Apocalyptic disasters that destroy all but a small handful of human beings have been written ever since the flood story in the Lay of Gilgamesh, from which the flood story in the Bible was derived. Such catastrophe epics became even more popular after the invention of nuclear weapons when humanity gained the ability to cause our own destruction. Whether by an act of God or by our own technology apocalypses are a definite genre in SF.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Why are so many people actually anxious for the ‘End of the World’ to come. Do they really think that they’re going to be better off somehow?????? (Credit: World History Encyclopedia)
‘The Ark’ by Christopher Coates is such an end of the world story. Astronomers have discovered a comet that will approach Earth in three years. It’s not going to hit us, but it will pass very close and its tail is extremely radioactive. Material from that tail will go into orbit around our planet, slowly seeping into the atmosphere for twenty years, killing every living thing on the surface. So ‘The Ark’ is an Act of God type of apocalypse. I have quite a few problems with this ‘radioactive comet’ scenario but I’ll save them for later.
Cover Art for ‘The Ark’ by Christopher Coates. (Credit: Amazon)Author Christopher Coates. I think he’s the one on the left. (Credit: Next Chapter)
By a sheer coincidence I started reading ‘The Ark’ at the same time as the 60th anniversary of the Stanley Kubrick movie ‘Doctor Strangelove’. You may recall how, at the end of that movie a Soviet ‘Doomsday Device’ is going to blanket the entire world with enough radioactive fallout to kill every living thing.
It was just a coincidence that I rewatched the movie ‘Doctor Strangelove’ as I was started to read ‘The Ark’ but the idea of people surviving radiation by going into mine shafts is a big part of both. (Credit: American Cinematheque)
“Mister President,” Strangelove announces as the doomsday device is triggered. “I would not rule out the possibility of preserving a nucleus of human specimens.” His plan is to set up living quarters for a few thousand people deep underground in mine shafts until the radiation is gone. I have to wonder if author Christopher Coates got his theme from Strangelove because that’s pretty much the plan in ‘The Ark’.
Yes, the United States does have a lot of mine shaft space but it’s not exactly the kind of place I’d like to spend the next hundred years or so! (Credit: Tripadvisor)
Of course in the novel the plan is a great deal more detailed and it also includes the idea of human hibernation, in fact a good deal of the story concerns the development of hibernation technology. So 10,000 carefully selected people, experts in various fields that will be required in order to rebuild civilization are buried beneath the Rocky Mountains, along with a lot of equipment in a great big sleep chamber. At the same time smaller groups of people will try to survive for twenty years in mine shafts throughout the country.
Look, somebody’s already written a book with all the knowledge we need to rebuild civilization! So I guess we’re all ready then! (Credit: Bug Out Bag Builder)
I have several problems with ‘The Ark’ and I’ll start with the radioactive comet that triggers the whole thing. Intense radioactivity implies short-lived radioactivity. The intense radioactive element Radium is extremely scarce just because it is so radioactive. After a few billion years in the Oort cloud at the outskirts of our Solar System no comet is going to be extremely radioactive. Still, O’k for the sake of the story I’ll let that pass, suspension of disbelief after all. But then add in the bit about the radioactive material going into orbit and slowly seeping into our atmosphere. Finally, although US astronomers and NASA scientists realize the danger three years before the comet gets here no other country ever figures it out. In fact the rest of the world is pretty much ignored, only Americans are going to survive this apocalypse, we don’t even let the Brits or Canadians in on the end of the world.
The element Radium is extremely radioactive. That’s why it doesn’t last long! The idea of a comet that’s been out in the Oort cloud for billions of years being intensely radioactive at least needs some sort of explanation! (Credit: YouTube)
Still, suspension of disbelief for the sake of the story, that’s where the second problem comes in because the story in ‘The Ark’ is really pretty dry. There’s no conflict to speak of and the few plot twists don’t generate much suspense. In fact the whole novel reads more like a manual for surviving an apocalypse than a story about one.
‘The Ark’ has little personal conflict or actual fighting so there’s about as much drama in it as there is in a survival manual! (Credit: Karate Mart)
I’m not saying that ‘the Ark’ is a bad novel, it is a quick read and pretty much kept my attention. It certainly needs more work however. At least it could have a plausible reason for why the comet is so radioactive and add in some international intrigue to introduce some degree of conflict, some suspense. Finally the novel ends just as the rebuilding process has begun which makes me wonder if a sequel is already in the works.
In ‘The Ark’ the United States never even tells its closest allies about the radioactive comet! That’s a bit implausible and a little Foreign Intrigue over that fact might have made the story a bit more exciting! (Credit: Wikipedia)
So if you’ve got a few hours to spare for an interesting, if not exactly perfect end of the world novel you might enjoy ‘The Ark’ by Christopher Coates.
We all are aware of how the economic conditions in this country have changed over the last 30-40 years. Where once assembly line manufacturing was the main driver of the GDP here in the US now it’s high-tech engineering, microchips and software, industries that require far fewer employees but those with greater education. These changes in the economy have brought with them demographic changes as millions of high school graduates lost well paying jobs with benefits while people with a college degree were in ever greater demand, and therefore saw at least a modest increase in their income and wealth.
I could have picked any of a hundred different graphs all saying the same thing. The higher the education a person attains the higher the average salary they will earn throughout their lives! (Credit: Fox Business)
One unexpected outcome of these economic changes is the effect on the overall health of the American people caused by a massive growth in ‘Deaths of Despair’ that is drug overdoses, suicide and alcoholism. ‘Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism’ by Anne Case and Angus Deaton examines the increase in drug overdoses, suicide and alcoholism from both an economic and sociological perspective, both authors are retired professors of economics at Princeton University and Professor Deaton was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2016.
While the difference in salary between College graduates and High School graduates may be understandable the difference in Life Expectancy is harder to grasp. That’s the thesis of ‘Deaths of Despair’ by Anne Case and Angus Deaton. (Credit: World Socialist Web Site)
‘Deaths of Despair’ begins by demonstrating just how large a problem drug overdoses, suicides and alcoholism have become. In fact these social diseases were actually causing a decline in the average life expectancy of Americans before the Covid-19 pandemic. The book then goes on the show how these ‘Deaths of Despair’ reside almost exclusively in the white male population without a college degree, exactly the part of the population that has seen the most economic turmoil in the last 40 years. That turmoil being the driving force behind the despair a large part of our population now feels.
Cover art for ‘Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism’ by Anne Case (l) and Angus Deaton (r). (Credit: YouTube)
The central portion of the book is a detailed examination of how the economy has changed over the last 40 years and why damage generated by those changes seem to have almost targeted white males with only a high school education or less. In addition to the lost of income in going from a well paid factory job with benefits to a low paid service job with few benefits ‘Deaths of Despair’ also considers such factors as the loss of pride and community that accompanied the switch from buildings cars at General Motors to flipping burgers at McDonald’s. At the same time social changes of the last few decades added to the despair of white, blue-collar males. The advancement of both woman and minorities only increased the feeling of lost prestige and privilege.
Symbol of a population left behind economically, a factory that once drove American prosperity left to rust and decay. What happened to the people who once worked here earning a good life for themselves? (Credit: Wikipedia)
Then, at just the time when these changes were generating despondency within a large section of the population the pharmaceutical industry began a campaign of selling synthetic, non-addictive opioids as a cure all for any kind of pain. Of course we now know that OxyContin and its relatives are actually highly addictive and can even act as gateway drugs to worse opioids like heroin and fentanyl. The callous greed of the drug companies who made billions by turning millions of Americans into addicts, or in all too many cases corpses is graphically detailed.
As a large portion of the American working class saw their once comfortable life disappearing many of them got caught up in the opioid epidemic. Notice how the number of overdoses among men is nearly twice that among women. (Credit: Wikipedia)In ‘Deaths of Despair’ the authors cover the effects of suicide, alcoholism and the opioid epidemic on those with less than a college education. However they completely miss the equally tragic effect of education on smoking rates with high school graduates smoking, and dying because of smoking at more than twice the rate of those with a college degree. (Credit: Medical Express)
In the final section of ‘Deaths of Despair’ the authors give their recommendations on how to rebalance the economic system so as to better serve all Americans not just the top 1% or even the better educated. To be honest however the authors are academics and as such they are cautious in their suggestions.
While since 1975 many nations have seen the top 1% grab a larger share of the wealth here in the US that increase is significantly greater. Leaving that much less for the average person. (Credit: Wikipedia)
The most fundamental change put forward in ‘Deaths of Despair’ is a complete reform of the healthcare system in the US, which the authors contend does not even meet the criteria of a true capitalist marketplace. Not only are the drug companies and health insurance corporations criticized in detail but hospitals, ambulance services and even doctor’s associations are shown to be guilty of acting as an Oligopoly. (An Oligopoly is a small group of merchants or corporations that by colluding together rather than competing virtually become a monopoly, raising prices while using their power to destroy any competitors) According to the Authors this is why Americans spend more for their healthcare than any other nation while both life expectancy in the US and approval of our healthcare system rank amongst the lowest for any industrialized, wealthy country. In ‘Deaths of Despair’ the authors estimate that a through reform of the health care system could free up as much a a trillion dollars a year in GDP that could be used to maintain our infrastructure, improve education etc, etc, etc.
As a fraction of our countries wealth (GDP) the costs of Health Care have more than tripled since 1960! Are we living three times as long or has the Health Care Industry simply become inefficient and wasteful? (Credit: Kaiser Family Foundation)
While reform of the healthcare system is the author’s main recommendation they also suggest a stronger social safety net for those who lose their jobs due to changes in the economic system, the safety net must be of longer duration and include retraining for newer jobs. On the other hand they do not recommend simply raising taxes on the wealthy as a means of fixing income inequality nor do they endorse programs like the Universal Basic Income (UBI).
A dream of Socialists since the 19th century Universal Basic Income would make certain that no one falls into poverty despite lack of education, layoffs, sickness or any other circumstance. Conservatives counter that it simply promotes laziness. (Credit: The Nation)
Now, back in May of 2019 I reviewed the book ‘Dying of Whiteness’ by Jonathan M. Metzl, see my post of 5 May 2019, which covers much the same subject as’ Deaths of Despair’. Mr. Metzl however was a state health official while Professors Case and Deaton are among the world’s leading economists so there is a very different perspective in the two books, to my mind in a way that they compliment each other.
Jonathan M. Metzl and his book ‘Dying of Whiteness’ (Credit: Seminary Co-Op Bookstores)
So while I do highly recommend ‘Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism’ I do so with the proviso that it is a very technical book written by scholars who are among the best in their profession. Those readers who really want to understand the complexities of our current situation, both economic and political will gain a great deal from it.
One subject that appears quite often in Science Fiction novels and stories is the difficulty of trying to establish communication with an alien intelligent lifeform. In H. G. Wells’ ‘The First Men in the Moon’ Doctor Cavour tries to communicate with the Selenites by starting with geometric shapes, all intelligent creatures would recognize them after all. The same technique was used in the novel ‘Planet of the Apes’ (Of course in the movie they skipped that whole problem by having the apes speak perfect English!).
In the novel ‘The First Men in the Moon’ by H. G. Wells the Moon People, Selenites, are depicted as being somewhat like social insects. Dr. Cavour tries to communicate with them by starting with geometry, which he thinks is universal. Problem with that is social insects, at least here on Earth, mostly communicate by scents not speech or pictures. (Credit: Deviant Art)
Some SF stories use a shortcut to get past this difficulty. In ‘The Day the Earth stood Still’ the alien Klaatu speaks perfect English because his people have been monitoring our radio and TV broadcasts while in the old ‘Star Trek’ series the crew of the Enterprise had a “Universal Translator” that allowed conversation with all kinds of alien lifeforms. The main plot of the recent movie ‘Arrival’ (2016) was actually about the problem of learning how to communicate with aliens.
In ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ the alien Klaatu spoke English the moment he stepped out of his saucer because his people had been monitoring out radio and TV broadcasts. (Credit: IMDb)
The new novel ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ by Ray Nayler is also concerned with learning to communicate with an alien intelligence but this one is not extraterrestrial, and if you’re thinking chimpanzees or dolphins you’re wrong. The aliens in ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ are our planet’s most intelligent invertebrates, octopuses.
Cover art for ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ by Ray Nayler. (Credit: Amazon)
Author Ray Nayler looking rather dapper. (Credit: Poets and Writers)
Set in the near future Doctor Ha Nguyen has been studying octopuses and other cephalopods her entire career. She has been sent to the island of Con Dao by a multi-billion dollar, International Corporation named DIANIMA to study the local octopus population in an effort to determine if they are beginning to develop the basics of a primitive culture. DIANIMA has turned the island into a into a nature preserve in order to protect the intelligent octopuses in a world on the brink of environmental collapse due to climate change, overfishing etc, etc. The only two other inhabitants of Con Dao are Altantseseg who is in charge of security for the preserve and Evrim, the world’s first, and by law only, android.
Much of the action in ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ takes place on the Island of Con Dao off the coast of Vietnam. Looks like a nice place to me!!! (Credit: Travopo)
Of course the octopuses have developed not just the beginnings of culture but have a well developed language consisting of symbols that they cause to appear on their skin. Remember octopuses, along with other cephalopods, use chromatophores in their skin for camouflage. At the same time they can alter the very texture of their skin making it smooth like a stone or rough like sand or even bumpy like a piece of coral. In addition to a sophisticated language the octopuses in ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ have also mastered the making of primitive tools from sea shells and coral entering what Dr. Nguyen christens their ‘Sea Shell Age’.
Octopuses are well documented for their ability to figure out how to solve puzzles such as opening containers to get at the food we put inside. They are considered to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates but it is also recognized to be a form of intelligence quite different from our own! (Credit: The Universe of Discourse)
It’s the work of Dr. Nguyen that is the central portion of ‘The Mountain in the Sea. Her discussions with the Android Evrim about the difficulty of understanding a creature with such different senses than we have are the crux of the story. Despite evolving on the same planet as us octopuses are true aliens with no real hard parts for structure, with eight tentacles, each of which has a rudimentary brain of its own and can behave semi-independently. In many ways they are creatures whose ‘umwelt’ see my post about the book ‘Immense World’ by Ed Yong, whose mental view of the world is so much different from our own. At the same time I have a feeling that the character of the android Evrim was added into the novel in order to show how difficult it could be to understand and communicate with a creature of our own making.
The book ‘Immense World’ by Ed Yong is a wonderful exploration of the different type of senses that exist in the animal kingdom, many very different from ours. (Credit: X.com)
This subject of other animals here on Earth having the beginnings of culture is actually a hot topic right now. Over the last several decades considerable evidence has been discovered indicating different speech patterns, let’s not quite call it language, among different populations of dolphins, those in the Atlantic ocean as opposed to those in the Pacific or Indian oceans. The same appears to be true between Orcas who live close to the shorelines of the continents versus those who live in the deep ocean. And most interesting of all may be the fact that different populations of Chimpanzees in different areas of Africa not only differ in their vocal calls but even differ in their use of tools! (See my post of 16 March 2019).
It was Jane Goodall who first documented the use of tools by Chimpanzees. Now we recognize that our cousins not only have the beginnings of culture but they actually have several distinct cultures in different parts of Africa. (Credit: BBC Wildlife)
There are subplots in ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ as well. The island is closely guarded by Altantseseg using a variety of lethal drones because of poachers who try to invade the reserve in order to plunder its resources, mainly fish. There is also another entity, corporation or nation state, which is trying to perform a hostile takeover of DIANIMA for unknown reasons. In fact some parts of ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ are almost written like a spy novel or conspiracy theory.
In the news nowadays we often hear about drones being used as weapons in Ukraine or Gaza. Such military use of drones is a large part of the action sequences in ‘The Mountain in the Sea’. (Credit: Drone Elevations)
For the most part however ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ is a story about what it means to be an intelligent creature, to have a culture, a civilization. Because of that ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ is not an exciting book, not a novel for those who are looking for a lot of action. It’s a thought provoking book and when it sticks to that aspect of its story it does a good job. The spy stuff or the poacher part falls kind of flat however. Really ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ could have used one more edit to try to tighten up what are supposed to the action sections.
In ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ an old Octopus is telling stories to a group of young octopuses just as Homer must have told his tales to his audience. Such is the beginnings of culture. (Credit: The Imaginative Conservative)
Nevertheless ‘The Mountain in the Sea’ is worth reading, both for its viewpoint on the harm we’re doing to our fellow creatures here on Earth as for its thoughts on communication.
Actually five stories woven into one novel, ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ by author Anthony Doerr weaves it’s way from the fall of Constantinople to the Moslem Turks in 1453 to an multi-generational Starship on it’s way to colonize a planet circling the star Beta Oph2 with a stop in present day Idaho along the way. It’s the story about the starship that allows the story to be considered ‘science fiction’.
Cover Art for ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ by Anthony Doerr. (Credit: Amazon)
The five main characters in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ are, in order of historical existence, Omeir, a young teamster from Bulgaria in the Moslem army attacking Constantinople while Anna, an even younger seamstress is living in the city under attack. Present day Idaho includes Zeno, a gay Korean War veteran who is interested in classical Greek plays and stories along with Seymour, an emotionally disturbed (autistic?) high school student whose only real friend is an owl who lives in the forest just outside town. Finally there is Konstance, a young girl born on and becoming a teenager aboard the interstellar ark the Argos, 65 years into its 592 year journey to the star Beta Oph2.
Considered one of the pivotal moments in history, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is be setting for two of the five stories in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’. (Credit: Warfare History Network)
The thread that ties all these stories together is a 2nd century novel by the ancient Greek author Antonius Diogenes called ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’. So in a sense Anthony Doerr’s ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is a novel about a novel. The ancient story is about a simpleton named Aethon who wishes to become a bird, preferably an eagle, hawk or owl, so that he may fly up to the bird’s heaven, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Actually, while Antonius Diogenes was a real 2nd century Greek author the novel ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is a fiction made up by modern author Anthony Doerr.
Author Anthony Doerr uses a fictitious ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ by the real Greek Author Antonius Diogenes as the link for the five stories in his ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’. (Credit: NCW Libraries)
What the modern ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is, is a book in praise of books and libraries and those people who love books and libraries, Doerr in fact dedicates ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ to librarians. Much of the novel’s action actually takes place within libraries. The lives of all of the main characters are influenced by books and they all come to revere books in the end.
‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is dedicated to librarians including those at the Free Library of Philadelphia, a place I have visited hundreds of times in my life! (Credit: Visit Philadelphia)
Each of the stories in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is interesting in it’s own way and the ways in which they intersect is cleverly told. The writing is both beautiful without being too florid and bittersweet. All of the stories have something to say about humanity that will on one hand depress you, yet somehow still give you hope. One theme that runs throughout ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is the fragility of books, indeed of all knowledge with the ancient ‘lost’ version of ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ serving as an illustration of how much of ancient literature, Greek and otherwise, has actually been lost.
The fragility of knowledge. Much of what we know of the ancient world comes from the work of scholars who try to piece together the fragmentary evidence from damaged scrolls like this one. (Credit: World History Encyclopedia)
‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is a thoughtful story, not an exciting one. In fact author Doerr manages to skip past all of the bloodshed during the fall of Constantinople, the Korean War and even the murder of one of his main characters. ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ seems to regard violence as just one of the painful parts of life but certainly not one of the interesting parts.
Nevertheless, violence still seems to be our first choice in trying to resolve a conflict between us. But after all, we’re really still just animals following our instincts. (Credit: Quotes.pics)
As I said above ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is beautifully written and very thought provoking. It’s one of those stories that just a pleasure to read so even if it’s not really ‘science fiction’ I think science fiction readers will love it because it will remind them of all the reasons we love books!
Books, books and more books. Sounds like heaven to me, or perhaps I should say ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’. (Credit: The Today Show)
I’m certain that it won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with this blog that I’m very much concerned with Climate Change / Global Warming and in fact with environmental issues in general. I know that more and more of my posts lately have been devoted to the damage that we ourselves are doing to our planet. I guess I’m just trying to do what I can to educate people about how bad the climate crisis is, and how much worse it could get.
The latest climate crisis I never imagined happening are the wildfires raging across the Hawaiian islands. Maui in particular has been devastated. (Credit: BBC)
So in this post I’m going to review a book by an author who is much better suited to give the warning about climate change than I am. Bill McGuire is Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London and was a contributing scientist to the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Since that time Professor McGuire has written numerous articles for periodicals about the coming dangers of global warming as well as the book I’ll be reviewing today, ‘Hothouse Earth, an Inhabitants Guide’.
Cover art for ‘Hothouse Earth’ by Bill McGuire
Professor Bill McGuire is one of the World’s leading climatologists and the author of several books on the coming climate crisis. (Credit: UCL)
Professor McGuire begins at the beginning, two hundred and fifty years ago with the invention by Richard Arkwright of a mechanical loom for the production of cotton thread, an invention that is often sited as the beginning of the industrial revolution. While that first mechanical loom was powered by a water wheel subsequent versions were soon powered by James Watt’s coal burning steam engine and so began the connection between industry and carbon emissions. In ‘Hothouse Earth’ Professor McGuire often returns to the day of Richard Arkwright as being his baseline for the days before humanity began dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Often called the father of the Industrial Revolution Richard Arkwright invented the water driven loom shown here. (Credit: Study.com)
‘Hothouse Earth’ then presents a brief outline of those scientists who studied the effect that CO2 in the atmosphere has on the planet’s temperature. It was the American chemist Eunice Foote who in 1856 demonstrated that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, trapping the Sun’s energy so that it warms our planet. Then just forty years later it was Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius who developed the first climate models for how Earth’s temperature would change depending on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Based on the amount of coal that was being burned back in 1900 Arrhenius even predicted that we would be seeing the effects of global warming just about now! As Professor McGuire puts it “No one can say we weren’t warned!”
Besides predicting global warming over 125 years ago Svante Arrhenius was also executor of Alfred Nobel’s will and therefore the person who actually set up the Nobel prizes, winning a chemistry one himself in 1903. (Credit: Energy Education)
With his background in geology Professor McGuire is well versed in how the Earth’s temperature has changed in the past, from ice ages to long periods when the planet was so warm that the polar ice caps completed melted. Throughout ‘Hothouse Earth’ Professor McGuire uses examples from those past eras to illustrate what our climate will be like before long, while repeatedly pointing out that the climate of our planet today is changing faster than it ever has.
Geologically planet Earth is actually in an ice age period. The fact that it is burning up is completely our doing! (Credit: www.history.com)
The meat of ‘Hothouse Earth’ is a long survey of the ways that climate change is going to make our planet a much worse place to live. In addition to more sever weather, both droughts and flooding, there’s rising sea levels, more massive wildfires, ocean acidification, the spread of tropical diseases etc, etc. Those are the direct effects of climate change but as Professor McGuire points out the growing scarcity of water and food, along with large areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable will combine to drive migrations of whole populations, and greatly increase the chances for future conflict.
Global warming isn’t just a disaster on land. The warming of the oceans is killing the coral reefs where half of all marine life exists. (Credit: NBC News)
It’s not a pretty picture and Professor McGuire doesn’t try to sugarcoat what’s coming. In fact he’s well aware that many people will regard him as an alarmist and he refuses to apologize for it, insisting that raising the alarm on climate change is a good thing. At the same time ‘Hothouse Earth’ also takes aim at both the climate deniers and the geoengineers who hope to invent some technical ‘fix’ to negate global warming. You may have heard on the news one or more of the many ideas put forward that propose to either reflect some of the Sun’s energy before it warms the Earth or suck all of the CO2 out of the air so that we can continue to burn all of the fossil fuels we want.
There are a lot of ‘ideas’ going around right now to ‘fix’ the climate crisis. None are as cheap or as sure, or as safe as simply stopping the burning of fossil fuels! (Credit: Phys.org)
While the deniers are simply obstinate fools the geoengineers at least recognize that there is a problem that needs to be solved. Their plans so far however vary between dangerous, like spraying massive amounts of sulfuric acid into the atmosphere to simulate the cooling caused by volcanic eruptions to simply much too expensive. We already know what the solution to global warming is, we’ve known it all along, stop burning fossil fuels.
There simply can’t be anybody who thinks this is a good thing. But far too many people think it’s profitable and in our world money is more important than goodness! (Credit: BONews)
‘Hothouse Earth’ isn’t a fun read, it isn’t meant to be. It is meant to raise the alarm because everyday now we hear about record setting temperatures in Dallas and Beijing, wildfires in Canada, droughts across Africa and on and on. We really are at a tipping point, it is thought that we could see a 1.5ºC temperature rise since Richard Arkwright’s time this very year. That 1.5ºC rise is thought by many climatologists to be a level where the effects of global warming increase significantly so we really are running out of time.
The hottest month ever measured and now officially over the 1.5 degree threshold scientists have been warning us about, July of 2023 will be long remembered as when the climate crisis began in earnest. (Credit: BBC)
In other words things could be getting a lot worse real soon. If you want to do something about it then I strongly suggest that ‘Hothouse Earth’ by Bill McGuire is a good place to start.
I have in several previous posts mentioned the number of different species of wildlife that are now living in my neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia, one of the most highly urbanized areas of our planet. The intrusion of wild animals into cities and other highly populated areas is slowly becoming more and more of a newsworthy story as well as the subject of a number of episodes of nature and science programs.
Are you watching ‘Nature’ on PBS, it’s better than 99% of the crap on TV nowadays! (Credit: Dailymotion)
This trend is certainly going to continue and that is what makes the new book ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ by Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara Peter S. Alagona so important. ‘The accidental Ecosystem’ is more than a description of urbanized areas as an ecosystem, more than a bestiary of those species that are adapting to life in our cities and suburbs. In fact Professor Alagona only describes a handful of illustrative species in detail.
Cover art for ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ by Peter S. Alagona. (Credit: Big Bend Radio and TV Magazine)
What ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ is about is the process of how our cities have become a home for wild species, what direction that process is likely to take in the near future, and how we humans can manage the situation to the benefit of all species. In other words ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ is as much about urban planning as it is about ecology.
Meet the new neighbors! Most people still feel that wild animals don’t belong in cities and suburbs but with us taking over more and more of the planet all the time, where else do they have to go? (Credit: Forbes)Professor Peter S. Alagona in the kind of setting I’m certain he prefers! (Credit: University of California Press)
Professor Alagona begins with the beginning of cities themselves and makes the largely ignored point that animals have always lived in cities alongside human beings. I’m not just talking about dogs and cats, and rats either. For millennia horses, cattle, swine and sheep along with chickens, ducks and geese were kept in urban areas both for food and in some cases as a labour force.
Notice the pig and Oxen a bit to the left of middle. For most of human history animals lived in cities with us but they were domesticated animals that we brought in. What’s happening today is a different story entirely. (Credit: Scandinavian Archaeology)
It was really only with the beginning of the industrial age that the idea that cities were meant for people and our pets was really put into practice both for hygienic reasons while at the same time putting limited urban land to more valuable use. Only when horses and oxen were no longer needed for their muscle power, and the revolution in transportation allowed food animals to be kept outside urban areas until after they were slaughtered did the idea that cities were for people and our pets became practical. This concept of a city as something of a fortress against the natural world reached its pinnacle from about the 1930s through the 1960s.
Starting in the 1930s people began to dream of ‘The City of the Future’. There was no room for wild animals here, just humans and our pets! (Credit: Pinterest)
By the 1970s the situation had begun to change, the growth of the suburbs, with single homes on bigger lots, along with a recognition of the value of open, wooded spaces even in cities provided living space for a few animals at first. Add to that the resources that an urban area could provide, not only our food waste but also the gardens many people grow along with the seed we put out to literally ‘feed the birds’. The wildlife of the cities may have begun with rats, squirrels, pigeons and songbirds but before long they were joined by other adaptable species like raccoons and opossums. As more and more rural areas were developed for human habitation even large animals like deer and bears became citizens of places intended for people only.
We are willing to accept a few species of smaller animals like Squirrels living alongside us. (Credit: Battery Park City Authority)
‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ charts the development of our current situation while at the same time making suggestions as to how the problems of urban wildlife, and there have been many problems, can be addressed. As you might guess Professor Alagona dismisses the notion that the wild creatures living alongside humans could, or even should simply be exterminated. Such a war against nature he argues would be never ending. So long as cities provide space and resources that wild animals can exploit some will come into the cities to do just that. Also, with the growing environmental consciousness of many people such a policy would be politically controversial, to say the least.
But this is just going to far. Or is it just a omen of the future? (Credit: Alaska Fish and Game)
So ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ spends a large part of its pages discussing those policies and programs that could help make the urban environment friendlier to both humans and its newer residents. Many of the policies discussed will themselves be contentious, as many people will balk at the idea of spending money to make the lives of ‘pests’ better. Nevertheless as Professor Alagona correctly points out, it is a growing problem that needs to be solved.
Thomas Holmes original plan for the city of Philadelphia. Maybe it’s time for us to start taking the needs of other species into account when we decide to change world to suit us! (Credit: Philadelphia Parks and Recreation)
I for one however hope that we do find ways to live with our wild neighbors. Often on summer nights you’ll find me outside of my house watching some of the skunks, raccoons, opossums, groundhogs, bats, and now even a fox, that live in my neighborhood. That’s why I recommend ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ by Peter S. Alagona, for my sake as well as theirs.
From time to time we all stop for a moment to consider the ‘what ifs’ in our lives. You know what I mean; we wonder how our lives would be different if we’d made different choices, or if we could go back and change something that had happened in our past. Author Blake Crouch goes a little further, he wonders how the Universe would react if people could actually make those kinds of changes and writes Science Fiction novels where he examines the consequences of such technologies.
Many Science Fiction novels are actually meant to provide a mirror on human society. In his ‘The War of the Worlds’ H. G. Wells was actually commenting on Europe’s violent colonizing of the rest of the world. (Credit: Wikipedia)
Back in my post of 2 September 2022 I reviewed Crouch’s novel ‘Recursion’ where Time Travel allows people to go back into their pasts and change the biggest moment of their lives. In ‘Dark Matter’ he uses the idea of the Multiverse to allow his characters to go to other universes where they have made different choices in their lives.
In ‘Recursion’ Blake Crouch uses Time Travel to comment on how people dream about changing the mistakes they’d made in their lives. (Credit: Amazon)
Jason Dessen is a professor of physics at a small mid-western university, a happily married man with a wife and son. It could have been different, he could have accomplished big things but he got his girlfriend pregnant and when the baby was born the child had a lot of medical problems so Jason gave up his chance at scientific immortality to be a father and husband. At the same time his wife Daniela gives up her career as an artist to be a wife and mother.
Author Blake Crouch and the cover art for his novel ‘Dark Matter’. (Credit: Aralingua)
Then one night as he is walking home Jason is kidnapped by a man in a mask and taken to an abandoned power station outside Chicago. There his assailant forces him to exchange all their clothes, takes his wedding ring and then injects him with drugs that knock him out. When Jason wakes up he is in another Universe, a world where he became a top scientist, in charge of a billion dollar project to open up the doors to the Multiverse, a world where his entire life is taken up by his work with no personal life at all.
Is there an infinite number of different Universes? The idea actually makes sense according to several of the latest models of how our Universe works. (Credit: Universe Today)
In his attempts to get back to his Universe, where his assailant has now taken his place, Jason visits many different Chicagos, different Universes, each of which differs to some degree, great or small from the Chicago that is Jason’s. In this part of ‘Dark Matter’ Crouch gives a wonderful glimpse into just what the reality of a Multiverse, the infinity of Universes each just a tiny bit different from all the others, could mean. Then, when somehow Jason does find his way back to his own Universe, things really get weird, but since I don’t want to spoil things I’ll stop there.
The windy city of Chicago is the setting for ‘Dark Matter’ or to more accurate several versions of Chicago are the settings! (Credit: Choose Chicago)
As he did in ‘Recursion’ Blake Crouch takes us on a wild ride that builds to a crescendo, I didn’t see the ending coming at all. In ‘Recursion’ Crouch just asked us to accept just one thing, his way of time travel. Once we allow that everything else in the novel follows quite logically. Same thing in ‘Dark Matter’ Crouch only asks that we agree to Jason’s method of opening up the Multiverse, then everything else makes sense no matter how weird it gets.
In his novels Blake Crouch really only asks us to accept one, very strange idea. The rest of the story works pretty logically from there. That makes ‘Suspension of Disbelief’ much easier. (Credit: Go Teen Writer)
Except at one point, and it’s a big ‘hey wait a minute’. Jason spends more than a third of the novel trying to get back to his Universe amongst an infinity of Universes. His assailant however had no difficulty taking Jason to his Universe, dumping him there and then getting back to Jason’s Universe to take his place!
Aside from that ‘Dark Matter’ is a wild ride, both thought provoking and exciting, I absolutely look forward to reading more of Blake Crouch’s works, but I have a little worry. Both ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Recursion’ use science fiction to examine the ‘What ifs’ in our lives. I’m hoping that Blake Crouch doesn’t get into a rut. I hope his next novel is an alien contact story or something similar.
We really do need to get on with our lives and not let the ‘what ifs’ destroy whatever chance for happiness we still have. (Credit: Icy Tales)
And if it is you’ll see it reviewed here at Science and Science Fiction.
Without question Science and Religion are two of the most influential forces in human history dating all the way back to the very beginnings of civilization if not earlier. Without science we’d still be living in caves, or even back in the trees while without the unifying effect of religion we probably would never have built any of the cities that mark the beginnings of civilization. Instead our largest social unit might still be an extended family / clan.
The interplay between cultural forces is what provides the energy for human progress, but sometimes that ‘energy’ can be more destructive than constructive. (Credit: Medium)
Today it seems as if science and religion are polar opposites, and not friendly opposites either. Whenever we hear about a news story that concerns both science and religion it’s inevitably a story of conflict, as if these two social forces are competing for dominance and simply cannot exist in peace.
Trust Feynman to give a succinct quote that really sums up the whole subject. (Credit: Thomas P. Seager PhD)
It wasn’t always that way. In fact the first scientists, the first people who had the leisure time to study the world around them were priest / astronomers who observed the heavens above us in order to try to understand God / the Gods by understanding his / their works. In ancient times, indeed up until just around 500 years ago, science and religion were pretty much the same thing with many of the best known thinkers and philosophers making contributions to both fields.
The first scientists were also priests, trying to understand the gods by studying the heavens where they lived. (Credit: Astronomy Trek)
So how did religion and science break apart, and why are they today in such opposition to each other. That’s the story that ‘Cosmic Roots: The conflict between Science and Religion and how it led to the Secular Age’ by Ira Mark Egdall seeks to tell.
Cover Art for ‘Cosmic Roots’ by Ira Mark Egdall. (Credit: Ebay)
In order to tell that story ‘Cosmic Roots’ begins at the very beginning of civilization, the first cities of Ur, Uruk and Eridu in ancient Sumer and how the need to regulate life by the seasons, when the annual floods would come, when to till, plant and harvest crops led to the development of a class of priests who used the cosmic clock in the sky above us to make those decisions. And even as they were inventing astronomy and mathematics the Sumerians also invented many of the devices that made civilization possible, irrigation, the plow, glass and even the wheel. In Sumer religion and science were one and the same thing, both working together to make civilization possible.
The ancient city of Ur as it exists today. Much of our ideas about civilization come from the people who built Ur and its sister cites nearly 6,000 years ago. (Credit: World History Encyclopedia)
From Sumer ‘Cosmic Roots’ goes on to discuss the Hebrew Old Testament, the classical Greek philosophers and the beginnings of Christianity. The story then continues with the links between Islam, Judaism and Christianity and how the Moslem world saved the achievements of the ancient world while Europe suffered through its ‘Dark Ages’. Through all of this time Mister Egdall points out the ‘disagreements’ between the best thinkers and the established, usually religious order of the time, the trial of Socrates for, among other things being an atheist is one example.
The three religions who all claim to worship the same god yet somehow argue more over just how to worship than all the other religions combined. (Credit: Slideplayer)
‘Cosmic Roots’ then proceeds to describe how the conflict between science becomes a little more open during the late renaissance and the works of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo and finally Isaac Newton. With Newton’s work the Earth was permanently displaced as the center of the Universe with all of the consequences to religion. The big break however had to wait another 150 years and the publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’. Since that time science and religion have taken two very different paths, with science going on to make ever more astounding discoveries while religion struggles to try to find a new role in a world where humanity is not the chief concern of a cosmic creator.
‘If I have seen further it is because I stood on the shoulder of Giants’, claimed Newton. (Credit: Church and State)
Now ‘Cosmic Roots’ purports to be about ‘The Conflict Between Science and Religion and How it Led to the Secular Age’ but actually it is more like a survey of the history of both science and religion, admittedly mostly western science and religion, with an emphasis of the conflicts that have grown between them. In that respect it succeeds admirably, covering a great many of the important moments where science and religion played pivotal roles in history.
Galileo defends himself, and science, against the inquisition. One of the pivotal moments in history it is also a central moment in ‘Cosmic Roots’. (Credit: www.history.com)
However ‘Cosmic Roots’ is not a discussion of why we humans feel a need for something to believe in as truth despite science’s proven ability to discover real truths that we can use to make our lives better. This isn’t Joseph Campbell’s studies of Mythology or James Frazier’s evolutionary scheme of Superstition > Magic > Religion > Science. ‘Cosmic Roots’ is really a history book, not psychology or sociology and as such it is filled with many, many details of who did what and when they did it. Despite having learned much of the story of ‘Cosmic Roots’ years ago Mister Egdall still brought out quite a few details that I’d never heard of.
Author Ira Mark Egdall. (Credit: Facebook)
Nevertheless at the same time all those details was my biggest problem with ‘Cosmic Roots’. That’s because sometimes Mister Egdall got caught up in the minutiae of an event and would veer off into a discussion that really didn’t pertain to his science / religion thesis. One event in particular was the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Now the rebellion of the Jews against Rome in itself was only of minor importance to the science / religion theme, but it takes up the whole of chapter 12 in ‘Cosmic Roots’ while the final siege is eight whole pages. It was just too much that had little or nothing to do with science / religion. Although interesting and well written, the section simply wasn’t germane to the book’s subject. On the science side Mister Egdall also spends a good bit of time discussing the personal conflicts Newton had with other scientists of his day. Again while interesting, it doesn’t have much to do with religion!
The destruction of the second temple by the Romans was certainly a major moment in history but it had little to do with science. (Credit: The Temple Institute Store)
Still, ‘Cosmic Roots’ tells an important story and tells it well. Many of the issues we face today have their roots in the events ‘Cosmic Roots’ relates. Everyone who wishes to be considered an educated individual needs to known the basics of this story and ‘Cosmic Roots’ is a good way of learning it.
It was Aristotle who first described what we now call the ‘Five Senses’, that is Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch and Taste. Now for we humans sight dominates, we are very visual creatures with our other senses taking a secondary roll. Even our language is sight oriented, we ‘see what someone else is talking about’ or a smart person can be referred to as ‘bright’.
We often imagine a good idea as a light bulb in a person’s head. Would an animal that’s relies more on its sense of smell or hearing think the same way? (Credit: Getty)
Aristotle thought that animals shared the same five senses as we did but today we know that the animal kingdom has members for whom senses other than sight predominate, like dogs whose view of the world is based more on smell than sight or an owl who hunts its prey by sound rather than sight. What Aristotle never imagined was that some animals could possess senses that we humans have no awareness of, the echolocation of dolphins and bats or the electrical senses of many species of fish.
Bats and Dolphins ‘see’ with sound. Echolocation is an ability we humans simply do not possess. (Credit: Frio Bat Flight)
‘An Immense World’ by author Ed Yong is all about the variety of senses animals possess and the way those senses effect the animal’s view of the world. Early on in ‘An Immense World’ Young introduces the term ‘Umwelt’ coined by the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll in 1909 to describe the perceptual world that each species would have based upon those senses it possesses and how it uses them to survive. This concept serves as a focal point for Yong’s broad survey of animals and their senses.
Cover art for ‘An Immense World’ by Ed Yong. (Credit: Penguin Random House)
Now throughout my life I have read about or watched TV documentaries about different animals and how they use their different senses so I already had a good understanding of how bees can see in the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectra or how rattlesnakes can see in the infrared. So I was already familiar with a good bit of the things ‘An Immense World’ describes. Nevertheless in ‘An Immense World’ Ed Yong is so thorough and detailed that I still learned a great deal.
Author Ed Yong with one of the animals he discusses in ‘An Immense World’. (Credit: Ed Yong)
In ‘An Immense World’ Ed Yong proceeds from the most familiar of the senses, like vision and first talks about how that sense differs in other animals, like colour blindness in dogs and most other mammals. As each kind of animal is mentioned we get a little further from human senses, like the compound eyes of insects or the way clams simply have a series of photosensitive cells along the rim of their shells. For each species the way they use their sight is discussed, whether it be to find prey, escape predators or even find a mate. Yong then proceeds to each human sense in turn, hearing, smell, touch and taste and starting with how we use that sense he describes how that sense can differ in other creatures and how they use it.
We all learned about our Five Senses back in grade school. As limited as they are they are the only way we humans have of understanding the world around us. (Credit: Learning Junction)
It’s after spending several chapters concerning the senses we possess that ‘An Immense World’ goes on the describe those senses that were unknown to Aristotle, echolocation or sonar, and electrical senses like those of the electric eel, although many other fish also possess it as a sense. The ability of some species to actually detect magnetic fields, usually the Earth’s magnetic field to use in migration, is given a whole chapter to itself because it is still the one we know the least about. The penultimate chapter is about how every species, even we humans, use all the senses they possess together in order to understand the world around them and survive in it.
The Electric Eel is the animal best known for its ability to use electricity as a sense, and a weapon. It is certainly not the only animal to do so however. If you want to find out about the others ‘An Immense World’ is the book for you. (Credit: Encyclopedia Britannica)
Finally Young uses the last chapter to describe how we humans, in altering the world to suit ourselves, are attacking the senses that other species use to live. Light pollution is disrupting the lives of nocturnal animals while noise pollution and chemical pollution are hurting those species that ‘see’ the world through sound or smell.
Just a few of the thousands of birds who die by flying into the windows of skyscrapers that leave their lights on. Our converting the world to suit our senses is wrecking havoc on the senses of other animals. (Credit: BBC)
I do have a couple of small criticisms of ‘An Immense World’. As someone who spent most of his career as an electrical engineer I found a couple of tiny factual errors in the chapters on the electrical and magnetic senses. During one of his interviews with an ichthyologist Yong places his hand in a tank with an electric eel and gets a 90V shock that he describes as being electrocuted. Well, technically you’re only electrocuted by a shock if you die, not when you just get hurt. Then, in the sections on the electric and magnetic senses Yong mentions how the senses of sound and smell have a built in delay because they travel at a certain speed while the electromagnetic senses are ‘instantaneous’. Well no, electromagnetism may be a lot faster than sound or scents but it’s not instantaneous, it travels at the speed of light. I know I’m being a bit pedantic but still those are still errors.
Nothing is instantaneous, even light has a finite speed. (Credit: web.physics.utah.edu)
One other thing I would have liked to see was a chapter on the senses possessed by plants, which is actually a growing field of research. We know very little about how plants sense the world but we’re finding out more every day. Many, possibly most plants are light sensitive but every day researchers discover more and more evidence of the sense of touch in plants, think of how a Venus Fly Trap knows when an insect has landed in one of its traps. A quick review of plant senses would have been a great addition to the book.
See those little hairs inside the Venus Fly Trap. Those are the plant’s sense organs. Yes plants have senses too and ‘An Immense World’ could have had a chapter on them as well! (Credit: EurekAlert)
Nevertheless ‘An Immense World’ is a wonderful book, full of details about the endless variety of life here on Earth. Whether you’re familiar with the way animals senses work or this is an entirely new subject you’ll learn a lot, and do so in an enjoyable way, if you read ‘An Immense World’ by Ed Yong.
Fame and power have always gone hand and hand. As far back as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar men vying for authority often sought celebrity status as a means toward that goal. Think about, doesn’t the very name ‘Alexander the Great’ sound like something a public relations consultant would think up.
Back in the days of Alexander the Great men achieved fame by winning battles. Today many achieve fame by pretending, i.e. acting as superheros or other strong men. (Credit: Greece Is)
In our modern era we have become familiar with entertainers, actors, musicians and athletes, turning their notoriety into political office. Here in America we have now elected two such men, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, to the highest office in our country, the Presidency of the United States, often referred to as the most powerful position in the world.
In the last 50 years America has elected two celebrities to be President. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson and won’t do that again!!! (Credit: Wikipedia)
Why do we do it? Why do we choose inexperienced amateurs as our political leaders instead of seasoned politicians? And why do people who have had success in the entertainment world even think that they are qualified to hold public office?
Oprah Winfrey is another celebrity who has been mentioned as a possible choice for President. Fortunately it seems that she has sense enough to know that she’s not qualified. (Credit: Forbes)
Those are some of the questions that Dr. Lauren Wright, a lecturer in Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University seeks to answer in her book ‘Star Power, (American Democracy in the Age of the Celebrity Candidate)’. In her book Dr. Wright surveys the latest studies and polls related to the whole issue of celebrities running for public office, examining the advantages that celebrities have over traditional politicians as well as the justifications that celebrities give for entering the political arena.
Doctor Lauren A. Wright, a lecturer at Princeton University and author of “Starpower”. (Credit: Center for the Study of Democratic Politics)
Dr. Wright separates her study into four subsections, each of which is a chapter in ‘Star Power’. The first chapter is a brief review of the interplay between celebrity status and political power through history starting with Alexander and Caesar but concentrating on celebrities in American history. Dr. Wright even takes a bit of time to describe the race for California governor by the author Upton Sinclair in 1934 pointing out numerous resemblances between that campaign and Donald Trump’s race for President.
Front Cover of “Star Power, American Democracy in the age of the Celebrity Candidate” by Lauren A. Wright. (Credit: Amazon)
In chapter two the question of why celebrities run for office is considered. Why does someone who has seen success in film or the concert hall or ball field think that their skill as an entertainer will translate into success as a member of government? Starting with the actual reasons that celebrities give for running Dr. Wright then goes into the psychology of famous people, their need for acclaim along with their conceit that they can do anything because the flatterers around them tell them they can.
Wht is it about humans psychologically that we have such a desire to be adored by thousands of people we’ll never meet and never get to know? (Credit: Billboard)
Chapter three considers the way that the public treats celebrities differently from normal folk, even normal folk like politicians. In fact Dr. Wright lists seven qualities that celebrities possess that the average politician would love to have. These qualities are Name Recognition, Favourability, Relatability, Outsider Status, Large and Passionate Following, Fundraising and Media Attention. I’ll just discuss one of these in passing because I have never understood why people think that an ‘outsider’ without any experience in government, is in any way preferable to a politician who actually knows how to do the job.
As children we all want the attention of those around us. Many people never seem to grow up. (Credit: Icon Agency)
Here in Pennsylvania we recently had a celebrity TV doctor, Memhet Oz who ran for the US Senate against the former mayor of the city of Braddock who is currently our state’s Lieutenant Governor, John Fetterman. As a part his campaign Oz has on many occasions criticized Fetterman as ‘A Career Politician’, in other words someone with training and experience, while he as an outsider is better suited for the post. Why do we even consider such an illogical argument when we would never think of hiring someone like a cab driver to fix our plumbing? (P.S. Fetterman won thankfully!)
John Fetterman (l) has been a popular Mayor of a small Pennsylvania town and hard working Lieutenant Governor. Mehmet Oz (r) has been a cardiologist and talk show host. The question is, why do some people think that political / governmental experience should actually count against a candidate? (Credit: Los Angeles Times)
Chapter four then considers the question of ‘Do voters actually prefer Celebrity Candidates over more Traditional Politicians’. Here’s where things get kinda scary because although in poll after poll people claim that they do not prefer celebrities in fact such absolute amateurs as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono and Jesse Ventura, to say nothing of Donald Trump, have all been elected to high office. People it seems do not want a polltaker to think they would vote for a celebrity, but in fact they often do.
Despite absolutely no experience in either politics or government Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of the most populace start in the US. Why did anybody think he’d do a good job? (Credit: YouTube)
Psychologists often use a technique known as a ‘Paired Choice Experiments’ in order to gage the true reactions of people when we’d rather not have our true reactions known. As an example when given a choice between the extremely well known celebrity Oprah Winfrey or the much less known US Senator Cory Booker the TV star wins easily, the seven advantages mentioned above that celebrities have now become more relevant.
One big Advantage Celebrities have over more traditional politicians is in fundraising. Their legions of fans can usually be counted on to big in the cash needed in today’s elections. (Credit: Wild Apricot)
Finally Dr. Wright considers the effect that celebrity candidates are having on the very fabric of our democracy. Several times she uses quotations from ‘The Federalist Papers’ to show how our founding fathers feared the rise of a popular demagogue and how that fear seems to be coming true today. Celebrity candidates are with us for good or ill, and we are just going to have to adjust to them.
One type of political figure that our founding fathers feared was the demagogue, a person with so much fame that they can seize too much power and by using the mob, make themselves a dictator. (Credit: Simon and Schuster)
I do have several criticisms of ‘Star Power’ however. For one thing while the book does show some charts displaying data it could use a lot more. Dr. Wright often talks her way through a lot of data rather than showing it. As a firm supporter of ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ I like charts and ‘Star Power’ needed more charts. Another similar problem is that of paragraphs, over and over again there are pages with only two or three paragraphs, and my copy of ‘Star Power’ had small print so there were a lot of sentences running together in each paragraph. These two defects combine to make ‘Star Power’ a bit difficult to read, I found myself growing blurry eyed at times.
Which is exactly what almost happened on January 6th of 2021. Clearly the celebrity candidate is a something that has to be considered in a democratic society. (Credit: The Washington Post)
Which is a shame because ‘Star Power’ is a very important book, about a subject that needs a comprehensive but still accessible book to help the public understand the issues at play. For all its faults I recommend ‘Star Power (American democracy in the Age of Celebrity Candidates) as one small thing we can do to help preserve our democracy.
