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st-just · 3 years

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Now I’m curious what the “one work of pop philosophy and one literary essay thing” you’d recommend are

Well good news, on reflection I've thought up a couple more pieces of non-history nonfiction I'd recommend! (also for @drawnkad ) 1. Strangers Drowning, by Larissa Macfarquhar: A sort of examination of selfless/altruism/taking the idea of universal moral obligation seriously - that is, of people who actually act like they believe that strangers have something approaching the same moral worth as they and theirs do. Specifically interested in why normal people’s reaction to such an idea is often one of deep discomfort, at best. Chapters alternate between a sort of intellectual history of the western tradition of such (which doubles as an intellectual history of utilitarianism for a decent portion of it) and case studies of different people who more or less fit the model, including biographies and interviews. Absolutely lovely book, though likely to leave you feeling like a terrible person as you finish it (you probably are, relatively).

Also has some quotes that have been burned into my skull for years now. To steal a few.

The need of the world was like death, Julia thought. Everyone knew about it, but the thought was so annihilating they had to push it out of their mind or it would crush them.

This position was pure, consistent, and invigoratingly radical, but proved so universally repellent that utilitarianism quickly retreated to the safety of moderation.

Some say they're only dong their duty, they're only doing what everyone ought to, and if most people think their sense of duty is extreme or warped, then most people are wrong. They reject the idea that what they do is saintly or heroic, because to them, that's another way of saying other people needn't even try to do such things. Praise is a disguised excuse.

2-3. The Sixth Extinction and Under A White Sky, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Two books that basically form an accidental set, written seven years apart. The Sixth Extinction is more or less what it sounds like, a brief tour of the current mass extinction event and examination of some of the more notable collapsing ecosystems and rapidly vanishing species, along with some interesting (pre-) historical context of what previous mass extinction events looked like. The section on ocean acidification is honestly what stuck in my head most, though I should really reread the whole thing at some point.

Under A White Sky is something like the sequel. You might call it an introduction to the Anthropocene. The title’s obviously a reference to solar geoengineering, but that only takes up a small amount of the book - the rest is devoted to carbon sequestration, to invasive species, to gene drives, to rerouted and electrified rivers, to vanishing coastlines, to the creation of artificial habitats as part of conservation efforts, to coral breeding programs, and to a half-dozen other things I’m forgetting. The basic thesis is that Nature as popularly conceived is a dead letter - buried under the weight of all of our previous interventions spiraling out of control. The world is only going to get more artificial and synthetic and driven by the consequences of human actions, and it’s just a matter of whether further intervention will make things better or worse.

4. The Uninhabitable Earth, by David Wallace-Wells. In case the other suggestions were too light and upbeat. Essentially this New York magazine article expanded into a full book. Or, more helpfully, a pessimist’s look at climate change - if things keep going on like they are, looking at the far end of the bell curve, just how bad could things get? The answer isn’t actually humanity dying off or anything like that (except through a nuclear war breaking out as a second-order effect, I guess), but they are in fact very, very bad. There’s so many ways the biosphere can start breaking down and make everyone’s life so much worse! At the same time it also kind of gives a history/explanation of what we’re doing right now, and how inadequate it is. Though, like, it’s not as entirely bleak as that. Like, to take a couple quotes a find somewhere between depressing and oddly inspiring.

That we know global warming is our doing should be a comfort, not a cause for despair, however incomprehensibly large and complicated we find the processes which we have brought into being; that we know that we are, ourselves, responsible for all its punishing effects should be empowering, and not just perversely. Global warming is, after all, a human invention. And the flip-side of our real-time guilt is that we remain in command. No matter how out of control the climate system seems- with its roiling typhoons, unprecedented heat waves and famines, refugee crises and climate conflicts-we are still its authors. And still writing.

The fight is, definitively, not yet lost- in fact will never be lost, so long as we avoid extinction, however warm the planet grows, it will always be the case that the decade that follows could contain more suffering or less.

5. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. To provide something that’s actually, like, fun. This is the definitive book on the whole Theranos scandal, written by the journalist who broke the story and basically taking it from start to finish The main takeaway is honestly that if you want to be trusted with billions of dollars, get good at making rich old guys see you like a protege/surrogate non-disappointing-child. Also the highest ranks of American public life are just absolutely full of corrupt idiots, but that’s not really a surprise.

#reply #drawnkad #anon #book recommendations #bad blood #John Carreyrou #the uninhabitable earth #david wallace-wells #the sixth extinction #under a white sky #elizabeth kolbert #strangers drowning #Larissa Macfarquhar

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