Ran Prieur

March 11.

2024-03-11T23:10:43Z

March 11. Science links. Controversial new theory of gravity rules out need for dark matter:

Oppenheim's theory envisages the fabric of space-time as smooth and continuous (classical), but inherently wobbly. The rate at which time flows would randomly fluctuate, like a burbling stream, space would be haphazardly warped and time would diverge in different patches of the universe. The theory also envisions an intrinsic breakdown in predictability.

More astronomy, a new model of Tidal Locking, in which the same side of a planet is always facing the sun. It now appears that this will not make the bright side a sterile desert. Air currents would distribute heat and bring clouds to block the sun, and the global climate could even be more stable than a rotating planet.

Surprising link observed between body temperature and depression. "The researchers found that higher levels of depressive symptoms were consistently associated with higher body temperatures." The causality is still unknown, but it's possible that making yourself hot, to "engage the body's self-cooling mechanisms", or just making yourself cold, could reduce depression.

Finally, a fascinating Twitter post arguing that prehistoric venus statues "were likely made by women who were examining their own bodies and sculpting them from their own first person POV", with images showing how this explains the exaggerated proportions.

March 8.

2024-03-08T20:40:00Z

March 8. Continuing on the subject of integrating technology with freedom, a new comic, What Luddites can teach us about resisting an automated future. The point is not to blindly resist technology, but to carefully choose our technologies to optimize quality of life instead of accumulation of capital.

A few more links. I spend £8500 a year to live on a train

Via No Tech Magazine, a cool page about Songs made directly from sunlight, with small solar panels connected to sound-making electronics.

And from the subreddit, The cities stripping out concrete for earth and plants. Something I noticed, going back to my hometown after 30 years, was that while the edges had been pushed out with McMansions, the old part of town was actually wilder, with bigger trees, restoration of the river, and a culture of letting lawns get scruffy or replacing them with native plants.

March 5.

2024-03-05T17:10:19Z

March 5. Another quote from a book I'm reading, Morris Berman's Wandering God:

What Woodburn discovered in Tanzania was that the Hadza do not experience any severe food shortages and that they are unconcerned about the future. Although all Hadza consider themselves to be kin, they have few obligations to each other and are not bound by commitments. Everyone has direct access to valued assets, and this provides security for all. Dependency, let alone hierarchy, is not part of the Hadza way of life. What is perhaps the popular image of hunter-gatherer societies -- close, warm, communities that are simultaneously very supportive and very conformist/restrictive -- may be off the mark. Instead, what we often find is a great deal of autonomy and independence.

I haven't written about this stuff in a while, but my position hasn't changed. Just as you need an empty container to carry water, the foundation of all freedom is the freedom to do nothing. The fact that this has been achieved by hunter-gatherers, and not by modernity, should not discourage us from technological ambitions.

Here's a fun question. How far can we go with an all-volunteer economy? Can we go to space? There would be plenty of volunteers to build the rockets, not so many to mine the ore.

Related, a classic essay, The Economics of Star Trek.

March 3.

2024-03-03T15:50:53Z

March 3. I'm reading a lot of books this year, mostly about anthropology or weird stuff. This is from the latter category, The Real World of Fairies by Dora Van Gelder, about tree spirits:

They learn from the cell life within their own bark the difficulties of survival. They see the life around them and know death intimately, as the trees next to them often fall and die. But the trees learn through all this experience that life never dies and is never wasted. They cannot move about and therefore we think of them as having less life experience, but that is where we are mistaken. It is not through rushing about that one learns, but from taking into oneself the experiences from without and thus feeling the pulse of life beating within. Humanity tries to escape from experience which is often suffering. When it rains we go to shelter; when death comes we put away the sight of it. The trees let life beat against them, and try to withstand it.