2023-03-18
Readings
The most interesting moment in this IQ2US debate about whether Sex Offender Registries do more harm than good is about 20 minutes in, where John asks a great question (that doesn’t get an interesting answer) - why is it that sex crimes are treated differently than other crimes? Why are murder registraties not a thing? The interesting answer, I think, is the kind of motive and how that changes how we think of a person. Other crimes, mostly, have some tie to an understandable reason - greed, jealousy, pride, things like that. And all those motivations have healthy forms (and even the crimes in some cases are seen as acceptable (by some) if someone is willing to pay the price. Most sex crimes, by contrast, indicate someone has an alien, dangerous mindset because of the different nature of these norms. It’s really different.
The Braille music notation system is fascinating; interesting that some of the greatest musicians (e.g. Ray Charles) worked primarily with systems like these (with their obvious limitations - if you’re reading with a hand you can’t easily use it to play) is surprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_music
I see no desirable practical application of this advance (the ideas for such strike me as unideal), but technically it’s a remarkable achievement to create eggs using cells from male mice (the opposite being of course impossible): https://phys.org/news/2023-03-revolutionary-scientists-mice-fathers.html
How NYC’s subway’s Lost and Found works:
Genetic manipulation of mice to reverse a certain kind of vision loss: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-gene-editing-technique-reverses-vision-loss.html
Info on the future Dragonfly probe to Saturn’s moon Titan: https://phys.org/news/2023-03-nasa-instrument-bound-titan-reveal.html
Certain microinsects lose nuclei in their neurons in the transition to adulthood: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31529-4
Thoughts
There’s a game called “The Last of Us” that I haven’t played, that has a moral dilemma near the end (maybe?) that people seem to like to talk about. The premise is that there’s an illness that’s led to civilisation largely falling, and the protagonist has a young girl in his care that he’s helping around the wasteland, when they’re captured by a survivor group with a bunch of doctors that hope to do (fatal) experiments on her to possibly develop a cure. He finds out, breaks from captivity, and kills a bunch of them while escaping with her (not telling her any of the details). The game apparently mostly frames the protagonist as in the right. In terms of the kind of virtue ethics I follow, both the protagonist and the scientists are potentially right if they have understandable lines of reasoning; I don’t think morality is always coherent (neither is lawfully). I think the idea that the survival of the species may depend on experiments on an unwilling individual is far outside our normal realm of experience, but it could reasonably justify a lot. But the protective urges of the protagonist are also fully understandable, as does his violent resistance that comes from that. The idea that morality must be coherent, always painting either two bad guys or one bad guy and a good guy, is in my view childish.
There are a bunch of really interesting debates to be had, for those of us who are atheist, on "given a time machine, would you have prevented the Abrahamic/monotheist faiths from coming about or not?". For a long time my answer was a pretty clear yes, but recently I’ve been thinking about all the weird stuff various polytheistic faiths got up to, and in analysing the harms they did when they were still vital, whether the same harms would have come from any universalising philosophy even untied to monotheistic religion. Was humanity well-served by passing through that trial of fire now that we’re hopefully seeing the dimming of those same faiths (and hopefully will learn to douse the flame of more recent secular moralising eras too).
Current Events
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, with Ukraine apparently preparing for a major push to push out the intruder and refusing to give up on the city of Bakhmut. American efforts to push China not to arm Russia have failed, with body armour and assault rifles enroute; meanwhile China is pushing fake routes to peace as a way to try to gain prestige. NATO countries are also concerned about Russia crossing their borders (as it has signaled on state TV channels), beginning to prepare for their own potential war.
China is claiming credit, accurately this time, in brokering the recent thaw in diplomatic relations between Arabia and Iran
Netanyahu’s attempt to remove the judiciary as a constraint on his poltiical power is souring Israeli politics, making crisis more likely
Reviewlets
Moonscars (video game) - A side-scrolling soulsborne. Pretty, minimal, and probably what salt and sanctuary’s sequel should have been.
Cryptid Club (hardcover webcomic book) - While it has a little bit of annoying antijudgementalism, it’s generally funny, pleasant, and cute. Because there’s no story continuity, it’s a perfect casual book to pick up and put down frequently
Look to Windward (Culture series novel) - I’m about halfway through this one, and it’s exploring (as was its predecessor, from a very different angle) what happens when a powerful country meddles in its smaller/weaker neigbbours, alongside many other things. Interesting to contrast to Star Trek’s Prime Directive (which is deeply flawed but avoids a lot of mess). It took me awhile to warm up to this entry in the series.
Knob Creek 18 (whiskey) - Really quite good. A bit smoky, with complex flavours that I’m enjoying. Like other more expensive whiskeys, it also doesn’t give me headaches.
Amusements
In this I finally see the point of having Chuck (whom I find a bit annoying) on StarTalk:
A nice review of what looks to be a good movie (Haven’t seen it yet):
This is a nice exploration of the topic of durability in architecture and how to depict themes in some kinds of art:
Some comics and history of early comics (I’m not particularly into comics, but the history is interesting anyhow b/c of the business practices and cultural development it depicts):
Exploration of Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” and how it works as a piece of music:
Recent Music
Dumb Dumb - Mazzie - I’ve heard this sampled a lot on internet videos, tracked it down. Trippy video
Close to the Mirror - Sylvain Lux - A throwaway generic-party-music number from the often-out-of-print Deadpool video game that was unepectedly catchy.
Help Me, Rhonda - Beach Boys - Pops back into my head every few months; I grew up with a record player from my parents and this was on one of my favourite records.