Collapse by Jared Diamond
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/18/warning-of-ecological-armageddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers
Thursday 19 October 2017
Thursday 5 October 2017
Words
I have written probably more than 100,000 words of material over the last few years that hasn't made it onto this blog (poems, massive chunks of my memoirs (for example, my attempts at recounting my extremely lonely and traumatic first three years of high school) and essays). I nevertheless estimate that this blog contains at least 250,000 words.
Although I have clearly had too much time to write, the funny thing is that I perpetually have the feeling that I should be trying to transmit more of what I know and think is important. I feel like I may get more into writing on history (summarising Peter Turchin's War and Peace and War and Diamond's Collapse perhaps).... Orthogonally (a fucking terrible transition-adverb), one project that I'm thinking about currently is a long-ish piece called something like "Everything One Ought to Know about Palaeoanthropology". Palaeoanthropology is a subject that has interested me since early childhood, and I often considered a career in it (I am still considering a career in it, to be honest, and a computer science degree and mathematical training is a ticket to a lot of different kinds of research!). This project will consist of detailed summaries of the properties of each known member of the hominin line (and I will summarise theories about their diets and so forth), and analyses of the different theories explaining the various evolutionary 'steps' that our line took, and in this context I will discuss sex differences, sociality, co-operation, violence, mating and companionship, and the controversy relating to the origin of language and symbolic thought.
I may also start writing about philosophy of science. I finally read Alan Chalmers' What is this thing called science? last week and I thought it was terrific. It also reminded me to actually read Lakatos' philosophy of mathematics, and to return to that subject more generally (I always had unfinished business in the philosophy of mathematics; I only wrote one essay but I was planing to write a real major project, and to do a lot more reading beyond Stewart Shapiro's excellent Structure and Ontology).
I wish I didn't find posting to my tiny audience thrilling - but unfortunately I do, which helps explain why I have ejaculated so many words. Human social life is little other than a tooth and claw struggle for status. Of course, saying this violates a taboo and is embarrassing, but it's true. It may be pathetic that I derive a feeling of greater status from posting on this blog. In fact, I oughtn't admit it because humans do not value honesty, and the low-status speak the truth about themselves at risk of total social catastrophe, unless they're lucky enough to be able to write like Proust or whatever.
Although I have clearly had too much time to write, the funny thing is that I perpetually have the feeling that I should be trying to transmit more of what I know and think is important. I feel like I may get more into writing on history (summarising Peter Turchin's War and Peace and War and Diamond's Collapse perhaps).... Orthogonally (a fucking terrible transition-adverb), one project that I'm thinking about currently is a long-ish piece called something like "Everything One Ought to Know about Palaeoanthropology". Palaeoanthropology is a subject that has interested me since early childhood, and I often considered a career in it (I am still considering a career in it, to be honest, and a computer science degree and mathematical training is a ticket to a lot of different kinds of research!). This project will consist of detailed summaries of the properties of each known member of the hominin line (and I will summarise theories about their diets and so forth), and analyses of the different theories explaining the various evolutionary 'steps' that our line took, and in this context I will discuss sex differences, sociality, co-operation, violence, mating and companionship, and the controversy relating to the origin of language and symbolic thought.
I may also start writing about philosophy of science. I finally read Alan Chalmers' What is this thing called science? last week and I thought it was terrific. It also reminded me to actually read Lakatos' philosophy of mathematics, and to return to that subject more generally (I always had unfinished business in the philosophy of mathematics; I only wrote one essay but I was planing to write a real major project, and to do a lot more reading beyond Stewart Shapiro's excellent Structure and Ontology).
I wish I didn't find posting to my tiny audience thrilling - but unfortunately I do, which helps explain why I have ejaculated so many words. Human social life is little other than a tooth and claw struggle for status. Of course, saying this violates a taboo and is embarrassing, but it's true. It may be pathetic that I derive a feeling of greater status from posting on this blog. In fact, I oughtn't admit it because humans do not value honesty, and the low-status speak the truth about themselves at risk of total social catastrophe, unless they're lucky enough to be able to write like Proust or whatever.
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