Links for August 20, 2020

Links:

• ‘White Fragility’ Is Everywhere. But Does Antiracism Training Work? (New York Times)

• Socratic Grilling - how not to quash a child’s curiosity (Slate Star Codex)

• How “Starship Troopers” Aligns with Our Moment of American Defeat (The New Yorker)

• Contra Paul Krugman. Why do we cut taxes in a time of rising income inequality? Because, across the board, people don’t really like high taxes (Just the Social Facts, more thoughts here, and here)

• Public Education’s Dirty Secret—Spoiler: It’s not necessarily the teachers who are terrible (Quillette)

Books I’ve Recently Finished:

• Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell

• Charter Schools and Their Enemies by Thomas Sowell

I started reading these after coming across this review of Sowell’s life and work. I think these books were written around the same time so they repeat some of the same examples and anecdotes. Overall very good. Not much I hadn’t heard before but presented very clearly. You could almost use as a primer on critical thinking. I’ll work on a review.

Books I’m Still Reading:

• Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life by Theda Skocpol (This is quite dull so far but it came highly recommended, so I will continue)

• From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen