2023-07-15
Readings
Looking for hard-to-spot small-scale interactions on cell surfaces (published in the journal with the coolest name in the sciences, “Small”): https://phys.org/news/2023-07-team-reveals-hidden-particle-interactions.html
Origin/timeline of the genes for common neurotransmitters: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-genes-memory-million-years.html
A possibly counterintuitive observed behaviour observed in terms of guppies being more willing to engage in risky behaviour when in large groups (with many possible explanations - inhibited understanding of risks and group selection effects among them): https://phys.org/news/2023-07-tiny-fish-scientists-volunteer-dilemma.html
Development of chemical cocktails that appear to reverse some markers of cellular aging: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-discovery-chemical-reverse-aging-cellular.html
Progress on deciphering “unknown Kushan script”: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-group-deciphers-enigmatic-ancient-unknown.html
Another alternative to the RNA World Hypothesis: https://phys.org/news/2023-06-discovery-primitive-xeno-nucleic-acids.html
Towards a non-fossil-fuel-based way to produce nylon: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-team-bio-based-nylon.html
How short pulses of light can destroy matter: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-breakthrough-short-pulses-destroy-particles.html
Thoughts
I watched (on YT) an interesting OpenToDebate (formerly IQ2US) debate on whether minor crimes should be prosecuted. One of the things that was most clear from the debate is the need for more clarity as a society how we categorise crimes - lumping so many different crimes into so few categories doesn’t make sense. This made the debate frustrating at times, as did some other difficulties around norms between force and situations. Still, the debate covered the topic well enough that it could launch a thousand conversations, and that’s a solid achievement for a debate:
Because of the irrational human desire to leader-seek, and the similarly irrational human tendency to detach from leaders after seeing stain, I think it’s universally useful to mudsling all leaders past and present regardless of their political persuasion, from the founding fathers to BLM. This should be universally done across the world, from religious leaders (gods, church leaders) to pop stars, to politics, to everything, to help weaken all idols and dampen the ill effects of stardom. We’ve seen the efforts to cling to these heroes - “you should be grateful”, and we can be grateful for the effects, but in a nuanced way - when we recognise, for example, the stain of slavery on the US Founding Fathers, we still can appreciate the difficulty in making a nation on such high philosophical ground, but let that stain prevent us from worshipping them. And so on for all the other examples of people when we put them in an appropriate historical light, when we recall that they all hungered, shat, raged, and had deep defects as all humans did.
I think it’s important to have some coverage, in schools, of the beliefs of the world as well as general cultural coverage, historical and current. These can be sensitive matters, but ignorance isn’t an option - if people make it to adulthood and can’t summarise the basic beliefs of Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, then something’s missing in their education. What they actually think about these beliefs is up to them, but at least having the basic knowledge is important. I am open to people learning these things slightly later (I actually took world religions at university, with my knowledge on these topics being pretty patchy before then), but I think it’s important to get there. (FWIW, I don’t think this should be even slightly about bullying or sensitivity - those arguments are dumb) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/many-us-schools-are-adding-sikhism-curriculum-rcna87937
I’ve continued to be weirded out how state-level chapters of the Libertarian Party (in the US) have been taken over by weird, ultracontrarian factions that seem to have contrarianism as their guiding principle, replacing the old “party of principle” ideas that mostly guided them. I was once a Libertarian, a long time ago, and I’ve seen people both guided by principle and by being contrary - non-joiners and anti-joiners. I’ve sometimes felt that anti-joiner pull. I don’t think it’s healthy though, because it leads people to define themselves in terms of other people, in the same way that “don’t let him win” is unhealthy. It’s better to find principles first, and join and leave others as our principles pull us, perhaps with a mild tendency to join others because of a mild principle of humility. It’s still strange to see some of them cheering on genocide, openly. Or otherwise trolling. Maybe some of them are just following some of the weird politics of the worst of the Republicans right now.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Ukraine’s liberation slowly advancing, using American-provided cluster munitions to destroy Russian trenches. The integration of Russian and Belarusian militaries appears to be underway, perhaps with the intention of having Belarus joining the Russian invasion in the near future. Western countries appear increasingly willing to protect food shipments from Ukraine from Russian aggression.
The war between Sudan’s militaries is seeing two separate mediation attempts to end the war, one based in Saudi Arabia, one in Egypt; challenges involve finding ways to transition towards a governance structure, and navigating external interests that have a strong stake in one side or another seeing a total victory. A mass grave with at least 87 bodies was found in Darfur.
North Korea launched a rocket off its east coast, with a flight time of a little over an hour, after complaints of espionage activities and deployment of nuclear submarines near its borders
Israel appears set to push ahead (again) with Bibi’s judicial power grab (even as he’s on his way to hospital), leading to new mass protests
Polls
Pew on Russia, Putin, NATO, and Zelenskyy, where they find worldwide low-confidence in most western countries in Putin (more confidence in less-developed and unaligned countries, and oddly India), and generally favourible views of NATO in NATO member countries (no huge surprise there), negative views of Russia and Putin in member countries (ditto), but just middling-positive views of Zelenskyy in those country. These largely mirror my views - after the Berlin wall fell, I had hopes that Russia was on its way towards pluralism and modernity, but when it got stuck in a single-party state I largely lost interest in it (a lot of Eastern Europe got stuck there but this just smelled of wasted potential, not disaster). The occupation of Crimea and funding of separatist militants across Europe soured things much further, to the point where I now think Russia will sooner or later need to be defanged and possibly broken apart, a difficult and dangerous thing given its nuclear weapons and possible Chinese interests. A good or bad leader could bend Russia in a useful direction; Putin has been quite harmful but it’s unclear that his removal would immediately fix things; for now Russia has fallen quite far. As for Ukraine, neither it nor its leader needs to be particularly great for it to deserve territorial integrity, and I don’t intend to dig deep into judgement on it or him during these trying times for both. I hope it emerges with its full territory restored, and its independence from Russia assured. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/07/10/large-shares-see-russia-and-putin-in-negative-light-while-views-of-zelensky-more-mixed/
AP/NORC Poll on Abortion access: Interesting to see the breakdown, by weeks into pregnancy (at least with offered granularities), whether people want their state to allow legal abortion. I wasn’t expecting to see so little support at 24 weeks. As for me, as I’ve said before on the issue I could be entirely comfortable with two policies on abortion - either with it being entirely legal at any point in pregnancy until the beginning of labour (assuming no health risk to mother or likelihood of significant mental/physical defect; if either of these is present it is always legal), or entirely legal up to beginning of second trimester, (and assuming no health risk to mother or …) and then taking on some kind of gradual sliding possibility of penality/liability/obligation/whatever if aborted. This doesn’t line up with the poll. https://www.axios.com/2023/07/12/most-americans-support-abortion-poll
Pew finds that a quarter of 40-year olds in the US have never been married. And, in my case, I’m in that high mark. Not cohabiting, haven’t met the right person, never married. Closest I’ve ever come was I proposed to someone once. Maybe had I been born a few generations back I would’ve been married, but it’s hard to say how my social values and employment might’ve been different and how that might have changed my circumstances (we’d also have to fudge that I was a very large baby and my birth was medically risky - a few generations back and my birth may have been fatal). https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/28/a-record-high-share-of-40-year-olds-in-the-us-have-never-been-married/
Policy Focus
I think it’s unfortunate that the US has kept its Guantanamo Bay base open in Cuba, against Cuba’s (at least public) objections. I don’t know if Cuba actually objects or not, but the idea of us squatting on their land while they publicly object is not a good look for a nation that claims to be a law-abiding leader - we should pack up and get out of there, in my view.
I’m souring on the idea, on committees, of people deciding that they will sit on all appointments until they achieve some policy change, rather than just putting forth that policy change and, win-or-lose, try to get it passed through some process while letting appointments through. The current process feels like dysfunction, whether it’s Bernie Sanders doing it (he is) or Tuberville doing it. Our politics can’t work that way.
Recently, Florida announced that driver’s licenses from a variety of US States that offer licenses to illegal immigrants will no longer be valid in Florida. I’ve been thinking this through, and while I laud the general intuition that it’s bad policy to normalise the status of being an illegal immigrant (sadly, my current state is one of those that does this), it’s interesting that it puts “we are checking to see if you’ve been given the okay to drive” under the broader umbrella of “we’re going to check on your citizenship status”. I’m working through what I think about that - maybe it’s fine. Maybe it’s both a way for one state to put pressure on another state’s shitty policies, and to avoid accidentally accepting as ID something that clearly should not be.
There are a number of things that were packed by conservatives as amendments into the US annual defense bill that.. I actually am pretty much all okay with because they were curbing recent progressive weird stuff that our government should not have been doing anyhow. I don’t think our government should be doing any DEI work. At all. It has no place in business either, but that’s another topic. I’m not straight, but I don’t think non-straight issue flags should be flying at military bases. I don’t think transgenderism should be recognised in government nor should related medical services be funded. Nor should the Pentagon offer reimbursement for personal travel relating to people dealing with state legal policies relating to abortion. I’m not going to generally ally with conservatives on topics, particularly without thinking about them, but these all seem like reasonable asks and they’re correcting progressive overreach and general bad policy, at least on first glance (I’m open to reconsidering these matters with a good argument): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/14/us-republicans-pass-defence-bill-with-anti-abortion-lgbt-add-ons
Reviewlets
Ampersand-Pizza (Pizza Place in NYC) - If you’re a Pizza place in NYC, differentiating yourself is a challenge. Even being remembered is a challenge. Quality, price, packaging, puns, a clever name, different places will try all kinds of things. This place seems to do a good job at mixing all that stuff together - the packaging pretends that each box is a VHS tape box from the 80s, the pizza is tasty, the names of each are pretty weird, and they offer pretty good variety. I’ll be ordering from this place again I think (I might find a way to order more directly from them - Seamless’s cut from local restaurants is not kind)
Murder on the Orient Express (novel) - I’m getting to this way, way late, and yes this is the Agatha Christie novel, but I’m enjoying it a lot (and remembering all the Amtrak trips I’ve taken while sort-of regretting that I haven’t saved it for my next big Amtrak trip). It’s not that long, with a lot of fun and spicy characterisation that was written before a lot of the 2010-era new-sensitivities as well as details that encourages the reader to dive in and try to figure it out themselves (while leaving it unclear whether they’re meant to). It’s bold, fun, and it doesn’t matter that I already know how it’s going to end because of all the parities and homage it has received over the years.
Cyberpunk 2077: Blackout (comic) - Investigates the human condition expertly, putting human flaws front-and-center and exploring desperation. One of the things it made me see as a shortcoming in the game is that, unlike the tabletop, it’s too clean and idealistic - V doesn’t see the misery of the setting properly (if she did, the game would probably not be as enjoyable - this is compromise).
Amusements
I was amused on both sides on this recent news event, that the American Library Association elected a president who was both nutty and unprofessional enough to decide that she needed to publicly tie her role to being a “marxist lesbian”, and then that someone in the Montana State Library Association decided that the US Constitution forbids association with an organisation led by a Marxist (it doesn’t), leading to them withdrawing from the national org. After, of course, talking about the Christian Bible, which our government is not based on anyhow. So there’s plenty of wrong, stupid, unprofessional on both sides. But it’s very funny.
Fun scientific revisit of “The Core”, a really bad and silly movie from decades past about using nukes to save our planet: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/1171384933/the-core-movie-science-geology-center-earth
What a headline - Harvard withdrawing papers from dishonesty expert after she was found to be dishonest: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/harvard-business-school-withdrawing-papers-095328886.html
Recent Music
Breathe Again - Sara Bareilles - I try not to do too many repeats in close succession from the same artists, but this song made me feel something. A moment of longing for connection, loneliness or love. And then a lingering confusion as my normal context returns. And I take a break from trying to fix something at work to take a note of it for my Substack weekly, saving these moments of self-reflection for my longer-term self and anyone who cares to partake of them.
Pullin the Skiff - Clothesline Revival - A short song from a very weird band, but it has a nice beat and a fun concept (like most of their stuff). I don’t remember where I first heard this. Almost feels like one of those things that came out of a dream, except in this case, it turned up solid rather than clouds on the awake side of the pillow.
The Streak - Ray Stevens - An old comedy song classic, I needed something to cheer me up after a complicated medical diagnosis this week, and this fit the bill.