This month, the Ace Journal Club discussed birth order effects–often cited as evidence of the biological origins of sexual orientation. I came away thinking the evidence is shakier than I realized.
The Fashion of Sci-Fi Futures | verilybitchie (video, 31 min) – Why does sci-fi use feminine men to signify decadence in the ruling class? Well, sexism, obviously. But the video also traces historical and literary precedent, to help us understand the intersection of sexism and fashion.
“Portfolios of the Poor” (book review) | Tell me why the world is weird – How do the global poor live on $2 a day? It’s perhaps misleading to say they earn $2 a day, because their income tends to be volatile. There’s a lot of discussion of how they borrow, lend, and save money to smooth out the volatility.
I was thinking about this in relation to my post about loans, and how loans function as a shitty welfare system. The value of lending is smoothing volatility, and that’s something that poor people need more than anyone else. But lending and other financial tools have an overhead cost–a cost that falls, unfairly, on the poor. And when we’re talking about $2 a day, it’s hard to imagine anything resembling the US financial system operating on those margins.
Kanye West and The Daily Wire | Big Joel (video, 43 min) – As an example of how ultra-wealthy people become unmoored from reality, Kanye West openly praises Hitler in song. In comes Ben Shapiro to say “Hitler is bad actually”, a banal observation turned desperate plea. Joel explores a fracture in the right wing between anti-semitism and zionism.
