Links for June

What I'm reading and listening to lately

What I’m Reading

• “Underrated ideas in psychology”: A brief summary of some cognitive biases and the issue with deciding the Replication Crisis is more than it is.

• “They used my identity to flog a doomed cryptocurrency – and then things got weird”: A Guardian reporter on finding out a shitcoin was pretending to be endorsed by him.

• “The Bleak Spectacle of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp Trial”: I did my darnedest to pay zero attention to this thing while it was happening, despite the internet trying to get me to. And I mostly succeeded. However, this piece comes from a Substack I subscribe to, so I read it. Also, the way people have reacted is pure victim-blaming, a major part of the Just World Fallacy, so I feel sort of obliged to at least put out something, even if I have no stomach or interest to write about it myself. (If you’re wondering how this is a case of the Just World Fallacy, the offense to the just universe is that a less famous celebrity who few people have youthful attachments to could possibly be more credible than an extremely successful actor that lots of people have attachments to, basically. Whatever happened, she must have deserved it, she’s only Amber Heard and he’s Johnny Depp.)

• “Burn C-18 or fix it”: Amen.

• “Guess voters were fine with the 'murder clown'“: From a relatively conservative Substack, this is pretty nuanced and funny.

• “Brittney Griner And The Labyrinth Of Wrongful Detainment”: This is interesting.

• “We Don't Throw People Away”: I really don’t like this guy’s both-sides-ism if the most famous defamation trial in forever, but his overall point about all of us needing to forgive each other is a point that needs to be made over and over and over again. Judge not lest ye be judged, after all.

• “Unlearning the Language of ‘Wokeness’”: and the next one, which is a response to the response to this. “Solidarity requires an invitation, a warm and friendly offer to collude in a risky proposition. It doesn’t work as a sanctimonious entreaty to identify with an existing set of self-evident values.”

• “Social Justice Advocates Don't Get to Just Exempt Themselves From Politics”: I don’t like the term “woke” one iota. However, I think a lot of what he says here about the double standards of the Social Justice movement is on point particularly in how childish some Extremely Online members of it can be and how poor the track record is, at least in the US.

• “A Pizzagate in Every City”: This is a tiny bit hyperbolic (okay, more than a tiny bit) but the rejection of objective reality by the American Right is causing more and more of these bizarre incidents where people are just trying to live their lives and crazy people come and yell at them.

• “A Titanic fraud?”: Grifts everywhere.

• “Reading the news is the new smoking”: This is how I’ve felt about 24-hour news coverage for at least a decade. Don’t watch/read the news!

• “The Stock Market At The End Of The World”: “It’s a bit like if you went to a bank and put money in there, but there was a rough day on the stock market, so now your debit card doesn’t work, and you can’t transfer money to anyone.”

• “The Numbing Rise of I.P. TV”: I feel the same way about movies.

• “In defense of crypto(currency)”: A sane attempt to show that all is not lost in the space.

• “The Chagossians Want Their Islands Back": This is long but worth reading.

• “The Liches of Silicon Valley”: Why do VCs continue to invest in companies that aren’t profitable?

• “How are Milton Friedman’s ideas holding up?”: A re-post but interesting especially if you know too many libertarians.

• “Is Web3 culture similar to Amway culture?”: The answer will not surprise you.

• “Bill C-11 critics are now Enemies of the People”: This is a terrible piece of legislation that would turn me against the Liberals if I had voted for them once in the last 20 years.

• “I SHOULD BE ABLE TO MUTE AMERICA”: A-MEN.

• “How three sisters (and their mom) tried to swindle the CRA out of millions”: Actually, they did swindle the federal government out of millions. They just caught.

• “Oligopoly Everywhere”: Well this is alarming.

What I’m Listening to

• Behind the Bastards: “How Chiropractic Started as a Ghost Religion”: I saw a Chiropractor once. Fortunately, he just gave me a massage and some exercises to do at home.

• Canadaland: “The Dubious Botanist”: Something is rotten at the University of Guelph.

• Canadian Couch Potato: I always forget to tell you I listen to one of these per month.

• Darknet Diaries:

  • “Hot Swaps”: Stealing Crypto through SIM swaps.

  • “Daniel the Paladin”: A British teenaged hacker.

  • “Mad Dog”: This one isn’t my favourite. I don’t really love giving people like this a platform without something to counter them.

  • “Player Cheater Developer Spy”: About selling and trading video game cheats.

• Edge:

  • “Digital Reality”: A perhaps too optimistic but still fascinating discussion of digital printing.

  • “Formulating Science in Terms of Possible and Impossible Tasks”: I’d never heard of Constructor Theory before. I don’t know how reasonable it truly is.

• The Lowe Post: I’d trade Scottie, GTJ and picks for Durant. (And, yes, I know how old he is.)

• Revolutions: Almost done the Revolutions of 1848.

• Undisclosed:

  • “The State Vs. Jason Carroll”: I’ve learned about many awful wrongful convictions through Undisclosed. I’m not sure they’ve covered one that was worse. No evidence outside of a confession, and all because [redacted]. Anyway, it’s over. And I’m glad because it was gut-wrenching. I sincerely hope some New Hampshire prosecutors and judges listen to this series and sanity somehow prevails.