With an endpiece about stars.
Here’s an intriguing article, fairly long, that examines how the humor of liberals and conservatives differ. Since its core conclusions are consistent with so many other observations about the differences between liberals and conservatives — admittedly two crude endpoints, or constellations of traits, in a multidimensional spectrum — they sound plausible. I think the article is on to something.
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?
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71739162/final.0.jpg)
More about “longermism,” Effective Altruism, how they relate to science fiction, and whether or not books can be reduced to six-paragraph summaries.
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.)
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.
