Suggested readings, 18 October 2020

Here are some interesting articles I've read over the past week that I think are worth checking out.

Nicholas Christakis, “The Long Shadow of the Pandemic: 2024 and Beyond.” 16 Oct, Wall Street Journal.

Even when the world returns to ‘normal,’ the legacy of Covid-19 will transform everything from wages and health care to political attitudes and global supply chains. Extract from Nicholas Christakis' new book, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live.

Sam Bowman and Ryan Bourne, “Pay people £200 to take a Covid vaccine.” 13 Oct, The Times.

Should we pay people to get the Covid vaccine once it is available?

Adam Kirsch, “Philosophy in the Shadow of Nazism.” 12 Oct, New Yorker.

"Review of David Edmonds' new book, The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle. "For the Vienna Circle, the best hunting ground for pseudo-statements was metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that deals with fundamental concepts like being and essence, time and space. Since Aristotle, who called it 'first philosophy,' metaphysics had been seen as the highest and most disinterested form of thought. For Immanuel Kant, it was 'the queen of all the sciences.' But, for the members of the Vienna Circle, metaphysics was a queen like Marie Antoinette -- imperious, out of touch, and ripe for the guillotine."

James Bloodworth, “Do men really hate women?” 15 Oct, UnHerd.

"Harmful gender stereotypes abound and it is important to combat them. But assuming masculinity will fade away -- to be replaced by some genderless utopia -- is no more plausible than the Marxist belief that greed and avarice will vanish once the state takes over the means of production. It simply flies in the face of masses of empirical, cross-cultural evidence."

Kelsey Piper, “Extreme poverty is getting worse across the globe for the first time in decades”. 30 Sep, Vox.

Extreme poverty has been falling for the past several decades. However Covid-19 has profoundly changed that picture.

Nükhet Varlik, “How do pandemics end? History suggests diseases fade but are almost never truly gone.” 14 Oct, The Conversation.

"As a historian who studies disease and public health, I suggest that instead of looking forward for clues, you can look back to see what brought past outbreaks to a close -- or didn’t."

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