Slow Down, Do Less

Akielly Hu | Grist | 1st February 2024

Conversation with philosophy professor and Marxist scholar Kohei Saito, whose book Capital in the Anthropocene became a bestseller during the Covid pandemic. He is interested in the redistributive potential of degrowth; a deliberate shrinking of the global economy. In his vision, it is accepted that economies do not grow forever. Sharing existing wealth, he argues, will enable a better life (2,000 words)

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The Cost Of Inflation In Prison

Phillip Vance Smith II | JStor Daily | 1st February 2024

The 13th amendment to the US constitution banned slavery and forced labour “except as punishment for a crime”. Thus, the incarcerated can be required to work and do not have to be paid a living wage, or any wage at all. This has been the case for nearly 150 years, but inflation hikes have made the problems it causes all the more acute. Costs go up, but the pay remains the same for decades (1,900 words)

Flipping Russian Spies

Szabolcs Panyi | VSquare | 1st February 2024

Former Hungarian intelligence officer explains the process when a Russian spy is found. Pre Ukraine invasion, he estimates that 34 per cent of Russian diplomats were confirmed spies. An attempt will likely be made to “flip” the spy. Cash and security guarantees will be required, as well as offers of medical treatment and education for family members. If they refuse, expulsion follows (2,500 words)

Declining Trust In Zeus

Adam Mastroianni | Experimental History | 31st January 2024

Some scientific progress is external and linked to physical improvements, but some comes purely from mental adjustments, like the use of randomised clinical trials. The decline in trust in institutions is just such an opportunity. “I’m so excited for people to become less impressed with our modern day Aristotles and Galens. Perhaps then people will be inspired to outdo them” (2,100 words)

Zoozve

Latif Nasser | 26th January 2024

Zoozve is not a moon of Venus. But it’s also not not a moon of Venus. Quasi-moons are the solar system’s weirdos: objects that orbit the sun while being gravitationally linked to a planet, they seem to be dancing to the beat of their own drum. They can also switch planets — Earth currently has at least seven quasi-moons dancing around it, and probably flung Zoozve over to Venus 7000 years ago (1,300 words)

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The Atom Bomb And The Two Cultures

Jeroen Bouterse | 3 Quarks Daily | 29th January 2024

Against the backdrop of nuclear war, American physicist I.I. Rabi opposed a model where science dealt purely in facts and outsourced questions of value to disciplines like the humanities. Scientists had been used to create the bomb, but had not been consulted about its use. “To the politician, the scientist is like a trained monkey who goes up to the coconut tree to bring down choice coconuts” (4,600 words)

The Man Who Collects Lost Pet Posters

Amelia Tait | The Waiting Room | 17th January 2024

Interview with a Los Angeles oddball with a collection of old “missing” posters for pets. He sees them as a kind of folk art — “the hand-drawn dogs and the poetic pleas meticulously crafted in a time before computers and printers were household goods”. They are touching. Many offer rewards. He has over a hundred. He does admit that taking the posters was “morally questionable” (2,100 words)

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Podcast: Stop Trying To Fall Asleep | Try This. Beginning of an audio “sleep course” offered by the Washington Post that attempts to train listeners to care less about the thing they want most: good rest (8m 44s)

Are We What We Eat?

Anonymous | Madras Courier | 25th January 2024

There is no such thing as “Indian food”. Culinary customs vary widely in India not just by region but also by caste. Brahmins — members of the highest social caste — in the south avoid onion and garlic, while their counterparts in the north are more interested in cutting out meat. Bengali Brahmins, however, love fish. Those in inter-caste households must grapple with these unspoken food laws (1,000 words)

The Seven Laws Of Pessimism

Maarten Boudry | Quillette | 26th January 2024

Last year may have been one of the best to date in human history. More people escaped extreme poverty than ever before and non-flashy, “self-effacing solutions” reduced misery. But it doesn’t feel this way, because of the seven laws this philosopher outlines. Greater freedom exposes greater ugliness. The media leads with bad news. Optimism always requires a “rational leap of faith” (4,000 words)

The Rest Is Silliness

Brin Solomon | VAN | 25th January 2024

The emotional landscapes in classical music are not all spiritually transcendent. There is great art to a comic take on the master works, as the composer Peter Schickele demonstrated with his satirical alter ego “P.D.Q. Bach”. “Dear Mr. Beethoven, I loved your symphony so much I mashed it up with ‘Camptown Races’ and also there’s a double reed slide music stand involved now” (1,500 words)

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What Do Sharks Eat?

Paul Richards | Field & Stream | 17th October 2023

Everything. Sharks live in all of the world’s oceans and will consume anything they find. Fish, crustaceans and molluscs might be what we would expect as their core diet, but there are species that eat sea birds, reptiles, and sea weed. Adult bull sharks will even eat each other, while tiger sharks, “the garbage bin of the ocean”, have been known to consume rubber boots, coal and human limbs (1,000 words)

2023 Letter

Dan Wang | 23rd January 2024

Dan Wang’s annual China letter. Time spent in Thailand allows him to consider who is emigrating from China and why — rùn is a new word usage expressing a desire to flee. Young Chinese people show up in Singapore, Thailand and Japan. Increasing numbers are being stopped on the US-Mexico border. They are leaving stressful jobs and “menial, political restrictions on free expression” (8,700 words)

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Video: Requiem For A Whale | Vimeo | New Yorker | 15m 09s

After a dead whale washes up on an Israeli beach, a filmmaker documents what happens next, from the curiosity of passersby to the autopsy performed by experts.

The Failed Saint

Jason Christian | LA Review Of Books | 21st January 2024

Orwell is sanitised in public memory, despite his flaws and contradictions. He wrote candidly of bullying subordinates and hitting coolies as an officer in Burma, but such details are often omitted in retellings. His radical honesty did not take the form of "weepy confessionals", and was instead informed by a deep pragmatism: if he had to sacrifice his reputation in service to an insight, he would (3,900 words)

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The Early History Of The Channel Tunnel

Peter Keeling | Public Domain Review | 10th January 2024

On the many unsuccessful 19th-century efforts to build a tunnel across the English Channel. In 1856, Thomé de Gamond proposed a double-track railway tunnel with ventilation shafts, steel shields and lighthouses lining the route. The challenges, ultimately, were not of engineering or geology but politics — the project failed due to fears that the tunnel would present a military weakness (5,900 words)

Why Are Some Rich Societies Conservative?

Alice Evans | The Great Gender Divergence | 21st January 2024

Modernisation theories predicted that cultural liberalism would follow economic growth. But wealthy societies like Malaysia and South Korea remain conservative. The answer lies elsewhere: societies with labour-intensive agriculture and strong kinship tend to be collectivist and conformist. Rice grown in Asia requires great coordination compared to wheat in Europe, which needs less labour (3,200 words)

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A Parliament Of Owls

Maria Popova | Marginalian | 4th January 2024

Collective nouns for birds are very charming — “a deceit of lapwings”, “an ostentation of peacocks”, “an unkindness of ravens”. Many of these terms originate from The Book of Saint Albans, one of the first English books printed after the advent of the Gutenberg Press. Anonymously published in 1486, it eventually became known that the author was Juliana Barnes, a reclusive nun (1,900 words)

Our Language, Our World

James McElvenny | Aeon | 15th January 2024

Recent research lends credence to the idea that language shapes worldview: some languages enable speakers to unlock senses that all humans possess but do not necessarily use. All humans are sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field. But Australia’s Gurindji speakers, who would say “a fly is on the eastern part of my leg”, are reliably attuned to shifts in ambient magnetic fields (4,000 words)

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Sober Curious

Louise O’Neill | Savage Hunger | 7th January 2024

There is a cultural shift towards drinking less — #SoberCurious is one of the most searched-for hashtags on social media. The science for an alcohol-free lifestyle is compelling. But there are things to miss about drinking, like the ability it confers to withstand noise. Tips for a Dry January: embrace mocktails, get a friend on board, don’t make assumptions about who you’ll become in sobriety (2,100 words)