2022-04-23
Readings
I enjoyed this IQ2 Debate on assisted suicide, which was rather personal and explored the variety of concerns about as well as one could hope given the time and format; I don’t think it’s enough to settle the issue for anyone thoughtful, but it covers most concerns I’ve ever heard people bring up on the topic:
A potential new “imaging” technique that might open new areas of measurement: https://phys.org/news/2022-04-scientists-hydrogen-molecule-quantum-sensor.html
I like the proposed approach here to helping the blind navigate the world; I wonder if it might be further specified to helping people in nursing homes make novel social connections and see more of the world, by pairing them with the blind: https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-tech-aid-visually-impaired-benefit.html
More approaches to the problem of information loss with Black Holes: https://phys.org/news/2022-04-theoretical-perspective-black-hole-formation.html
The Large Hadron Collider is starting up again after some refitting to allow for new kinds of experiments: https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-tech-aid-visually-impaired-benefit.html
Interesting to see how Japan’s police-related policies are pretty awful for tourists:
The economics and biology of pepper cultivation is pretty interesting (and this presenter looks to have made several other videos on related topics):
Unprompted Thoughts
It’s interesting to see how well purpose-driven orgs deal with taking stances that are not absolutist. PETA over the years has taken a lot of really weird, in my view extreme and undesirable, stances relating to diet, human-other-animal relations, and so on. I was recently curious about whether, as constant advocates of veganism, they oppose breastfeeding; the simplest and most common definitions of veganism I’ve heard would exclude breastfeeding, although given that the usual given reasons for ethical veganism, it seems like that definition should be seen as just a summary. And unsurprisingly, Peta goes with that (meaning they care more about their reasoning than the simplest possible statement of their stance): https://www.peta.org/living/food/is-breastmilk-vegan/
This expresses well a lot of the feelings I’ve had about social-Progressivism on gender issues, and my frustration with conflicts with activists that should by all rights still be fringe enough to have no influence.
While I don’t think philosophy is best done in academia, I don’t resent the existence of academic philosophers. I think it’d be better if such positions went through a different entry route - people should do philosophy “out in the wild” for several years, and those who later have interesting enough ideas should be invited into “practicing” professorships, carefully selected so as not to create a monoculture, existing alongside but separate from those teaching philosophy separated from their own practice.
Current Events
The expanded Russian invasion Ukraine continues, with a current focus on taking cities in the East and hints that they intend to later return to the center and possibly push through into other former Soviet countries. I find the current unwillingness of the US to consider putting boots on the ground to be short-sighted cowardice that just delays such confrontation and means it will be on worse terms, with more nations trampled and people killed, when we finally need to engage. The “Russia is really screwing themselves over long term” articles are self-serving and do little to soothe the ongoing disaster.
The next and probably final stage of France’s presidential election is set to take place tomorrow (perhaps today for some of those reading this), and a lot is at stake. The status quo, which I favour, is embodied by Macron (whom I don’t particularly like but of the options he is I think the sensible choice). Marine Le Pen represents a lurch towards ethnonationalism that would change France for the foreseeable future, although it is worrying that the election even came down to this.
Recently, Florida’s Governor DeSantis’ spat with Disney took a strange turn, with the company’s wading into politics in a critique of DeSantis’s efforts to change curricula led the state to remove Disney’s longstanding special political privileges over the town Disney’s park resides in. I don’t think there are any good guys in this struggle; DeSantis is being dangerously thin-skinned, and generally pure political criticism should not lead to shifts in policy towards an entity. Disney never should have had those privileges anyhow, and it’s unfortunate that companies are wading into politics.
Reviewlets
The Road to Oz (book) - The Oz books are partly interesting in how they embed societal attitudes to a lot of things in children’s books, values that significantly predate my childhood, and are further yet from today’s common values (even for those of us who want to undermine today’s cultural progressives’ work). Gender-roles are strongly present in the conservative sense (as a gender-role abolitionist, this weirds me out a bit), but also here one of Dorothy’s party is a hobo, an identity that I generally relate negatively to, with Dorothy’s views towards him also weirdly shaped by a talisman that shapes everyone else to like him. Weird stuff. Still, a good adventure, and it also has me thinking about how some of this may have inspired the idea of “the party” in tabletop roleplaying.
Tunic (computer game) - I just started this, loving the style, the relatively light railroading so far, and how willing the game is to be weird and its own thing. Recently I’ve become sensitive to and bothered by games that try too hard to follow the “accepted wisdom” in designing games, and how non-memorable creations that follow those (sensible-seeming) rules are. So far Tunic is very willing to be weird (and let me try stupid things), and I’m loving it (I recently gave up on Itorah, which was beautiful but was getting dull because of how formulaic it was).
Guilty Pigs (book) - I’m fairly early into this as well; I may continue the review next week if there’s more to say. It’s a book about how a variety of legal systems have/did treat topics relating to other animals, and it’s well-written, uses good examples to ground the topics, and I’m finding it really interesting.
Amusements
How effective is boiling water to kill microbes?
I was happy to see that I didn’t fail an embarrassing maths test here:
In practice it’s pretty rare that a good speech can immediately change a person (or particularly a crowd) towards a different action, but it’s amusing to think about circumstances and means to make it work; this scene from the one-shot that ended the Blackadder series is a fun, if unrealistic, depiction of such a feat:
Recent Music
Tori Amos - iieee - This feels like a lot of separate songs got lightly blended together; I like the variety and crafting that went into making it still work as a song
Bad Religion - New Dark Ages - Another song that I return to every few months; this was a late addition to Bad Religion’s great pieces, probably the one that brought together the greatest number of their distinct musical motifs. It feels more like their late style (the more recent “Chaos from Within”, by contrast, feels more like their early style)
Eddie Perfect - I am Very Good at Running Cults (cut song from the Beetlejuice musical) - Very dark humour in the lyrics, probably something that would not have worked even on Broadway. It’s a fun song, but the parody gets a little close to the (musically dull) pieces it’s ribbing.
Devotchka - Empty Vessels - A lot of the lyrics to this band’s songs are hard for me to make out, but they also feel pretty poetic (a remarkably strange combo)
Protomen - The Good Doctor - This is one of the strongest pieces so far in the 3-part rock opera that they’ve been working on for years (the third part isn’t out yet)