Anna Gát's: What to Read This Weekend #71
Anna Gát's: What to Read This Weekend #71
Hereticon, Kamala, Kraftwerk, Aumann, McGilchrist, Paul Graham, Ribbonfarm, happiness, feminists, Tolstoy, Girard, heroin, cheese, fiction, dating, Germany, and more!
Hey folks,
I’ve just got back from Hereticon, which was so much fun! It’s a great place for reconnecting with friends, stretch one’s Overton window, and learn new things.
Some cool upcoming events for you on Interintellect:
Unseen Genius - With Sumana Roy (online and public)
Reading Group: One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich (online and public)
Living in Wonder: A Conversation with Rod Dreher (online and public - in partnership with
)The Illness of Inequality – With David Lay Williams (online and public)
And for our members I will be hosting a Discord hangout on Tuesday from 10:30 pm ET to talk election results and the future
Did you know? If you visit our Membership Tier Page, you can become a SuperSupporter, see Interintellect grow, flourish, and bring the best conversations in the world to an ideologically diverse global audience, with a 10 year membership coming with your SuperSupporter package!
Last night I finally got to meet the courageous and clever
in New York City:
And now, my friends, let’s read…
America Votes, and the World Waits
[As an exception I’m including a live feed because I believe it will have good coverage and analysis.]
Foreign Policy team
Foundational Divides: The essential dimensions of a worldview
Since some values and beliefs are downstream of other, more fundamental, ones and since some determine only a few, relatively unimportant positions, while others determine many, relatively important ones, it’s intuitive that some will do more work than others in terms of explaining salient differences in worldviews. It’s also intuitive that many relevant spectrums will be correlated, to various degrees, with one another, even if they also bring independent information relevant to defining a worldview.
Anna Karenina in the making: An ‘unparalleled’ account of the novel’s composition
Prominent as well in the manuscripts was the homoeroticism that informs Vronsky’s storyline. Vladimir Nabokov claimed that one early scene in the novel, in which Vronsky is disgusted by an effete pair of officers, contains “the first homosexuals in modern literature”…
Erik Naiman - The Times Literary Supplement
Why is Fertility Collapsing, Globally?
Men and women who are shy, introverted, boring, aggressive, violent, manipulative, deceitful, unfaithful, or ideologically polarised may ultimately call it quits. The sources of friction are wide-ranging - from personality mismatches to ideological divides. And after perennial disappointments, some may opt out. Without a loving partner, they may hesitate to procreate alone.
If this is an 'existential' election, why aren't people acting liking it?
We shouldn’t imbue politics with a meaning and weight it cannot carry.
Thank you,
Dining with the Dead
I have very happy memories of families going to the graveyard with their flowers and their food in rural towns in Mexico. Not everyone in Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead however. Although the custom is becoming more popular year by year, there are many groups at different social levels who do not.
Rachel Laudan - via
The indignity of being born a woman
It was decided that the boys would be lions and the girls would be fairies. I stepped my foot and demanded to be handed a tail and claws. When I saw the dresses and wings and wands, I was jealous. But, not for the last time in this life, I kneeled on all fours and crawled. Just to prove a point.
Astral Codex Ten Endorses Harris, Oliver, Or Stein
I think the strongest argument against Trump is the argument from authoritarianism. But what is authoritarianism in this context? As I argued years ago, Trump isn’t Hitler, isn’t going to put people in death camps, and probably his approval rating among minorities won’t even dip below the 30s. So what am I worried about?
One worry is that Trump tries to pack election boards with his supporters and give them a mandate to fiddle with election law in ways that make him more likely to win… Another is that Trump might threaten opponents with jail time (or simply loss of government contracts) unless they support him. I don’t know whether Jeff Bezos’ decision to shift Washington Post away from endorsing Harris was motivated by fear, but it’s a good model for the type of situation I worry about.
This is far from Hitler or even Stalin. The model I worry about most is Hugo Chavez, who had no concentration camps and barely even managed a secret police.
Iain McGilchrist’s Naturalized Metaphysics
Why is it then that we have two distinct hemispheres? Not only us humans, but all mammals, as well as fish, birds, and reptiles. And what are we to make of the fact that the division of brain hemispheres has became more accentuated over the course of evolution, not less?
Rogério Severo; Philosophy Now
Writes and Write-Nots
AI has blown this world open. Almost all pressure to write has dissipated. You can have AI do it for you, both in school and at work.
The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.
Paul Graham
Against brute forcing
To believe that joy and meaning are achievable for you means that you would have to go out there and look for it. Which is hard in a different way than throwing yourself at a concrete problem that can eventually be broken down by brute force. From the outside, it can seem insane to let go of certainty for something as intangible, as indefensible, as meaning and connection. But for many people I think that’s the most important decision they can make.
School is Not Enough
Do children today have useful childhoods?
Fantastic Builders and Where to Find Them
A need to “prove oneself” to internalized authority figures leads to things like climbing conventional status ladders, or staying in an unhappy marriage, or piling up as much money as possible to preserve the appearance of having “made it”.
- with
‘Love Triumphs over Violence—Eventually’
“It’s important that Girard points a way out. Imitating something greater than yourself, beyond the circles of rivalry. Otherwise, you are pulled back into the world of imitating your neighbor, wanting what your neighbor wants—or is.”
- with
A Vast Wave of Drugs and Violence Is Catching Germany Off Guard
A case file that mentions "narcotics in not small quantities,” which could be the understatement of the century for drug investigators. The intercepted phone calls and surveillance photos paint a picture of the largest known amount of cocaine ever smuggled into Germany. One gang, 10 deliveries, 35.5 tons of cocaine, street value: 2.6 billion euros. A mountain of blow of a size never before seen in Europe – though likely only the tip of the iceberg. Investigators are certain that they haven’t come close to intercepting all of it.
Matthias Bartsch, Jürgen Dahlkamp, Jörg Diehl, Tobias Großekemper, Roman Lehberger, Claas Meyer-Heuer und Ansgar Siemens; Spiegel International
Is Monogamy Right-Wing Coded Now?
Nobody is out there saying that it’s impossible to be a liberal and be married, or to be a liberal who cares about marriage. I think the extent of my pro-marriage values reads conservative, especially the fact that I generally think young marriage is a good thing (within reason; statistically you’re better off getting married after 25) and the fact that I’m pretty no-nonsense about how normal and healthy it is to want a partner, and to do things to try and attract a partner. Personally, I don’t think that’s political in either direction, but I can see why someone would make that mistake.
Recovering from Heroin and Fiction
We are free in some ways, but in others we are painfully constrained. I can’t flap my arms and fly, for example. The same applies to moral and spiritual reality. There are things that thou shalt not, and things that thou shalt. The path is narrow.
Jordan Castro; Plough
New report on nuclear risk
“Respondents thought that a nuclear conflict between Russia and NATO/USA was the adversarial domain most likely to be the cause of a nuclear catastrophe of this scale…”
Via Tyler Cowen
Meditation And Mindfulness Have a Dark Side We Don't Talk About
A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month.
Miguel Farias; ScienceAlert
Agreeing to Disagree
Since neither one knows on what observations the other’s posterior is based, he may be inclined to give more weight to his own observations.
Robert J. Aumann
Markets in Dating: To succeed in dating markets, you have to think like a trader.
Dating is a market because the dating each of us wants is different: different traits in our partners, different types of relationships, different things we offer in return. The challenge of this wild bazaar is finding your partner through the chaos.
Synodality—and ‘controversial’ issues—are here to stay: Takeaways from the Synod’s final document
“There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church: what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. Additionally, the question of women's access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue”
James Martin, S.J.; America Magazine
Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan accidentally visited the world’s largest publishing trade fair
Very charming to imagine a titan and Nobel winner wandering a book fair by himself.
James Folta; Literary Hub
My Hereticon Talk - Spiritual Technology
What's at stake is the current existential crisis of technology - who will build the AI god (lower case g) first.
Ribbonfarm is Retiring
I do think that the end really is here for the blogosphere though. This time it really is different… I don’t think there is any single heir to the blog, or to the public social media landscape it dominated, anymore than there was a single heir to the Roman empire when it collapsed.
Another Change Election
One of the unintended and regrettable effects of the new focus on single issues was that it reshaped how civics was taught in American schools. The old approach was to teach the founding principles of the US Constitution and how our institutions were meant to function within the rule of law. Today, if schoolchildren get any civics education at all, it tends to focus on getting them to choose a single cause, learn what they can about it, and become active “agents of change.” Activism is important in a democracy, but to be effective it has to be grounded in a solid sense of how the system works and why.
Mark Lilla; The New York Review
Agreeing to Agree
Unfortunately Aumann’s proof is quite static and formal, building on a possible-world semantics formalism so powerful that Aumann apologizes: "We publish this note with some diffidence, since once one has the appropriate framework, it is mathematically trivial." It’s ironic that a result so counter-intuitive and controversial can be described in such terms. This combination of elegance and parsimony of proof combined with the totally unexpected nature of the result is part of what makes this area so fascinating to me.
Hal Finney
It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All
A new experimental proposal suggests detecting a particle of gravity is far easier than anyone imagined. Now physicists are debating what it would really prove.
Charlie Wood; Quanta
Settling accounts: Before he was famous, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was Louise Dupin’s scribe. It’s her ideas on inequality that fill his writings
Rousseau unburdened himself to Madame Dupin in a letter, which she returned with a frostiness that nipped his festering passion in the bud. He nevertheless managed to recover his dignity and prove his merit by filling in briefly as governor to the Dupins’ ungovernable teenage son, Jacques-Armand Dupin de Chenonceaux. In 1745, Madame Dupin hired Rousseau ‘as a kind of secretary’. In this capacity, he spent most of his waking hours at the Hôtel de Vins or other properties owned by the Dupins, getting – in Rousseau’s own words – ‘fat as a monk’.
Rebecca Wilkin; Aeon
How Kraftwerk’s Autobahn remade pop
They were turning the modern world around them into music, moving away from their country’s recent past, accelerating into the future.
Jude Rogers; New Statesman
What a Russian Smile Means
Even dealing with a simple “How are you?” felt complicated. People in Russia didn’t engage in this kind of social script, and to her it seemed unnecessary. Did they really want to know how she was? No.
Camille Baker; Nautilus
“Not Everyone Needs To Agree”: Conclave Director Responds To Audiences’ Reaction & Potential Controversy To Shocking Ending
“Not everyone needs to agree with the movie. I love when people disagree, and we can have an argument about it, a real lively discussion.”
Bella Garcia; Screen Rant
Faced With Trump, Libertarianism Shrugged
By and large, libertarians have shown little enthusiasm for holding Trump accountable for fomenting the election steal lie, or his role in instigating the January 6th attack, or his calls for violence.
- ;
The great British cheese heist: Who stole $390,000 of cheddar?
The incident has caused alarm and upset among high-end foodies in the United Kingdom. The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver told his 10.5 million Instagram followers: “There has been a great cheese robbery. Some of the best cheddar cheese in the world has been stolen.”
Dwayne Oxford; Al Jazeera
Identity Crisis
The global left has moved away from social class as an organizing identity, allowing the Right to peddle a working-class identity politics untethered from the socialist vision.
David Broder; Jacobin
The New Chaos of Asian Dance Scenes
The history of pan-Asianism in Japan, however, is not innocent.
James Gui; Pitchfork
Toward a Christian Postliberal Left
Liberalism is dying—again.
Eugene McCarraher; Commonweal
Monkeys will never type Shakespeare, study finds
The results indicated that even if every chimp in the world was enlisted and able to type at a pace of one key per second until the end of the universe, they wouldn't even come close to typing out the Bard's works. There would be a 5% chance that a single chimp would successfully type the word "bananas" in its own lifetime.
Hannah Ritchie; The BBC
Thank you for reading!
Email me at anna@interintellect.com.
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