2023-10-28
Readings
Overuse of plastic is bad for human health and the environment; efforts to break down plastics (either large-scaled or the small fragments that end up in biological tissues across the planet) have the potential to do a lot of good: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-artificial-protein-capable-degrading.amp
Unsurprising but cool to see that social game theory behaviour extends out to other primates, and amusing to see the phrasing that they “fired” ten of the baboons this experiment covers for not understanding the task: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-humans-baboons-strategic-cooperators.html
Studies suggesting that certain kinds of fasting are effective at helping people with diabetes control their blood sugar: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-intermittent-fasting-safe-effective-diabetes.html
Flipflops are very simple shoes; it’s not surprising to see evidence that they existed long ago as at their simplest one needs cord and leather. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-earliest-evidence-flip-flops-middle.html
How touch-through-hair works: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-reveal-hidden-sensory-mechanism-hair.html
Discovered mistakes in the mechanism of chemo treatments for cancer may offer more effective future treatments: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-common-chemotherapy-drugs-dont-doctors.html
Thoughts
Most people find it easier to enjoy things when they feel that most other people are doing so to - humans are joiners by default. The people who really object to negative reviews are people trying to preserve their ability (however stupid it is that humans work this way) to enjoy the game. Or film, or book, or other things in other cases. The honest reviewer doing his or her job bumps into this quirk of human psychology, and can either keep provoking it, or be a cretin by always being positive. Maybe honesty and deep thought is rare in the well-socialised. Or perhaps this just folds into the general observation that thought is a tool we’ve acquired to handle, at a sprint, when things are going wrong.
There’s an Intelligence Squared Debate on the premise of “We Should All Go Vegan” - I’m not inherently friendly to the premise, but I felt the “no” side had the really annoying habit of continually trying to pull evaluative standards over towards “the feels” - the idea of “come visit my farm, you will have good feelings and good conversations, let’s let that decide it”. That’s dumb. On another topic, I hope the figures the “Yes” side brings up are wrong, because if not it’s very worrying.
It’s refreshing to see the 92Y, a local events space (I live in NYC) resign in protest over cancellation of a speaking event from an author over unrelated comments he made over Israel’s efforts in Gaza (I have little direct opinion in the short-term over Israel’s engagement in Gaza, I think most views should be tolerated). If we started seeing more principled pushes to prevent orgs from being sensitive to political speech by people they might invite to give talks, we’d be in a world that’s better for discourse and disagreement. https://www.npr.org/2023/10/24/1208204142/staff-at-nyc-cultural-center-resign-after-acclaimed-authors-event-canceled
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with increasing Russian casualties leading to attempts to press-gang migrants into its military. Russia’s attempts to gain ground have not borne fruit.
The recent flareup between Israel and Palestine continues, with Israel’s military storming Gaza (presumably intending to wipe out Hamas), Israel’s settler movement committing more atrocities than usual in the West Bank, and a lot of interesting politics over the world over whether to pick a side and if disagreement with the locally dominant narrative is acceptable.
Argentina held its general election, with an inconclusive result for its presidency (requiring a runoff, to be held in mid-late November) but with Sergio Massa having a slight lead over his rival Javier Millei (who is a dangerous idiot). Hopefully Massa will win the runoff, although it speaks ill of Argentina’s political health that someone like Millei can get this close to running the country.
Switzerland held federal elections, with its ruling People’s Party picking up several seats, at the expense of some small left-wing parties
Polls
Pew Poll shows a moderate majority of Americans ( https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/10/25/how-americans-view-future-harms-from-climate-change-in-their-community-and-around-the-u-s/ ) see climate impacts and worry about them worsening. I hope this is sufficient agreement to make needed (and sensible) policy changes to lessen the degree of these changes, although there’s another poll indicating that there’s also mistrust of the models of climate science ( https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/25/americans-continue-to-have-doubts-about-climate-scientists-understanding-of-climate-change/ ); perhaps the former is more important?
Americans continue to have a rock-bottom level of trust in Congress ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/513410/congress-job-approval-drops-lowest-2017.aspx ); I know a lot of this depends on wording, but I worry that prolonged feelings like this may lead to a generalised distrust in democracy and political pluralism and some kind of curiosity towards other systems of governance. The problem, in my view, is not Congress, it’s the people. So it’s up to the people to fix that, starting with not having a thirst for victory on policy that exceeds our respect for difference and process. If we can’t get that, then we’ll eventually suffer events that will lead us to be a failed state.
Policy Focus
Ramaswamy’s hardline isolationism in politics is bad for the world ( https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/23/ramaswamy-nato-us-un-membership-00123119 ) - NATO and the UN make the world safer, they help impose costs on brutal and unjustified invasions, and they make cooperation more likely. Withdrawing from them would be bad for humanity and bad for US interests.
Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, has proposed that youth in India should get used to a 70 hour work week to better economically compete ( https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/infosys-founder-narayana-murthy-says-youngsters-should-work-70-hours-a-week-11602731.html ) - I think this is unhealthy no matter the country or the industry. Work-life balance is important for human healthiness - it should be seen as an explicit goal for civilisation to let its people live well, and the lower pressures of fewer work hours (ideally 30 or less - western countries are looking at moving in the opposite direction) cause fewer people to break and are friendlier to people with other needs and commitments (sick relative or the desire to have a family). It’s irresponsible in my view to build economies that block the possibility of having a life outside of work
The Wall of Shame
A piece of really bad science journalism, starting (but not ending) with the title: Physics has long failed to explain life: https://phys.org/news/2023-10-physics-lifebut-groundbreaking-theory-lab.amp
Supporting countries unconditionally, with vows, is always a mistake. Israel is no exception - there must always be the possibility that outrageous conduct crosses lines and leads to critique or even hostility: https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-toi-podcast-us-rabbis-weigh-thinkers-call-for-vows-to-support-israel-at-war/
The University of Exeter shames itself by offering a degree and courses in the occult: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/04/exeter-university-masters-degree-magic-occult
Reviewlets
Alan Wake 2 (video game) - I haven’t played much of this yet, but so far I’m struck by how much I’m interested in its plot (probably moreso than any other game recently). It unfortunately has serious performance issues (video stuttering, sound doesn’t line up with video); hopefully those will be fixed soon with a patch
Razer Wolverine Gamepad - It’s annoying how quickly gamepads wear out - it’s always the joysticks that develop drift. I need to replace mine at least once a year; last time I thought I’d get this instead of the Microsoft branded gamepads, and so far it’s not that different except that it has weird lighting built in (distinctive, but why?) and it has weird extra buttons behind (which maybe I’ll find a use for someday but for now I mostly ignore them). It’s heavier than Microsoft’s gamepads, but otherwise mostly the same thing.
Amusements
Really cool to see what can be done with programmable LEDs in a dress (wondering if it’s comfortable): https://hackaday.com/2023/10/22/adobe-scientist-cuts-a-dash-with-lcd-shifting-dress/
An intensely bad design for a weapons safe:
About halfway through this tasting video for pickles , a magical moment happens:
The plot to Donnie Darko (a classic weird 90s film), sung/summarised:
Recent Music
Dippin My Feet - Rick Astley - Feels like they unearthed a bit of feel-good country-ish music from the 70s. I’ve been enjoying Astley’s revived music career a lot, and it’s surprising that he doesn’t have a consistent sound (but it’s consistently good). This sounds almost nothing like “Angels on my Side” (except for some rhythmic structure), but both are songs that tend to put me in a good mood
Oklahoma - Trevor Rabin - Like a jazz version of a rock opera, this moves from style to style and makes surprisingly bold choices the whole way along. The vocals fit, but they take a long time to show up and despite having heard the song many times I still think each time “this is a bold choice, I wonder if it will work out”. And it does.
Sometimes - And One - It is annoyingly hard to find the studio version of this song on most streaming music services (Youtube has it, attached to the creepy but fascinating music video that you shouldn’t watch at work mostly because it’s too weird). The central rhythmic-tonal loop of the song is everything; it doesn’t change and everything builds on it.