No Food for Thought

I find the bonobo, apes and humanism most interesting so I was attracted to read The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates, by primatologist Frans de Waal. I highlighted lots of interesting passages (probably 50), and I am keeping the book to re-read them eventually. A book about altruism seemed like a natural topic to review for KNP.

Most of these passages are surprising anecdotes about apes. De Waal is quite knowledgeable, and doesn't disappoint on that front. On the other hand, the book's course is not so clear, bringing to a conclusion surprisingly focused on strong atheism (antireligiosity).

This being my first book from de Waal, I enjoyed the quantity of anecdotes which I assume he gathered from his prior observations and books, but there are also irritants. A few of these anecdotes are repeated, and there is more focus than I would have liked on "neo-atheists" and the art of a single painter (Hieronymus Bosch, treated like a demigod). He spends the first tens of pages presenting scientific history, showing off his contributions, but the trust he builds in his judgment takes a hit in subsection Prozac in the Water (chapter Ten Commandments too Many), when he also attacks utilitarianism in a childish way. If de Waal lost a debate to Peter Singer, knocking down a straw man a decade later, in the same book where he decries the orgueil of "the typical scientist", seems like a misunderstanding of "revenge is a dish best served cold". It may reinforce his credible decrial of academics having "petty jealousies", but weakens his otherwise reliable and mostly interesting book.

I rate it 7 out of 10, but I wish I could publish a version annotating the strong (and rare weak) parts. Such a version would be much shorter, but could otherwise easily get 9/10, brilliantly showing how relative Homo sapiens's exceptionality is, and showing that cooperation stands a chance.

Yesterday, looking for a dictionary at Laval university, I stumbled upon the biggest book I have seen in my life: a 1941 English dictionary by Funk & Wagnalls. I could not resist taking that monster in my hands:

I would advise those who consider English as an easy language to have a look at page 2763. Even at a time of grave global conflict, the Advisory Committee for disputed pronunciations required no less than 25 knowledgeable Allies to settle a large number of these non-life-threatening disputes.

I'm afraid we're compelled to pronounce English a heavy tool.

Sandra Demontigny n'est pas la plus chanceuse. Son père est mort de la maladie d'Alzheimer à 53 ans. Son propre destin n'est pas nécessairement mieux, puisqu'un Alzheimer précoce lui a elle aussi été diagnostiqué alors qu'elle avait à peine 39 ans. Mais, grâce à elle et au gouvernement québécois, il sera moins tragique que ce qu'il aurait pu être, grâce à des changements de la législation et réglementation québécoise permettant de formuler une demande anticipée d’aide à mourir.

Comme l'article de l'Actualité la nommant parmi ses personnalités de l'année 2024 le souligne, le Canada a encore beaucoup à faire sur ce dossier, ce qui prendra encore bien des années. Mais Mme Demontigny pourra partir l'esprit en paix, en laissant derrière elle son livre L'urgence de vivre. Le bond de géant qu'elle vient de permettre au Québec de faire garantit qu'elle restera dans notre mémoire collective, ainsi que parmi les héros Kune ni povos 2024.👏

Mme Demontigny, vous ne tomberez pas dans l'oubli!💙

The Debian project is big enough that I've become accustomed to reading emails titled "The Debian Project mourns the loss of foo". But it was still a shock to read that "The Debian Project mourns the loss of Steve Langasek (vorlon)". My last interaction with him must have been way more than a decade ago, but he was one of those colleagues you can't forget. Our job was not easy at the time, but it would certainly have been much harder without the privilege to work with vorlon. I remember how "disappointed" I felt when he left the release team.

I can't remember any specific interaction with him anymore at this point, so I won't add to everything that's already been written, but for sure, I know of very few developers at vorlon's level.

Congratulations and thank you for what you did and how you did it, Steve🙏

For someone home-schooled in a rural community of the southern USA, Peter McIndoe turned out pretty well.

R.I.P., American birds (and humans)

Last year, KNP decried artificial intelligence's sad contribution to scamming. While this certainly hasn't improved, it's good to see AI is also contributing to scam baiting, thanks to Daisy, the "AI granny".

While it's funny and satisfying to enjoy this small revenge, it's also sad to see that once again, scam baiting is based on vigilantism. Once again, the public is failing to control technological development, lagging far behind private initiatives.

Last year, grocery prices were inflating at a ridiculous speed in Canada, just as support for the LPC was crashing. Nothing which François-Philippe Champagne, our dear Minister of Interventionnovation, Science and Industry, couldn't tackle.

Of course, the PLC wouldn't do anything against inflation nor add competition, but it found a way simpler formula: single out a few companies and extort promises to stabilize prices from them. It astutely picked the 5 companies consumers see the most on their grocery bills. Champagne's crusade against the Bad Grocers managed to make grocery chains surrender, promising price freezes and―wow―discounts!
After a month of watching this nonsense grab Canadian headlines, the second part of At Issue's 2023-10-07 episode (at 9:50) thankfully let me blow off quite some steam.

But Champagne was way luckier: in addition to a return of inflation to normal, on that same October 7th, Hamas attacked Israel, triggering a war which quickly replaced his crusade in the headlines. Has his stunt achieved anything more than setting the agenda as the LPC wished? Did grocers actually hike their prices to pay for moving executives to Ottawa, "collaborating" and preparing their coping strategy? Only the LPC can say, since the grocers' commitments were kept secret… in the interest of competition.🙄

Perhaps thanks to a conflict in the Middle East, Champagne dropped his crusade with the grocers, preferring a more constructive approach: trying to attract new grocers in Canada… by calling them.😂 What a surprise to see that effort fail, right after the very same guy threatened existing grocers! Short-term stunts don't work great in the long term, Mr Champagne.

It's highly frustrating to see the government waste so much of its time and of the private sector's time. It's just as sad to see our collective attention wasted, diverted from actual issues. If only the government could stay focused on its mission, perhaps it would manage to achieve guaranteeing what we do expect from groceries: selling what they promise. Let's demand grocers to be reliable and give them means to ensure availability. Let us not encourage them to defraud consumers more, cause greater environmental damage and/or decrease product quality (which―of course―are effects of price caps, as we've known for centuries).

Technology is undoubtedly complex. Intellectual property is also complex. Unsurprisingly, property of technology is also complex, and complexity can unfortunately lead to abuse. For decades, several patent trolls have prospered by exploiting our underfunded and highly flawed patent system. The usual results of this plague are wasted time, slowed innovation and extra costs passed down to consumers. Unfortunately, the vast majority of trolling cases encourage trolls to continue and funds further trolling.

That is why it is so refreshing to see Cloudflare triumph in such an unequivocal way over patent troll Sable Networks (which now appears defunct). Cloudflare did not just win its case, it won the innovation community's case. And instead of fuelling further predatory accusations, it delivered a major warning to other patent trolls: suing is not a game.

It's indeed unfortunate that Cloudflare is not fully compensated for all its efforts, but for its brilliant process (Project Jengo👑, crowned with success) and its remarkable result, I hereby declare Cloudflare, Inc. a KNP Hero of 2024👏. Cloudflare has won even more respect from myself, and I am glad to be about to become one of its customers.

Here's hoping an encyclopedic article will be written on this case.

What do you do when you're governing a country with a debt surpassing a trillion CAD (over 20 000 €/citizen), after 17 consecutive years of deficit? Well, if you're in one of the world's richest countries and have no respect at all for sensible economic policies, you spend even more money to appease your "poor" citizens right before the next election (and call it a rebate even if it isn't).

A century ago, we used to say there was no such thing as a free lunch, but for today's LPC, more importantly, there is no such thing as a guaranteed bankruptcy. Perhaps Justin Trudeau's desire to leave such a poisoned gift to the next government party who will be left to deal with the resulting mess is understandable on the eve of a federal election, since he's about to lose all of his power due to an ungrateful electorate and FPTP. Oh yeah, that same electoral system someone promised to fix in 2015…

5 billion CAD of additional debt: what a beautiful legacy for a beautifully governed country!

On entend parfois parler des bénéfices de la guerre. Si calculer l'effet net des guerres est irréaliste, on doit reconnaître que plusieurs ont eu des effets bénéfiques.

À un plus bas niveau, la violence a aussi des impacts majeurs sur les individus. J'ai été surpris de voir par pure coïncidence 2 vidéos sur des combattants sportifs parmi les plus connus en moins de 24 heures. Il n'y a pas de doute que la violence attire l'attention, et ces 2 vidéos montrent qu'elle change les individus. Ce vidéo descriptif de 11 minutes (très vulgaire et approximatif) sur la transformation de Mike Tyson en boxeur dominant montre que si subir de la violence lui a permis bien des choses qui lui auraient autrement échappées, elle a aussi coûté très cher dans son cas. Quant à cet extrait de 4 minutes d'une longue entrevue de Georges St-Pierre par Guillaume Pley, il montre à lui seul les effets sombres de la violence, mais aussi le positif qu'elle peut amener.

Pour ma part, je m'estime très chanceux. D'abord que la violence n'ait jamais eu une grande part dans ma vie, mais aussi d'avoir subi assez d'intimidation et usé de juste assez de violence pour en tirer une confiance et des leçons qui ont eu des effets certes bien différents pour moi, mais sans lesquels je ne serais peut-être pas l'ombre de moi-même aujourd'hui.

La guerre et l'intimidation sont certes des épreuves, avec tout le potentiel de transformation―parfois positif et parfois négatif―que les épreuves peuvent comporter. Que serait un monde sans violence? Chose certaine, un monde très différent.