Non-representative Legislatures

Posted on Saturday 13 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Ten days ago in this post, in the aftermath of the Kansas vote supporting protections for abortion, I wondered this:

So what are the justifications of Republican politicians who keep passing or trying to pass restrictions on abortion, when the majority of residents in even a red state like Kansas oppose such restrictions? Who do these politicians think they’re representing? Well, they’re representing those who *elected* them of course. Which… suggests something is wonky with the election system. And it’s not some kind of fraud leading Democrats to win. It’s some kind of malfunction in the election system that is leading Republicans to be elected in disproportionate numbers. What that might be? Hmm, gerrymandering?

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Today’s Headlines and Backlogged Links

Posted on Friday 12 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

The Atlantic, Tom McTague, 12 Aug 2022: What America’s Great Unwinding Would Mean for the World, subtitled, “The conundrum facing America’s allies is how to cope with a great imperial power in decline that is still a great imperial power.”

I will read this closely and comment later. Meanwhile for today, links I’ve collected today and in the past two or three weeks, with minimal comments.

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Two Essays About Current Events: by Connie Willis and Heather Cox Richardson

Posted on Thursday 11 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Connie Willis is one of the most beloved science fiction writers of the past 40 years. As a writer she’s won many awards, for works often humorous but at times tragic, at times building human stories based on the weirdness of modern physics. She’s popular at conventions, excellent as a master of ceremonies (she does this for the Locus Awards every years, e.g. here), and obsessive about the news. She’s said that at conventions she keeps the TV in her room tuned to CNN all day. Continue reading →

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George Gamow: One Two Three… Infinity

Posted on Wednesday 10 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s an oldie, not just for first being published in 1947 (see Wikipedia) but also for being one of the first science nonfiction books I ever read, back when I bought this copy in 1969.

(Seen here is the Bantam edition of April 1967, a reprint of the revised Viking edition of May 1961. Bantam’s is 340 pages.)

So I would have read this about the time I was in 9th grade and taking, what, high school algebra or geometry? This book doesn’t assume knowledge of those, and largely (but not entirely except in footnotes) avoids equations — just as Isaac Asimov’s popular science fiction, and essays in F&SF, did.

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Links and Comments: Some Good News, and the FBI

Posted on Tuesday 9 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Some recent news is actually quite good.

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Longtermism

Posted on Monday 8 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

A key aspect of (good) science fiction is that it takes a long term view, of the species, of the universe, as so few individual people do.

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Paperback Sets: Asimov’s Foundation Novels

Posted on Sunday 7 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’m going to begin a series of posts capturing photos of some of the many sets of matching paperbacks that appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I began buying books, that I have acquired (some when published and some over time).

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Walter Jon Williams: “Surfacing” + 2

Posted on Saturday 6 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This week’s story being consider by the Facebook Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction group, for its reading of the big Gardner Dozois book shown here, is the second story in that book, a 1988 novella by Walter Jon Williams called “Surfacing.” It’s about 60 pages in a typical book, fewer pages in this anthology with its tiny print. In this post I’m also reviewing two other notable stories by Williams, from 1999 and 2003.

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Facebook Memes: Conspiracy Theories; Ignorant People

Posted on Friday 5 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Quick post for this afternoon; I’m working a long post about the next story my Facebook reading group will address on Sunday, concerning a novella by Walter Jon Williams, and I’m taking the opportunity while revisiting these older stories by also rereading additional stories by the same authors. So tomorrow I’ll have a post about three stories by Walter Jon Williams.

For today, two Facebook memes. I’ve seen both before; they’re still apt. The first is about conspiracy theories.

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David McRaney, HOW MINDS CHANGE

Posted on Thursday 4 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion (Portfolio/Penguin, June 2022, 330pp)

Almost a decade ago I discovered two books by David McRaney, YOU ARE NOT SO SMART (2011) and YOU ARE NOW LESS DUMB (2013) that were popularizations of the discoveries of psychology over the previous decade or two. All about cognitive biases, how people commit logical fallacies, how they use heuristics. From his books, and others of the past two decades by Dan Ariely, Tom Gilovich, Daniel Kahneman, Jonathan Haidt, and others, I’ve learned a great about the difference between what people believe is true and what actually is true – a theme that dovetails with the notions of science fiction that suggest humans do not or cannot perceive more than our immediate experience, that a larger reality is out there for us to discover, if we can just think our way to it.

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