Whenever I read an article or see something online that I think folks here might enjoy, I tag it and save it to share later. Today is the latest “later”. Here are some interesting and mostly positive things for you to read.
First off, we all know the chaos that guy south of the border is sowing throughout the world. But it’s also really interesting to see that as they’re sowing chaos they’re also making a number of progressives’ goals like clean energy and e-vehicles. Cory Doctorow has more with tons of links to read more if you want to go down the happy rabbit holes. This rabbit hole was particularly interesting. I know many of my readers, for example, will be interested to know that India has installed more solar energy capacity in six months than they installed gas-fired energy generation capacity ever. Or that China has spent more on green energy programs worldwide than the equivalent that the US spent on the Marshall Plan that rebuilt the countries ravaged by WWII.
AI is going to doom the world, AI’s going to save it. It seems like there are a lot of opinions on this subject. Whatever you think, it’s fascinating to see that people were against electric push buttons when they first came out. They might make us dumber as a society! (To be fair, what they were worried about, the fact that most people might no longer understand basic principles of electricity, has come true.
Somewhat related: As many schools around the world move toward using tablets, Chromebooks, and laptops in schools, Sweden is going back to using books.
This story is excellent. A man appeared in the newspaper twice in one day, once in a photo of a man putting Christmas decorations up in a store, a second of a suspect who stole a wallet someone left at a store. By coincidence the photos were on the same page next to one another and thus the police caught their suspect.
The mafia was always known as a ridiculously homophobic organization as viewers of the Sopranos understand. But the same sympathy Tony Soprano started to show for Vito, one of his capos, when he was discovered to be gay. That ban seems to be on the way out, after discovering that one mob boss’ son was a drag queen.
This is a wild story that really illustrates the interconnected nature of the world. How is it that a pain killer that works really well for cows ended up indirectly causing hundreds of thousands of human deaths in India? Hint: It didn’t work the same for all animals. The story is here.
I really like Mike Monteiro’s Good News. Every one of his posts are fantastic. I really like this one, though, How do you form a circle of like-minded people to keep your sanity when so many horrible things are happening? even as our world gets more polarized.
OK there’s a quote I saw from an excellent article that I thought for sure I shared with you already but it’s not tagged as “posted” and a search shows it’s definitely not here so it’s an excellent way to end this entry:
One of the great weaknesses of our era is that we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort. Thich Nhat Hanh said before he died a few years ago that the next Buddha will be the Sangha. The Sangha, in Buddhist terminology, is the community of practitioners. It’s this idea that we don’t have to look for an individual, for a savior, for an Übermensch. I think the counter to Trump always has been and always will be civil society
Rebecca Solnit from Rebecca Solnit Says the Left’s Next Hero Is Already Here (paywall-free link here)
Thank you for the links to fascinating articles Todd. Will read them soon. Sometimes I despair because there is so much to read and not enough time .
Always happy to share. And I feel your pain. My to-be-read list of articles and books grows much faster than I could ever possibly read.