Issue #42: Microbiocene, Nikki Giovanni and MAYA.
Woo...To say it’s been a testing time since the last issue is to understate things a little bit. What’s been positive in the midst of all the craziness are the conversations I’ve had with friends, family and some of you subscribers who’ve also been struggling through this period but see a positive future. It might not seem obvious that there is much good going on right now with COVID19 cases rising in the US and America finally having to reckon with some of the systemic issues it’s been sweeping under the giant carpet. I’ve even found positivity in celebrating Liverpool winning their first premiership title even though my lowly Arsenal continue to break my heart.
So I stay hopeful. And positive. But not all the time. During one of those hopeful moments is when I (unwittingly) put together this Answer to ‘I didn’t know’ issue of Polymathic to help educate people about black American history and why things are the way they are in the US right now. It’s a long list and I don’t expect anyone to read through everything in one sitting and be ‘woke’. The point is that you get some base knowledge which will then guide you to take the actions necessary towards equity and justice for all.
It’s another delightful PM this month. Reading helps me ‘escape’ (my wife does thousand piece puzzles for her escape when the kids aren’t running around the house non-stop) and I got to read some fantastic articles and books over the last few weeks. Most of them are actually recommendations from readers like yourself so thank you and keep them coming! Learn about the secret history of creation, invention, and discovery. An amazing (and I mean amazing) long read on pangolins, politics and (our) purpose; have we been thinking about ourselves (humans) as a sterile abstraction when we have always been (for viruses and all organic subsystems ) a pond like any other pond? You even get the revolutionary love poems of Nikki Giovanni and then you whiplash to learning about the real value of restaurants. Definitely a fun issue (as always, I hope).
I’ll also pub another newsletter that is pretty good! Charisse Says is all about financial well-being and you’ll benefit from it greatly like I do. And she happens to be a friend from b-school so check it out.
The newsletter emails will soon be coming from seyi@polymathicmonthly.com so add that to your safe list. Stay well. Stay safe. Stay positive. Take action. It’s the only way to ensure you’re in a better place on the other side of these unprecedented times.
Best,
Seyi
Books
Growth and Dislocation. Encounters and Identity. ‘The Lowlands’ by Jhunpa Lahiri explores the story of two brothers who, like the two ponds close to their childhood home, ebb and flow in their relationship. The ponds flood and dry up in the summer just like said relationship. Some central characters stay unexplored to the depths that would have completed their arcs but, for the most part, the book explores this simple but complex thing that is called family.
While I agree with the premise of ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ by Ibram X Kendi, I wonder about the starkness of the lines he’s drawn between being racist or anti-racist. Like most things in nature, there is a spectrum with everything. And I am not suggesting that there is a ‘both sides’ to the issue of racism - racism is bad and unacceptable - there should be room for nuance in how we describe where people are on this journey towards fairness, equity and justice for black people.
I’m not even sure I should put ‘A Short Guide to a Happy Life’ by Anna Quindlen in the books section. It’s shorter than a lot of the articles above. But no less meaningful. It’ll take you all of 10mins to recenter, (again) especially in these times, by reading this artibook (I just made that up).
‘How to Fly A Horse’ by Kevin Ashton could have been shorter, even though it is a short book. This book, like a few that have come out since Malcolm Gladwell’s outliers, suggests genius is a myth and that tenacity and persistence are the keys to discovery. Ashton could have made the point with fewer examples but the creative ‘genius myth’ he tries to disprove will take a while to remove in our ‘genius worshipping’ culture.
I have a good friend, a poet himself, who’s helping me get into poetry. And it seems to be working. Cleaning up the house I discovered two books of poems we’ve had for a while - Nikki Giovanni’s ‘Love Poems’ and Langston Hughes’ ‘Selected Poems’. I gave them a read and, considering the times we are in right now, you should too. The former, filled with yearning and revolution, is a much lighter read than the latter.
Product
The No-code movement is picking up steam and amongst the many products that allow you build fully functional websites using templates/drag and drop is Bubble. More advanced than Wordpress or Wix, minimally functional but not for complex ideas, Bubble makes it simple to get the depth of functionality you need to test your Airbnb competitor product for a lot less money that you’d have had to. And if you don’t want to drag and drop, you can just buy a template.
Articles
Even Angela Davis, who has been fighting the fight for a long time, believes this is different this time.
Doesn’t it feel like Mr Rogers is the hero we need right now [36min Longread]?
I’ve started to wonder more about these propensity to believe that animal-human disease transmission happens ‘everywhere’ else. Getting a full picture of how and what happens enables us to meet viral challenges head on. And the work has been going on for a while. But, yet, we continue to be unprepared even after all that work.
If only we could measure the contributions of immigrants to the US. Oh look, Some Stanford researcher did just that!
Why is Apple so good at making you pay more for what you ‘think’ you might be able to get elsewhere? Here’s a tweetstorm that might just explain that. And I also think it’s because Apple does a great job of MAYA.
H/t to PW (a subscriber!) for this fantastic paradigm questioning long read on the Microbiocene. It’s the most fantastic reframing of what we consider our political domain and it covers Pangolins, COVID, Cellular continuum, human and non-human things, and koinonia. Are we a pond like any other pond but we came up with politics to shield ourselves from this truth? Is that relationship with your pet actually more like what things should be and there is no ‘pet’ but fellow animal?
There’s been a lot about biases these last few weeks and I remembered that in 2016 I’d read a great summary post of our cognitive biases. So I went and found it. It’ll be 12 minutes well spent.
Another recommendation, one I actually got from three different people, from the Stratechery blog. ‘Dust in the Light’ is a slight departure from the regular technobusiness-centric themes that Ben Thompson covers in his excellent newsletter. He acknowledges his privileged avoidance of the state of racism in the US, points to how technology and policy have fueled that and points to a hopeful future.
And what do you do when no one buys the pandemic insurance product you created 18 months before COVID19 hit? A dive into the business of reinsurance and pricing unpredictable global risks.
Where does your country currently stand in terms of providing a good life to its citizens? Find out by playing around with this data visualization from researchers at the University of Leeds.
It’s been a few issues since a Morgan House piece. Same As It Ever Was explores 4 things that won’t change regardless of what we as humans go through.
It will take me a while to get used to watching European club football teams playing the beautiful game wondering if it’s all becoming too mathematical and no longer for the beauty and art of the game. Some things will suffer when AI meets soccer.
Is it safe to say Ira Glass pioneered the genre of journalistic podcasting with ‘This American Life’? He shares why the show and the other experiments him/his team have run work. And it’s no surprise that his producer, Sarah Koenig, would give us ‘Serial’, the defining moment when podcasts truly took over.
Seven writers share their delightful stories that painfully highlight that we lost more than a meal when we lost the ability to just go to a restaurant. Another solid subscriber recommendation.
The extraordinary story of Yuki Kawauchi aka Citizen Runner.
All the best till next month and, as always, please share this with a friend or two.
Best
Seyi