Remember, as long as you can take solace from thinking things can’t get any worse, they can definitely get worse.
Theory
A treatise on Urgent Earnestness. It’s the new defensive cynicism? It’s a … thing, anyway. Maybe.
In case you don’t automatically read every post there, check out the most recent one at Gin & Tacos, about the Museum of Communism in Prague. (I think he’s oversimplifying and exaggerating to make the point, but it’s an interesting point).
Oh, under communism lots of people were imprisoned? PeopleFinance
didn’t feel free? Government was corrupt and unresponsive? Wow interesting tell me more. Through that lens even the line of argument that capitalism is awesome for consumption looks a little wobbly; “Most people couldn’t get the things they wanted or needed” sounds an awful lot like “Most people can’t afford the things they want or need” and the difference is semantic. I guess if the reason people end up under-provided for is the most important thing to you, that argument is
worth having. In practice it isn’t.
Where did all the money go? Duh, it went to offshore tax havens.
(TLDR: “Wealth inequality measures have been grossly understating
concentration because of tax evasion and tax avoidance in tax havens.”)
Longform
A Medium article about the latest bits of the Nixon tapes to surface. Turns out Nixon and Billy Graham were even more antisemitic than you thought. Surprise.
A Motherboard article about a group of anarchists who distribute instruction kits for making your own epipens, HIV drugs, and more.
Brad DeLong posted a chapter or so that he’s cutting from a book he’s writing, addressing why China was not as wealthy and powerful in the 20th century as
it might have been. Long, digressive, unpolished, unedited, and kind of
fascinating anyway. If this is the part that’s left on the cutting room
floor, it should be quite a book.
Stranger than fiction
A mind-controlling parasite found in cat feces may give people the courage they need to become entrepreneurs, researchers reported. https://t.co/ZL5WgbxzW4
NBC News (@NBCNews) July 25, 2018
Yep, this little guy is definitely a mind control vector.
As is this one, which appears to be growing right out of the ground.
Cultivating joy
Dog hides under other dog
Dog steals camera
Hedgehogs: not cats, but also very cute, and therefore possible mind-control vectors.
Secretly Ironic 