Inklings #2

An occasional series of things that I have been enjoying or that have piqued my interest.

Can a systems biologist fix a radio?

I only came across these two articles very recently - they are apparently classic articles in biology.

Can a systems biologist fix a radio? (PDF)

Can a systems biologist fix a tamogotchi? (PDF)

It led me to this piece about making linguistics a better science. There is some interesting discussion about whether having precise definitions is useful or not. As a mathematician, I always find myself getting frustrated by a lack of definitions. I found this when reading about mechanistic interpretability recently. But there is a case that when a field is developing, it isn’t ready for precise definitions yet. It’s not clearly what exact concepts are going to be important yet. I’m reminded of Terence Tao’s division of pre-rigorous, rigorous and post-rigorous mathematics.

What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

Something has always bothered me about the woke movement that I haven’t been able to put my finger on.

I care about social justice - I worked for The Open University for over 15 years in part because I cared about its mission. But there are aspects of the movement that bothered me. Odd things reminded me of what I had read about how cults work. I also knew that I didn’t think the glorification of victimhood was healthy - I know about the Karpman Drama Triangle. And I don’t believe in a hierarchy of suffering. But I also knew there was more than that.

I have just finished reading What’s Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban. The book articulated for me perfectly what was bothering me about it, far better than I ever could have done. It distinguishes Liberal Social Justice and Social Justice Fundamentalism in a very readable and clear way. It then argues that actually it is the Far Right that benefits from Social Justice Fundamentalism, far more than the people it actually claims to help. I also found it a very eye-opening book in terms of how extreme things had got in the US.

I think most people involved in social justice movements have really good intentions and that there are ideas that are valid and changes that deserve to be advocated. But there’s some really dangerous ground, made all the more dangerous by its proximity to that good ground. In the same way that most Christians wouldn’t endorse cults based on Christianity, it’s important for people who support social justice to call out the equivalent in that sphere and there are important lines not to cross.

At the moment, it can be hard to tell which social justice initiatives cross the line into Social Justice Fundamentalism. You sometimes have to dig quite deep to find out. I am heartened at seeing things like Chloé Valdery’s Theory of Enchantment which seem to tackle the issues from a position of compassion for all humans.

The Levers that Money can’t Pull

I think this is an interesting article about money from More Than That. I have two children and one of the many many things that I think about is what I want them to learn about money. Morgan Housel also writes lots of interesting stuff, both about money and other things (and I’ll encourage my children to read his book The Psychology of Money when they become older). I often think about his article The Optimal Amount of Hassle, not just in the context of ‘hassle’ but in the context of other ways that the world isn’t exactly how I feel it ought to be.

Egregores

I learned the word ‘egregore’ this week.

The Shape of Stories

There is a famous talk by Kurt Vonnegut in which he talks about The Shape of Stories.

I came across this wonderful new interactive version of Vonnegut’s The Shape of Stories for various famous novels and plays. There is also an article from the creator on how they created the graphs using ChatGPT. It makes me unreasonably happy seeing that somebody has done this and being able to see the shape for various stories.