Category: Newsletters

From the Smithsonian: “During the late 19th century, in the years following the Civil War, Americans—mostly ailing veterans—were hooked on morphine. Syringes, which were sold at drugstores, allowed people to administer the opiate themselves. So with a morphine epidemic sweeping the country, Bayer offered a hot new solution: heroin. The drug, Bayer claimed, was not only stronger than morphine but also far less addictive—so much so that it was billed as the antidote to morphine dependency. Plus, it purportedly had the added benefit of healing the lungs, allowing patients suffering from breathing disorders—asthma or bronchitis or a chest infection—to finally find relief. According to the Atlantic, Sears sold two vials of heroin for $1.50 (some $50 today). The company even threw in a syringe, two needles and a heroin-kit carrying case.”

Why are knights in illustrated manuscripts shown fighting giant snails?

From Open Culture: “Why do illustrated manuscripts show knights doing battle with giant snails? Boars, lions, and bears we can understand, but … snails?Theories abound. In medievalist Lilian M. C. Randall’s 1962 essay “The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare,” she describes some 70 instances of man-on-snail combat in 29 manuscripts dating from the late 1200s to early 1300s. She believes that the tiny mollusks were stand ins for the Germanic Lombards who invaded Italy in the 8th century. After Charlemagne trounced the Lombards in 772, declaring himself King of Lombardy, the vanquished turned to usury and pawnbroking, earning the enmity of the rest of the populace, even those who required their services. Their profession conferred power of a sort, the kind that tends to get one labelled cowardly, greedy and malicious.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “You used to be able to buy heroin from the Sears catalog”

From the Smithsonian: “During the late 19th century, in the years following the Civil War, Americans—mostly ailing veterans—were hooked on morphine. Syringes, which were sold at drugstores, allowed people to administer the opiate themselves. So with a morphine epidemic sweeping the country, Bayer offered a hot new solution: heroin. The drug, Bayer claimed, was not only stronger than morphine but also far less addictive—so much so that it was billed as the antidote to morphine dependency. Plus, it purportedly had the added benefit of healing the lungs, allowing patients suffering from breathing disorders—asthma or bronchitis or a chest infection—to finally find relief. According to the Atlantic, Sears sold two vials of heroin for $1.50 (some $50 today). The company even threw in a syringe, two needles and a heroin-kit carrying case.”

Why are knights in illustrated manuscripts shown fighting giant snails?

From Open Culture: “Why do illustrated manuscripts show knights doing battle with giant snails? Boars, lions, and bears we can understand, but … snails?Theories abound. In medievalist Lilian M. C. Randall’s 1962 essay “The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare,” she describes some 70 instances of man-on-snail combat in 29 manuscripts dating from the late 1200s to early 1300s. She believes that the tiny mollusks were stand ins for the Germanic Lombards who invaded Italy in the 8th century. After Charlemagne trounced the Lombards in 772, declaring himself King of Lombardy, the vanquished turned to usury and pawnbroking, earning the enmity of the rest of the populace, even those who required their services. Their profession conferred power of a sort, the kind that tends to get one labelled cowardly, greedy and malicious.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “You used to be able to buy heroin from the Sears catalog”

From Toronto Life: “It was the middle of the night, a Wednesday in early April, when the first bag of A&W french fries was deposited on my neighbour’s porch. Nobody saw who put it there, but when my neighbour opened her door to get her mail the following morning, there it was — a fast food bag crumpled up at the foot of her white wooden bench. She hadn’t ordered any A&W french fries in the middle of the night, and she wasn’t the one who had eaten them either. The first bag was a mild curiosity. But the next morning my neighbour found another one on her porch, this time with a few fries still inside. Friday morning. Another mostly eaten bag of A&W french fries had appeared on her porch. The third night in a row. written in black Sharpie on both bags: Rodolphe. My neighbour, who recently turned 50, lives alone. By the time the fourth A&W bag materialized on her porch, she had gone from being curious about what she’d viewed as random littering to frustrated to shaken by the invasion of her privacy.”

South Park’s creators and the greatest TV contract clause ever written

From Trung Phan: “The legendary South Park guys have officially joined the Tres Comma Club, with Matt Stone and Trey Parker each worth $1.2B per Forbes. They hit this financial milestone after signing a development deal with Paramount (which recently merged with Skydance Media in an $8.4B deal) and a $1.5B exclusive streaming agreement with Paramount+ (which has mostly been a vehicle for Taylor Sheridan projects but did just add UFC rights for $7.7B over 7 years). While their bottomless supply of creativity is the foundation of their success, Stone and Parker also made a fortune because of fortuitous dealmaking. Some was luck. Some was ballsy. All of it was betting on themselves. Oh, they also may have signed the most valuable (and improbable) TV contract clause ever, which ultimately entitled them to 50% of South Park’s digital revenue.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Why did bags of french fries start appearing on her porch?”

From Astral Codex Ten: “Ollantay is a three-act play written in Quechua, an indigenous language of the South American Andes. It was first performed in Peru around 1775. Since the mid-1800s it’s been performed more often, and nowadays it’s pretty easy to find some company in Peru doing it. If nothing else, it’s popular in Peruvian high schools as a way to get students to connect with Quechua history. It’s not a particularly long play; a full performance of Ollantay takes around an hour. Also, nobody knows where Ollantay was written, when it was written, or who wrote it. And its first documented performance led directly to upwards of a hundred thousand deaths. Macbeth has killed at most fifty people, and yet it routinely tops listicles of “deadliest plays”. I’m here to propose that Ollantay take its place. Also, the revolutionary who was inspired by the play has the same name as Tupac Shakur, the legendary rapper.”

When the Milwaukee Brewers win it can cost this burger chain a lot of money

From ESPN: “The Milwaukee Brewers’ franchise-record 14-game winning streak resulted in one heck of a tab for a local fast-food chain. George Webb promises to give away free hamburgers whenever the Brewers reel off at least 12 straight victories. The local chain delivered on its promise Wednesday, as fans lined up outside each of its 26 Milwaukee-area locations. A George Webb spokesman said the chain expects to give out about 180,000 burgers as part of this promotion. George Webb officials purchased 25,000 pounds of beef, 4,000 pounds of onions, 300,000 pickle slices and 200,000 buns in preparation. During the years when the Braves played in Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta, George Webb promised free burgers if they won as many as 13 straight games. When Milwaukee welcomed the Brewers in 1970, George Webb changed the promotion and promised to give away free burgers for every 12-game win streak. This marks the third time George Webb has had to deliver on its promise.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “A Peruvian play in the 1700’s caused thousands of deaths”

From NDTV: “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bodyguards reportedly carried a “poop suitcase” to collect his faecal waste during the Friday Alaska summit with US President Donald Trump, as reported by The Express US. The unusual security measure was said to be aimed at preventing foreign powers from obtaining information about the Russian leader’s health. Citing investigative journalists Regis Gente and Mikhail Rubin in the French publication Paris Match, The Express US reported that members of the Russian President’s Federal Protection Service (FPS) collect his human waste, including his faeces, store it in special bags, and carry it in dedicated briefcases. The measure reportedly dates back several years, including Putin’s visit to France in May 2017, The Express US reported. It is suspected that the surprising security measure is undertaken to stop foreign powers from taking samples of Putin’s human waste.”

The number of members in the Shaker religious group has increased by 33 percent

From NPR: “Until a few months ago, there were only two living Shakers left in the United States. Now, a third person has joined the celibate Christian sect founded in 1747. Fifty-nine-year-old Sister April Baxter is unassuming in her colorful button-down and jeans but has brought a palpable energy to the space. Baxter is the newest Shaker. Before joining the Shakers, she lived in an episcopal convent for four years. But she says visiting the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community felt like coming home. Eighty-seven-year-old Sister June Carpenter and 68-year-old Brother Arnold Hadd were the last two Shakers before Baxter arrived. Hadd joined the community in 1978. He spends his days praying and working on the farm. Celibacy as a core tenet has limited the community’s ability to grow. But Hadd says people have been committed to supporting the Shakers for a long time, thanks to the official Friends of the Shakers organization.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Putin staffers carry a “poop suitcase” for security reasons”

From Popular Mechanics: “After 500 years, researchers finally understand the anatomical function of a heart feature first described by Leonardo da Vinci. To find the answer, scientists used fractal theory, MRIs, and a lot of computational elbow grease to shed light on structures called trabeculae. They found this branching, snowflaky muscle layer plays a part in the risk of heart disease. “The inner surfaces of the human heart are covered by a complex network of muscular strands that is thought to be a remnant of embryonic development,” the researchers explain in a paper. “The function of these trabeculae and their architecture are unknown.” Leonardo drew pictures of the fine, lacy, snowflake-like trabeculae after examining a heart up close and dissecting it. The artist likely noticed the tree root-like branching structure, and he theorized that the trabeculae were like the systems we use now to keep sidewalks and roads from freezing: a network for blood that was kept warm by circulating in small vessels.”

This tiny snail may hold the secret to the regeneration of the human eye

From Science News: “Golden apple snails are freshwater snails from South America. Alice Accorsi became familiar with the species as a graduate student in Italy. Turns out, the snails are among the most invasive species in the world. And that got Accorsi thinking: Why are they so resilient and able to thrive in new environments? She began studying the snails’ immune systems and has now found they are not the only parts of the animals able to bounce back from adversity. These snails can completely regrow a functional eye within months of having one amputated. Scientists have known for centuries that some snails can regrow their heads, and research has revealed other animals can regenerate bodies, tails or limbs. But this finding is exciting because apple snails have camera-like eyes that are functionally similar to those of humans. Understanding how the snails re-create or repair their eyes might lead to therapies to heal people’s eye injuries or reverse diseases such as macular degeneration.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Scientists solved a mystery 500 years after da Vinci painted it”

I know what many of you may be thinking now, as you read the headline of this post. You might be remembering the photo reproduced below, in which Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (who, it must be said, has a large and rather egg-shaped head, no offense intended) is standing with Bill Maris, the head of Google Ventures, and veteran Silicon Valley investor John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers — and they are all smiling while wearing pairs of Google Glass, the thin frames with the tiny square camera on one corner (the three men were launching something called the Glass Collective, to invest in offshoots of the undoubtedly soon-to-be-ubiquitous smart glasses). Within minutes of this photo appearing, I would argue that it helped to symbolize a kind of socially inept techno-utopianism that often seems endemic to Silicon Valley (remember the Segway?), and in the process Google Glass almost instantly superseded the previous emblem of nerd-dom, the pocket protector.

Google put the full weight of its corporate branding behind the launch — in a demo presented by Brin at the Google I/O conference in June 2012, four skydivers wearing Google Glass jumped from a blimp and landed on the roof of the Moscone Center in San Francisco while livestreaming their descent. Google said the glasses would be available for pre-order for those in attendance for $1,500. Sales to the public started in 2013 and the product was discontinued in 2015, which is right up there with the shortest product runs in recent memory (the company pivoted to making an Enterprise Edition for use in factories). I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of those sold wound up on bookshelves somewhere or in personal museums — like the one I have that contains a working Palm Pilot, an original Motorola flip phone, a CueCat handheld bar-code reader, and an endless parade of the USB gadgets that get handed out at trade shows.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Have smart glasses finally hit an inflection point?”

From The Smithsonian: “It’s arguably the most iconic photograph of the 20th century: the Earth rising above the Moon’s bleached and desolate horizon, a breathtaking jewel of color and life more than 230,000 miles away. In December 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders returned from history’s first voyage around the Moon with this stunning image. But one question about the Earthrise photo has dogged historians for almost half a century: Who took it? I discovered the answer 30 years ago when I was researching my book about the Apollo astronauts, A Man on the Moon. I found myself challenging NASA’s official version of the event, and landing in the middle of a dispute between the astronauts themselves. Even after my book was published, the controversy continued for another two decades, until a NASA computer wizard confirmed my conclusion beyond all doubt.

The Burj al-Khalifa tower in Dubai is so tall that fasting during Ramadan lasts longer on the top

From the BBC: “During Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to not eat or drink between dawn and dusk. Burj Khalifa is almost one km (0.6 miles) high, which means people in higher floors can still see the sun after it has set on the ground, said Muslim cleric Ahmed Abdul Aziz al-Haddad. He said they should break their fast two minutes after those on the ground. Another Dubai cleric, Mohammed al-Qubaisi, has been quoted as saying that people living above the 80th floor should fast for an extra two minutes, while those on the 150th floor and higher should wait for three more minutes before eating or drinking. The 828m- (2,716ft-) high Burj Khalifa has 160 floors and was opened in 2010. The clerics say there are ancient precedents in Islamic law and that people living on mountains should also break their fast after those at ground level.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Who actually took the famous Earthrise photo?”

From Veterans Breakfast Club: “You’ve heard of Japanese Kamikazes in World War II, but probably not Kaiten, the underseas version of the famous suicide attacks on Navy warships in 1944-1945. Kaiten was a top-secret manned torpedo program where the Japanese pilots would be sealed into explosive-packed steel cylinders and launched against enemy ships. The Japanese started planning suicide submarine missions in the summer of 1944, even before they began training Kamikaze pilots. By then, the Japanese had lost all hope for victory. They had suffered defeat in battle after battle, on land, at sea, in the air. Their best pilots were dead. Their fleet was decimated. In the end, Kaiten proved to be a disaster-within-a-disaster, a foolhardy experiment within a misguided war. More Kaiten pilots and crew members died in training and on missions than the number of sailors they managed to kill on the American side.”

Cars in movies are missing something obvious but you may not have noticed

From Now I Know: “The picture above comes from the 2016 movie La La Land, which didn’t win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. But the Best Picture Oscar isn’t the only thing missing from La La Land. If you look carefully, you might see it — or, more accurately not see it, because it isn’t there. Look behind Mia Dolan (played by Emma Stone), and you’ll not see it. What you will see is a clear shot of a car passing her through the back seat window. That’s because of what’s not there: her headrest. If you’re making a movie, the odds of a car crash are very, very low — so the headrest serves no safety purpose but leads to a lot of small problems when it comes to filmmaking. First, directors want a picturesque background behind their actors, and if you have someone in the back seat, you often want to be able to see them. Also removing the headrest makes filming easier — it gives the cast and crew more room to maneuver in the car.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “During World War II Japan used kamikaze submarines”

From LitHub: “One of the most disturbing sporting events in history took place on January 1, 1946, when the US military staged an all-star football game on a field in Nagasaki, Japan—less than five months after an atomic bomb killed over 70,000 in that city, nearly all of them civilians. The game, dubbed “The Atomic Bowl,” was played on the same day that college football bowl games were being played in the US. Today, nearly 80 years to the day after the bombings, the first vivid letters about the game and its aftermath, along with several previously unpublished images, have emerged from an unexpected source: William W. Watt, a revered English literature professor and poet whose work was for many years published in The New Yorker among other magazines. A top officer wrote a press release promising that the game would have a Marine band and Japanese girl cheerleaders. But they would have to play touch, not tackle, football because shards from the atomic blast still littered the field.”

How the invention of the marine chronometer in the 18th century changed the world forever

From Science Direct: “Until the eighteenth century, accurate offshore navigation was an impossible dream. There was no method or technology to determine longitude precisely in the open sea. The longitude puzzle was finally solved with the marine chronometer, one of the most important inventions of the era of the Industrial Revolution on a par with the steam engine. Solving the longitude puzzle] allowed not only safer but also more direct (and hence faster) passage across the oceans, resulting in greater intercontinental trade and the creation of new markets. These developments in turn caused massive shifts in population, significantly expanding the influence of some cultures while suppressing or even eradicating others. We used global data on climate, ship routes, urbanization and colonial history to investigate how the adoption of the marine chronometer reshaped transoceanic sea routes and the impact of these changes on the distribution of cities, population and European colonies across the globe.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Five months after Nagasaki the US staged a football game there”

OpenAI recently released a new version of its ChatGPT artificial-intelligence engine, called GPT-5. Normally, I wouldn’t choose to write about the latest iteration of a product that is in its fifth generation, especially since GPT-5 doesn’t seem radically different in most important ways from GPT-4. In fact, some critics have described it as an overdue, over-hyped and underwhelming update — nothing like the “almost human” artificial general intelligence that OpenAI has said for some time it is on the brink of developing. As far as I can tell, one of the main benefits of GPT-5 is that it replaces (or at least hides) the somewhat bewildering menu of AI engines that users can choose from: GPT-4o, GPT-o3, GPT-04-mini, GPT-04-mini-high, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1-mini, and so on. The new engine includes all of these prior modes, or models, and now it chooses which one (or which ones) to use based on the complexity and nature of the query. But what I found fascinating about the launch of GPT-5 was how angry a lot of devoted ChatGPT users seemed to be about the new version — or rather, what they were angry about.

As my former tech-blogging compatriot M.G. Siegler pointed out in his analysis of the launch in his Spyglass newsletter, it has become almost a rite of passage for technology products and services to ship a new release that makes everyone mad. One of the earliest cases I was tangentially involved with, as was M.G., was the launch of a little Facebook feature called the news feed in 2006. The thing that eventually became the beating heart of the company, helping to propel it to a multibillion-dollar market value and billions of users around the world, was initially so reviled by users (many of whom seemed to see it as an invasion of privacy) that it was seen as a massive mis-step — one that was arguably made worse by the tone-deaf note that Mark Zuckerberg wrote to users, an apology that wasn’t really an apology. So it’s not uncommon at all for users to hate the latest update from a service that they have grown accustomed to.

But there was something different about the GPT-5 backlash. It wasn’t just users who were upset that the user interface had changed, or that features weren’t where they expected them to be, or that there were new commands or menus, etc. As Casey Newton pointed out in his Platformers newsletter, users who expressed themselves in Reddit threads like r/ChatGPT and elsewhere seemed upset because the new version of the company’s large-language model seemed to have a different personality, if I can use that term — and OpenAI at least initially wouldn’t let them revert to GPT-4 (it later changed its mind on that, after a Change.org petition and some angry blog posts). Some described the loss of the previous version as being like losing a friend, while others said that the new model seemed smart, but that there was a “coldness” about its responses.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “People fall in love with all kinds of things including AI chatbots”

From ProPublica: “Jill Dopf Viles — self-taught genetic detective — passed away recently at the age of 50. She became convinced she had a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Emery-Dreifuss, which causes muscle wasting, and an even rarer form of partial lipodystrophy, which causes fat to vanish from certain parts of the body. Jill had been told for years that she didn’t have either of these, never mind both. After my first book, “The Sports Gene,” came out in 2013, I was on Good Morning America talking about genetics, and Jill happened to be within earshot of her TV. She sent me an email and followed up by sending me a batch of family photos and a bound packet outlining her theory: that she and Canadian sprinter Priscilla Lopes-Schliep — Olympic bronze medalist in the 100-meter hurdles — shared a genetic mutation. On the face of it, this seemed ridiculous. One could hardly find a picture of two more different women.”

Was Shakespeare stoned when he wrote some of his most famous plays?

From LitHub: “William Shakespeare was in danger of being canceled. He was a big fan of ­mind-altering ­drugs — especially cannabis. But the Church of England looked down on live theater because of its “unwholesome” moral content and was keeping an eye out for plays to shut down; plus, city officials had to approve plays before they could be performed within the city limits. So, if Shakespeare had dared to admit publicly that he smoked cannabis, it might have ended his career. That’s right, Shakespeare was a stoner. They found the evidence in his backyard. Some anthropologists got permission from a museum to borrow ­twenty-four clay pipe fragments that had been dug up in the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare used to live. Using state-of-the-art forensic technology, the anthropologists discovered cannabis residue on eight of ­them — including several from Shakespeare’s backyard ­garden — that dated back to the late 1500s/early 1600s, around the time he actually lived there.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “She diagnosed her own genetic disorder and changed science”

From Wired: “Tuvalu is preparing to carry out the first planned migration of an entire country in response to the effects of climate change. Recent studies project that much of its territory could be submerged in the next 25 years due to rising sea levels, forcing its inhabitants to consider migration as an urgent survival measure. This island nation in Oceania is made up of nine coral islands and atolls inhabited by just over 11,000 people. The country’s average altitude is just 2 meters above sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to rising oceans, flooding, and storm surges, all exacerbated by the climate crisis. A study by NASA’s Sea Level Change Team revealed that, in 2023, the sea level in Tuvalu was 15 centimeters higher than the average recorded over the previous three decades. If this trend continues, it’s projected that most of the territory, including its critical infrastructure, will be below the high-tide level by 2050.”

Kiki the paralyzed sheep has learned how to drive herself around on a motorized cart

From Boing Boing: “Kiki, who was born paralyzed after her mom caught Cash Valley virus from a mosquito, was brought as a young lamb to Don’t Forget Us, Pet Us, a nonprofit sanctuary located in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts that provides lifelong care for farm animals with disabilities. From the start, the folks caring for her noticed how attentive, curious, and sweet Kiki was, and they’ve worked to provide her with the tools and love she needs to thrive, despite her disabilities. When she was young, the sanctuary saw how quickly Kiki learned to control the toys’ dials and levers by using her lips and teeth to move them and wondered if Kiki would be able to transfer the skills to drive a motorized cart. Sure enough, she easily learned to use her head to push the joystick on her motorized cart to move it in various directions, and now she’s an old pro, scooting around the sanctuary property at her leisure.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “The entire country of Tuvalu is planning to move to Australia”

As a journalist by training, I have what you might call an addiction to facts. I believe that there are things that are true and things that are not, and that we can determine one from the other through observation, rational thought, and meticulous research. Obviously, there are some things that remain open to debate (philosophy for example) and areas where the science hasn’t been completely locked down – psychology and most of the humanities fall into this category, I think, along with things like quantum mechanics and the way that the human brain works. What do we mean by consciousness, and how do we know when something possesses it? That kind of thing. On those kinds of topics, debate is plentiful and certainty is difficult to come by. On the other hand, many things are solidly in the realm of the factual – that the Earth is round (ish), that men landed on the moon, that vaccines are pretty much the greatest thing humanity has ever come up with, that jet fuel can melt steel beams, and so on.

The unfortunate reality of the age we live in is that some people disagree with some or all of those statements, and many others that are usually taken for granted as fact. They don’t just disagree about the nature of the universe, they disagree that the Earth is round; they don’t just disagree about the nature of the moon landing, they believe that a conspiracy theory involving the Deep State (whatever that is) has kept the truth from us for decades. And they don’t just question the efficacy of vaccines, but believe the government deliberately created COVID and then injected us to control our minds. What are these disagreements based on? In many cases, it’s what the kids call “vibes.” Reddit posts and bad videos and Facebook links from questionable people who are a) mentally ill, b) pushing some quack remedy, c) trying to generate fear so they can sell advertising, or d) all of the above. All of this is augmented by confirmation bias, fundamental attribution errors, apophenia (a desire to see patterns where they don’t exist), and a host of other cognitive mistakes that human beings are prone to make.

I think about these things a lot, for some pretty obvious reasons [gestures vaguely in all directions] but most recently my thoughts turned in that direction again because I read a recent piece in New York magazine titled “Why calling RFK Jr. anti-science misses the point – Battling over truth, facts, and evidence doesn’t work in a post-expertise world,” by Rachel Bedard, a doctor from Brooklyn. She describes what America is going through as an “epistemological crisis,” particularly in the areas of health and medicine (although I would argue that it extends into many other areas of science and technology). For anyone who is unclear on the meaning of the term, epistemology is the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge — in other words, how we know what we know. It is an investigation into the nature of belief, and what distinguishes justified belief from mere opinion. Bedard describes the problem in this way:

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “What do we do when the facts don’t matter?”

As a journalist by training, I have what you might call an addiction to facts. I believe that there are things that are true and things that are not, and that we can determine one from the other through observation, rational thought, and meticulous research. Obviously, there are some things that remain open to debate (philosophy for example) and areas where the science hasn’t been completely locked down – psychology and most of the humanities fall into this category, I think, along with things like quantum mechanics and the way that the human brain works. What do we mean by consciousness, and how do we know when something possesses it? That kind of thing. On those kinds of topics, debate is plentiful and certainty is difficult to come by. On the other hand, many things are solidly in the realm of the factual – that the Earth is round (ish), that men landed on the moon, that vaccines are pretty much the greatest thing humanity has ever come up with, that jet fuel can melt steel beams, and so on.

The unfortunate reality of the age we live in is that some people disagree with some or all of those statements, and many others that are usually taken for granted as fact. They don’t just disagree about the nature of the universe, they disagree that the Earth is round; they don’t just disagree about the nature of the moon landing, they believe that a conspiracy theory involving the Deep State (whatever that is) has kept the truth from us for decades. And they don’t just question the efficacy of vaccines, but believe the government deliberately created COVID and then injected us to control our minds. What are these disagreements based on? In many cases, it’s what the kids call “vibes.” Reddit posts and bad videos and Facebook links from questionable people who are a) mentally ill, b) pushing some quack remedy, c) trying to generate fear so they can sell advertising, or d) all of the above. All of this is augmented by confirmation bias, fundamental attribution errors, apophenia (a desire to see patterns where they don’t exist), and a host of other cognitive mistakes that human beings are prone to make.

I think about these things a lot, for some pretty obvious reasons [gestures vaguely in all directions] but most recently my thoughts turned in that direction again because I read a recent piece in New York magazine titled “Why calling RFK Jr. anti-science misses the point – Battling over truth, facts, and evidence doesn’t work in a post-expertise world,” by Rachel Bedard, a doctor from Brooklyn. She describes what America is going through as an “epistemological crisis,” particularly in the areas of health and medicine (although I would argue that it extends into many other areas of science and technology). For anyone who is unclear on the meaning of the term, epistemology is the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge — in other words, how we know what we know. It is an investigation into the nature of belief, and what distinguishes justified belief from mere opinion. Bedard describes the problem in this way:

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “What do we do when the facts don’t matter?”