This week I finished: The Problem of Social Cost, by R. H. Coase: I heard about this paper months ago, or maybe years. I read it because it came up in the Cato Institute podcast I wrote about in Libertarians confused on pollution, sacrificing their core values. At the root: lack of hands-on practical experience. I believe I see Coase's starting point that conflicts don't necessarily mean one person harming the other so the person harming is wrong. Conflicts can go in both directions. The two or more sides can negotiate resolving the conflict. Still, I read the paper for seeing how it applies to pollution. I think this paper misunderstands pollution, maybe because it's from 1960 and people didn't have the experience with pollution…

This week I finished: Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, by Janna Levin: Somehow I started receiving Janna Levin's Substack (that Is, Substack spammed me, though I doubt Levin caused it). I looked her up. She teaches physics at Barnard. I got my PhD at Columbia and worked with a professor at Barnard, who was one of my main reasons for returning there after starting graduate school at Penn. This book describes the path in the physics and to a degree astronomy communities to detect gravitational radiation. Its descriptions of developing and building detectors at the frontiers of science reminded me of my time at Fermilab and helping build XMM, the x-ray observational satellite I worked on. On the experimental side, though,…

This week I finished: The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation, by Joel Salatin: I spoke with a pastor last month. When I shared about my disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid and leadership work on the environment, he recommended this book. I hadn't heard about Joel Salatin. I found many videos by and about him online. He seemed a mix of passionate, kooky, and craving attention. I didn't put a high priority on the book, but having finished it, I'm more than glad to have finished it. Salatin is gung-ho Christian and mentions Jesus, quotes the Bible, etc nearly every page, which I guess I've gotten used to after listening to every word in the Bible, hosting many…

This week I finished: Propaganda, by Edward Bernays: Bernays wrote this book before WWII and shared views on propaganda with Hitler, whose Mein Kampf, volume 1 I just finished. Both share views on influencing public views with modern practice. Bernays points out that the world works this way. You can deny it and still be swayed by it but be helpless to act on it, or accept it, embrace it, and use it. It's hard to imagine what it would feel like to read it when it came out, not having lived my whole life in its wake. People freak out about it, implying he's one of the most influential people of the 20th century, which he may have been, but also that he's a…