The Monday Mix (13/03/2023)
Hi friends,
I’m feeling a lot better now and have gotten over the virus I had last week. While it wasn’t as bad as Covid it was still grim and made me feel like I’d been hit for six. As I said last week, being ill does make you appreciate just how good it feels when you’re healthy. As I’m typing this now feeling more or less 100%, I can testify to that!
One benefit was that I was able to get through the gigantic In Europe, which is a brilliant book, and I highly recommend it to everyone. I still need to send out my reading list for February, which I’ll get to on Wednesday.
Banned Books
Reading this piece, it’s amazing how many books have been banned throughout history. Perhaps the most fascinating is that the Catholic church discouraged its followers from owning their own bible for centuries, and if they were to own one it would be in Latin, which the majority of people were unable to read. I had no idea that Ulysees had been banned in Britain either! Banning books is a silly idea because they are then subject to the Streisand Effect, whereby more people hear about them, precisely because they have been banned, which gives them a sense of infamy. Still, it’s fascinating to look back and see which books scared the authorities so much they felt they had to ban them.
Trouble in Georgia
The past week has seen demonstrations in Georgia against a law mimicking one in Russia, which would require foreign news agencies to register as such. This article doesn’t deal with that, but it highlights what the opponents of that bill are fighting against. The former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is currently in prison and deteriorating rapidly. He’s being punished with Soviet-era style vindictiveness, which includes alleged poisoning. Georgia is a former Soviet state, but the people in the country appear to have no wish to return to life under the jackboot of Russia, as much as Putin wants this to be. Like in Ukraine, they are fighting against his attempts to re-create the Russian Empire. It’s a fight we should all support.
The Liberty Scam
Given the recent furore about Silicon Valley Bank in America from VCs, many of whom are Libertarians, this article is an interesting read. Libertarianism is an odd ideology and it was interesting to see some of the VCs openly advocate for a bailout when they are normally so strident in their belief in free-market capitalism. Looks like everyone is a capitalist until there’s a crisis. A funny definition of a Libertarian is one I saw on Twitter today. A user described them as housecats, so sure of their independence, yet dependent on a system they don’t understand or appreciate. I thought that was fairly accurate.
Book I’m reading - Wanting by Luke Burgis
After finally finishing In Europe, I’ve just started this book about mimetic desire. It’s a topic I don’t know much about, but I follow the author on Twitter and he has some interesting insights, so I thought I’d try this book!
Quote I’m pondering: – “You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.” ― Milan Kundera
That’s all for this week.
Until next time,
Tom