Roundup
Good stuff I read, listened to or watched
It’s been a while since I last did one of these. Here I have compiled good stuff across media. Feel free to jump to the sections that interest you.
Contents
Physics-adjacent
Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb
A classic that I’d meant to read for a while. Magisterial. It will take you a while to go through but it will never feel too long. I watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer shortly after finishing it; it pairs well. I am looking forward to reading the sequel, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario
I had read many rave reviews. It is actually quite bad.
Benjamín Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World
I had also read stellar reviews but was not disappointed. I am looking forward to reading The Maniac
William Egginton, The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
The title says it all. The style is, literally, not my style. It is nonetheless enjoyable and compelling. Not by a philosopher or physicist, yet the treatment of Kant and Heisenberg is solid.
Claudia de Rham, The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity
General relativity, memoir, and cutting-edge research on ‘glight’ (gravitational waves) and massive gravity intertwined. A page turner you wouldn’t expect.
Also listen to her interview on the Mindscape podcast
Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick, Feynman
A graphic novel on the life of Richard Feynman. I didn’t love it, but Feynman had an interesting life and the book is entertaining and evocative.
Philosophy (and other nonfiction)
Cameron Buckner, From Deep Learning to Rational Machines: What the History of Philosophy Can Teach Us about the Future of Artificial Intelligence
Just started. The empirical discussion of deep learning models is technical but it is promising. I like how Buckner blends the history of philosophy and recent developments in AI.
Sabrina Little, The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners
Sabrina is the only professional runner I’m aware of who has also become a professional philosopher.
The book is more about virtue and life as a runner, and the interaction between a good life and good running, than it is about the philosophy of running.
This is a very good book—lucidly written, amusing, engaging, original, practical, and genuinely philosophical.
An excerpt
Toby Ord, The Precipice
Read in the context of my Effective Altruism class. I loved it! It appeared before MacAskill’s What We Owe the Future. They are in fact two very different books. I recommend them both. Neither has persuaded me of longtermism, but they are nothing like the caricatures of the movement you’ll read online.
Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
Not philosophy but it didn’t fit anywhere else.
Surprisingly good ‘self-help’ book. I was already on the precipice, but it further convinced me to phase out my dependence on social media and my phone. It’s a long process, but I’m not regretting any of it.
Related: philosophers Tim Aylsworth and Clinton Castro on the Kantian duty (to ourselves) to become digital minimalists (open access); also see their previous work
One of the great philosophers, Daniel Dennett, died on April 19 at the age of 82
Many ‘remembrances’ by philosophers were shamelessly narcissistic, so I won’t share them here.
Good obituary by science journalist Jennifer Ouelette (who happens to be Carroll’s wife)
Eric Schwitzgebel on Dennett and interpretation of your and others’ work
Some interesting comments by the philosopher of physics David Wallace
I listened to this interview of Dennett by Sean Carroll, recorded in 2019, just days before his death was announced: Dennett on minds, patterns, and the scientific image
I just started reading one of his classics, Elbow Room (1984), which is excellent from the first page. Dennett was 42 when it came out. This was already his fourth book (one of them co-authored with Douglas Hofstadter), on top of many already-then influential articles. Incredible.
Effective altruism
The political philosopher Leif Wenar was largely praised by philosophers and others for writing what amounts to a misleading and uncharitable takedown of EA in WIRED
The excellent Richard Yetter-Chappell responded to Wenar and elaborates on the idea of ‘moral misdirection’
Richard’s reflections on Peter Singer (on the occasion of his farewell conference)
The equally excellent Richard Pettigrew also responded to Wenar
Helen de Cruz lampoons EA in the style of Pascal’s Provincial Letters
I disagree with the intended message of the pastiche but it is well done
Do we overoptimize?
Helen De Cruz on playing Super Mario with your grandkids and case for ethical egoism (I’m not sure this is an apt name for the view)
Sabrina Little on the “optimization craze” in running and its conflict with the good life (iRunFar)
Not philosophy but on topic: Freddie de Boer on the curse of overoptimization
Misc from Substack
Robert Long’s Experience Machines
A nice double shout-out to Running Ideas in the spring links
Dan Williams (Conspicuous Cognition) continues his empirically informed critique of misinformation and disinformation alarmism:
Justin Smith-Ruiu against “euthanasia”
Paul Bloom on toddlers’ tantrums
Another valuable Childhood and education roundup by Zvi Mowshowitz
I don’t agree with everything Zvi writes, some of it I sometimes strongly disagree with, but I always enjoy reading him and I’m just amazed at how much information he digests; if you want to know anything about recent developments at OpenAI, new model releases, AI safety, and other related matters, look no further.
Misha Valdman is wondering whether Parfit could make you eat shit (on Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion and Moore’s Open-Question Argument)
Kieran Setiya, “Learning how to die” (on standup comedy)
Animals
Michael Tomasello, The Evolution of Agency: Behavioral Organization from Lizards to Humans
Long overdue reading. Excellent—especially the core thesis that agency is psychological organization, from robots to lizards, from squirrels to apes—with two caveats:
This is a very Tomasello-like book—it is ultimately about how human beings are a different kind of animal due to shared intentionality
Relatedly, the story, tracing the origins of human agency, feels overly teleological—and for that reason, mammalian-centric.
To Tomasello’s credit, he has a very permissive account of agency that applies all the way ‘back’ to reptiles and that presumably also applies other vertebrates including fish and birds, and some invertebrates (especially cephalopods but maybe arthropods as well).
And then, three loosely related books on ‘liminal’ animals:
Bethany Brookshire, Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains
Informative and fun. A bit repetitive when it comes to how we “create animal villains” but she’s on the right side and makes a case that I hope will persuade many readers that ‘pest’ is in the eye of the beholder and more often than not a result of avoidable human miscalculations.
Peter Alagona, The Accidental Ecosystem: People and Wildlife in American Cities
Just started. Promising.
Mary Roach, Fuzz: When Animals Break the Law
Likewise.
Music
Norman Lebrecht, Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World
Do not buy, borrow, gift, or read this book. Indeed, avoid Lebrecht if you can. You are blessed if you have managed to avoid him so far.
Patrick Mackie, Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces
Started. The style is too flowery for me, but I don’t mind reading someone who appears to love Mozart as much as I do
Don’t miss my Mozart series:
From Substack
Evan Goldfine, Where to start with Bach
Ethan Iverson’s farewell to the legendary Maurizio Pollini (RIP)
Justin Smith-Ruiu, Country music in a fractured country
Brad Skow on playing music loud (and together)
An amazing 1944 solo by Dizzy Gillespie (Playback with Lewis Porter!)
Sticky Notes podcast
What is a mode? (in post-Renaissance classical music)
Running
I recently finished the Cruel Jewel 100 (actually 104 miles) after a few weeks of nagging inner knee pain (probably the so-called “runner’s knee”), and Joe Uhan’s excellent advice on running an ultra after an injury gave me confidence in both taking time off and running the damn race. This is me ‘running’ the race (credit: Emily Cameron, IG @ecam44):
Eliud Kipchoge’s Faith Endures Hardest Test (Run by Outside)
The keys to Courtney Dawalter’s continued dominance (Run by Outside)
What Jade Belzberg learned after ten years of running ultras
Robbie Harms on teachers in ultrarunning (iRunFar)
Katie Arnold on writing and running (iRunFar)
Documentaries on two of the very best ultrarunners of the last ten years!
Walmsley | The Film. A very endearing look into Jim Walmsley’s rocky but ultimately successful quest to become the first American man to win UTMB
François d’Haene : Le chemin du retour. D’Haene’s return to racing.
Podcasts
Mindscape
Stefanos Geroulanos on the invention of prehistory
Sahar Heydari Fard on complexity, justice, and social dynamics
Matt Strassler on relativity, fields, and the language of reality
80,000 Hours
Conversations with Tyler
A disappointing (to me) season so far (too much religion, techno-optimism). In addition to Suzuki and McKenzie, mentioned in my previous roundup, I’ve enjoyed Michael Nielsen on collaboration, quantum computing, and civilization’s fragility
Very Bad Wizards
On kidney donations and EA (with Vlad Chituc)
Sentientism podcast
David Peña-Guzman on being ‘species diplomats’
Knowing Animals
Angie Pepper on killing animals in shelters
The edited volume that Angie co-edited, including a chapter of mine
Andrew Lopez on animals and epistemic injustice
Andrew’s paper (open access)
Good films I recently watched and recommend
Heavy
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017)
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023)
Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute) (Justine Triet, 2023)
Sibyl (Justine Triet, 2019)
Light
Polite Society (Nida Manzoor, 2023)
Troop Zero (Bert & Bertie, 2019): a feel-good movie that was enjoyable to watch with the kids
Documentaries
The Booksellers (D.W. Young, 2019)
Cat Daddies (Mye Hoang, 2022)
Meru (Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, 2015)
That’s it, folks! Expect less frequent posting in the next two months. Happy summer!
Thanks so much!