Dreamer Easy

Fact-checking resources:

Reality Check from BBC News

bellingcat.com


New Nuclear Power Plants Are Unlikely to Stop the Climate Crisis (Scientific American, February 2022). "These plants take too long to build and bring online, and we don’t have that much time."

The 7 reasons why nuclear energy is not the answer to solve climate change (Heinrich Böll Stiftung, April 2021)

Scientists Say GMO Foods Are Safe, Public Skepticism Remains (National Geographic, May 2016). Is safety a red herring? "But the academy also found that GE or (genetically-modified organisms or GMO) crops didn’t increase those crops' potential yields, and they did lead to widespread and expensive problems with herbicide-resistant weeds." (emphasis mine). What's the point, then? (Potentially, nutrient content.)

Make extreme wealth extinct: it’s the only way to avoid climate breakdown (Guardian, November 2021) | Global rich must cut their carbon footprint 97% to stave off climate change, UN says (CBS, December 2020) "The richest 1% would need to reduce their current emissions by at least a factor of 30, while per capita emissions of the poorest 50% could increase by around three times their current levels on average."

Permaculture and the Myth of Overpopulation (Fr John Peck, January 2016). I know nothing of permaculture, but the points in this essay chimed with me. The reminder that this mess is not inevitable and that perhaps humans can and should survive was welcome.


Humans are hardwired to dismiss (coronavirus) facts that don't fit their worldview (LiveScience, July 2020). "Our ancestors evolved in small groups, where cooperation and persuasion had at least as much to do with reproductive success as holding accurate factual beliefs about the world. Assimilation into one's tribe required assimilation into the group's ideological belief system — regardless of whether it was grounded in science or superstition."

Mask-Shaming Won’t Work. Try These 5 Things Instead (Yes!, July 2020). Advice useful for any polarised debate.

Heightened susceptibility to misinformation linked to reduced mask wearing and social distancing (PsyPost, October 2020). "Reflective and analytical thinking" is our best hope.

How social media influencer tactics help conspiracy theories gain traction online (ABC, December 2020) Influences and conspiracy theorists are businesses out to make money, and do it through similar marketing strategies.

The new coronavirus and racist tropes (CJR, January 2020).

Cory Doctorow: Fake News Is an Oracle (July 2019). The problem of conspiracy theories in a world of conspiracies.

How to Convince Someone When Facts Fail (Scientific American, January 2017).

Are Americans as stupid as we seem on Twitter? (Forward, May 2020). On slogans.

How does your body respond to feelings of moral outrage? Depends on your politics (Neuroscience News, January 2020).

The Lazy Poor or the Entitled Rich? (Psychology Today, March 2020) "A psychological perspective on wealth, merit, and compassion."

Closed-minded cognition: Right-wing authoritarianism is negatively related to belief updating following prediction error (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review volume 27, 2020). Right-wing authoritarian views make it harder to change your mind given new evidence.

Supporters of religious violence are more likely to claim they’re familiar with religious concepts that don’t exist (PsyPost, August 2020)

The Root of All Cruelty? (The New Yorker, November 2017). What if, rather than dehumanising our victims, we see them precisely as human beings who are justified targets of our violence?

Furry Panic Is the Latest Dumb GOP Attack on Public Schools (Daily Beast, February 2022). Rumours about special treatment for furries etc in US schools are proxies for attacks on the more usual groups, and on schools themselves.


Science fiction, with a taste of the Twilight Zone: When You Die on the Radio by Adam R. Shannon.


And finally (image not mine):

I've buggered up my wrist, so I can't get much housework done today, so you're about to be spammed with all my backed up links. Plus I'm in a rubbish mood. Duck and cover.

Recent postings suggest that lj Doctor Who fandom may be beginning to reclaim itself from the shipwarriors and other obsessives. Huzzah.

Australia's gag rule will soon be lifted. "[Foreign Minister Stephen Smith] Mr Smith said the focus of Australia's foreign aid would remain on avoiding abortions by providing better family planning education, as he pledged to boost funds for preventing maternal deaths by $15 million over four years."

Saith Gordon Brown: UK, US 'aiming for nuclear-free world', with Britain making some reductions to its nuclear arsenal and offering to go further if the US and Russia will.

Are bad sleeping habits driving us mad? "Take anyone with a psychiatric disorder and the chances are they don't sleep well. The result of their illness, you might think. Now this long-standing assumption is being turned on its head, with the radical suggestion that poor sleep might actually cause some psychiatric illnesses or lead people to behave in ways that doctors mistake for mental problems."

Guantanamo guards "take their last revenge"

Carbon dioxide is good, so more carbon dioxide is better! Unless you're a foram and can't make a shell because dissolved CO₂ has acidified the ocean. Oops.

Douglas Adams. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
Charles Dickens. Bleak House. AT LAST I HAVE DEFEATED YOU, NOVEL OF LONGNESS.
Bruce Kinloch. Sauce for the Mongoose.
William Poundstone. Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb.
Don Watson. On Indignation.


( Books bought and borrowed )

Oh man, check out Our Cities Must Fight!, a US Civil Defence film from 1951 - apparently before they knew about fallout. If you get bored, fast-forward to the splendidly grim and pessimistic ending.

It's kind of interesting that the message to the public, both before fallout was understood and afterwards, both before intercontinental missiles and afterwards, was not to evacuate. Tens of millions of people are, effectively, an immobile target.

ETA: Bwa!!!! Tragedy or Hope? Damn Communist radical hippies!!! With their long hair and weird clothes and the funny way they speak - oh wait. You have to see this to believe it. Bonus appearance by Captain Jack. Begorrah.

Guardian columnists say: Ban the word 'chav'. "This is middle class hatred of the white working class, pure and simple."

It's missing most of a verse, but it's still worth seeing this YouTubed clip of the Doug Anthony All Stars' debut on Big Gig, performing Commies for Christ. The masculine energy still explodes from the screen all these years later. (The first I ever heard of the DAAS was when a quick clip of this was shown on Backchat, the subject of much viewer outrage.)

Belatedly: striking evidence that there was no need to bomb Hiroshima. (Intelligent discussion in the comments, too.)

J Joe jeans and his jelly beans!

More Philip Glenister: why isn't The Perfect Blue out on DVD? Thudddd! Also, the making of Cranford. Thudddddddddd!

Onto more serious stuff. Never mind MAD, army chiefs argue we may need to use nukes to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. Fucking for virginity, anyone?

Obesity in children is about three-quarters genetic. I want to know the equivalent for adults.

Think I'll just whip out your internal reproductive organs along with your appendix. Oh dear, you've successfully sued me.

Horrors of war too much for captain

Soldier guilty of attack was in Iraq shock

I worry that the serious psychological damage inflicted by combat gets left out of the equation when the costs of war are being considered.

Cost of nuclear plant closure put at $10m

Internet bullying warning to parents. A Sydney man recently made a foolish YouTube threat against his former high school, warning "they will get what they deserve". It worries me how many people must share Xander's fantasy of shooting up their high school.

Nicaragua's draconian abortion laws kill scores of women

Now that Jon and I have nieces and nephews, this whole global warming thing is suddenly concrete instead of abstract. For several reasons, we plan not to have any children ourselves, but the tots give us a connection to a hot, dry future. I heard the PM on the radio extolling nuclear power as "clean". Now there are arguments that the global warming crisis makes nuclear power look like a good stop-gap, but I don't accept that - we need to put money into actually clean solutions, rather than trying to make a buck out of the disaster. I don't want to leave Charlotte a bunch of plutonium to cope with.