Nate Hagens:

In a materially rich, modern world, the habituation of the action of consumption leads to the wanting of things culture-wide being stronger than the reward we get from having them. This is a fundamental problem for an economic system built on turning billions of barrels of oil into microliters of dopamine. […]

In a culture of vast material wealth, information overload, and social media it’s increasingly difficult for us to separate fantasy from reality. When these individual virtual worlds connect with the virtual worlds of others, the result is widespread shared beliefs that money is real, that our current widespread wealth is due mostly to our cleverness, and that technology will lead to limitless growth.

I’ve been listening to The Great Simplification for a while, but I hadn’t listened to Nate’s Film on Energy, Environment, and Our Future. Though he doesn’t capture me entirely, I appreciate nearly everything he’s about.

Here’s an example of one reason why I’m not entirely captured. In the middle of what is surely a crucial description of what’s going on all around us, he says this: “Computer algorithms optimized for profit are splintering our society by reducing attention spans, accelerating addiction, apathy, and mistrust in science.” I’m not saying that that sentence is wrong (it isn’t), but it seems really, really obvious to me that “mistrust in science” does not belong in that list in the same way or as seemlessly as addiction and apathy and loss of attention. The trust we struggle to place, and insist the public place, in science is its own beast, and surely optimized computer algorithms can just as easily result in misplaced and even harmful trust in something-called-science.

(I mean no offense to anyone who has one of these, but I am certain that a flag on my lawn declaring “As for me and my house, we believe in science” will help neither me, nor our politics, nor our science. Surely the ubiquity of flags of this sort reflect an algorithm much more than they reflect the truth or something meaningfully called trust.)

Anyway, I fully endorse the work Nate Hagens does and highly recommend his podcast. I mention my little complaint only because I think it is hindrances like these — which are not occasional but instead soak almost everything that gets said — are part of what keeps people from getting on board with what is otherwise fascinating and essential information for us today.

Osip Mandelstam:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on stupidity… and contempt for humanity.

Sometimes, love squishes.

Always read Nicolas Carr.

David Ciepley:

In short, the stockholders are the most ill-informed, irresponsible, uncommitted, and unnecessary of all the parties involved with the firm. Yet, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, they alone are entitled to select directors, who (it is widely argued) are to cater to them alone—or, rather, to their pecuniary interests alone—over the well-being of workers, customers, the community, the environment, or even the long-term well-being of the company itself.

Been wanting to say hello to this guy for a couple weeks now. His name is David, and he’s been spending a lot of time on the Damariscotta bridge lately. He recommends folks use 5calls.org for contacting their local representatives. (I can’t recommend the scripts they offer for phone calls, or the tailored approach to issues in general, but as a resource it seems okay.)

Exposure is cynical.

It requires more than a little chutzpah for a defender of the Trump approach to Ukraine to deplore pagan vanity.

Gilbert Meilaender once again proves to be one of the few (occasional) writers left at First Things worth reading. Though I think he’s off on where exactly things “ran aground” in the Oval Office — the question was not “What would it mean for Ukraine to succeed?” but more directly “What is the security guarantee in this diplomacy deal and how does it differ from the useless ones given to Ukrainians before? — Meilaender gets the rest exactly right.

He quotes Michael Walzer:

“Our common values are confirmed and enhanced by the struggle, whereas appeasement, even when it is the better part of wisdom, diminishes those values and leaves us all impoverished.” That, I think, is the crucial point. Suppose for a moment that the Trump administration is right that continued Ukrainian resistance is a mistake and that an end to Ukrainian resistance is “the better part of wisdom.” Grant all that for a moment and ask what is missing. What is missing is any sense that pressing the Ukrainian people to give up their struggle “diminishes” our values and leaves us “impoverished.” To be sure, pagan vanity would be bad. But this sort of impoverishment, which thinks of the world solely in terms of power and deals between great powers, is worse.

(Also a reminder that Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars has been on my to-read list for some time (probably because Meilaender has recommended it before) as well as Walzer’s latest, The Struggle for a Decent Politics.)