Articles

  • Nadia Eghbal’s new work sounds really interesting. Hannah and I have been talking recently about a mutual desire to do more “giving”. I don’t think either of use really knows what that means to us. This is a really interesting frame for what giving is.

    Philanthropy, then, can be understood as a form of self-expression. It is complementary, not competitive, to government: citizens have the right to use their private assets to experiment with new ideas, and government has the size and longevity to scale and maintain them. Everything from tiny libraries and Patreon backers to much grander experiments is a participation in, and upholding of, that great American tradition.

  • This YouGov study on Americans’ perceptions of groupsize is pretty interesting. The key takeaway is that we are really bad at estimating small or large portions of things. I knew this (thanks Daniel Kahneman), but it’s so bad, especially for (actually) small groups. I feel like there are lot’s of potential implications of this, such as (WARNING: hot take theory): the internet causes increased polarization through exposure to minority groups that you disagree because you wrongly think that they account for much more of the population than they really do. Since there are more of them, they are therefore a much greater threat to you and your way of life than they actually are.

  • Our World in Data’s thought experiment on the future of humanity and it’s existential risks is interesting. Longtermism is a really revolutionary and counterintuitive way to approach the world. At least personally, I feel so hardwired to focus on the present and near future. The past is heavily present as well (even if it just happens to be foisted upon me by memory, whether I like it or not). But the looooonngg future? Nah. Without external prompting, I don’t think I would seriously consider it for more than a moment. That feels like a mistake though. If we do survive even another couple of centuries and we buy the premise that all of those future people matter as much as those us alive right now, we have to take the idea seriously. Once we do that, every personal, social, political decision looks completely different. This definitely goes into my bookmark for further research and contemplation file.

Music

  • This interview with Aldous Harding is great. The way she describes her creative process are so mysterious. The way it’s described makes me feel the breadth of human experience is just so wide. Designer was one of my favorites from the last five years - strange, elemental, visceral… and she’s just so weird and incomparable. I love it and can’t wait for Warm Chris.

    This is almost too sad to say, but in a way I think that these records seem to be filling gaps in the universe. Maybe I’m filling gaps in my universe, and there are people that have the same issues. Sometimes it does feel like I’m collecting eggs for some invisible apocalypse of intimacy.

  • My Discover Weekly playlist for this past week was absolute 🔥. I used to find DW to be an amazing resource for music discovery. That sentiment has been on the decline over the last year or two to the point that I’ve began wondering about its utility at all. Turns out it’s not always stale or repetitive. Highlights from this week:

    • Fimber Bravo. Holy crap, this guy is good. The whole album is incredible from start to finish. Liberation reggae, steelpan, electronic sounds… Just listen. From Bandcamp:

      Fimber Bravo is one of the most influential exponents of cutting edge steel pan in contemporary music: blasting it in the black power protests of his native Trinidad in the late 60’s; in fusion with West African stars in the 70’s, 80’s & 90s; and integrating them in leftfield improvisations with Western pop and electronic sounds today.

    • Group Listening. Beautiful ambient clarinet and piano that stays interesting using subtle rhythms and enough melody to carry your ear along.

    • Eboni Band. A 1980 collaboration between a a bunch of Ivory Coast musicians and a bunch of Motown session musicians. The story as told on Bandcamp is pretty amazing:

      the record was a product of a casual meeting between Motown Studios alumni Gerald Theus who had set up shop and Eboni Records in Ivory Coast in the 1970s and Abdoulaye Soumare who was based in the US but met with Gerald on a whim and a stopover in Abidjan.

      Theus not only convinced Soumare to stick around Abidjan, but to immediately begin work on a series of four concurrent recordings by the label’s roster of local talent. It wasn’t long before a group of musicians flew from the Ivory Coast to Los Angeles to ‘get down’ and record with a sensational group of Motown musicians

Podcasts

  • Timothy Snyder on the Ezra Klein Show. I found the fifteen or so minutes starting at minute 25 (on Ukrainian history, it’s role in WWII, and Putin’s cosmology) to be especially interesting and enlightening. He has a compelling (and pretty ominous) take on Putin’s worldview and what drives his expansionist crusade. I actually recommend all of his recent Ukraine related episodes.

Books

I have neglected books in this list for a bit now. These are the ones I’ve read some or all of in the last month or so. Hopefully I will get around to reflecting a bit more on at least the ones that I finished.

  • Recursion, Blake Crouch
  • Shutdown, Adam Tooze
  • Crashed, Adam Tooze
  • Five Little Indians, Michelle Good