Thought bubble: Christmas links
Merry Christmas to all my readers! There are almost three times as many of you as this time last year. I hope this growth will continue in 2023. If you have wishes for topics I should cover, do put them in a comment. And give the gift of Wyclif, by sharing on social media:
I collect many links to interesting things online. Here’s a few that are still worth a read or listen:
[Magness and Makovi] make a double mistake. They imagine that the greatness of a social scientist is determined by what his/her contemporaries think of him, and this within a narrow circle of like social scientists…. The greatness of social scientists is shown by their “durability”, that is, by the ability to be relevant over the long haul. This has been the case, in economics, for Adam Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and probably Walras and Keynes…. The longer the social scientist is relevant, the more important he/she is. I do not think that anyone who has read even one chapter of Plato’s “Republic” or Aristotle’s “Politics” was not struck by how extraordinary relevant they are. This is greatness. And this is what Marx has in abundance.
Iran is actually in the grips of the dramatic transition ever recorded in demographic history. Between the 1980s and the 2010s Iranian women reduced the rate at which they had children from 6.5 to 2.5, faster than the pace of the one child policy in China. And they did so with the regime’s support…. Along with electricity and clean water supplies, Iran’s Islamic Republic became a purveyor of free birth-control and family planning advice…. with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, the biopolitical stance of the regime abruptly pivoted. Ahmadinejad pilloried family planning as a Western conspiracy…. In 2014 Iran ended free contraception and passed legislation to prohibit vasectomies, enable younger marriages for women, subsidize additional births and curtailed Iran’s unusually progressive pre-marriage education program. It was as part of this same package that women students were also excluded from some professional university majors.
In Our Time on the temperance movement.
In a vastly bigger marketplace, still one of the best history podcasts out there. The temperance movement is an example of how the Victorian working class combined self-discipline with political activism.
Chauncey Hare, a photographer who knew what his art was for.
Jürgen Habermas has a sequel to his first book, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, and it’s about social media, what else. German newspaper article. Translation.
Does watching pornography cause erectile dysfunction?
Stuart Ritchie on a standing question and a throbbing issue.
Why didn’t the government stop the crypto scam?
Great behind-the-scenes look at the bureaucratic infighting and political corruption in the background of recent events.
First Gensler asked for Kwon’s voluntary cooperation in an investigation. Kwon said no. So the SEC served Kwon with a subpoena, which Kwon refused to honor. Then the Ponzi schemer actually turned around and his powerful legal team at Dentsons sued the SEC for attempting to investigate him.
In May of 2022, a year after Gensler began trying to do something about Terra/Luna, Kwon’s scheme blew up. In a comically-too-late-to-matter gesture, an appeals court then said that the SEC had the right to compel information from Kwon’s now-bankrupt scheme….
Razib Khan takes down “epigenetics”, at least as it is understood in the media.
In mammals (as in most vertebrates) the most basic reason transgenerational epigenetic transmission of anything particularly significant seems unlikely is the fact of a “factory reset” of the epigenetic marks during meiosis when sperm and egg are created, and a second one right after fertilization, when sperm and egg fuse to produce the zygote.
I’ve seen some social-science-y epigenetics at conferences, and indeed my impression was that they have yet to show much convincing evidence of anything. That doesn’t mean they won’t in future. We already know that humans have multiple integenerational transmission mechanisms: DNA, breast milk and culture. So it doesn’t seem a priori impossible there should be a fourth. Anyway, read this for the inside dope.
The History of English Podcast.
You too can understand the Great Vowel Shift! My favourite podcast. It sounds very specialized, but in between the history of the English language, you get the whole history of Britain (and presumably soon, America). It’s very plainly and simply told, which makes it really relaxing. Available on Spotify or Apple podcasts. I also encourage you to support Kevin Stroud on Patreon. You get bonus episodes, so it’s worthwhile.
It’s not too late to make a Christmas gift of Wyclif’s Dust the book — at least the ebook version. Or you might want some New Year’s reading for yourself. Read more about it here.
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