Sources: culture

Thoroughly entertaining review of The Family that Couldn’t Sleep, a work of epidemiological history focusing on the history and science of prion diseases — from Kuru to Mad Cow Disease. Disturbing problem in science with some intriguing proposed correlations to other diseases; good read.

Not cheerful but a helpful, dispassionate account of where we are: in a global socio-economic transition. The suggestion is that in such times shared conceptions of purpose, organization, identity, and trust break down — leaving us with only uncertainty about the future and unable to form collective objectives, and therefore, predictions about what might happen next.

I found this a useful analytic framing of present experience; the sense that the future has disappeared in uncertainty seems like a fair description of what I hear expressed by others and experience myself lately. Also many useful proposed connections relating to the rapid evolution of liberal vs conservative worldviews; the collapse of the relationship between them as points on a common spectrum; the growing reduction of ideological options into exremes of progressivism and authoritarianism…

Review of A Web of Our Own Making by Antón Barba-Kay, the book and the review stand among the many recent attempts to capture the disruptive strangeness of what the internet is doing to us. This one, as is becoming the norm with such investigations, mostly concerns the internet on the phone, or the effects of the convergence of the two. Very nicely written with rather captivating reflections on depth of psychological change (for those of us old enough to remember a time before all this…) the convergence has wrought.

Strange, dark reflections on the strange, dark state of modern culture. Nice, rambling essay connecting Vico, Kafka, AI, rationalists, and the rise of cheerful end-times techno-optimists and state-pessimists. Conclusion: the metaphors that drive the techno-culture of the moment have gone wrong; we need better metaphors.

A reprint of an article first published in 1995 in which Denby describes a university literature class engage with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Denby’s worry the forces of moral correction may remove it from memory. The article is mainly hopeful but a reflection published almost 30 years after observes the progress of forgetting has advanced. In any case, a lovely essay.

Reflections on the idea of nature as something other than human; something in which humans intervene. The thesis is that we can’t make sense of nature by removing ourselves from it, nor make sense of ourselves by removing nature from us. Pleasing anecdotes and a refreshing engagement with the problem of our moral interpretations of animal behaviour beside instances of animal behaviour that seem to make no sense without a moral interpretation.

Striking summary of science/western culture’s prioritizing of vision, therefore light, over hearing and sound and the consequences of that priority for our ways of thinking about things. In contrast, the article presents some interesting stories about sonification in science as a way of revealing patterns in data ‘overlooked’ by standard visual methods of interpretation.

Great overview of his book Debt: the First 5000 Years. Very unusual talk in its informality, almost as if he was asked at a party what he was working on. In consequence it is a bit like watching someone with enormous intellectual resources, and great humility, work through an idea — probably due to this being hosted by Google Talks rather than an academic institution.

Entertaining and useful summary mapping the relative locations of internet Rationalists (Scott Alexander, Yudkowsky, Thiel/Musk…) and Post-Rationalists (Venkatesh Rao, David Chapman, Jordan Peterson…) and how the tribes and metatribes got where they are. Amusing and occasionally surprising.

Another good talk by Lessig.

Stumbled on this not having seen it in many years and was reminded how amazingly important Lessig is both as a defender of freedom in the commons, as a speaker, and as a pioneer PowerPoint designer.

Reflection on how everything over the last few decades has grown so similar as to be indistinguishably average. Good writing but the photographs supporting the general argument are really compelling.

More a sympathetic narrative account of the path down the rabbit-hole of conspiracy theory devotion than an argument about its nature; almost reads like a very well written-short story. Ultimately a plea for liberal forebearance and open-minded empathy.

Nice update from Kevin Kelly — turns out, unsurprisingly, that Noah is a fan. Good interview, covers a broad range of topics of interest to Kelly.