Book reviews
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On bad penis puns.
Modern English is built on a foundation of The King James Bible and William Shakespeare – the former, plagiarized from a person we burned on the stake for his efforts; the latter, Lord Regent of Bad Penis Puns, as though his very name compelled him: Willy-I-Am Shake-Spear, Billy Wagcock, old I am a dick now…
bad puns, Barbara Hamby, capon, Christopher Logue, competition, consensual nonmonogamy, cooperation, education, Emily Wilson, Entitled, etymology, Eugenia Cheng, fornicate, gender, history of English, humor, hysteria, James Joyce, jealousy, Joyce, Kate Manne, Mansplaining, Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender, men, mythology, OED, Oxford English Dictionary, patriarchy, Penelope's Lament, penis, penis puns, poetry, polyamorous, polyamory, puns, scortatory, sex, sexuality, Shakespeare, slang, teaching, Telemachus, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Ulysses, vagina, vulgar slang, War Music, women, X+Y
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On self-importance.
We aren’t the stars of other people’s stories — and that’s okay.
addiction, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, anxiety, Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom, Blake Crouch, career, caretakers, caretaking, children or career, clone battle, clones, dark matter, decoherence, drug, drug addiction, drugs, Exhalation, family, family or career, family versus career, Hugh Everett, infinity, jail, love, macaques, many worlds, many worlds theory, many-worlds interpretation, Nezhukumathil, opiates, postponing children for career, prioritizing caretaking, prioritizing family, Pulp Fiction, quantum decoherence, quantum measurement, quantum mechanics, Quentin Tarantino, rehab, sci-fi, sci-fi thriller, science fiction, taking care of family, Ted Chiang, thrill, World of Wonders
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On the theory of mind.
If we’re lucky, we learn that others not only think, but feel.
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On grammar in Latin and English.
Based on the history of English usage, singular “they” is even more acceptable than singular “you.”
Dennis Baron, English grammar, gender, grammar, high school, history of English grammar, history of word use, Latin grammar, misinformation, nonbinary, nonbinary pronoun, nonbinary pronouns, parenting, pronoun, pronoun usage, pronoun use, pronouns, raising children, raising kids, reading aloud, reading to children, reading to kids, school, singular they, singular you, trying to use Latin grammar rules for English writing, word usage
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On domestication and Sue Burke’s ‘Semiosis’
With every generation, our species changes. If we found ourselves on the cusp of survival, an alien world could easily reshape us to fit its needs.
aggression, alien life, artificial selection, Belyayev, coevolution, conscious plants, directed evolution, domesticated foxes, domestication, evolution, flowering plants, fruiting plants, future humans, human domestication, human evolution, intelligent plantlife, intelligent plants, Russian fox experiment, science fiction, selective breeding, selective pressure, self-domestication, Semiosis, Semiosis review, Sue Burke
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On translation and quantum mechanics.
We have so many ways to depict the world – they’re not all equally good for all ideas.
3 body problems, 3-body problem, base ten numbering, Beyond Weird, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, Chinese, Dance Your Ph.D., Dance Your PhD, decimal notation, describing photographs, Diane Arbus, does God play dice, Eliot Weinberger, God does not play dice, God is a gambler, God is an inveterate gambler, grain size of the universe, Hugh Everette, infinite precision, infinite series, irrational numbers, language, math, math is language of universe, mathematics, meaning of quantum mechanics, metaphoric language, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ninetween Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Perry Link, Philip Ball, physics, pi, pixelation of physical space, precision, quantum mechanics, quantum physics, Richard Feynman, Science Olympiad, Stephen Hawking, three body problem, translating, translating mathematics into words, translating poetry, Translation, voxelation, what does quantum mechanics mean, Write It Do It, writing
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On Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘We Are the Weather.’
A lot of climate change is caused by cheeseburgers. Killer superbugs are, too.
animal agriculture, antibiotic resistance, antibiotic resistant bacterial, antibiotic use in animal agriculture, antibiotics, antibiotics in animal agriculture, carbon emissions, climate change, climate destabilization, cognitive bias, cognitive biases, concentrated animal feeding operation, cutting carbon, emotional understanding, energy conservation, energy use, energy use in animal agriculture, environmental veganism, environmentalism, ethical diet, ethical veganism, ethics of eating, existentialism, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, human cognition, human extinction, Jonathan Safran Foer, low carbon diet, meaning of life, moral diet, MRSA, philosophy, plant-based diet, Saving the planet begins at breakfast, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, vegetarianism, We Are the Weather
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On social norms.
Would you pull over for a fire truck on its way to fight climate change?
45, Amazon, Amazon rain forest, animal agriculture, anthropocene, Brazil, Brazilian politics, Brazilian presidency, carbon, carbon emissions, cattle farming, cattle ranching, clear cutting, climate, climate change, climate change caused by animal agriculture, climate change caused by diet, climate change caused by meat, climate denial, climate destabilization, climate inaction, climate instability, climate reparations, collective action, consumer action, consumer choice, cows, cows and climate change, cows and methane, Donald Trump, Eating Animals, environment, Environmental Protection Agency, environmentalism, EPA, ethics, extinction, extractive industry, farmed animals, farming, flooding, GBI, global warming, global wealth tax, guaranteed basic income, GWT, inhabitable earth, Jonathan Safran Foer, lungs of the Earth, mass extinction, meat eating, mining, morality, personal choice, personal responsibility, plant-based diet, PotUS, reparations, science denial, social norms, Trump, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, vegetarianism, We Are the Weather, wealth inequality
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On sex work and demand.
We could end sex work by pushing back against demand … but we need to help women feel less demand for money, not criminalize men’s demand for sex.
anti-prostitution feminists, anti-prostitution movement, Ayurvedic massage, border patrol, border policing, brothel-keeping laws, colonial legacy, colonialism, criminal justice, criminalization, criminalized transactions, decriminalized prostitution, demand, dismissive library listing, economics of criminalized transactions, elastic versus inelastic demand, feminism, feminist theory, GBI, global capitalism, global wealth tax, guaranteed basic income, human migration, human rights, human trafficking, immigration, immigration control, immigration enforcement, immigration policy, injustice, judges, Juno Mac, legislating morality, library listing, massage, massage therapists, massage therapy, misogyny, Molly Smith, Nordic model, objectification, objectification of women, policing, policing women, prohibition, prosecutors, prostitution, racism, racist enforcement, racist policing, Revolting Prostitutes, selectively enforced laws, sex, sex work, sex workers, sex workers rights, sexuality, Sweden, trafficking, undocumented immigration, undocumented migrants, War on Drugs, wealth tax, work, workers rights
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On telepathy and the battle for narrative control.
After William Burroughs experienced how pitifully he could be held in thrall by a small molecule, he developed a lifelong interest in telepathy and mind control. His own brain had been upended. Suddenly, he found himself devoting the vast majority of his time and money toward a single cause: obtaining a day’s ration of opiate. …
addictive technology, Apple, ayahuasca, battle for stories, behavioral change, behavioral modification, Benway, competing narratives, criminal justice, criminal justice system, Douglas Star, Facebook, false confessions, guilty plea, hooked on technology, how are criminal defendants charged, identity, incarceration, innocent people plead guilty, interrogation, interrogation techniques, jail, language battle, magnetic pulse, mass incarceration, mental conditioning, mind control, Naked Lunch, narrative control, neural polarization, Pavlov, Pavlovian conditioning, personality, personality modification, plea bargain, police, police interrogation, power, prison, prosecution, prosecutors, prosecutors determine charges, psyche, psychedelics, psychic warfare, psychology research, Queer, research into false confessions, Saul Kassin, Silicon Valley, social control, story battle, storytelling, subjugation, tech companies, tech-free kids, technology, technology companies, telepathy, thought control, TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation, ultimatum game, unethical game design, why do innocent people confess, William Burroughs, Yage
Frank Brown Cloud 