The Long Forum June 2024
Welcome to the first monthly Long Forum post. This is a place where I share links to long form content (blog posts, articles, lectures and podcasts) which I think are worth sharing. This is my small effort to push back against the tide of algorithmically optimised attention sucking short form sludge that is polluting our online spaces.
I started the habit a few months ago on my fiction writing Substack (but have paused work on that front, so decided to move the Long Forum here instead). If you are interested you can check out the previous entries via the links below.
Now for the links and quicks summaries of the material I enjoyed most over the last month.
Norway’s Ancient Agriculture: An overview of traditional Norwegian farming practices, which relied heavily on pollarded tree hay to feed their livestock through the winters.
Mimetic Eve Solves the Sapient Paradox: A theory that modern human culture emerged relatively recently and spread from group to group by mimesis.
Quick Take: The Christian Church Didn’t Save the West from Cousin Marriage: An interesting deep dive into the history of cultural prohibitions of first cousin marriages.
Meet the Omnicause: Amazing essay about the impotence and counter-productivity of a wide variety of popular modern causes.
China: A Story in Three Commercial Wars: A wide view of the trade and conflict dynamics between the east and west.
Science and Art are Poisoning You: A contrarian position, inspired by the philosophy of Rousseau.
The Advanced Economies are Headed for a Downfall: Great summary of the evolving/devolving energy and resource competition between advanced and advancing economies around the world as resource limits continue to bite.
Science is Reconsidering Evolution: Interesting talk on the shift of biology beyond genetic determinism to consider the possibility of intention in living systems.
Michaux and Bryce on China’s 2050 Master Plan, Green Energy Breakdown: Latest good discussion from Simon Michaux about the severe mineral hurdles to the planned green energy revolution, and the geopolitical manoeuvring of China in the resources sector.
AI Hype is Completely Out of Control: My favourite source of the month skewering the inflated claims of advances in AI.
Luke Gromen: Why you Should Prepare for a Massive Economic Shift: Discussion from a financial analyst on approaching economic flash points.
The Poor Proles Almanac: The Back to the Land Movement: A deep dive into the history of the hippy back to the land movement of the 1960s and 70s, and why it mostly failed.
Whiff after Whiff: A fascinating deep dive into the inability of government demographers to grasp the reality of collapsing birth rates and populations.
The Maori Genocide of the Moriori: A great article summarising the genocide of one group of indigenous people by another in recent history in New Zealand.
On the Safety of Microplastics: Great measured analysis of the risks of microplastics, and the reasons why it is so difficult to get clear answers on this question.
If you have any suggestions for me to check out and add to future posts then let me know in the comments. Expect another Long Forum post on the first day of every month.