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Things I've read in 2022

 I wasn't sure how best to title this post. I would say it's a collection of articles but that doesn't quite do justice to the diversity in the list. Before university the majority of my reading was books, supplemented by articles and blog posts. Since University started however I have had no time or perhaps more accurately no energy to read anything outside of my course material except articles and blogs that don't take too much of my time. Having read literally hundreds and hundreds of articles this year I have decided to make a list of the articles I have enjoyed the most and the reasons they have ended up on my list.  1. David Spiegelhalter: " I’ve been meeting with the same group of men for 36 years – here’s what they’ve taught me"  I’ve been meeting with the same group of men for 36 years – here’s what they’ve taught me | Men | The Guardian The first on my list was a surprising one, and a enjoyable read. Having come across David Spiegelhalter as a respec
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There are Mornings- Liesel Mueller

 There are Mornings Even now, when the plot calls for me to turn to stone, the sun intervenes. Some mornings in summer, I step outside and the sky opens and pours itself into me as if I were a saint about to die. But the plot calls for me to live, be ordinary, say nothing to anyone. Inside the house, the mirrors burn when I pass. - Lisel Mueller

Lu Xun on Hope

 Hope is like a path in the countryside, at first there is no path, but if enough people walk in the same direction, the path appears.' 

Does the US have a stabbing problem?

I was inspired to do a little digging and write some of my thoughts on this topic by a strange mix of sources. One was a post on Facebook I saw from an American acquaintance who responded to the fatal shooting of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe with 'Just remember gun laws don't stop criminals' (for context, he is stationed in Japan). Another was a video of a YouTube reactor who, whilst reacting to some uk drill/rap which mentioned the frequent stabbings in London, used this to bolster his view that gun control was futile as people would just resort to knives, and saw the problems occurring in the UK and more specifically London, as an example of this. The third instance is from Andrew Tate, the strange masculinity influencer/kickboxer/sexual assault promoter and advocate. As one of his many videos that the algorithm has been spamming people's timelines with Tate has stated that London is a failed society, (a term reserved mainly for rich liberal countries it

Huxley on righteous indignation

 The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. Men must be bribed to build up and do good by the offer of an opportunity to hurt and pull down. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behaviour 'righteous indignation'- this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats - Aldous Huxley

Arendt On Totalitarianism

 The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction... and the distinction between true and false... no longer exists - Hannah Arendt

A poem by Brecht

For we knew only too well: Even the hatred of squalor Makes the brow grow stern. Even anger against injustice Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness Could not ourselves be kind. - Bertolt Brecht