"I'd like to apologise for the way I've been acting. Work has been very stressful." Dorkly
>>><<<
No way.
“Natural selection in addition to good environmental conditions may help explain why the Dutch are so tall,” Guardian
>>><<<
This is actually a very useful and systematic overview of the current weaknesses in the global economy. I think this is the crucial sentence:
"But the problem ... is that the industrialised world has a much greater capacity to produce things than an interest in buying things. The world is stuck with too little demand." Economist
It's only raised indirectly here, but this could also be framed as a problem with inequality: you basically need to get more money into the hands of poor people who would love to consume the output of all that excess capacity. You could do that by letting them migrate to rich countries, by investing in productive infrastructure in poor countries, by just handing cash from rich countries to people in poor countries, etc.
>>><<<
Guys, check it out. They've gotten Robb Stark (!) to play Prince Charming in the Cinderella movie. Is he really the male lead you want in a royal love story? (Also, in what medieval kingdom do poor servant girls get to ride around on horseback?)
>>><<<
Veganism + eating oysters is obviously the correct answer, and I only decline to eat them myself due to unwarranted squeamishness.
>>><<<
"many pickpockets also operate near signs warning us to beware of pickpockets. The irony is that when people read the signs, they check their pockets or bag, thus alerting the lurking pickpocket to where their valuables are." Financial Times
>>><<<
This statement very precisely captures something I've been mulling over since the beginning of the Rhodes debate at UCT. I think people who witnessed the dying days of apartheid (I include myself in this, although I was young) have internalised deep fears about inter-racial "conflict". Our instinctive fear is that any expression of anger - however justified - will lead us again down the path to violence. So, in the older generations, people of colour tone down their anger, and we whites shy away from hearing it. When I was at UCT, there was undoubtedly racial tension, but I feel that it mostly lived under the surface. We seldom called it by it's name, or really probed too deeply. I think the younger generation - including people who are now students at UCT - are much more willing to have robust debate.
"We have lived with choreographed unity for long enough to know that we now prefer acrimonious and robust disharmony. We see reconciliation as part of a narrative that was constructed on the basis of anxieties that are no longer relevant: Democracy has taught us that raised voices don’t have to lead to war."
>>><<<
Racist anti-immigration sentiment: Britain has seen it all before.
>>><<<
I don't agree with every point, but this is interesting:
"social status, which was once hierarchical and zero-sum, has become more fragmented, pluralistic and subjective. The relationship between relative income and relative status, which used to be straightforward, has gotten much more complex." NY Times
>>><<<
Times have changed
“[In 1951] Members of the ANC (then a purely African organisation) emerged from a rally to find police harassing Indian hawkers. The ANC supporters spontaneously formed a cordon around the hawkers, protecting them from the police”. Daily Maverick
>>><<<
Fascinating little piece of history, though obviously not without its troubling aspects. Guardian
>>><<<
Damn, this is good. Highly recommended
"The conversation about ‘transformation’ – which seldom deals with the fact that what we actually need to confront is deracialisation and decolonisation – has been often itself been monopolised by white staff. In some instances, even within the conversation about ‘transformation’, there is an astonishing lack of basic awareness about what racism is." Daily Maverick
>>><<<
I see a variant of this argument coming up repeatedly from people on the "hard left": basically that Russian actions in Ukraine are "understandable", because Ukraine is in Russia's backyard, it's going to protect what it perceives as its vital geostrategic interests and so on. Is it just me, or is this argument bullshit? I mean, the US was arguably pursuing what it saw as its vital geostrategic interests (i.e. reliable supply of cheap oil on the world market) when it invaded Iraq, and we thought the appropriate response was criticism and opposition, no? Like, when Western governments use force to reverse the political decisions of people in foreign countries, that's worth criticising, but when Russia does it... that's just something that's gonna happen? Jacobin (interview with Noam Chomsky)
>>><<<
I don't have any insightful commentary to add about all this, just :( :( :(
>>><<<
"Here’s why the auto industry, the insurance industry and the officials they lobby want helmet laws. First, forcing people to wear helmets shifts responsibilities onto cyclists and absolves governments from having to build better cycling infrastructure and drivers from having to obey traffic laws.... Second, helmet laws discourage people from using bicycles for everyday transportation by making it inconvenient, and by making it seem more dangerous than it really is." Washington Post
>>><<<
“How do you become an anarchist? Well, it’s not easy. You can’t rearrange the whole fabric of western civilisation just like that. For a start, it’s against the law. So you’ll need to practice. To begin with, try breaking a few little laws: ride your bike home at night with no lights on; walk on the grass. Then, as you get more confident, move on to bigger things: commit a public nuisance; disturb the Queen’s peace. Keep practising – and before long, you’ll be robbing banks and overthrowing governments.” Guardian
>>><<<
Nice quote from David Graeber's latest book:
"Humans being the social creatures that they are, birth and death are never mere biological events. It normally takes a great deal of work to turn a newborn baby into a person—someone with a name and social relationships (mother, father …) and a home, towards whom others have responsibilities, who can someday be expected to have responsibilities to them as well. Usually, much of this work is done through ritual... In most existing societies at this point in history, those rituals may or may not be carried out, but it is precisely paperwork, rather than any other form of ritual, that is socially efficacious in this way, that actually effects the change."
>>><<<
Very strange review in parts, but this is a good bit:
"Unfortunately, voting sunders beliefs from consequences. The war will happen or not depending not on how I vote but on how others vote. I don’t get to choose the war but I do get to choose my beliefs and if I choose the former, I can bask in the warm glow of patriotism and righteousness... Since the only difference in consequence is the warm glow, I have little incentive not to go with the glow and vote irrationally but patriotically and righteously in favor of war... In short, politics reduces the price of irrationality so people buy more, and that is dangerous."
>>><<<
"Ronson’s no 4chan troll, but So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed reads very much like a defense of unfairly victimized white men and privileged white women." Buzzfeed
>>><<<
Europeans started to have pale skin between around 8000 and 5000 years ago
>>><<<
No way.
“Natural selection in addition to good environmental conditions may help explain why the Dutch are so tall,” Guardian
>>><<<
This is actually a very useful and systematic overview of the current weaknesses in the global economy. I think this is the crucial sentence:
"But the problem ... is that the industrialised world has a much greater capacity to produce things than an interest in buying things. The world is stuck with too little demand." Economist
It's only raised indirectly here, but this could also be framed as a problem with inequality: you basically need to get more money into the hands of poor people who would love to consume the output of all that excess capacity. You could do that by letting them migrate to rich countries, by investing in productive infrastructure in poor countries, by just handing cash from rich countries to people in poor countries, etc.
>>><<<
Guys, check it out. They've gotten Robb Stark (!) to play Prince Charming in the Cinderella movie. Is he really the male lead you want in a royal love story? (Also, in what medieval kingdom do poor servant girls get to ride around on horseback?)
>>><<<
Veganism + eating oysters is obviously the correct answer, and I only decline to eat them myself due to unwarranted squeamishness.
>>><<<
"many pickpockets also operate near signs warning us to beware of pickpockets. The irony is that when people read the signs, they check their pockets or bag, thus alerting the lurking pickpocket to where their valuables are." Financial Times
>>><<<
This statement very precisely captures something I've been mulling over since the beginning of the Rhodes debate at UCT. I think people who witnessed the dying days of apartheid (I include myself in this, although I was young) have internalised deep fears about inter-racial "conflict". Our instinctive fear is that any expression of anger - however justified - will lead us again down the path to violence. So, in the older generations, people of colour tone down their anger, and we whites shy away from hearing it. When I was at UCT, there was undoubtedly racial tension, but I feel that it mostly lived under the surface. We seldom called it by it's name, or really probed too deeply. I think the younger generation - including people who are now students at UCT - are much more willing to have robust debate.
"We have lived with choreographed unity for long enough to know that we now prefer acrimonious and robust disharmony. We see reconciliation as part of a narrative that was constructed on the basis of anxieties that are no longer relevant: Democracy has taught us that raised voices don’t have to lead to war."
>>><<<
Racist anti-immigration sentiment: Britain has seen it all before.
>>><<<
I don't agree with every point, but this is interesting:
"social status, which was once hierarchical and zero-sum, has become more fragmented, pluralistic and subjective. The relationship between relative income and relative status, which used to be straightforward, has gotten much more complex." NY Times
>>><<<
Times have changed
“[In 1951] Members of the ANC (then a purely African organisation) emerged from a rally to find police harassing Indian hawkers. The ANC supporters spontaneously formed a cordon around the hawkers, protecting them from the police”. Daily Maverick
>>><<<
Fascinating little piece of history, though obviously not without its troubling aspects. Guardian
>>><<<
Damn, this is good. Highly recommended
"The conversation about ‘transformation’ – which seldom deals with the fact that what we actually need to confront is deracialisation and decolonisation – has been often itself been monopolised by white staff. In some instances, even within the conversation about ‘transformation’, there is an astonishing lack of basic awareness about what racism is." Daily Maverick
>>><<<
I see a variant of this argument coming up repeatedly from people on the "hard left": basically that Russian actions in Ukraine are "understandable", because Ukraine is in Russia's backyard, it's going to protect what it perceives as its vital geostrategic interests and so on. Is it just me, or is this argument bullshit? I mean, the US was arguably pursuing what it saw as its vital geostrategic interests (i.e. reliable supply of cheap oil on the world market) when it invaded Iraq, and we thought the appropriate response was criticism and opposition, no? Like, when Western governments use force to reverse the political decisions of people in foreign countries, that's worth criticising, but when Russia does it... that's just something that's gonna happen? Jacobin (interview with Noam Chomsky)
>>><<<
I don't have any insightful commentary to add about all this, just :( :( :(
>>><<<
"Here’s why the auto industry, the insurance industry and the officials they lobby want helmet laws. First, forcing people to wear helmets shifts responsibilities onto cyclists and absolves governments from having to build better cycling infrastructure and drivers from having to obey traffic laws.... Second, helmet laws discourage people from using bicycles for everyday transportation by making it inconvenient, and by making it seem more dangerous than it really is." Washington Post
>>><<<
“How do you become an anarchist? Well, it’s not easy. You can’t rearrange the whole fabric of western civilisation just like that. For a start, it’s against the law. So you’ll need to practice. To begin with, try breaking a few little laws: ride your bike home at night with no lights on; walk on the grass. Then, as you get more confident, move on to bigger things: commit a public nuisance; disturb the Queen’s peace. Keep practising – and before long, you’ll be robbing banks and overthrowing governments.” Guardian
>>><<<
Nice quote from David Graeber's latest book:
"Humans being the social creatures that they are, birth and death are never mere biological events. It normally takes a great deal of work to turn a newborn baby into a person—someone with a name and social relationships (mother, father …) and a home, towards whom others have responsibilities, who can someday be expected to have responsibilities to them as well. Usually, much of this work is done through ritual... In most existing societies at this point in history, those rituals may or may not be carried out, but it is precisely paperwork, rather than any other form of ritual, that is socially efficacious in this way, that actually effects the change."
>>><<<
Very strange review in parts, but this is a good bit:
"Unfortunately, voting sunders beliefs from consequences. The war will happen or not depending not on how I vote but on how others vote. I don’t get to choose the war but I do get to choose my beliefs and if I choose the former, I can bask in the warm glow of patriotism and righteousness... Since the only difference in consequence is the warm glow, I have little incentive not to go with the glow and vote irrationally but patriotically and righteously in favor of war... In short, politics reduces the price of irrationality so people buy more, and that is dangerous."
>>><<<
"Ronson’s no 4chan troll, but So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed reads very much like a defense of unfairly victimized white men and privileged white women." Buzzfeed
>>><<<
Europeans started to have pale skin between around 8000 and 5000 years ago
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