The Monday Mix (31/05/2021)
Hey friends,
Summer has finally arrived here in the UK. The sky is blue, the temperature is above 20 degrees and the barbecues are out in force. It’s not much, but it does make the world when the weather is brighter!
Last week I wrote a new post on Medium about which books you should read if you’re looking to get into self-help. I’ve read a few books on the subject, and these are the ones I’d recommend. Even if you’re not into self-help, they’re still books you’ll get a lot of value from.
I’ve also shared an older essay of mine, which looks at whether suffering is necessary. It’s a controversial topic and one which is relevant after the past year and the ongoing crisis, but it’s an argument which has a lot of merit from a philosophical point of view. If there was no suffering in the world would we be happier? And would the world still have meaning? These are questions I explore in the essay.
6 Self-Helps To Improve Your Life
Does Suffering Make Life Worthwhile?
All the World’s Money
This is a brilliant visual guide to all the money in the world today. It breaks it down by sector and really hammers home just how much money there is circulating, and not circulating, today. One of my takeaways from this was just how much debt the US holds and how much there is in derivatives. Whether both of these things cause problems in the future, only time will tell.
How Will the Pandemic End?
An interesting piece on how the pandemic may end and when that may be. The problem with looking at previous pandemics and using them as a guide is, firstly, they’re from different eras. Back in 1921, it wasn’t common knowledge that viruses caused disease. This hindered efforts to slow the tide of the pandemic. Secondly, most of the recent pandemics have been flu viruses, not coronaviruses. They behave differently, so it’s not a reliable guide as to how Covid may end.
Our best hope is a combination of the vaccine rollout and mitigation strategies to keep transmission at bay in the meantime. The problem is rolling out the vaccine to less developed and poor countries. It’s imperative we do this, to stop the threat of variants, but to minimise the loss of life and because it’s the moral thing to do.
Other Regimes Will Hijack Planes Too
The forced landing of a plane in Belarus the other week was one of the most important, I don’t mean this in a good sense, events in recent years. The plane was flying from two EU countries, Greece to Lithuania, before it was forced to land as it was flying over Belarus due to a fake bomb threat. The reason? So the Belarusian KGB could detain a journalist critical of the regime.
As the article states, this a watershed moment for the west. Authoritarian regimes are on the rise and they’re increasingly bold in their actions. If they see there are little or no repercussions from this incident, they will become even more emboldened. Should this happen, what will they do next? This question should worry all of us. Our freedoms require adherence to the rule of law, once that is thrown to the wayside, freedom becomes a privilege rather than a right.
Book I’m Reading - Putin’s People: I bought this book last month and I’m getting around to reading it now after the above event. Putin is a Machiavellian character and one who has a big impact on the world. His rise to power and subsequent actions make for a remarkable story. This book is a fantastic insight into his character and the regime he runs. Required reading for anyone who wants to understand modern Russia and the regime behind the man.
Quote I’m pondering: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl
Until next week,
Tom