alone an aerosol droplet, making them almost pointless.

Irv Mills said...

@ Bev

I'm always amazed to hear that anyone is on even close to the same wavelength as me--but not too surprised in this case. And I'm glad to hear there are a few items each month that are new to you.

Keeping a stocked pantry seem to be something that is just not done these days. And the ideas of storing what you eat and eating what you stores seems really unheard of. I have friends who call me a "survivalist" because I have a few weeks of supplies on hand. But it was very reassuring to have that when the shelves went bare in the stores a few weeks ago.

Our local stores are getting back close to normal now. We are going shopping a lot less frequently now, but still trying to replace items as we use them, and build up our supplies a little more as well. I worry a bit about next fall, and how much of this years crop will go in and how much will get harvested. I expect there will be some supply problems,not an outright famine, but periods when you just can't get some things.

It is spring here in Ontario and an early one at that. Hopefully a good year for gardening.

I've been using Firefox for along time now and I'm not sorry I've switched over to Thunderbird.

Irv Mills said...

@ Brecon Quaddy

Here in Canada even the cruddiest of our politicians are meticulously following the "advice of our medical experts". And well they should. It's a theme of this blog that there is such a thing as a "scientific consensus" and one is well advised not to let one's ideology interfere with paying attention to that consensus.

Since that now includes wearing masks when you are out of the house, I guess we'll be wearing them until the experts say otherwise. Not everyone is yet, anyway, but it is definitely catching on.

I am wondering if you actually read any of those articles on wearing masks, since the idea is not to protect the wearer from the virus, but to protect everyone else from the mask wearer. 25 to 50% of those infected show no symptoms, so you or I could be spreading virus everywhere we go without even realizing.

Yes, we have evolved mechanisms for coping with viruses--immune systems which enable us to become immune after having the disease. In this case we'd like to reduce the number of people who have to die before we develop herd immunity.