John Green has gone down a rabbit-hole in his distinctive self-aware, obsessive-compulsive sort of way. This slender volume contains histories of Tuberculosis at different scales, from the grand sweeps of civilization to the individual, and the view is alternately bleak and inspiring (bleakspiring?). While technically a writer, Green could be described as a musician of the heart. This is a story of a disease, medicine, culture, but mostly a story of humanity, our mistakes, our struggles, our drive to do better. This is an important story, told skillfully and succinctly. I think the more people who know it, the better off we will all be.
2025-08-04
Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
2025-06-13
Escape from Manus Prison by Jaivet Ealom
I am not qualified to author immigration policy. However, I am not convinced that those who are writing immigration policy are any better at it than I would be. I know the view is different from the top, and balancing the inordinate number of competing interests is nigh-impossible (heavy head, crown, etc). However, in many cases there seems to be a complete absence of basic human kindness. And again, I know that national policy is sometimes a numbers game; adjusting conditions so that there is less overall suffering even if some people still do suffer. I can hear the argument forming already, “to speak of kindness at such a scale is naive”. To which I say, read this book. There is no world in which this sort of suffering is necessary. And to enable, to facilitate, to engineer such suffering is immoral.
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2024-11-19
Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara
If, upon learning about some awful episode in the history of Western Colonialism, you take comfort in the fact that that age has passed, then this book is for you. That age hasn’t passed, and even in 2024, your life is built upon the exploitation of people whose only crime is where they happen to have been born. Welcome to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If you are willing to look past corporate platitudes and can stomach some unpleasant truths, Siddharth Kara will take you on a tour.
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2022-10-30
Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern
This is the particular kind of science that ought to be encouraged and supported. It’s one thing to expand humanity’s understanding and knowledge in a general sense. It’s another to investigate competing claims about causes of and solutions to the ills of society. Public policy must be subject to scientific scrutiny. We shouldn’t guess, we shouldn’t appeal to emotion. We should do what works, or we will be overtaken by those that do. Colburn and Aldern have done the math, made some conclusions, and written them up for broad consumption.
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2022-09-04
Exercised by Daniel Lieberman
Exercise in the modern world has been commodified. The people talking about it the most are some of the least trustworthy. Daniel Lieberman has taken a step back from the fitness-industrial complex and asked the elephantine question: Are homo sapiens even supposed to exercise? Through the lenses of anthropology and evolution, he has untangled exercise from modern culture. The result is an enlightening journey through history, civilization, and biology.
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2022-09-04
Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
This is a tight volume describing and decrying some of the ways we misuse technology, specifically mathematical models. O’Neil has both the academic and industry experience to give us a clear picture of what’s going on and why it’s terrible. And it is terrible. She wastes no time explaining models and their misuse, where they are being misused, and what it is costing us. This is a concise and thorough account, and there’s little more to say. The only criticism I will raise is the title. Calling these misused models “Weapons of Math Destruction” or “WMDs” is obviously easily confused with the other kind of WMD, and it is a clumsy name in both cases. Naming things is hard, but writing books is harder, and O’Neil can be forgiven the awkward name for she has written an important book.
