Books I Read in 2025
June 2025
The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Nature gives gifts, and we can (should be) be more appreciative of those gifts. Something is lost when we reduce nature to its natural resources (commodification). Presence and Appreciation are the gifts we can offer to other humans, and nature itself.
How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley
A concise overview of how fascism can come to grip a nation; it goes over concepts like purposefully delegitimizing words, and always having an outgroup for the demagogue's base to point at as a distraction. I was particularly enlightened by the chapter about Sexual Anxiety, in which telling the males of your base that the outgroup is coming to conquer/steal your women appeals to primal instincts that are very difficult to 'logic' your way out of.
Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Appelbaum
This book shows how autocratic states help each other survive; they trade with each other (even when most other countries have sanctions against them) and supoprt each other with propaganda as well. A significant amount of time is spent on Russia's propaganda machine, and mentions of this are what led me to this next book...
Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomeransev
A memoir (of sorts) written by a Western Journalist who happened to spend significant time in Russia's media ecosystem (and Russia itself). It is less a scathing indictment of Russia than an explanation of how the populace there comes to believe certain things, and act a certain way. There is a chapter devoted to a Russian floor-cleaning chemical supplier has her main product (diethylamine) designated a narcotic overnight, and then finds herself in jail for having sold it.
July 2025
The Siren's Call by Chris Hayes
A good overview of Attention in 2025, written by an MSNBC anchor who makes moment-by-moment decisions about how to keep peoples' attention while also trying to keep them informed.
- Attention-grabbing is easier than attention-holding, and so media tends towards smash cuts, 10-second videos and Tweet-sized information bites.
- We are stuffed and starved by the amount of information (much of it, dubious value) the world tries to give us
- What humans truly want is recognition; attention is a 'poor but plausible substitute'
- Shocking bits of false information outcompete mundane bits of truth
- There is a lamentation here for what American political debate has become: He goes over the long, 3-hour debates between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858 (Wikipedia Link), and contrasts how 'When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, Obama and McCain put out position papers and held background calls with reporters, essentially re-enacting the Lincoln-Douglas debates for the modern media landscape'. Contrasted with now, when candidates don't even take sides letting their followers infer whatever they want.
- "Democratic Deliberation seems impossible [in the current attention economy] and even absurd"
The Anxious Generation by John Haidt
A book that, sicentifically (and with sources), posits that the increase in anxiety that young people experienced from 2010 onward is caused by the use of smartphones during their childhood years (up to age 16).
- Phones are experience blockers, not only because too much time is spend on them, but if everyone else has a smartphone and is on them, your environment is affected too (i.e. fewer children to play outside with)
- Phones modify the socialization that occurs in childhood; instead of getting experience talking to real humans (some slightly older, some slightly younger, etc), kids are learning social cues from influencers via video.
- Parents from the late 1908's onward were very safety-oriented. I know this myself, born in mid-80s, when metal playgrounds were replaced by plastic and uber-safe alternatives.
- Parents over-protecting in the real-world meant kids had fewer options for free play where they learn important human skills like risk-taking and socializing. The smartphone became the always-available, always-'safe' alternative for many children
- I, even as an adult, feel the pull of a smartphone to entertain me some moments. I think almost all adults feel this pull. It is proven to be a cognitive drain.
- This book also taught me about 'collective action problems', where the actions of ONE person aren't enough to cause meaningful change. For example, if you don't allow your child to have a smartphone until they're 16, they'll still suffer from the absence of other children who want to play outdoors. Finding others who share your view on this technology makes the problem more tractible, and edicts from the government (i.e. laws, or school policies) make it even easier to 'enforce'.
- Another thing that stuck with me, as a teacher: "Most schools say they ban phones, which really means during class time, which isn't enough, because the students don't build community during the breaks between classes when they're engrossed in their personal screens.
- Anecdote: At my public school in Ontario, Canada, they was a big hill in the centre of an expansive lawn. One year (1998 maybe?), we simply weren't allowed to Toboggan down it anymore, and later still, students weren't even allowed to climb it.
In Progress
How to Know a Person by ???
Fun to read so far, but it's really just emphasizing something that I already knew (but do not practice): FULL PRESENCE (ala Power of Now) with the humans you are with.
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
We Have Never Been Work by ???
Page created July 3, 2025 by Nathan