Wednesday 21 October 2020

What I've Been Reading, September 2020

Links

Above the Fold

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

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

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.

Climate Change

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

Agriculture

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

Debunking Resources

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

Pseudoscience, Quacks and Charlatans

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 deal of confused thinking.

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

Humour

Books

Fiction

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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Irv,

I’ve spend some time on your blog today and can say we’re pretty much on the same page. Perhaps with one exception :-) I can’t agree more that we should be really careful with believes. Or to speak with J. Krishamurti: “is it necessary to believe?”.
I therefore consider myself an agnostic as I think an atheist is someone who believes (a) god does not exist. As the existence or non existence of (a) god is not (scientifically) proven it must be a believe. I consider it highly unlikely that (a) god exists as described by various religions, or in other words I consider it much more likely than not that a (god) as described by the religions of the world indeed does not exist.

I am also acutely aware what we haven’t even begun to onderstaand the universe. Even if we could scientifically prove that (a) god does not exist, all science still takes place within the boundaries of our very limited understanding.

It saddens me deeply that our capacity to increase our scientific knowledge will diminish at the same pace our societies will collapse, possibly even faster as scientific work has to be considered discretionary in a world where the basic necessities of life are no longer guaranteed for those having been able to pursue scientific research.

Kind regards and be well,
Jan
New Zealand

Steven B Kurtz said...

Jan,

It is logically impossible to prove non-existence in an open, complex system. This is known as the Negative Fallacy.

https://irhm.org/2020/02/13/negative-proof

https://logfall.wordpress.com/negative-proof-fallacy/

Cheers,

Steve Kurtz
Amherst MA

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve,

Yes ... and your point is?

Jan

Irv Mills said...

@ Steve and Jan
I think I may have accidentally deleted one of your comments. Sorry about that. Please carry on with your discussion.

I am not so sure that knowing there is no God is so difficult. Certainly monotheists seem quite confident that they needn't believe in any of the other gods except the one they believe in. I just take it one step further.

Steven B Kurtz said...

Jan, I was responding to your statement:

"As the existence or non existence of (a) god is not (scientifically) proven it must be a believe."

Proving "non existence" is an impossible request. (negative fallacy) 100% of the burden is on the claimant.

If some asked you to prove the non-existence of the tooth fairy, of ghosts, of Satan, the same fallacy applies.