Knot 4: Empathy, Tech Scepticism and Climate Change

I completed a major stage in a big project this week. Emerging from the haze, I had a bit more time to read for pleasure / curiosity. This helps explain the older selections of article that follow, and the number of books I managed to get through. I made steady progress with my language-learning coding side-project (about which more soon), and recorded three new podcast episodes to be released in the next few weeks.

Articles

• Nick Romeo - “The Chatbot Will See You Now” (New Yorker)

This is an article about how technology might help provide some kind of therapeutic intervention at scale. A specific case explored in the piece is that of Syrian refugees who use the app to help deal with things they experienced as a result of the ongoing conflict (or as a result of refugee life). Results on efficacy and so on are still unknown, but it’s at least an intriguing idea.

• Mark A. Heberle - “Must Everyone Write English?” (Claremont Review of Books)

Heberle explores how translation into English is both a blessing and a curse. It brings about this kind of ‘global literature’ and awareness of other cultures for English-reading audiences, but it also changes the kinds of expression that takes place. It’s a challenge to the English-first trend that will leave us so much poorer over time.

• Lisa Miller - “An Experiment in Empathy” (New York Magazine)

This piece is accompanied by a video (here). The video is worth watching, but both show what happens when various parties from ‘opposing sides’ of a contentious issue (gun laws in the USA) come together to try to understand and/or empathise with each other. I’ve long talked about the need for finding a place for empathy in how we understand other people, other places, other contexts, but this piece pushes back a little against that logic. Paul Bloom has also recently published a book (‘Against Empathy’) which argues against the use of empathy as a primary means of making decisions. I will be reading that soon to see how it meshes with my current understanding.

• Michael Knox Beran - “In Defense of Memorization” (City Journal)

A common charge levelled at those who study ways to improve their memories is that there is no need to learn facts since everything is available online. This article shows how memory fits into different kinds of education and learning and how it enriches your mental landscape.

• Cal Newport - “Some Thoughts on Transitioning to Digital Minimalism” (CalNewport.com)

Sensible advice on how to start thinking about reshaping your digital consumption habits. Newport’s last book, ‘Deep Work’, gets into all of this in much more detail, but it’s a useful entry point if you’re considering making a change.

• Tristan Harris - “How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist” (The Startup)

A useful reminder of the ways that our oft-used tech-enabled gateways and services are highly addictive, and designed to be so. This, to my mind, should make us think and pause and consider ways we can be less dependent.

• Jonathan Stray - “The Dark Clouds of Financial Cryptography” (JonathanStray.com)

I’m simultaneously fascinated by the various new digital currencies that have emerged in the last year or two but also overwhelmed whenever I try to understand how they work. This article by Jonathan Stray brought me a little closer to learning about the ‘how’, but also some of the ‘why’ and reasons for possible uncertainty and concern.

• Tara Duggan - “Seafood’s New Normal” (San Francisco Chronicle)

A richly reported story on how climate change and fishing practices are changing how seafood reaches our plates as consumers. It’s told through a very specific lens (that of California and the American west coast) which helps give the piece its power.

• Mark Schapiro - “The Unique Burden of Covering Climate Change in the Middle East” (Pacific Standard)

A really nice overview of the challenges that local journalists face in the Middle East when trying to cover climate change. Schapiro tells his story by way of a workshop in Amman hosted by the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism. We get to meet reporters from different countries. This was a great way to get at the story, and I wish there were more pieces like this.

• David Schenker - “Jordan’s Economy Was Always Shaky. The Refugee Crisis Has Only Made Things Worse.” (The Tower)

I understand next to nothing about how economies and financial systems work, but this article on Jordan’s economy seemed to make sense. Things were always difficult, but now is especially so.

• Donna Abu-Nasr - “Saudis Are Trying to Figure Out How the Post-Oil Era Works” (Bloomberg)

Lots has been written on the Saudi pivot, how they want to be less dependent on oil and reinvent the Kingdom’s role in the Middle East and the world at large. This was the first piece I’ve read that laid out some of the confusion and contradiction as to what exactly that means.

Books

I read Irving’s ‘Guide to the Good Life’, a useful and practical guide to stoicism, a Greco-Roman philosophy that is undergoing a revival in certain circles these days. Harrison’s ‘A Powerful Mind: The Self-Education of George Washington’ was a slightly dry but compelling account of the role of reading in the life and career of George Washington. I read Deci’s ‘Why We Do What We Do’ on the strength of Deb Chachra’s recommendation during her Sources and Methods podcast interview. Deci argues that internal motivation beats external motivation every time; I’ve started employing some of the suggestions in my language coaching work as a result. I also finished Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami’s excellent ‘Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War’ (my longer review here).

Request

If you’re still reading, please drop me a note if you have a spare moment. I see the stats on how many people open these ‘Knots’ link collections but I’m unsure as to whether they’re useful. Let me know if you find them useful, and/or what else you’d like me to write about.

Knot 3: Encryption, Race and Tunnels

More focus this week on finishing a big project, so less time for books or outside reading, but nevertheless some articles to recommend.

Articles

• Ursula Lindsey - “Funds Cut for Prominent Arabic Language Program” (Al-Fanar Media)

An extremely short-sighted decision. The CASA programme has been a really important source of support over its forty-nine years. This is a decision that affects American students of Arabic, but we shouldn’t forget that it’s symptomatic of how language studies are treated elsewhere.

• Rosalind Adams - “Intake: Locked On The Psych Ward” (Buzzfeed)

Anyone who still says Buzzfeed doesn’t do important reporting just isn’t reading. This piece looks at the way a for-profit system works to the disadvantage of patients’ welfare and the healthcare system in general. A must-read for an American audience, and for Europeans / Brits as a portent of what probably is headed our way.

• Bron Gondwana - “Why we don't offer PGP” (Fastmail Blog)

PGP has been much discussed (more than usual, at any rate) this past week. This post offers a useful overview of some of the things that PGP can help protect against, versus some of the places where trust in what it can do are misplaced. Pair this article with Bjarni Rúnar’s “Too Cool for PGP” to cover your bases.

• Annalee Newitz - “Evernote apologizes for its new privacy policy” (Ars Technica)

A useful corrective from Ars Technica (one of the best places to go for informed reporting on science and technology) about Evernote’s recent policy changes relating to privacy. The important point to take away from all this is that Evernote probably isn’t where you want to be storing your notes if you care about your privacy. Try DevonThink instead for a far saner approach to encryption and storage.

• Amal el-Mohtar - “'Iraq + 100' Is Painful, But Don't Look Away” (NPR)

This review of a new collection of stories seems (from the review, at any rate) like it is worth reading. Imaginative and creative responses to events on this scale are, I think, the kinds of things that will ultimately survive far longer than the political analysis and commentary that so far has dominated the discussion of what happened in Iraq. I look forward to reading this book.

• Ryan Holliday - “Want to Really Make America Great Again? Stop Reading the News.” (Observer)

You can ignore the focus on US politics and still take away the broader argument, that following the day-to-day news cycle is (for the broad majority of us) unnecessary and probably actually detrimental to our health and ability to do work that really matters (to us or others). A useful reminder.

• Laura Reiley - “Farm to Table: At Tampa Bay farm-to-table restaurants, you’re being fed fiction” (Tampa Bay Times)

A great piece of investigative work, Reiley shows how a lot of the promises of the farm-to-table movement in California are false claims. This piece is the first in a series that is worth reading in its entirety.

• Roger Cohen - “Broken Men in Paradise” (New York Times)

This is an important reminder of the realities of life for those refugees refused entry to Australia following harrowing journeys across the seas. Authorities in the places they are sent to operate with seemingly little restraint or care for their wellbeing.

• Ta-Nehisi Coates — “My President Was Black: A history of the first African American White House—and of what came next” (The Atlantic)

This piece seems to capture a moment. Based on several interviews with Obama as well as his usual command of the context that explains this moment, this is a (long) must-read.

• Gideon Lewis-Kraus - “The Great A.I. Awakening” (New York Times)

Important from perhaps a different angle, this is a long overview of the ways so-called artificial intelligence is poised to change our world. It views the transformation through the lens of developments in Google’s online translation service. It offers context and explanation to two different approaches to machine intelligence and the different algorithmic decisions being made. If you’re interested in technology and the ways that computers will continue to be embedded in our daily lives, you won’t want to miss this one.

Books

This week I read Lynne Kelly’s “The Memory Code: The Secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and Other Ancient Monuments” in preparation for an upcoming podcast episode interview. Dr Kelly makes a convincing case for how old archeological sites (like Stonehenge) were probably used as forms of memory aids to recall information important for local communities. The book is best accompanied by a glance at a truly fascinating series of memory experiments that she’s been working on. I also read Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Explain Things to Me”, a very useful and sobering reminder of the ways that society works against women, whether directly through violence or other perhaps less visible means.

Films / TV

I wrote yesterday about “Into Eternity” (trailer here), one of my favourite documentaries of the past year. It’s filmed with an idiosyncratic approach to detail and atmosphere. I am ignorant about where Finnish director Michael Madsen gets his influences from, but I certainly look forward to seeing more. Just today I saw another documentary, “13th”, which focuses on the ways that racial inequality has manifested itself in the United States, specifically in the prison system. This is a powerful statement, particularly for American viewers, I imagine, and it made me think about the ways that similar trends are to be found back in Europe.

Knot 2: Translation as Trauma, Taxis and Artificial Intelligence

This week I fell back in love with a piece of software (DevonThink Pro Office) while reorganising and refreshing two dozen archival databases. I’ve been busy putting the final touches on The Taliban Reader and I’ve made new strides of progress on the slackline.

Articles

• Lina Mounzer - “War in Translation: Giving Voice to
  the Women of Syria” (Lithub)

A deeply affecting account of the author’s work as a translator of stories from Syria, how language mediates and obfuscates the terrifying realities of daily life, and how even translation and re-communication gives rise to secondary trauma of a kind. If you read nothing else this week, make it this article.

• Hamzah Nassif - “Understanding Amman’s Yellow Taxi Dilemma: a Different Take on the Government’s Ongoing Battle With Ride-Hailing Apps” (The Black Iris)

I wrote about Amman’s taxis in my Arabic-language newsletter, and this (slightly old) piece helps answer some of my questions as to why taxi drivers in Jordan’s capital behave as they do. It also makes a strong case for changing the status quo. Taxi drivers seem barely able to make a living under current circumstances, and passengers aren’t getting much of a service.

• David Meyer - “The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady Cold War land deal” (Gigaom)

As someone who has just bought a couple of new .io domains, I was unsettled to learn the backstory, how something dating back to the early nineteenth century’s colonial expansion (in this case, to the Chagos islands) has a direct descendent in the modern age. I’m most likely not going to return the domains I bought, but I probably won’t buy anything new from the .io set.

• Andrew Ng - “What Artificial Intelligence Can and Can’t Do Right Now” (Harvard Business Review)

There’s nothing especially new in this overview piece by one of the leaders in the field of artificial intelligence, both in terms of innovation and education. But it’s nevertheless a useful summary of some of the unique features of AI and machine learning, as well as some of the things it is less good at.

• Richard Benton - “Language hacking ≠ language love” (Loving Languages)

Richard’s posts are excellent at returning us to the reasons why it’s worth learning languages — to connect, to be useful perhaps, and not to simply chalk up notches on one’s belt. This recent posts is a challenge to the thankfully-less-omnipresent online polyglot community. Recommended if you’ve ever studied more than one second-language.

Books

This week, I reread Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. Looking into my Goodreads list, I noted that I gave it a two-star rating when I first read it a few years back. Now, perhaps I was in a better place to absorb some of the lessons, but I gave it four stars. I’ll be writing a longer review for the blog here of some of the more contrarian or unexpected lessons. I’m currently reading Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me alongside Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck* (as audiobook).

Films / TV

I’m working my way through Channel 4’s Humans, albeit painfully slowly. It was recommended on a recent podcast as a possible vision for what a future with humanoid AI machines might look like: not as different as we might imagine, but still different enough to provoke some real societal challenges.

Knot 1: Solitary Confinement & Digital Security

This is the first of what I hope will be a regular feature on this blog. Knot will link to recent things that I’ve been reading. It will include short articles as well as books and other things on the internet.

Articles

• Martin Garbus — “America’s Invisible Inferno” (NYRB)

This NYRB review of ‘Hell Is A Very Small Place’ covers the use of solitary confinement in the American prison system. It ends with unearned optimism, but nevertheless is a useful reminder of the importance of the issue.

• Mary Catherine O’Connor — “The latest weapon in the fight against illegal fishing? Artificial intelligence” (The Guardian)

Interesting short piece on the use of machine learning combined with data science competition site, Kaggle, to try to improve the efficiency and accuracy of fishing inspections. Hardly a day passes when a new initiative like this is launched, merging data science and crowdsourced solutions. I look forward to being able to contribute (one day in the hopefully-not-so-distant future).

• Meeri Kim — “How a researcher used big data to beat her own ovarian cancer” (Washington Post)

More data science, though this is more at the N=1 edge of things than the previous fishery data story. The more data we are able to access and generate, the more there will be need for ways of analysing and processing these complex interactions. A lot of money is being invested in finding ways to automate this for non-technical users, though I imagine we’re still a little way away from that utopia.

• Check Point — “More Than 1 Million Google Accounts Breached by Gooligan” (CheckPoint Blog)

I’m not quite sure why this isn’t a bigger story. I’ve long believed that anything stored by Google (in particular, emails) will at some point be leaked in a hack or by some disgruntled employee. This latest hack is pretty close to that scenario, with the caveat that we don’t know what was taken. Takeaway: move away from the Google ecosystem where possible.

• Scott Gilbertson — “HTTPS is not a magic bullet for Web security” (Ars Technica)

This is a few months old but offers a useful overview on HTTPS technology, what it can help with (and what it is less useful for). The headline is actually a bit deceptive since the article seems to make a strong case for the use of HTTPS.

• Shane Parrish — "The Simple Plan To Read More” (Farnham Street / Personal Growth)

I’ve long ago taken this advice on board, but it’s a useful reminder. I enjoy reading, and I enjoy the diversity that comes from reading widely and broadly, so keeping up the pace and seeing it more as a habit to be done most days is, to my mind, the right way of looking at it.

Books

I read three books this past week. Jim Klopman’s Balance Is Power was my easy introduction to some of the science behind why it is useful to train balance in a focused way as a skill.

I finished the second volume in Elena Ferrante’s tetralogy, The Story of a New Name, though I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first. I suspect I’ll have to return to it in a few weeks after the dust has settled.

Finally, I devoured Paul Kalanathi’s When Breath Becomes Air, a beautifully written exploration of death, medicine, how we go through all these things as people, how illness affects not only the body but the mind and the spirit as well. It reminded me of Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, which covered similar themes albeit with less of an intimately tragic outcome. I highly recommend giving When Breath Becomes Air a read.