The Incredible World of Biogeography

Links and commentary for August, 2024

I’ve just finished the fascinating Here Be Dragons: How the Study of Animal and Plant Distributions Revolutionized Our Views of Life and Earth by Dennis McCarthy. I discovered the book after the author, who happens to be a reader of this newsletter, reached out. I read a lot of books on evolution when I was younger, but for the last decade or so my attention has been focused more on history, politics, and social science.

That said, I’m really glad I picked this one up and I hope to interview the author soon. Dennis also has a book on the true authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, which I’ve also been reading, and publishes a Substack I recommend everyone subscribe to. You can find excerpts from the book and commentary on them for paid X subscribers here.

Last week, Jeff Maurer wrote a response to my piece on who we should want to win the 2024 election. He graciously invited me on his podcast, and you can listen to our conversation here. See too Bentham’s Bulldog on the Trump piece, and my discussion with him. Finally, my podcast with Deep Left Analysis just came out.

Here are the links for the month. You’ll find stories and commentary on the latest YMIBY news, why Rome did not industrialize, quantum processes in biology, the implications of so much social psychology research being fake, what kinds of things on the economy a president Trump or Harris could actually do, and much more.

1. Slate writer on his existential despair seeing his childhood hero Ice Cube transform into a MAGA. Microcosm of the blacks for Trump phenomenon, which is ridiculously shallow. Cube was apparently hawking more affirmative action and black set asides in 2020 before taking this turn. These rappers turning MAGA are just not very intellectual Gen X types sort of befuddled by everything that has changed since the 1990s and who appreciate the Rogan/Tucker/Trump aesthetic of just don’t trust anyone and seem like a 90s version of a regular dude.

2. Ukraine’s Kursk offensive seems to have possibly derailed negotiations meant to stop attacks on power facilities by both sides. There appears to be a pattern here where Ukraine, or factions within the government, seek to disrupt peace talks. This appears to have been what happened when Denys Kireyev was killed in March 2022.

3. Absolutely beautiful piece on the evolution of birds and their cognitive abilities, with useful videos interspersed throughout. I’ve always been fascinated by birds, and used to get pictures of them with one of those advanced cameras, but had to quit when children showed up.

4. Story on far-right groups and their conflicts with antifa. (Apple News, via The New Yorker) The story centers around Patriot Front, which people on twitter believe is all a bunch of feds. But they’re very much real, just from a different class than right-wing influencers and the intelligentsia. One of their top members for example was an assistant electrician making $50K a year. A lot of these guys are in the military. This antifa versus far right stuff is a kind of battle of the proles in a world you probably have no familiarity with if you’re reading me.