Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts

Wednesday, 22 September 2021

What I've Been Reading, July and August 2021

Links

Above the Fold

Miscellaneous

Structural Violence

Black Lives Matter, Race, Racism

Coronavirus

Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

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.

Collapse

Responding to Collapse,

Climate Change, or rather, actually, Global Warming

Recipes and Cooking

  • The Secret to Making your Good Soup Glorious, by Malky McEwan, Medium
    "A top chef let me in on this trick and science agreed with him"
    This is essentially the same trick my wife taught me. Or if you end up frying the soup ingredients in a frying pan, be sure to deglaze the pan and put the resulting liquid into the soup. There is a lot of flavour there you don't want to miss out on.

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.
  • A 16th-century Dutchman can tell us everything we need to know about GMO patents, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
    "Today's agribusiness patent holders have locked out innovation. The annals of maritime exploration offer a way out. Really! "

Practical Skills

Writing Skills

American Politics

  • Biden’s Invisible Ideology, by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
    "The President has deployed an exasperating but effective strategy to counter Trumpism."

Canadian Politics

Linguistics

Dancing on Graves

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.

  • The Sexiest Things You Can Ever Do for Her, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
    "Guaranteed to blow her mind, anytime."
  • The system of mathematics I wish I had known long ago, by Theodorrism, Medium
    "Go on. Learn. Do this for yourself."

    • Gender and Sexuality

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

    Education

    Humour

    These are great times for political satire.

    Books

    Fiction

    Non-Fiction

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    Tuesday, 29 June 2021

    What I've Been Reading, May 2021

    Links

    Above the Fold

    • No. This is a Genuine Revolution - Interview with Graeber by Evrensel Newspaper, by David Graeber and Pinar Öğünç, Libcom.org
      This interview is about Graeber's impression of Rojava after visiting there.
    • Learning My Left From My Right, by John Halstead, Gods & Radicals Press
      "We have witnessed the creep (and sometimes the sprint) of fascism in recent years into the center of American political life, and yet most people still have no idea what fascism is—much less its opposite, anarchism. (Even some on the left are confused.) Fascism will continue to shape our political future in the coming decades, so we need to educate people, in terms that they can understand, without the jargon or theoretical minutiae, about hierarchy and the state, and the possibility of a world without either. This is the lesson I learned after having my work co-opted by fascists: It is not enough to articulate a critique of capitalism—as I did in my article about distributism; if we do not also clearly distinguish ourselves from the fascists, then we will end up losing the debate to both."
    • Divide And Brainwash: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, by Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin's Newsletter
      "One of the biggest challenges for a developing anti-imperialist, at least in my experience, is learning to differentiate between those who actually want to end the oligarchic empire and those who just want the empire to act a bit more cosmetically nice than it does. These are two completely different positions, especially because the latter is pure fantasy: you cannot have a globe-dominating unipolar power structure that doesn't use violent force to maintain that world order. Yet the two groups often wind up moving in overlapping circles."
    • It’s Time To Ditch The Abundance Mindset — It Paves The Way to Inequality, by Jessica Wildfire, Medium
      "We need collective growth, not just personal."
      "If you’re one of those positivity wranglers, maybe it’s time for you to shut up and listen. Follow some of that advice you give about having an open mind and hearing hard truths."
    • What would happen if the world stopped shopping? by J. B. Mackinnon, Fast Company
      "Fast fashion is destructive and exploitative—and yet millions of people rely on it for work. In a new book, J.B. MacKinnon explores these complexities."
    • How equality slipped away, by Kim Sterelny, Aeon
      "For 97 per cent of human history, all people had about the same power and access to goods. How did inequality ratchet up?"
    • The Poorest in Society are Not Worth Saving, by Adebayo Adeniran, Medium
      "Despite the yawning chasm between the haves and have nots and the perpetual gaslighting of the poorest in our midst, why do the poor keep voting against their interests?"
      "I am sorry that I have to say this, for as long as the poorest continue to vote against their interests, they aren’t worth saving — they should watch as the NHS is being dismantled and privatized to silicon valley, post Brexit or see how much smaller their world is about to become without the ECHR acting as a bulwark against the insatiably rapacious excesses of the tech giants."
      I have remarked many times about poor Americans voting Republican and poor Canadians voting Conservative. Here, at some length is an of similar behaviour in the UK.

    Miscellaneous

    The Other News

    News that is being ignored by North American mass media

    Structural Violence

    Suddenly, "liberal" is a dirty word

    And with good reason, it seems.

    • The Centrist Delusion: ‘Middle Ground’ Politics Aren’t Moderate, They’re Dangerous, by Raoul Martinez, Novara Media
      "In a world of competing narratives serving competing interests, there’s always a temptation to gravitate to the political centre ground, the would-be midpoint between two apparent extremes, with its aura of moderation, reasonableness and realism. After all, isn’t the truth supposed to be ‘somewhere in the middle’, a composite of competing claims? The simple answer is no. Not in science and not in politics. When there are two opposing sides to a debate, sometimes the midway position is empirically false or morally abhorrent. In every civilisation, the centre ground of political opinion has been home to dangerous, inaccurate and oppressive ideas."

    Coronavirus

    Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

    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.

    Economic Contraction and Growing Inequality

    Agriculture

    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. (This month it's two closely related articles.)
    • In the insecticide wars, GMOs have so far been a force for good, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
      "Plants engineered to produce their own bug-killing toxins really have helped farmers cut the use of nastier chemical insecticides. "
    • Roundup-ready, aim, spray: How GM crops lead to herbicide addiction, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist
      "Herbicide-resistant crops make it easy for farmers to rely on hefty quantities of weedkiller. Then the weeds evolve, and we have to up the ante."

    Practical Skills

    American Politics

    Debunking Resources

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

    Science

    • Nova in Cassiopeia brightens suddenly, by Bob King, Sky & Telescope
      "A star in the constellation Cassiopeia that flared into view during mid-March has erupted to naked-eye visibility. Catch it while you can!"
    • Practical science at home in a pandemic world, by Daren J. Caruana, Christoph G. Salzmann & Andrea Sella, Nature—Chemistry
      "There are plenty of online resources to ensure that learning can continue for students who cannot access universities during a pandemic, but what options are there for practical aspects of science courses? Daren J. Caruana, Christoph G. Salzmann and Andrea Sella offer a manifesto for home-based experiments."

    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

    • The Fight for Partial Freedom in Vietnam, by Mèo Mun, libcom.org
      At the start, this piece seems to be about far left politics, but read a little further and you'll see it's really about LGBTQ issues. And of course, the two go together rather well.

    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.

    • Is Belief in God a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? by Tessa Schlesinger, Medium
      This article raises an interesting question, and ends up justifying belief in God, but not belief in religion. As it happens, I disagree, and see no justification for either.

    Books

    Fiction

    I re-read several books by Steven Gould this month. Books which I find myself coming back to about once a year. Nothing profound, but a good distraction.

    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 Christopher Boehm.

    • Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, by Christopher Boehm
      "Are humans by nature hierarchical or egalitarian? Hierarchy in the Forest addresses this question by examining the evolutionary origins of social and political behavior. Christopher Boehm, an anthropologist whose fieldwork has focused on the political arrangements of human and nonhuman primate groups, postulates that egalitarianism is in effect a hierarchy in which the weak combine forces to dominate the strong."
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    Wednesday, 5 May 2021

    What I've Been Reading, March and April 2021

    Links

    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

    Coronavirus

    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.

    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

    Energy

    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

    Ontario Politics

    Dancing on Graves

    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.

  • 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

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

    Education

    Humour

    Books

    Fiction

    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.

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    Wednesday, 17 March 2021

    What I've Been Reading, February 2021

    Links

    Above the Fold

    Usually I reserve this section for late breaking news. But this month I discovered a whole bunch of YouTube videos featuring David Gaeber, a notable anarchist scholar who passed away this past September. This isn't all of the videos I found, or even the best of them, it's just what I found time to watch.

    • Extinction and rebellion: the late David Graeber, by Peter Batt, YouTube
      "David argues that the political elite is 'useless', and could be easily dislodged by a rebellion with even vague aims."
    • David Graeber - The Bully's Pulpit: On the Elementary Structure of Domination, by David Graeber, YouTube—AudibleAnarchist
      "In this essay, Graeber links the psychological impulses of bullying—both of bullies and of passive observers of bullying—to structures of power inherent within hierarchical authority. He contends that from a young age, we are socialized to side with bullies and against victims, and we are socialized to see victims as either deserving their punishment or of having the same moral worth as the bullies themselves."
    • Where Did Money REALLY Come From? by David Graeber, YouTube—Deficit Owls
      "Professor David Graeber, anthropologist and author of 'Debt: The First 5,000 Years,' discussing the history of money and credit. The economics profession tends to teach that money arose from barter. However, anthropologists have been searching for 200 years and found absolutely no evidence for this. "
    • Graeber and Wengrow on the Myth of the Stupid Savage, by David Graeber and David Wengrow, YouTube
    • Graeber and Wengrow on the Myth of the Stupid Savage, by David Graeber, Jourtnal du Mauss
      "What if the kind of people we like to imagine so simple and innocent because they are free from rulers, governments, bureaucracies and ruling classes, were free not because they lack imagination, but because they are in fact more imaginative than us. We find it hard to imagine what a truly free society would look like; perhaps they do not have as much difficulty imagining what would be an arbitrary power and domination. Maybe they can not only imagine it, but also consciously organize their society in such a way that such things never happen."

    Miscellaneous

    The Lights Went Out in Texas

    Structural Violence

    • Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up, by GEMMA HARTLEY, Harpers Bazaar
      "Emotional labor is the unpaid job men still don't understand."
      I found this on Facebook, read it, shared it and thought, yep, that's an example of structural violence against women. I was amazed that the men who commented were mainly apologists for the guy in the article. A guy who clearly didn't want to do his share of the relationship building work in his marriage.
    • Structural Violence, Wikipedia
    • Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, by David Graeber,
      In this book, David Graeber introduced me to this idea of structural violence in relationships between the oppressed and their oppressors. The following quote is to be found on pages 72 and 73 of the book:

    "Such a theoretical emphasis opens the way to a theory of the relation of power not with knowledge, but with ignorance and stupidity. Because violence, particularly structural violence, where all the power is on one side, creates ignorance. If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don’t have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don’t. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state.

    Contrary to popular belief, bureaucracies do not create stupidity. They are ways of managing situations that are already inherently stupid because they are, ultimately, based on the arbitrariness of force.

    Ultimately this should lead to a theory of the relation of violence and the imagination. Why is it that the folks on the bottom (the victims of structural violence) are always imagining what it must be like for the folks on top (the beneficiaries of structural violence), but it almost never occurs to the folks on top to wonder what it might be like to be on the bottom? Human beings being the sympathetic creatures that they are this tends to become one of the main bastions of any system of inequality—the downtrodden actually care about their oppressors, at least, far more than their oppressors care about them—but this seems itself to be an effect of structural violence. "

    Somewhere else (I haven't been about to find the quote), Graeber explains that a certain amount work is involved in any relationship that doesn't involve oppression, as those involved strive to understand each other. If you hear someone on one side of a relationship talking about how it is impossible to understand the other, it is a sure sign that they are "on top" and don't have to do the work because they can simply tell those on the other side to shut up and do what they are told. Those who are "on the bottom" develop, as a defense mechanism, a highly refined understanding on those who are above them. You see this between men and women, bosses and workers, masters and slaves, and so on.

    Coronavirus

    • We Hate You Now—The Hardest Problem of The Aftertimes, by Quinn Norton, Medium—Surviving COVID-19
    • The Differences Between the Vaccines Matter, by Hilda Bastian, The Atlantic
      "Yes, all of the COVID-19 vaccines are very good. No, they’re not all the same."
      "'The idea that people can’t handle nuance,' Jha tweeted at the end of February, 'it’s paternalistic. And untrue.' I couldn’t agree more. The principle of treating people like adults is fundamental. We don’t need to exaggerate. Talking about the trade-offs between different medicines and vaccines is often complicated, but we do it all the time—and we can do it with COVID-19 vaccines too."

    Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy

    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.

    Collapse

    • Overconsumption, Wikipedia
      "Overconsumption is a situation where resource use has outpaced the sustainable capacity of the ecosystem. A prolonged pattern of overconsumption leads to environmental degradation and the eventual loss of resource bases."
    • Human Overpopulation, Wikipedia
      "Human overpopulation (or particularly human population overshoot) refers to a human population being too large in a way that their society or environment cannot readily sustain them. It can be identified with regional human populations, but is generally discussed as an issue of world population. Overpopulation is caused by human population growth. In recent centuries, human population growth has become exponential, due to the green revolution and other changes in technology that reduce mortality. Experts concerned by overpopulation argue that overpopulation causes overconsumption and subsequently overshoot of natural resources. This leads to exceeding the carrying capacity of a geographical area (or Earth as a whole) and damages to the environment. Human overpopulation is often discussed as part of other population concerns such as demographic push, depopulation, or even ecological or societal collapse and human extinction."

    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.
    • Golden apple or forbidden fruit? Following the money on GMOs, by Nathanael Johnson, Grist

    Dancing on Graves

    • Rush Limbaugh Made America Worse, by Alex Shephard, The New Republic
      "The racist, sexist radio host played a pivotal role in injecting cruelty and conspiracy into conservative mass media."
      "He thrived on making people angrier and more alienated, on obscuring the truth, and rewarding meanness at every turn."

    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.

  • Is the Western way of raising kids weird? by Kelly Oake, BBC—Weird West | Parenting
    From sleeping in separate beds to their children to transporting them in prams, Western parents have some unusual ideas about how to raise them.
    The key to thinking outside the Western box might be to remember that babies are not out to manipulate us, no matter how tempting it might be to see it that way at 3am. "What we really need with babies is to stop thinking about them as hard-to-please bosses," says Dutta. "They're helpless little beings that have come into this world, and we must look at them with empathy and compassion."
  • 15 Mini Things That Can Instantly Make You Less Likable, by John Roe, medium—Mind Cafe

    • Refugees and Migration

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

    Education

    Humour

    Books

    Fiction

    I finally finished the Emberverse series this month, a total of 15 novels.

    Non-Fiction

    Still reading A People's History of the United States. Still highly recommended.

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    Wednesday, 13 January 2021

    What I've Been Reading, November and December 2020

    Links

    Above the Fold

    Miscellaneous

    The Other News

    News that is being ignored by North American mass media

    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

    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

    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

    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

    American Politics

    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

    Debunking Resources

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

    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

    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

    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

    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.
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