Hanukkah Kitsch and Christmas Shopping

Posted on Tuesday 20 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I spent most of this afternoon Christmas shopping. I can make that align with this article about Hanukkah kitsch.

New York Times, 18 Dec 2022: Potato Latke Cocktail, Anyone?

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One More Book Story

Posted on Monday 19 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

The Washington Post did a list about two weeks ago about this:

Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg, 6 Dec / updated 19 Dec 2022: Opinion | To build a delightful library for kids, start with these 99 books

Then today posted an article about reader responses.

Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg, 19 Dec 2022: Opinion | We made a list of 99 great kids’ books. You told us what we missed.

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Two Tales About Books

Posted on Sunday 18 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

There is a wide range of attitudes about books. Many people read no books at all. Some read books but only by borrowing from libraries; some people buy and read books but treat them as disposable objects (these are the ones who bend the spines of paperbacks so that they’ll hold open more easily) and then dispose of them, either literally in the trash or taking them to Good Will, i.e. they don’t *keep* books.

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Progress, Its Implementation, and Trust

Posted on Saturday 17 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

A long piece today, from the Jan/Feb 2023 issue of The Atlantic.

The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, 12 Dec 2022: Why the Age of American Progress Ended, subtitled “Invention alone can’t change the world; what matters is what happens next.”

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Assorted Items on Friday the 16th

Posted on Friday 16 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

About evidence and reason; conservative book bans; automobiles as creators of inequality; anti-vaxxers and traffic crashes; Trump as the emblem of a half population of semi-literates.

I’ve seen this comment on Facebook before, but have never quoted it. It’s apocryphal, but demonstrates its point.

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Longtermism (and its implications), part 3

Posted on Thursday 15 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s one more leftover saved link to an article about Sam Bankman-Fried and longtermism. It’s from a Salon writer who did two previously pieces about it/them (which I discussed on 14 Sep and on on 22 Aug), giving me the impression that there was something deeply sinister about it. Continue reading →

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Longtermism (and Science Fiction), part 2

Posted on Wednesday 14 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

More about “longermism,” Effective Altruism, how they relate to science fiction, and whether or not books can be reduced to six-paragraph summaries.

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Longtermism and Science Fiction, part 1

Posted on Tuesday 13 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve discussed “longtermism” before, via a book by Ari Wallach called LONGPATH, reviewed here about five weeks ago. Its ideas seemed entirely reasonable: consider long-term consequences of making decisions rather than reacting in the moment. Consider the big picture. (The science-fictional perspective.)

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No Escaping Tribal Warfare

Posted on Monday 12 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Items today about Hasidic yeshiva schools, “common good constitutionalism,” the root cause of violent crime, and the increasingly despicable Elon Musk.

We like to think modern society is more advanced than societies of thousands of years ago, and it is in many ways. Our understanding of the world, the universe, of course. Our understanding and usage of science and technology, of course. Human welfare has improved. People live longer and healthier lives than ever before, and not due to religion. Even morality has improved, given the steady abandonment of tribal religious claims, to Enlightenment values of reason and science. And yet there is always a portion of society bent on taking that all down.

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Doom and Existential Dread

Posted on Sunday 11 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

About the stages of the Republican Party’s terminal illness (doom); and about why conservatives disapprove of same-sex relationships more than any number of other supposed Biblical sins (existential dread); and my explanation for the latter.

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