Shared posts

09 Apr 05:01

The Tunguska Mystery

Tom Roche

EXCELLENT, though not so much about environmental history/legacy as about the Tunguska Event's place in Soviet/Russian (and more broadly, Asian) pop culture and that evolution over time


Guest: Andy Bruno on his new book Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and its Environmental Legacy published by Cambridge University Press.

The post The Tunguska Mystery appeared first on The Eurasian Knot.

09 Apr 04:58

Episode 360 - Big Bad Bibi (w/ Katie Halper)

Tom Roche

amusing, not particularly deep

Subscribe to Bad Faith on Patreon to instantly unlock our full premium episode library: http://patreon.com/badfaithpodcast

Perennial favorite Katie Halper returns to Bad Faith to talk Rami Youseff's Pro-Palestine SNL speech, Steven A. Smith dunking on Hillary Clinton, and, of course, Israel's targeted attack on three humanitarian aid vehicles who were delivering much needed food aid to Gazans. Also discussed: Reports that Israel is threatening hostage families not to speak out, and the worst gaslighting from the White House press room.

Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod).

Produced by Armand Aviram.

Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).

08 Apr 23:58

Hyperimperialism: US/NATO’s Dangerous and Decadent New Stage, w/ Vijay Prashad

Tom Roche

Prashad excellent as usual

What is this new era of “Hyperimperialism” for the US/NATO Empire? Where do Gaza, Ukraine, and the Cold War on China fit in? How is the decline of Global North hegemony shifting the geopolitical landscape? Are there new possibilities for emergent organizations of the Global South? How do we maintain hope as we watch an exterminationist campaign unfold in Gaza? 


To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by author, historian and journalist Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of The Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, which recently published a dossier on “Hyperimperialism.”


Read the Tricontinental report: 

Hyper-Imperialism: A Dangerous Decadent New Stage

https://thetricontinental.org/studies-on-contemporary-dilemmas-4-hyper-imperialism/ 


This is just part of this episode. The full interview is available for Breakthrough News Members only. Become a member at
https://www.Patreon.com/BreakthroughNews to access the full episode and other exclusive content.

08 Apr 23:53

4/8/24: Israel Pulls Out Of South Gaza, Pelosi Flips After Jose Andres Strike, Ecuador Storms Mexican Embassy, PBD Rips Shapiro After Candace Firing, Rogan Debates Coleman Hughes On Israel, Trump $50 Mill Fundraiser, Israel's AI Death Machine

Tom Roche

VERY EXCELLENT, almost entirely (in- or directly) on the Zionist genocide vs Palestine, including its spillover:
* attack on Iran consulate in Damascus as massive breach of Vienna Convention and international law (even the hallowed "rules-based international order"), as well as yet another step toward regional war (as Netanyahu seeks to drag US military in)
* Ecuador barrels into the Vienna Convention breach by storming Mexico embassy
* US CorpDem Zionists seem to flip (and I suspect KB+SE may have read too much into this bit of theatre) on Israeli genocide after attack on WCK (and thus on DC's favorite restauranteur, Jose Andres)
* ... as does Joe Rogan, but ever so tepidly
* US rightwing media flip on Daily Wire after Boreing/Shapiro flip on Candace Owens
* Trump promises taxcuts for rightwing billionaires ... who just happen to be Zionists
* Krystal ends with EXCELLENT radar vs Israel's high-tech (and old-school/low-tech) genocidal death machine

Krystal and Saagar discuss Israel pulling out of southern Gaza, Pelosi flips on Israel after Jose Andres aid strike, Ecuador storms Mexican Embassy, PBD And Andrew Shulz rip Ben Shapiro over Candace firing, Joe Rogan debates Coleman Hughes on Israel, Trump $50 mill fundraiser promising low taxes for billionaires, Israel's AI death machine.

 

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08 Apr 19:59

Tim Key's Poetry Programme

Tom Roche

very weird, occ funny, bears virtually no resemblance to this show's notes

The poetry show (without the poetry) returns for more comic chaos, with guests Stephen Merchant and Lolly Adefope.

This is a poetry programme like no other – over the course of 6 series Key has performed magic, music, cookery and witchcraft; he’s delivered a baby, gone underground, up the Shard and into space.

And sometimes he finds time to read poems.

This series, regulars Tom Basden and Katy Wix are joined by guest stars Stephen Merchant, Lolly Adefope, Mike Wozniak, Sam Campbell, Simon Armstrong and Morgana Robinson.

Written and presented by Tim Key

Produced by James Robinson A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4

08 Apr 18:58

Alex Edmans on Confirmation Bias 

by Social Science Bites
Tom Roche

As someone who believes that confirmation bias is harmful, I must proclaim the excellence of this episode's presentation of the argument that confirmation bias is harmful.

How hard do we fight against information that runs counter to what we already think? While quantifying that may be difficult, Alex Edmans notes that the part of the brain that activates when something contradictory is encountered in the amygdala – “that is the fight-or-flight part of the brain, which lights up when you are attacked by a tiger. This is why confirmation can be so strong, it’s so hardwired within us, we see evidence we don’t like as being like attacked by a tiger.” 

In this Social Science Bites podcast, Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School and author of the just-released May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About It, reviews the persistence of confirmation bias — even among professors of finance. 

“So, what is confirmation bias?” he asks host David Edmonds. “This is the temptation to accept something uncritically because we’d like it to be true. On the flip side, to reject a study, even if it’s really careful, because we don’t like the conclusions.” 

Edmans made his professional name studying social responsibility in corporations; his 2020 book Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit was a Financial Times Book of the Year. Yet he himself encountered the temptation to both quickly embrace findings, even flimsy ones, that support our thesis and to reject or even tear apart research, even robust results, that doesn’t. 

While that might seem like an obviously critical thinking pitfall, surely knowing that it’s likely makes it easier to avoid. You might think so, but not necessarily. “So smart people can find things to nitpick with, even if the study is completely watertight,” Edmans details. “But then the same critical thinking facilities are suddenly switched off when they see something they like. So intelligence is, unfortunately, something deployed only selectively.” 

Meanwhile, he views the glut of information and the accompanying glut of polarization as only making confirmation bias more prevalent, and not less. 

Edmans, a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and former Fulbright Scholar, was previously a tenured professor at the Wharton Business School and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He has spoken to policymakers at the World Economic Forum and UK Parliament, and given the TED talk “What to Trust in a Post-Truth World.” He was named Professor of the Year by Poets & Quants in 2021.  

To download an MP3 of this podcast, right-click this link and save. The transcript of the conversation appears below.


David Edmonds: What do you think about Social Science Bites? Obviously, that it’s the world’s most interesting podcast on social science. Now, suppose you were to read an article that purported to back that up with evidence. Well, given your prior belief, you might be more inclined to believe it, and more inclined to dismiss an article that came to the opposite view. This is confirmation bias, and Alex Edmans of the London Business School has become so concerned about this and other biases that he’s written a book about it, May Contain Lies. Alex Edmans, welcome to Social Science Bites. 

Alex Edmans: Thanks, David. It’s great to be here. 

Edmonds: The topic we’re talking about today is confirmation bias. This is part of your research on misinformation. But this entire research project seems to be a departure for you. You’re a professor of finance, and I think it’s fair to say that most of your research has been so far on corporate governance. 

Edmans: And that’s correct. So I never set out to be a professor of misinformation. So most of my work is on social responsibility. It comes under different names like ESG, or sustainable finance and I believe I was one of the early pioneers of the idea that companies that are good for society also deliver higher shareholder returns. So one of my early papers found that companies that treat their workers well create a great corporate culture, they do better than their peers, and that’s how I got into the idea of sustainable finance.  

Edmonds: So treating their workers well means what? Just having a nice atmosphere at work, paying them better than the market rate? What counts as treating your employees well? 

Edmans: So, what I measured was inclusion in the list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America. So that is a list compiled after surveying 250 to 5,000 employees at all levels, and asking them 57 questions on issues such as credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie. So certainly quantitative factors, like pay and benefits will affect that, but also qualitative factors such as, does the boss treat you as an individual rather than a factor of production? Do they give you opportunities to step up and to develop within the organization? So all of those intangible factors also matter, and what I found was that companies that did treat their workers well, they did outperform. So it’s not that they’re being fluffy or woke, they are being commercially sensible investing in the most important asset, their people.  

Edmonds: That’s a lovely result. That’s the result we want to hear. We want to believe that companies that treat their employees well, treat the planet well, do better. Is it also true that diversity of employment helps, having different ethnic groups represented on the board is good for the company? Because I know some people have done some research on that claim that that is the case. 

Edmans: Yeah, so that’s how I got into the topic of misinformation. So being seen as one of the early pioneers on sustainable finance with that paper, then I learned of other papers, which also seem to give similar results that if you do good stuff, then you do better as a company. And one of the things which is good stuff is to be a diverse company. And that’s something that I would love to believe, as somebody who believes in the importance of sustainability. Personally, maybe you don’t get this on the podcast, but I’m an ethnic minority, so I have personal reasons to want that to be true. And there’s tons of studies out there by luminary organizations such as McKinsey, or BlackRock, even a regulator like the Financial Reporting Council, claiming there’s a clear link between board diversity and financial performance. But when you look at those papers, there’s a huge amount of flimsiness to this, the evidence does not at all support the conclusions. And just to give you an example of one study, it claimed to find a strong result — it did 90 different tests. None of those tests gave a positive result. But they just lied in the executive summary, they claimed a result that just wasn’t there. And people just accepted it without checking the tables at the back of the report, because they wanted it to be true.  

Edmonds: Lied is a very strong term. So it wasn’t just that they wanted to believe it like all those who read the report, it was actually that they were deceiving their readers.  

Edmans: And that’s correct. So they misrepresented the results. So you might think there’s different forms of misinformation. One form you might think is you just conducted the test in a sloppy way, you found a positive result, claimed a positive result, and that result was sloppy. Here, there is actually no result to begin with. So, the results did not find a positive result and they claimed to have found that and so that is a different level of misinformation. And this highlights how misinformation is such a strong issue. Yes, we can quibble about whether the methodology is correct, did you measure diversity the correct way? But actual representation of your own results is something that people might be deceiving the readers with. 

Edmonds: But this piece of research was so compelling because so many people wanted to think it was true. 

Edmans: That’s correct. And this is the big issue of confirmation bias. So, what is confirmation bias? This is the temptation to accept something uncritically because we’d like it to be true. On the flip side to reject a study, even if it’s really careful, because we don’t like the conclusions. So, this study, this idea that diversity improves performance, there are lots of well-meaning people who thought, ‘Yeah, that is just intuitively true. Well, a diverse team makes better decisions and so in this report by this famous organization finds this conclusion, it must be true. I don’t even need to look at the table. I’ll believe them. I’ll shout it from the rooftops. I’ll write headlines myself.’ And some, again, some respected organizations wrote headlines about the study. Those headlines were wrong. They spread misinformation. Why? They wanted the result to be true. 

Edmonds: You cite various pieces of evidence to show that confirmation bias exists. One piece of evidence is neuroscientific. Tell us about that. 

Edmans: Yeah, so this is a great set of studies done by some neuroscientists. And so, what they did is they took some students, so they hook them up to an MRI scanner to scan what happens in terms of brain activity. So, what they did is they first gave them some statements, which were nonpolitical, such as Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, and then they came up with some evidence to contradict that. And then nothing really happened to the brain, there wasn’t so much activity, nothing to write home about. But then, when they gave a political statement, which they knew the student agreed with, such as the death penalty should be abolished. And then they gave some evidence to contradict that, then the brain did light up. And the part of the brain that lit up was the amygdala, that is the fight-or-flight part of the brain, which lights up when you are attacked by a tiger. So this is why confirmation can be so strong, it’s so hardwired within us, we see evidence we don’t like as being like attacked by a tiger and that’s why people get defensive on social media, they might retaliate and take something personally, if somebody presents a different viewpoint. 

Edmonds: Does it help tackle confirmation bias to be presented with different sources of information? If I think Brexit was a disaster — and I come across newspaper articles suggesting that actually the economy has done much better than expected — does that help counter my bias? 

Edmans: You might think so because you think the issue is misinformation. Why don’t I just gather more information? But the idea of confirmation bias suggests it’s more difficult than that, because what matters isn’t just having information, but whether you take that information seriously, or do you accept it uncritically?  

And so there’s another interesting study where some other researchers, they took some different set of students who had views on the death penalty. And they gave them two studies, one of them supported the death penalty, and another opposed it and by supported or opposed, because they looked at what happened to crime after the death penalty was introduced. And so they asked the students to rate the accuracy of those studies. And if you were a death penalty supporter, then the pro death penalty study, you would just accept it and say, ‘This is a great methodology,’ and the one that opposed it, you were trying to pick every single hole within it. And importantly, those studies were exactly the same quality. How did the research know it because they were randomized, they took the same study, and they just presented one set of studies to a death penalty supporter, the same pair of studies to a death penalty opponent. And so how all the reactions were depending on was entirely your prior viewpoint, not the study’s quality, because those were the same studies in both cases.  

And so what this led to was something called belief polarization. So you might think if we put all the facts on the table, we all see the same information, then you, a Brexiter, and me, a Remainer, we will agree. But it’s actually the opposite, because I will find the information that is pro remain, and I will latch on to that. And you’re going to find the information that’s pro Brexit, and you’ll lap that up. So actually, more information can lead us to being less informed if we’re not aware of our biases, because more information just allows us to find something that supports our viewpoint. 

Edmonds: I love the study that you cite about gun control. Can you just explain that and it’s very relevant in the age of the internet, when we can quickly find pieces of information or facts to back up our argument or reject an alternative view. 

Edmans: Thanks for bringing that up, David, because the types of confirmation bias we’ve discussed so far, is what I call biased interpretation. Once you have information, you interpret it in a biased way, I latch on to something I agree with and I reject something I disagree with.  

But there’s a second type of confirmation bias which is biased search. What types of information do we go out and actively search for to begin with? So this study took again some undergraduates and they had undergrads with strong beliefs about gun control, and they gave them different types of information that they could obtain in order to research the issue. Now importantly, they were told to research it in an even-handed way so that they could explain the gun control issue to other people. But what they found was that the information that they chose to search for was strongly correlated with their prior views on the issue. So there was some information from citizens against handguns, and also some other information from the National Rifle Association. Now, if you’re a gun-control supporter, guess which one you’re going to look at. You’ll look at Citizens Against Handguns, and you won’t even bother to hear what the National Rifle Association has to say. And David, you’re absolutely right, this is relevant right now, because we’ve got so many sources of information out there, but we also know which information will trigger our amygdala and which information will make us happy and calm. So if I’m a right-winger, I might look at Fox News, and I’m not going to read The Guardian. And if I’m highly liberal, then I will do the opposite. 

Edmonds: So a range of sources of information doesn’t help. Let me try something else. What about expertise? Suppose that you are an expert in Brexit, you have a PhD in Brexit? Will that help reduce your confirmation bias if you see arguments that oppose the position that you’ve taken? 

Edmans: Unfortunately, that might not help either. So there were further studies which look at the effect of intelligence on whether you’re likely to respond to information in a correct way. You might think, well, if you’re intelligent, don’t you learn at university you need to consider both sides. But actually, there’s a twist, the more intelligent you are, the greater your ability to poke holes in an argument that you don’t like. So smart people can find things to nitpick with, even if the study is completely watertight. But then the same critical thinking facilities are suddenly switched off when they see something they like. So intelligence is unfortunately, something deployed only selectively.  

And I see this myself, because I’m quite active on LinkedIn, I share lots of studies on sustainable finance. That’s my field. And importantly, I try to share studies which support the idea of sustainable finance, and also those that oppose it, even though that opposes my own types of research, because what matters to me is, is the research good? Now have I posted a study, which has an inconvenient truth, like diversity doesn’t lead to better performance? You have no shortage of people trying to poke holes in it. Is this correlation? Or is this causation? Is the time period too short? Was the measure of performance, exactly the one that they should have used? But do I see the same critical thinking faculties applied when I posted a study that people liked the sound of? No, they just lap it up, uncritically. 

Edmonds: It sounds like you’re suggesting that your expertise or expertise of people genuinely far from not helping, might actually make confirmation bias worse 

Edmans: It can do if you’re not wary of your biases yourself. Because if you think you’re an expert, you might think that anybody who contradicts you, they just don’t have the same level of expertise as you, and therefore you might dismiss them and we see this in some large organizations, often as a CEO, you’ve risen to the top, there might be people who are suggesting there’s concerns with the strategies you’re pursuing. And you just say, ‘Well, you don’t know as much as me.’ You might know the book, The Big Short, where they talk about a Morgan Stanley head of proprietary credit, who allegedly led to $9 billion of losses and when somebody disagreed with him, he would allegedly say, ‘Get the hell out of my office.’ Why? Because he thought he knew everything. He was a great bond trader and if people were expressing concerns about his risk position, he would not believe that his own instincts were wrong.  

Edmonds: Now, you might not be able to answer this. I don’t know if there’s any data on it. But do you think our susceptibility to confirmation bias has got worse over time? 

Edmans: I do think so for a couple of reasons. So number one, we have so many sources of information right now it’s easy to handpick whatever source confirms our viewpoint. In the past, like when I was young, you knew what the sources of information were. I had to trek out to the library, look up in the encyclopedia, and that was seen as the authority, and it would be people who know that topic who write in the encyclopedia. Right now, anybody can post something on LinkedIn, there’s some really best-selling books written by people who might not have expertise in that topic but because those books give messages that people want to hear, they are books, which are our laptops, so it’s really easy to find something that you like. 

Another issue that I see is just more polarization. So now, what people believe might not just be what they think is true based on the evidence, but what they would like to be seen as standing for. So if you’re somebody who wants to be seen as a pro-diversity person, that does get you quite a lot of friends, and it does get you a lot of followers. And so if you want to be this pro-diversity person, you want to only believe in evidence which supports your viewpoint, any sort of equivocation might seem to be something which is weak. We often hear about politicians who do U-turns and that is said to be a bad thing. To me, a U-turn is responding to evidence and changing your view when evidence changes. But this idea of being nuanced is seen as flip flopping, it’s seen as weak, so just having a very strong position is something that can get you to the top.  

Edmonds: I’ve made various suggestions about what might combat confirmation bias, and you’ve ruthlessly knocked each and every one of them back. So what does work? 

Edmans: I think the first thing that works is just to be aware of confirmation bias to begin with. So when people think about issues such as, say, addiction, they say, first, recognize that you have a problem. That’s the first way in order to try to address this. And I think for me, myself, I know that I suffered from confirmation bias. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book and why I looked into the topic is I recognize that these are things that I need to try to address myself.  

And then after recognizing that this is an issue, then we want to see well every bit of information. Are we responding to this because we like it or dislike it? Or is it based on the actual quality of the results? And so one question that I encourage people to ask is if they find a study, and they really want to believe it, imagine it found the opposite results. And you would want to take it apart. What questions would you ask? So I found a study showing that diversity worsens performance, I might say, ‘Well, actually, that study was only based on two years of data, we need to look at 10 years. ‘ Or maybe they measured performance looking at profitability. But that’s not a good measure because that could be very short term as I want to look at long term returns or something like that. And then once we see the holes that we would poke if we didn’t like the result, do those concerns also still apply, even though the result is something we would like and that would make sure that we are not responding just based on the result, but based on the methodology itself?  

Edmonds: You mentioned you might suffer from confirmation bias when it comes to governance. What other areas are you susceptible to falling for confirmation bias? 

Edmans: I think any types of research which might support the research that I’ve done, so if there was research suggesting that employee satisfaction improves performance given that’s linked to my own work, I might be willing to believe that other research suggesting that corporate governance improves performance. Similarly, in the Brexit/Remainer referendum several years ago, I was a strong Remainer, and so I would like to believe that any argument for Brexit was based on misinformation, was believing the back of a bus. And so how did I try to combat that? I tried to actively seek the viewpoints of Brexiters, who I think I would respect. So there was a talk given by Roger Bootle, who was a supporter of Brexit, also a very respected economist, he runs Capital Economics, an economics consultancy. And he was giving a talk and luckily for me, this was hosted by Merton College, Oxford, where I’m an alum. This was an alumni event. And I went along. Yeah, partly because it was the Merton alum event and there was going to be some free canapés and champagne. But also, I thought, ‘Well let me listen to this open mindedly,’ and I was shocked that I thought his arguments were really well put together. And I didn’t agree with every single thing that he said, but at least I saw there was a logic behind it. It wasn’t just xenophobia, or misinformation, which people like me had been led to believe about the other side. And then when I got home, I researched on the points first, and I thought, ‘Yeah, this actually seems to stack up.’ And to me, this was the most eye-opening talk that I’ve ever seen in my life. I then wrote up on my blog, the case for Brexit. So I had both, I had the case for Brexit and the case for remain. But I wanted the readers of my blog to see that there are actually two sides in an argument that people like me had previously wanted to portray was only one sided. 

Edmonds: If you were to study on confirmation bias showing that it was a great problem and getting worse, would you be more likely to believe it? 

Edmans: I probably would, because that’s what I believe and that’s what I’ve suggested in my answers. So then what would I have to do? I’d have to ask the same questions myself. I’d have to look at, well, is this something where they looked at correlation versus causation? Have they got a good control group? And this is why in the studies that we’ve mentioned so far on this chat, I do believe that they have good data where we have the studies on death penalty, where they took exactly the same studies and presented the same pair of studies to do different people. So any differences in the interpretation were due to people’s biases, rather than the studies being of inherently different quality.  

Edmonds: Alex Edmans, thank you very much indeed. 

Edmans: Thank you so much, David. It was great to be here. 

The post Alex Edmans on Confirmation Bias  appeared first on Social Science Space.

07 Apr 19:44

World War Civ 37: Women in the Great War

Tom Roche

Dave (mostly, on this one) and Justin excellent as usual, esp bit at end on French-Canadian conscription resistance from Boer War to WW1

Among the many changes wrought by WW1 was an irrevocable change in the status of women. “Munitions girls”, women running the Paris Metro and the buses in London, policewomen and auxilaries. We conclude with some notes on a conscription crisis in Canada that also played a role in women getting the vote.
07 Apr 18:11

Special - Havana Syndrome Update w/ Natalie Shure

by American Prestige
Tom Roche

3:20 teaser

Danny and Derek welcome back Natalie Shure, writer and researcher whose work focuses on history, health, and politics, for an update on where we stand with Havana Syndrome. When Natalie (along with Bob Wright) first chatted with us in December 2021, little was known about the condition. It turns out, we still don’t know much, but stories contending conn…

Read more

07 Apr 18:09

Bonus - Biden in a Box w/ Jonathan Guyer

by American Prestige
Tom Roche

5:20 teaser only

Danny and Derek speak with Jonathan Guyer, contributing editor at The American Prospect, about the eponymous piece he recently wrote for the magazine on Biden’s ideological commitment to Israel and his administration’s handling of the current crisis. The group discusses his obstinacy in changing his approach Israel/Palestine, the domestic and global pol…

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06 Apr 00:39

The Mokrani Revolt

Tom Roche

excellent ... /excepting/ the way that (as of course one would expect on the BBC) the panelists /completely/ resist the obvious parallels between French settler-colonial violence in Algeria and Zionist settler-colonial violence in Palestine

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revolt that broke out in 1871 in Algeria against French rule, spreading over hundreds of miles and countless towns and villages before being brutally suppressed. It began with the powerful Cheikh Mokrani and his family and was taken up by hundreds of thousands, becoming the last major revolt there before Algeria’s war of independence in 1954. In the wake of its swift suppression though came further waves of French migrants to settle on newly confiscated lands, themselves displaced by French defeat in Europe and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and their arrival only increased tensions. The Mokrani Revolt came to be seen as a watershed between earlier Ottoman rule and full national identity, an inspiration to nationalists in the 1950s.

With

Natalya Benkhaled-Vince Associate Professor of the History of Modern France and the Francophone World, Fellow of University College, University of Oxford

Hannah-Louise Clark Senior Lecturer in Global Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow

And

Jim House Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone History at the University of Leeds

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Mahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria: 1830-1987 (Cambridge University Press, 1988)

Julia Clancy-Smith, Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters, Algeria and Tunisia 1800–1904 (University of California Press, 1994)

Hannah-Louise Clark, ‘The Islamic Origins of the French Colonial Welfare State: Hospital Finance in Algeria’ (European Review of History, vol. 28, nos 5-6, 2021)

Hannah-Louise Clark, ‘Of jinn theories and germ theories: translating microbes, bacteriological medicine, and Islamic law in Algeria’ (Osiris, vol. 36, 2021)

Brock Cutler, Ecologies of Imperialism in Algeria (University of Nebraska Press, 2023)

Didier Guignard, 1871: L’Algérie sous Séquestre (CNRS Éditions, 2023)

Idir Hachi, ‘Histoire social de l’insurrection de 1871 et du procès de ses chefs (PhD diss., University of Aix-Marseille, 2017)

Abdelhak Lahlou, Idir Hachi, Isabelle Guillaume, Amélie Gregório and Peter Dunwoodie, ‘L'insurrection kabyle de 1871’ (Etudes françaises volume 57, no 1, 2021)

James McDougall, A History of Algeria (Cambridge University Press (2017)

John Ruedy, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Indiana University Press, 2005, 2nd edition)

Jennifer E Sessions, By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria (Cornell University Press, 2011)

Samia Touati, ‘Lalla Fatma N’Soumer, 1830–1863: Spirituality, Resistance and Womanly Leadership in Colonial Algeria (Societies vol. 8, no. 4, 2018)

Natalya Vince, Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012 (Manchester University Press, 2015)

05 Apr 21:24

The News Quiz - 8th March

Tom Roche

1Q2024 series of News Quiz exits in fine form, as one should expect when it includes Mark Steel, Simon Evans, and Zoe Lyons. Steel esp standout with his trademark rants, including several delivered à la George Galloway (who is apparently to be the designated BBC baddie now that Zionism and Russophobia aren't doing so well).

Mark Steel, Marie Le Conte, Simon Evans and Zoe Lyons join Andy Zaltzman for the last episode in the present series.

This week the panel give their 2p on the budget, the battle for the White House and what it might sound like if George Galloway joined the News Quiz.

Written by Andy Zaltzman

With additional material by: Cody Dahler, Meryl O'Rourke, Molly McGuinness, Peter Tellouche and Christina Riggs.

Producer: Gwyn Rhys Davies Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls Sound Editor: Marc Willcox Recorded by Marc Willcox and Neva Missirian

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

05 Apr 19:31

The problems with parking

Tom Roche

good interview, though it's ~all about housing: very little about environmental impacts (e.g. habitat, rain runoff, urban heating)

Finding a car park can sometimes seem a challenge, particularly in big cities, but could there actually be too many car parks in the world? Henry Grabar argues that there are many unintended costs and impacts of parking your car including making housing more expensive and having a negative impact on the environment.

Henry Grabar: a staff writer at Slate who writes about housing, transportation, and urban policy. A 2024 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Author of: Paved Paradise: How Parking explains the world

05 Apr 19:25

Prof. John Mearsheimer Dissects Catastrophic US Foreign Policy: Israel-Gaza, Russia, China, & More

Tom Roche

Mearsheimer EXCELLENT as usual. The '& More' in the episode title is a bit misleading: GG's opener and the JM interview are overwhelmingly about Israel's genocide in Palestine, with maybe-10-ish minutes about Russia-Ukraine, and maybe-3-ish minutes about PRC at the end. There are brief mentions of Iran and the Philippines, but that's all

TIMESTAMPS:

Intro (0:00)

Israeli Strike Kills Aid Workers (5:48)

Interview with John Mearsheimer (16:47)

Outro (1:10:40)


- - -


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05 Apr 17:00

Rum Punch

Tom Roche

quite bad

Drawing on various elements of his own life, Travis Jay’s new sitcom Rum Punch is a family comedy about love, friendship and aspiration. Set in Lewisham and following the multi generational Campbells as they struggle to keep their Caribbean restaurant afloat.

Travis Jay is one of the most exciting up and coming comedians in the country. He has supported Dave Chapelle and Kojo Amin on tour, and has appeared on screen in shows for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Comedy Central and Netflix.

Cast: Travis Jay - Marley Kevin Garry - Des Eddie Nestor - Delroy Maureen Hibbert - Angie Letitia Hector - Lydia Kevin J - Nicholas @FaceintheNews - Taylor

Producers - Jules Lom and Daisy Knight Sound Designer - David Thomas Executive Producers - Jon Thoday and Richard Allen-Turner

An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4

04 Apr 16:05

820 - The Neese (4/1/24)

Tom Roche

EXCELLENT bant+analysis, esp crushing the Zionist nepobaby Theo Baker, his obnoxious parents (Peter Baker and Susan Glasser), and his criminal boss (Jeffrey Goldberg)

Will, Felix and Amber dish on the news of the day, including the resurgence of Havana Syndrome, Erdoğan’s historic losses in recent Turkish elections, and that obnoxious article about Standford campus activism. But honestly most of this is just riffs on Liam Neeson and Steven Seagal.


Tickets to the Jaques/Chapo/Seeking Drrangements show at the Lodge Room in LA, Thursday April 4:

https://www.lodgeroomhlp.com/shows/show-pig-a-live-comedy-podcast-spectacular-with-seeking-derangements/



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03 Apr 19:01

4/3/24: Biden Spox Defends Israel Aid Strike, Israeli Media Weeps For Bullied IDF Criminals, Hillary Attacks Undecided Voters, Jon Stewar Exposes Apple Censorship, The View Debates If US Better Now Or Under Trump, AIPAC Attacks Jan 6 Cop, Biden Donor Says Admin Starving Gaza

Tom Roche

another consistently-EXCELLENT CounterPoints

Ryan and Emily discuss John Kirby losing it while defending Israel's strike on WCK workers, Bibi bans Al Jazeera, Hillary scolds undecided voters, Jon Stewart reveals Apple blocked him from interviewing Lina Khan, The View debates if US better now or under Trump, AIPAC launches ad blitz against Jan 6 cop candidate, Biden donor Amed Khan says US intentionally starving Gaza.

 

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03 Apr 18:57

RIP Karl Wallinger and Eric Carmen

Tom Roche

both obits {excellent, much too short}

In this bonus episode we pay tribute to the late leaders of World Party and The Raspberries.

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03 Apr 16:46

Lee Fang Exposes 60 Minutes’ Disinfo “Expert” as Partisan Hack. PLUS: The Atlantic Targets Pro-Palestine Stanford Students with Nepo Baby Theo Baker

Tom Roche

both ~halves EXCELLENT:
1. long GG preamble then Lee Fang interview vs UWash disinfo agent Kate Starbird
2. shorter GG-only skewering of Zionist princeling Theo Baker

TIMESTAMPS:

Intro (0:00)

Fake Experts, Fake Expertise (7:32)

Interview with Lee Fang (37:58)

The Atlantic Doxxes Pro-Palestine Student (1:01:34)

Outro (1:22:03)


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03 Apr 15:33

Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

Tom Roche

another VERY EXCELLENT classic album dissection

Over the long tenure of Sound Opinions, hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot mentioned Brian Eno countless times. They think it's time to tackle a classic album dissection of his 1974 record Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy.) They discuss Eno’s career before and since the album, as well as hear a bit of Eno himself from their 2011 interview with him.


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Featured Songs:

Brian Eno, "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

The Beatles, "With A Little Help From My Friends," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967

Roxy Music, "Re-Make/Re-Model," Roxy Music, Island, Reprise, 1972

Brian Eno, "Needles in the Camel's Eye," Here Come the Warm Jets, Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "Back In Judy's Jungle," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "Mother Whale Eyeless," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Soft Machine, "Priscilla," The Soft Machine, Probe, Command, ABC, 1968

Brian Eno, "Put a Straw under Baby," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "China My China," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "The Great Pretender," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "Third Uncle," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "The True Wheel," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "The Fat Lady of Limbourg," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "Taking Tiger Mountain," Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Island, 1974

Brian Eno, "Fullness of Wind," Discreet Music, Obscure, 1975

Brian Eno and David Byrne, "Regiment," My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Sire, E.G., 1981

Roxy Music, "Editions of You," For Your Pleasure, Island, Warner Bros., 1973

BODEGA, "Tarkovski," Tarkovski (Single), Chrysalis, 2024

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02 Apr 20:47

Democracy Now! 2024-04-02 Tuesday

Tom Roche

all 5 (! including headlines) segments excellent

Headlines for April 02, 2024; Israel Kills 6 Int’l Aid Workers & Gazan Driver in Attack on Chef Andrés’s World Central Kitchen Convoy; State Dept. Whistleblower: Biden Is Skirting U.S. Law by Rushing More Bombs & Warplanes to Israel; Active-Duty U.S. Airman, Inspired by Aaron Bushnell, on Hunger Strike Outside White House over Gaza; Israel “Risking a Two-Front War, Maybe a Three-Front War,” After Latest Strike Against Iran in Syria

02 Apr 02:07

It's Le-so Varadover (feat. Celtic Ligers)

by The Späti Boys
Tom Roche

After some bant (including bottle deposits/returns (in Germany, Ireland, etc), baby buggies vs shopping carts (but using odd Irish synonyms), humorous Irish culture fails, insane German Zionism and anti-Palestine politics and culture, Italy esp Berlusconi), Ciarán+Uma+guests dive deep into Ireland's shit politics (which, it must be said, is still /waaay/ better than the rest of Europe on the Zionist genocide), esp the lamentable/unlamented slimeball Leo Varadkar, his bizarre replacement Simon Harris, and many, many more.

01 Apr 16:00

Bonus - The History of Brazil, Ep. 1 w/ Bryan Pitts

by American Prestige
Tom Roche

4:53 teaser only

Believe it or not, Brazil’s story didn’t start with Lula and Macron’s iconic photo shoot, and Bryan Pitts, assistant director of the Latin American Institute at UCLA, has graciously agreed to help Danny and Derek tell that story! In this first episode of the History of Brazil series, the group explores the indigenous civilizations populating the land th…

Read more

01 Apr 03:12

US Economic Decline and Rise of Greater Eurasia - Michael Hudson, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Tom Roche

EXCELLENT geoeconomic analysis as always from Michael Hudson

US Economic Decline and Rise of Greater Eurasia - Michael Hudson, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
31 Mar 23:20

Radio War Nerd EP 435 — ISKP's Friends in US-Occupied Afghanistan, feat. Rob Ashlar

by mail@yashalevine.com (Gary Brecher)
Tom Roche

another RWN triumph: SINGULAR deepdive with [Rob Ashlar](https://cosmonautmag.com/tag/rob-ashlar/) into Afghanistan c2001-2024, esp origins and history of the group known variously as Daesh Khorasan, ISK (I'll use for brevity), ISKP, ISIS-K (deprecated), and (locally per Ashlar) Dola. Topics include:

* ideology/religiosity origins and situation. Salafi (ISK) vs Deobandi (IEA formerly Afghan Taliban) vs Hazara (Turkic Shia) vs Tajiks (Farsi-speaking Sunnis)
* ISK factions and leaders (lots, inc Mangal Bagh, Sanaullah Ghafari aka Shahab al-Muhajir, Abdul Manan (and son), Amrullah Saleh)
* ISK roots in US-occupied Afghanistan including
***** IRA: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, i.e. the US puppetstate 2004-2021 (after the 2001-2004 straightup occupation)
***** IEA: Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, i.e. the Afghan Taliban government (though Ashlar notes that Afghans were using 'Emirate' and 'Taliban' as synonyms for years pre-2021)
***** ANA: Afghan National Army, i.e. IRA military
***** ANSF: Afghan National Security Forces: sometimes a synonym for ANA, but also including ...
***** NDS: National Directorate for Security: ANSF spooks trained and operated by ...
***** CIA, NATO, MI-6: you know :-/
***** TTP: Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan, aka 'Pakistani Taliban'. Sometimes friends but usually enemies of the ...
***** ISI: (Pakistan) Inter-Services Intelligence, frenemies of the CIA
* ISK class, ethnic/linguistic, geographic, and educational/professional roots (esp as compared/contrasted to IEA)
* ISK history, esp
***** splits from (both!) Northern Alliance and IEA/Taliban
***** increasing funding/capability/activity as closer ties to ANSF esp NDS
***** 2019-2020 Kunar Province campaign: IEA defeats ISK/ANSF coalition in eastern Afghanistan
* ISK economics esp mining
* current coalitions: US-NRF-ISK-Pakistan vs IEA-Iran
* 22 Mar 2024 Crocus terror attack etiology: probably done by externally-financed Daesh freelancers (possibly ISK, possibly other branch(es))
***** SBU=top candidate for external financiers
* Turkiye vs Russia /and/ NATO: Erdogan just wants to keep the war going

Co-hosts Gary Brecher & Mark Ames
31 Mar 16:42

E141 - Prabowo and the 2024 Indonesia General Election w/ Michael G. Vann

by American Prestige
Tom Roche

EXCELLENT deepdive into Indonesia political economy

Danny and Derek speak with Michael G. Vann, professor of history at California State University, Sacramento, about Indonesia, which recently held an election resulting in Prabowo Subianto as president-elect. They discuss the country’s era of reform (Reformasi) since the end of Suharto’s rule in 1998, the composition of its elite class, Prabowo’s controversial career long predating his 2024 campaign, the issues motivating voters in this election, and potential legal challenges to him ultimately taking power.

Subscribe now

Check out Michael’s work in Jacobin, as well as his book The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam.

30 Mar 19:55

819 - Poppy, Pt. 4: The White Rose feat. Michael S. Judge (3/28/24)

Tom Roche

VERY EXCELLENT

Michael Judge from the Death is Just Around The Corner podcast joins us to continue our series on the life and works of President George H.W. Bush. This installment focuses on Poppy’s work reorganizing the CIA, and how his implementation of decentralized systems, computerized indexing, and professionalized contractors spread influence through an endless series of intermediaries - an octopus with no head. All this leading to the scandal of scandals, Iran-Contra.


Find Michael’s podcast Death is Just Around the Corner here: https://www.patreon.com/deathcorner

And Judge Movies here:https://www.patreon.com/judgemovies

And Ghost Stories For The End Of The World here: https://www.patreon.com/ghoststoriesfortheend


Find the rest of the Poppy series ag:

Part 1: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/471-poppy-part-1-111220

Part 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/497-poppy-part-2-47439020

Part 3: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/614a-best-of-texas-live-poppy-part-3-32822

Get bonus content on Patreon

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29 Mar 20:19

The News Quiz - 1st March

Tom Roche

amusing Scotland-focused humor from Aberdeen

Hugo Rifkind, Susie McCabe, Ashley Storrie and Stuart Mitchell join Andy Zaltzman to quiz the week's news from Aberdeen.

This week the panel discuss Gordon Brown’s vision for a second renaissance in Aberdeen, why Lee Anderson has lost the Tory whip, and the difference between Mob Rule and Ja Rule.

Written by Andy Zaltzman

With additional material by: Cody Dahler, Rebecca Bain, Alex Garrick-Wright, Krystal Evans, Peter Tellouche and Christina Riggs.

Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: James Robinson Production Coordinators: Sarah Nicholls & Jodie Charman Sound Editor: Marc Willcox Recorded by Sean Kerwin

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4

29 Mar 15:43

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

Tom Roche

VERY EXCELLENT: [IOT science](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01gyd7j) at its best. IOT can stumble, esp when the science of a topic collides with host Melvin Bragg's deepseated religiosity, but this episode does not. Particularly, its guests provide the most succinct and clear account of the relation between the 3 main interpretations (there are others! not discussed in this program) of quantum mechanics (in temporal order):

* Heisenberg et al (notably Max Born, below) from 1925: explains quantum observations (i.e., the results from experiments on quantum phenomena (e.g., photoelectrics, spectroscopy, diffraction)) using then-unfamiliar mathematical formalisms (esp matrices (from Born) and ladder operators) that tend to resist modeling via previously-understood physics, particularly visualization.
* Schrödinger et al from 1926: explains quantum observations using (by contrast with Heisenberg) /very/ familiar partial differential equations (PDEs), esp Schrödinger's wave function, hence the term "wave mechanics," in contrast to describing the Heisenberg formalism as "matrix mechanics." Wave mechanics /does/ explain most phenomena (though, as the guests point out, the Heisenberg formalism has a bit more capacity) and does so with mathematics more familiar to physicists raised on classical method (e.g., Maxwellian electromagnetics). But it tends to create problematic mental models (e.g., Schrödinger's cat), since Schrödinger's formulation seems deterministic (like the rest of classical physics). That appearance of ultimate or foundational determinism has led many astray (notably, Einstein).
* Born (who was Heisenberg's supervisor, among many other collaborations) et al later in 1926: (in a sense) "synthesized" the Heisenberg and Schrödinger interpretations by providing a probabilistic interpretation of Schrödinger's wave function (i.e., a probability density function (PDF) for the Schrödinger PDE). This led (sometime after the 1927 5th Solvay Conference) to what is now called (and was 1st so named by Heisenberg) the "Copenhagen interpretation."

The main deficiencies of the episode OTTOMH are

- underemphasizes Born's role, and doesn't even mention (IIRC) Pascual Jordan. This has been a problem ever since Heisenberg alone won the 1932 Nobel Physics Prize (for which Heisenberg later publicly atoned).
- does a poor job of answering Bragg's question, ~"how does this matter to ordinary people." As is usual with pure science, the answer is applications, particularly engineering (like electronics--how this escaped the guests I dunno) and forecasting/modeling.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the German physicist who, at the age of 23 and while still a student, effectively created quantum mechanics for which he later won the Nobel Prize. Werner Heisenberg made this breakthrough in a paper in 1925 when, rather than starting with an idea of where atomic particles were at any one time, he worked backwards from what he observed of atoms and their particles and the light they emitted, doing away with the idea of their continuous orbit of the nucleus and replacing this with equations. This was momentous and from this flowed what’s known as his Uncertainty Principle, the idea that, for example, you can accurately measure the position of an atomic particle or its momentum, but not both.

With

Fay Dowker Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London

Harry Cliff Research Fellow in Particle Physics at the University of Cambridge

And

Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Philip Ball, Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different (Vintage, 2018)

John Bell, ‘Against 'measurement'’ (Physics World, Vol 3, No 8, 1990)

Mara Beller, Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2001)

David C. Cassidy, Beyond Uncertainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics, And The Bomb (Bellevue Literary Press, 2010)

Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (first published 1958; Penguin Classics, 2000)

Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland: The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics (Penguin, 2022)

29 Mar 14:35

Radio War Nerd EP 434 — Haiti & Aid State Imperialism, feat. Jake Johnston

by mail@yashalevine.com (Gary Brecher)
Tom Roche

Nerds and guest EXCELLENT as usual

Co-hosts Gary Brecher & Mark Ames
27 Mar 22:36

Israel's Architecture of Occupation: Eyal Weizman on Gaza & Targeting of Jewish Pro-Palestinian Voices

Tom Roche

2nd part of EXCELLENT Weizman 2nd-after-headlines segment from H 21 Mar 2024

Our extended conversation with Eyal Weizman, a British Israeli architect born in Haifa who founded Forensic Architecture. He’s the author of several books, including Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.