Category Archives: Social Progress

Nonfiction Notes: Bobby Duffy, WHY WE’RE WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING

Posted on Sunday 7 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (2018) (US edition Nov 2019) Here’s another book on a seemingly familiar theme: why people so frequently misunderstand the world, and what we can do to correct … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Obama; Conspiracy Theories; Big Government; Liberty

Posted on Wednesday 18 November 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Guardian: review of Barack Obama’s new book. Obama makes clear he believes the whiplash from the 44th to 45th president is no accident. On the contrary, the mere fact that an accomplished, intelligent, scandal-free black man inhabited the White House … Continue reading →

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The Issues that Divide Us (in the US at least)

Posted on Friday 6 November 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

I commented somewhere that the “issues” that divide the electorate today become more and more trivial the farther one zooms out to take a broader perspective of time and space. Issues so important at one time in history are irrelevant … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Social Progress | Leave a comment

Links and Comments: Bubbles and B.S.

Posted on Saturday 24 October 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s performance at the second vice-presidential debate indicated to numerous people that all he knows about the world are conspiracy-mongering talking points from Fox News and other right wing sites. In some cases all you have to do is read … Continue reading →

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Rutger Bregman, UTOPIA FOR REALISTS: How We Can Build the Ideal World (2014/2017)

Posted on Wednesday 21 October 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a breezy, fast-reading book that summarizes grand conclusions simply and directly, and then provides background references to support those conclusions in 40 pages of notes at the end. The Dutch author is “one of the continent’s most prominent … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: Social Health is more than Endless Growth

Posted on Tuesday 20 October 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Recalling this post, about the US rank in social progress, and thoughts by the writer Rutger Bregman (via this NYT profile and his book Utopia for Realists), about how the GDP is a poor measure of social healthy, and the … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: Challenge to Conventional Wisdom: About the Nuclear Family

Posted on Monday 10 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

That long NYT news story about the religious heartland that I posted a couple days ago included this quote from a Mr. Driesen, a utility company worker: “Unfortunately, there’s just more divorce than there used to be,” he said. “There’s … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: Personal Liberty and Seat Belts

Posted on Saturday 25 July 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

As I was saying: Washington Post: How mask fights echo seat belt fights: ‘The right to be splattered all over their windshields’ As transportation secretary in the Reagan administration, Elizabeth Dole pushed for mandatory seat belt laws. The idea created … Continue reading →

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Notes for the Book: Hierarchy of Morality

Posted on Friday 26 June 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This one isn’t mine; this is Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, which I first became aware of in Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011), page 624, and later recalled when I reread E.O. Wilson’s foundational On … Continue reading →

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Hans Rosling: FACTFULNESS (2018)

Posted on Wednesday 11 March 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a book that explores why most people are wrong on key facts about the world, thinking it worse than it is, e.g. concerning poverty, life expectancy, etc. In a sense it’s a modern-day counterpart to Steven Pinker’s THE … Continue reading →

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