spectre

hello.

i go by wrex, thirtyplus, use any pronouns, im not too clever & here to have fun, post some, write stuff (not here), etc etc. i play tank in every game, i am a tank in every universe (black mage is the only exception). i put whatever i want on this blog. games, things that make me laugh and i occasionally make gifs or edits. have some links & other stuff.

currently playing: ffxiv, uncharted lost legacy, death stranding, minecraft, marvel rivals, mass effect legendary edition, remnant 2 (civ 6 when im feeling unwell).

Encomium - glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise. also: an expression of this

Deference - respect and esteem due a superior or an elder. also: affected or ingratiating regard for another's wishes

Aplomb - complete and confident composure or self-assurance : poise

Denigrate - to attack the reputation of : defame. to deny the importance or validity of : belittle

Autodidact - a self-taught person

Dictum - a noteworthy statement: such as a formal pronouncement of a principle, proposition, or opinion / an observation intended or regarded as authoritative

Solipsistic - of, relating to, or characterized by solipsism or extreme egocentricity

Solipsism - a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing

Imprimatur - sanction, approval, imprint. a mark of approval or distinction.

Pernicious - highly damaging or destructive often in a way that is not easily seen or noticed

Effete - having lost character, vitality, or strength. marked by weakness or decadence. soft or delicate from or as if from a pampered existence

Dilettantes - a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge : dabbler

Innumeracy - the state of being innumerate (marked by an ignorance of mathematics and the scientific approach)

Rejoinder - the defendant's answer to the plaintiff's replication. reply

Pastiche - a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work. also: such stylistic imitation

Erudition - extensive knowledge acquired chiefly from books : profound, recondite, or bookish learning

Corollary - a proposition inferred immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof. something that naturally follows : result. something that incidentally or naturally accompanies or parallels

Vacuous - emptied of or lacking content. marked by lack of ideas or intelligence : stupid, inane

Ecumenical - worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application

The Death and Life of American Cities by Jane Jacobs (NF)

Walkable Cities by Jeff Speck (NF)

Ghost Work by Mary L Gray and Siddharth Suri

Butter by Asako Yuzuki (F)

The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark (NF)

I'll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred Iker (started but didn’t finish) (F)

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape By James Howard Kunstler (NF)

The King Must Die by Kemi Ashing-Giwa (F)

The Bewitching by Silva Moreno-Garcia (F)

These are on the list but my library doesn't have them so going to request them and if I don't get an answer will check book stores

Good Places For All - Mark D. Bjelland (NF)

Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance by Raquel Rolnik (Translated by Gabriel Hirschhorn) (NF)

Books that my gym friend recommended to me and will be worked in eventually (I haven't decided yet but i don't want to exclude them). Her degree is in African Studies so I'm looking forward to these.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney (NF)

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (NF)

I finished this yesterday (took 4 days to read when I wanted to do it in 2 but my coworker has a habit of calling me and wasting about 2 hours which I need to get better about limiting)

And initially I grabbed it because I have been haunted and tormented by the rise of AI and it seemed inline with me trying to dissuade the lingering dread I feel, but it wasn’t really about that.

It was about the relationship between the people (which the author calls laypeople), experts and public policy. That the experts and the laypeople had to have a trusting relationship if the ideas of the American republic and democratic system to work effectively and that this relationship is crumbling with the increasing mistrust of professionals (experts, will probably use this interchangeably here).

it professes that even in the age of increased access to knowledge people aren’t necessarily getting any dumber but they are also not getting any smarter, however the real drawback is that when non-experts read an article of some sort (headline skimmers and full readers alike) create the egotistical supposition that they now have enough knowledge to judge that topic to the same degree as experts do. Anti-vaxxers being a primary example the author made a salient point about the bulk of anti-vaxxers not being overwhelmingly under educated but more likely to be you college educated suburbanite who believes a college education and the subsequent knowledge makes you more capable of passing judgement on topics that you are knowledgeable in but not an expert in (read an article about the harms of vaccines, vs being an actual doctor).

He also brings up the changes in college that has converted to being a process that should mature you, educate you and make you a learner for the rest of your life to being an experience for customers—it a profit based experience now instead of an educational one.

The core of it by the end targets the American public and experts. That the American public is disconnected from public policy and that the republic that we are in requires that the informed public must elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf and many Americans are not informed and egotistically choose not to be, and that we should give more grace to experts who may get it wrong (there are plane crashes that people will remember over the hundreds of thousands of successful landings—you have to trust a pilot don’t you?)

And it remarks that experts can’t become insular, that they can’t speak just among themselves and they need to come to a place where they can communicate with the public in ways that they can understand. That their expertise is what helps the public make informed decisions on public policy that affects their lives.

It was a good read overall. I spent part of it wondering if the author was conservative or not but even if they were or weren’t it seemingly didn’t matter the book was overall just an objective look on the relationship between experts and the public.

I read this understanding that this probably was written without the societal disadvantages that effect many (doctors for example—black communities being distrustful of the medical system thanks to events like the Tuskegee syphilis study and other forms of discrimination supported by white supremacy, the fatphobia doctors regularly use against many of their patients leading to worsening conditions as their treatments are delayed, and the lack of interest in studying anything about women—at that point it’s the experts job to work and establish that trust at least in my opinion).