Animal Companions, Mumbai Rich, Free Will, Alan Moore, American Tribalism
How To Take Your Pet Everywhere
Patricia Marx | New Yorker | 13th October 2014
You can take a pet almost anywhere in New York, if you carry a therapist's letter describing the pet as an emotional support animal. Letter in hand — and such letters are not hard to come by — you can take your snake to Chanel, your turtle to the Frick, or your turkey on the Hampton Jitney. You can even take your alpaca to Niagara Falls by train, or fly from Newark to Boston with your pig in the next seat (5,400 words)
Mumbai: Capital City
Madhavankutty Pillai | Open | 17th October 2014
The rich are very rich: “There was a wedding last year where they gave away yachts". But even the richest live "a schizophrenic existence of opulence and pettiness". They pay millions for an apartment in a trophy building and still the plumbing doesn't work. Overloaded infrastructure and rising pollution levels impose a kind of egalitarianism: "No matter how wealthy a person is, Mumbai ensures discomfort" (2,930 words)
Are We Free?
Daniel Dennett | Prospect | 16th October 2014
Neuroscientists have yet to tell us anything useful and new about free will, despite their claims. The question remains a philosophical one: Whether we are trapped in causal chains reaching back through all eternity. Philosopher Alfred Mele makes a moderate and well-reasoned case in favour of free will in his new book, Free. But how free was Mele in reaching his conclusions, given his funding from the Templeton Foundation? (2,435 words)
Everything And Moore
Tim Martin | Aeon | 17th October 2014
A ramble through Northampton in lively conversation with Alan Moore, magician, anarchist, and author of Watchmen, V For Vendetta and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. His latest work, Jerusalem is a "million-word mega-novel" and an "exercise in literary difficulty" featuring Samuel Beckett, Thomas à Becket, Malcolm Arnold, Dusty Springfield, John Bunyan, Charlie Chaplin, Saint Patrick, Adam Smith and Archangel Michael (2,900 words)
Five Case Studies On Politicization
Scott Alexander | Slate Star Codex | 16th October 2014
On the polarisation of and politicisation of American public opinion. When you know a person's view on one big issue in the news — be it Ebola, Jennifer Lawrence, Rotherham, global warming, ISIS, or Ferguson — you can fairly reliably predict her view on the others. "When an issue gets tied into a political narrative, it stops being about itself and starts being about the wider conflict between tribes" (5,100 words)
Video of the day: Norway Adventure
What to expect: Another time-lapse. But Norway. Calm and beautiful (5'30")
Thought for the day
The only thing that interests me about computers any more are the people on the other end
Greg Knauss (http://twitter.com/gknauss/status/522943480243290112)
The Death of Old Europe 3rd November, St Mary Moorfields Church, 7pm
The brilliant and charming David Hargreaves, editor of The Browser Looks Back, will be our guide to the extraordinary parallel world of 1914. Admission is free. Click here to register. (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/august-december-1914-the-death-of-old-europe-tickets-13574558871)