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DOOM, The Politics of Catastrophe
Niall Ferguson 2021 Beaverton Lib. 362.1962 FER
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A wonderful cover photo, a golf game with a forest fire in the background. A foreshortening telephoto lens was used, which makes the fire seem much closer. The golf course is Beacon Rock Golf Course, and the September 2 2017 Eagle Creek Fire is 1.5 miles away, on the other side of the Columbia River. The fire started during the game, grew rapidly, and was starting to drop (cold) white ash on the 18th hole putting green as this photo was taken. The golf course was never in danger, thousand-foot-wide rivers make pretty good firebreaks. And yes, the golfers were showing off, and left after the photo was taken. |
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I mis-remember Niall Ferguson as a lucid writer. My memory failed me. This book seems to be British conservative virtue signalling. Some random notes:
- 04 "As I write (in late October 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over." 26 million cases, (underestimate) death toll 1.2 million ...
as I write this in March 2023, there have been 677 million confirmed cases, and up to 28 million estimated deaths.
- 04 Lord Rees: "bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six month period starting no later than Dec 31 2020". Lord Rees lost his bet, the cause is species-exterminating Chinese zoophagy.
As I write this 2023 Mar 24, it appears that COVID-19 is zoonotic and emerged from raccoon dogs sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.
08 black swans dragon kings Didier Sornette "Dragon Kings, Black Swans and the Prediction of Crises" 2009
08 Keith Thomas Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England
- 09 Failure to learn from history, Failure of imagination, Tendency to fight the last war or crisis, Threat underestimation, Procrastination, or waiting for a certainty that never comes
- 23 "The Immanent Eschaton" downplays COVID-19, "in the first half of 2020 excess US mortality was 11%" ... however p4 "cumulative body count continues to rise globally at a rate of more than 3.5% per week" would mean (1.035^26) = 2.18x increase in six months, 4.77x per year. By the time the increase reaches the Ferguson Pain Threshold (he's in the hospital parking lot, waiting for a COVID bed), "Failure of imagination" would have killed him. Fortunately, the rest of us have better imaginations and took precautions seriously, and yes, delayed economic growth.
47 Peter Turchin War and Peace and War p163 Ultimately the collapse of social order results in civil war; imperial decline is then inevitable.
75 "Luck is probability taken personally" misattributed to Penn Jillette actually Daniel W. "Chip" Denman
75 Edward Lorenz butterfly effect Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow 1963
77 Nassim Taleb narrative fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc
83 Mount Taupō Hatepe eruption eruption around 232 CE, probably most destructive during Roman Era.