What I've Been Reading, March and April 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

• How Hunter-Gatherers Maintained Their Egalitarian Ways, by Peter Gray Ph.D., Psychology Today
  "The important lessons from hunter-gatherers are about culture, not genes."
• On Graeber and Wengrow and Institutional Flexibility, by Eric Schliesser, Digressions&Impressions
• How to change the course of human history (at least, the part that’s already happened), by David Graeber and David Wengrow, Eurozine
  "The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of ‘agricultural revolution’ remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors." "But on one thing we insist. Abandoning the story of a fall from primordial innocence does not mean abandoning dreams of human emancipation – that is, of a society where no one can turn their rights in property into a means of enslaving others, and where no one can be told their lives and needs don’t matter. To the contrary. Human history becomes a far more interesting place, containing many more hopeful moments than we’ve been led to imagine, once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there."
• A Lot of People Don't Want to Win | James Butler Meets David Graeber, YouTube—Novara Media
  "At The World transformed 2018 James Butler met with David Graeber to talk Momentum,dual power, co-option, the extra-parliamentary left and winning."
• David Graeber on the Value of Work, by David Graeber, YouTube
  "Does the world really need neuroadvertisers, PR researchers and branding consultants? Renowned academic and coiner of the ‘we are the 99%’ slogan, David Graeber is a passionate advocate for meaningful work. After famously condemning the 21st century phenomenon of ‘bullsh*t jobs’, in this short animation he investigates the philosophical underpinnings of employment, and calls for a reformulation of what work should be."
• The miracle of the commons, by Michelle Nijhuis, Aeon
  "Far from being profoundly destructive, we humans have deep capacities for sharing resources with generosity and foresight."

Miscellaneous

• Monkeys and wolves forge alliance that resembles domestication done by humans, by Tibi Puiu, ZME Science
  "In Ethiopia's grasslands, huge herds of gelada monkeys might be in the process of domesticating wolves."
• 15 Lies About Firearms Movies and Video Games Told You, by Cracked Writers and Andres Diplotti, Cracked
  "There's something about firearms. Regardless of our ideas about gun control, we can't help but admire a sleek, well-honed, lubricated death machine. Guns have two main purposes: First, being cool (and making you look and feel cool by association), and in a distant second place, causing an awful lot of harm. So they're kind of like mechanical cigarettes (and to some people, just as addictive).
  And yet, considering how many firearms most people have seen, the average person knows remarkably little about them. We're here to help fix that."
• A Bach cello piece played atop a mountain is as exhilarating as you’d expect, cellist Ruth Boden, Director: Gavin Carver, Aeon video
  "Andante (a musical term meaning ‘at walking pace’) follows the cellist Ruth Boden as she climbs 10,000 feet to a peak in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for a deeply personal, yet breathtakingly public solo performance. With her prized cello strapped to her back, Boden reflects on how she wants to do something with music that transcends the commonplace, and on the particular joy of playing from Bach’s cello suite at ‘the top of the world’."
• The Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity, by Corinne Purtill, Quartz/Pocket
  "We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril."
• Why I shut down an argument in my philosophy for children class, by Amy Reed-Sandoval, Aeon—Psyche
• What fat is for, Director and Animator: Ermina Takenova; Producer: Kellen Quinn; Writer: Nicola Williams,
  "Abundance has made fat an enemy, but it’s been a friend to humans for millennia"
• The interstellar dream is dying, by Chris Taylor, Mashable
  "Sending "generation ships" to colonize the cosmos makes less sense the more we look at it."
  Of course, many of us have doubts about our civilization making it to the 22nd century at all.
• Could you wear a dress for 100 days? by Emma Beddington, The Guardian
  "When Emma Beddington took part in a challenge to wear the same dress for 100 days, she wasn’t expecting to feel the positive force of sisterhood alongside a few neat cleaning hacks."

Black Lives Matter

• 5 Of The Most Hurtful Racial Microaggressions I Have Heard In My Life, by Rebecca Stevens A., Medium—Illumination
  "And you’d be surprised by what people can say"

Coronavirus

• On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest), how serious is the corona virus?, by Krister Sundelin, Quora
  
• How Herd Immunity Works — And What Stands In Its Way, by Thomas Wilburn, Richard Harris
  "What will it take to finally halt the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.? To answer that question, we've created a simulation of a mock disease we're calling SIMVID-19."

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.

• Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas announces “domestic violence review” at Department following January 6 fascist coup attempt, by Jacob Crosse, World Socialist Website
  "The fact is, backward, reactionary and fascistic attitudes have been allowed to fester within the ranks of the US police, military and intelligence agencies for decades under both Democratic and Republican administrations."

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

• The 'Capitalism is Broken' Economy, by Anne Helen Petersen, Culture Study
  "feel like we've moved beyond 'burnout' and more to 'the pandemic has illuminated that nearly every aspect of modern society is fundamentally unlivable' "

Climate Change

• Biden’s Jobs Plan Is Also a Climate Plan. Will It Make a Difference? by Elizabeth Kolbert, The new Yorker
  "The Administration has an ambitious vision for combating global warming, but it’s only a start."
• Receding glaciers causing rivers to suddenly disappear, by Jenna Kunze, The Guardian
  "Global phenomenon known as river piracy demands urgent adaptation from ecosystems and people who rely on their flow"
• Antarctic Ice Sheet melting to lift sea level higher than thought, study says, by Juan Siliezar, Harvard Gazette—Science and Technology
  " New calculations show the rise due to warming would be 30% above forecasts"
• There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be, by Bonnie Waring, The Conversation

Energy

• With a Blockbuster Week, VW Has Ignited a New Phase in the Electric War, by Steve LeVine, Medium—Mobilist
  "A multifront race in batteries, plants, and to be #2 behind Tesla"

Recipes and Cooking

• 11 Genius Cooking Hacks I Wish I Had Known Earlier in Life, by Karthik Rajan, Medium—Food | Parenting | Family
  Some interesting ideas here, none of which I have tried. There is a fad these days for recipes with few ingredients. For the most part I don't agree that this is likely to give good results. And doing things quickly, from where I sit, is almost always a bad idea.

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 products. 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.
• Are GMOs worth their weight in gold? To farmers, not exactly, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
  "Biotech seeds cost more and often return less than conventional crops or organic farming. But they do give farmers a kind of safety net."

American Politics

• Biden Meets, and Defeats, the Press, by Joan Walsh, The Nation
  "The president should postpone future news conferences. Not because he can’t handle them—but because the White House press corps can’t."
• Realistically, could there ever be a time when there are no leftists in the USA and everyone is conservative? by Alex Denethorn, Quora
  "No - if anything, the opposite is likely to be true."
  "Conservative ideology is dying out. There’s no chance of it ever becoming universal in the United States."
  ‘Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.’ - Francis Wilhoit

Ontario Politics

• Best of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Doug Ford of Toronto, by John Oliver, Last Week Tonight

Dancing on Graves

• The 5 Most Overrated Personalities on The Planet, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium—Apeiron Blog
  "Our heroes reveal our values."
  Of these five only Steve Jobs is actually dead. But for the other four, a head start on the dancing would be a good thing.
• Prince Philip Embodied European Bigotry and Xenophobia, by ElMehdi, Medium—Lessons from History
  "He is the symbol of a long racist, imperial, and colonial history, and should be remembered as such."

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

• The Curious Coincidences of Alpha Centauri, by Salman Hasan,
  "The star system next door has its own share of secrets!"

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.

Telltale Traits of Terrible People, by Brooke Meredith, Medium
"Steer clear! (Some of these might surprise you)"

9 Paradoxical Truths That Will Change How You Think About Life, by Moreno Zugaro, Medium—Mind Cafe

This One Thing Gives True Insight into Someone’s Character, by Jessie London, Medium
"This has helped me surround myself with wonderful people."

Gender and Sexuality

• In real life, transgender girls in sports are a non-controversy: Retired high school coach, by Larry Strauss, Opinion columnist,
  "We belatedly stopped excluding athletes of color from high school and college sports. How many more years will people try to exclude trans athletes?"

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

• Toronto residents get their massive landlord to donate an apartment to help feed tenants, by Olivia Little, blogTO

Education

• Why Are Some Kids Thriving During Remote Learning? by Nora Fleming, Edutopia
  "Though remote learning has brought many challenges, some students seem to be thriving in the new circumstances. What can we learn from them?"

Humour

• Shipsplaining with everyone's favourite Large Sea Boat expert, by Captain Onthemoon, First Dog on the Moon, The Guardian
  "The Evergreen Ever Given is stuck in the Suez canal. Is it briefly exciting and funny or some kind of global business disaster? Or both?"

Books

Fiction

• Fearless, by Allen Stroud
• Red Noise, by John P. Murphy
• Doors of Eden, by Adrian Tchaikovski
• Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovski
• Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovski
• Forge of Heaven, by C.J. Cherryh

Non-Fiction

I finally finished reading A Peoples History of the United States. And I am over half way through Hierarchy in the Forest, by Christoper Boehm.

• A Peoples History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
  The version I read (it was lent to me by a friend) was published in 1980, and not surprisingly, only covers up until that point in American History. I see Amazon has a newer version that covers up to the 2000 election and the war on terror. I intended to get a copy and see what Zinn thought of the decades following 1980. In the edition I just read, the very optimistic last chapter was titled "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". It hasn't worked out that way.

More information about Haward Zinn, from Wikipedia.