On Sarah Ruhl, theatre, obesity, climate
Arguing with a climate skeptic. Thoughts on theatre essays. Climate, tech, healthcare, law, home education unconference.
Theatre: 100 essays, Sarah Ruhl, feminism, dramaturgy
Climate: Arguing with a skeptic; oops
Climate: Sam Matey, Tyler Cowen on current practicalities
Cinema: cultural realism, Dune 2
Technology: Apple vs the world (Ben Thompson)
Healthcare: obesity, GLP-1 and activity in dementia
Carbon: Matt Levine on getting carbon off banks’ books
Law, IP: AI, trademarks and the law
Home Education / non-mainstream Education UnConference, London on April 27th, (Free)
Links: (end, quite a few in this letter): How AI chat forms political views; Speculative green steel process; On marrying older men, life writing; On Girl, Jamaica Kincaid; Jasmin Paris first woman to complete gruelling Barkley Marathons race; GB approaching 80% domestic zero carbon electricity; On church of England and quiche; On loss and grief; In praise of slow writers.
I am reading: 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater. (Sarah Ruhl)
Rachel Cusk comments (NYT 2014):
“100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write” is in fact a work of profound moral organization… its deeper purpose is to define the artist’s relationship to truth and to demonstrate how, from within the correctness of the artistic process, life can be meaningfully understood. In these short (and sometimes very short — one of them consists of a single word) essays, Ruhl anatomizes the central drama of creativity, whereby the self and the business of living are found to contain the moral structure of everything that lies outside it.”
The essays are infused with the questions of being a mother, a woman writer:
(Cusk): How can a woman writer, a mother of three children and embroiled in the domesticity that comes with them, be expected to believe that her condition of life, far from marginalizing her, is in fact bringing her closer to ultimate forms of knowledge? …“There were times when it felt as though my children were annihilating me,” Ruhl writes in her first essay, “On Interruptions.” “And finally I came to the thought, all right, then, annihilate me; that other self was a fiction anyhow.” The “other self” was Ruhl’s identity as a writer, which she had been trying to cosset and protect from invasion; yet this moment of surrender, crucially, gives her back her artistic authority. “I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that, tempting as it may be for a writer who is also a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life.”
What follows is a set of observations whose most noticeable characteristic is the freedom of association. Having been left with no choice but to interrogate culture from an autobiographical position, Ruhl discovers there a far greater intellectual liberty. The 100 essays represent 100 different links between art and reality, as Ruhl’s meditations on writing and staging plays find reflection in her experience of family life, friendship, illness and ordinariness.
The entire set of essays are worth reading for women creatives, and men who wish to understand this better. More than this, Ruhl meditates on many aspects of theatre and drama. Some aspects seem niche and esoteric:
Why are umbrellas so pleasing to watch on stage?
But these meditations reflect some deeper idea about performance art:
The sight of an umbrella makes us want to feel both wet and dry: the presence of rain, and the dryness of shelter. The umbrella is real on stage, and the rain is a fiction.
And, thus the essays provide excellent provocation for those thinking about dramatic writing and performance.
The writing itself hints at the playwright all the time, in the opening essay “On interruptions” the writing is filled with playwright style interruption wording :
“The child need, so pressing, so consuming, for the mother to be there, to be present, and the pressing need of the writer to be half-there, to be there but thinking of others, caught me ---
Sorry, In the act of writing that sentence, my son, William, who is now two, came running into my office crying and asking for a fake knife to cut his fake fruit.”
I - myself - am also sorry - in the act of writing this blog, I’ve had to deal with a shouting son, who is shouting about the demise of a train with a fake-but-real hate to a fake-but-real loss.
The essays are perhaps not for a casual reader of theatre, or feminism, or motherhood but if you’ve spent even a little time on this, I think the essays worth reading. Each one has sparked a thought in me. Amazon link here.
As an aside, she also has a well-regarded memoir on working in the theatre as woman, wife, mother but also having Bell’s palsy. She has multiple awards for her plays and a MacArthur Fellowship. She studied under Paula Vogel at Brown. Vogel’s legacy from her time teaching at Brown seems to have been particular influential in US drama.
I’m a specialist healthcare (and to an extent sustainability) investor, and a specialist in theatre. I’m a generalist in tech investing and tech business. Outside of proprietary research, an excellent newsletter I read on this is Ben Thompson’s Stratechary that covers very detailed tech thoughts but crosses over into philosophical strategies of businesses, regulators, nature of innovation, and the nature of consumers etc. His writing is recommended, even just the free version.
He has recent pieces on Nvidia and Microsoft and AI; but I’ve noted his piece on the USA (the Dept of Justice) vs Apple case on monopoly. Of note, is his explanation of the Apple philosophy (instigated by Steve Jobs and continued by Tim Cook) about why Apple has followed a vertical integrated strategy where they control the iphone / ios infrastructure (as opposed to the android structure) and why the App Store is as controlled as it is.
His observation and contention is that focus on the righteousness of the App Store position has blinded them to the reputational/relationship capital cost of the App Store position (they take a hefty fee, and force apps to allow subscriptions in certain ways). I have a weakly held view that he is probably correct but I find it fascinating that root explanations are in business philosophy (control the vertical integration, only think about user experience, over developer experience) and reputational value. Overall, the view seems to be that Apple may be legally right but from a long-term business point of view (due to the perception of being a greedy bully re: App Store, not its main business) it is making an error.
The healthcare world continues to be obsessed by obesity. It’s now clear that the GLP-1 class of drugs are going to be massive and probably the most important therapeutic class of the decade with all kinds of second order impacts (eg sleep apnea, fatty liver disease, osteoarthritis pain, knee replacements). I did a podcast in this area a while ago now which still holds.
I think the positive optionality which is only in some specialists’ minds is the chance that GLP-1s work in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. An overview of this is here: Emerging Evidence for the Use of Antidiabetic Drugs, Glucagon-like Peptide 1 Receptor Agonists, for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease (2023).
One study has the conclusion: “Data from pooled doubleblind, randomized controlled trials (15,820 patients) indicated that people treated with a GLP-1 RA had a lower rate of dementia than people on placebo (HR 0.47, 95% CI 0.25–0.86).”
The data is strong enough for me that, currently, until the phase 3 trials finish, and given what we know about safety (it’s pretty safe with nausea the main signal), if I had a history of dementia in my family and I was rich, I would consider procuring oral GLP-1 – especially if I had BMI over 27 or other cardio risk factors.
On cinema and cultural literalism. Vicky Osterweil argues on cinema:
“We are living through an era of thudding cultural literalism. In our narrative products (movies, TV and to a lesser but noticeable extent, novels) that has meant that instead of story we get plot, premise and lore, dialogue is replaced by exposition, emotion evoked only by music cue and cliche. The characters are structural objects of the plot, pure reflections of their social and narrative positioning, stripped of messy contradiction or conflictual desires. “ (H/T Anna Gat via Tyler Cowen)
I think this is not a huge challenge of theatre arts at the moment. Theatre still relies on allusion, metaphor, symbols and the like even though there is a literal strand, and we’ve had our time of “kitchen sink” dramas which can still echo in our forms today.
Osterweil suggests:
“This literalism is also present in "higher" art: 2023's Palme D'or and Oscar winning Anatomy of a Fall (a movie I really did like!) is an uncomfortably direct process film, depicting every step of a death and murder trial in painstaking and frank detail. Stylistically it is marked by long, still shots of people talking. There is no montage, the camera barely moves, which works to produce a claustrophobic atmosphere that reflects the violent claustrophobia of the family, state and justice system.
But beyond such observation of its aesthetic effectiveness, there is little to say about the film, little to analyze. The film shows you and tells you what it is. In Justine Triet's hands this is quite the experience, as we get great and subtle performances from the actors and a few deeply resonant and painful moments (though I much prefer the manic intensity of her previous film, Sibyl). But in the hands of Hollywood directors this tendency is a deadening bore.
It is quite appropriate at the same moment that Denis Villeneuve's visually arresting but utterly inert Dune Part Two was becoming the first bonafide box-office hit of 2024.”
Osterweil then critiques much of Dune: Part 2. I ended up watching the movie, as it was in the cinema, and son 1 wanted to be in the cinema. I can say the visuals did not hold son 1. I would maybe not be quite as critical as Osterweil on the visuals but agree with her “on the nose” comments. If you like sci fi, and are happy to live in your own imagination then I think the books are better. The idea of riding a gargantuan sand worm, outstrips the visual of an actual computer-created visual of an actor riding a sand worm.
I’ve unfortunately let myself be dragged into an argument with someone who doesn’t believe in GHG (green house gas)-mediated climate change. Still, I’ve taken away an interesting observation on authority and the nature of science enquiry.
It’s worth starting on where authority has been proven wrong. In the social sphere, I think of slavery and women’s rights and votes. The consensus authority 500 years ago was incorrect. In the science sphere, I think of the move to Newtonian physics, and then later quantum physics. Both of these areas moved against the expert consensus of the time.
I would contend that these jumps are quite rare, although I don’t have an exact statistical rate. Today, science moves a consensus moving argument back and forth. I see this in biomedical science, and the US National Academies process. Experts gather together to form consensus guidelines on biomedical mechanisms and treatment options. New data where compelling does change this consensus over time as other smart scientists come closer to the more accurate view.
The IPCC is one such consensus gathering process. Asking climate scientists, you have 90 – 100% concordance (see here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2774 )
How to assess the reliability of experts nudges into philosophy territory. Still, I think listening to challenge and allowing challenge is good and necessary, but for the typical person relying on where the expert consensus lies and judging that is the better action. And if you want to challenge the consensus best to do that via well argued, peer-reviewed or some other mechanism, papers.
On the practicalities of climate, this conversation between Sam Matey and Tyler Cowen is worth noting:
Thought-provoking conversation on climate (and other matters) between economist Tyler Cowen and Sam Matey:
"all clean energy sources together are set to account for 96% of new electricity generating capacity built in 2024. The U.S. hasn’t built a new coal plant since 2013.
Even China is now building way more solar than coal, and it's looking like some of its coal plants are just going to be used as peaker plants, not baseline power plants.
My contention is that electricity production “stocks” are a lagging indicator, and all the “flows” of new capacity coming online are increasingly dominated by clean energy! Ramez Naam and the IEA and the Rocky Mountain Institute and a bunch of other folks have written great stuff about this. I think that we are in this exponential growth phase now, and before we know it, maybe as soon as the mid 2030s, developed countries, potentially even China as well, will have an overwhelmingly renewable energy-powered economy. The picture on climate change, at least on the emissions side, is brighter than most people think.
So what are your thoughts on that?
Progress has exceeded my expectations, basically for reasons you just outlined. But I do have some significant worries. I think there's one scenario where the world gets really a lot more green energy, as we're doing, but also just a lot more carbon emissions. That more countries have economic growth, more people want to eat meat, own cars.
Intermittency remains a problem. And many of the poorer countries around the world, it may not be coal, but they'll use fossil fuels, which of course will become cheaper as demand from the wealthy countries declines. Maybe we're just still going to burn a lot of what's in the ground anyway, even with progress. I'm not sure what to do about that, but it probably makes me somewhat less optimistic than you are.
"I would add the cautionary note that hardly anyone in India cares about climate change. Now, you may think they care about correlates to climate change, such as high temperatures in Delhi in the difficult months. But it's very far from a national priority with any party that I'm aware of or any segment of the electorate. Air pollution is a major issue. But if there's a way to fix air pollution, say through natural gas, that doesn't, to a comparable degree, fix climate change, it could prove very popular in India.
So truly green energy has to be very cheap with the intermittency problem truly solved for India to make the transition, because there is not ideological momentum there at all."
Blog transcript here, Sam Matey
Even more ridiculous than arguing with a climate skeptic, I’ve been drawn into a UK trademark infringement dispute. Here I have two observations to share. First, Chat GPT is good for foundational level legal disputes for a generalist like me. Secondly, for infringement to hold, the infringer needs to be engaged “in the course of trade” (and mostly that trade needs to be similar to the rights holder). It seems to me that arguing that non-business, non-profit projects are “trade” is a hard argument to make.
In any event, for a low-grade legal dispute I think your first port of call should be Chat GPT or Claude.
I note leading law firm, Allen and Overy is heading down this route already (Ft link: https://www.ft.com/content/f1aff4d0-b2c5-4266-aa0a-604ef14894bb )
And using legal AI start-up Harvey.
I think the nuance of oral arguments, and the type of cases which reach UK and US high courts will still need human arguments. But many contract negotiations, low grade NDAs, standard contracts and the like will go AI-driven. And even the high court arguments will rely on AI-driven research for relevant case history and adjacent legal precedents, as well as clarification on legal philosophy for where there still needs current interpretation.
It’s also clear that current copyright (and even patent) law no longer fits the technological and social paradigm we are living in but uncertain how that will resolve.
Matt Levine on carbon accounting (and why finance won’t save the world, although could do more…. )
Via financial engineering and reporting, a bank could move carbon financed emissions off its balance sheet BUT have no direct impact on real world emissions (just because it moves in an accounting sense does not mean the gases have left the atmosphere). Here is Matt Levine talking about how it can work:
"How much does the hedge fund need to be paid to take on the emissions as a pure accounting matter, if the hedge fund is a private company that doesn’t have to report its emissions to anyone? Like, with the right structure — one in which I took no credit or liquidity risk and put up no money4 — I would probably be willing to take all of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s carbon emissions off their hands, and put them on my balance sheet, for, you know, one basis point of notional value? I feel like that would probably be a nice payday for me and cost me nothing except some time and effort to review the documents, which I would enjoy."
and,
"How do you transfer financed emissions? Well, the simplest way is, still, to sell the loans to the hedge fund: If some loan on a bank’s balance sheet is associated with 10 tons of emissions, and you move it off the balance sheet, then the 10 tons of financed emissions goes away. This is not a particularly complicated business, but it is a good pitch. You go to a bank and say “look, you have a bunch of loans to oil and gas companies, and people yell at you about them. Just sell us the loans at, you know, 98 cents on the dollar, and that gets rid of both the credit risk and the people yelling at you about financing carbon emissions. And we get 2% for helping you out.” And in fact the plan seems to be that the credit risk and carbon risk will go together:
The idea is to “transfer the credit risk, but at the same time transfer the so-called emissions risk to a third-party investor outside of the banking system, such as ourselves,”
If you can not make it, do consider writing for the blog/essay prizes on ideas or experiences you have.
We are offering up to 10 prizes of £100 for work relating to the theme of non-mainstream education. Everyone is welcome to take part but young people are particularly encouraged to submit entries. At least 5 prizes are intended for young people (21 and under).
These could be essays, videos, blogs or talks about non-mainstream (or even mainstream pedagogy) education. Anything is open, for instance: How should we think about home education? The pros and cons of maths circles and their application outside maths? What would Dewey think of the education landscape today? How will AI change education? What Unschooling can teach us?
Submission Form is here.
Links:
How AI chat forms political views; most current bots leans left, and slightly libertarian. Zvi in NYT
https://x.com/benyeohben/status/1774384528523407804?s=20
Speculative green steel process
https://x.com/ChiefExecCCC/status/1773005694309970215?s=20
On marrying older men; life writing
https://x.com/benyeohben/status/1772999516821606540?s=20
On Girl, Jamaica Kincaid
https://x.com/JoanneLimburg/status/1772624590759506260?s=20
Jasmin Paris first woman to complete gruelling Barkley Marathons race / these marathons are crazy (!)
https://x.com/benyeohben/status/1772299387361763504?s=20
GB approaching 80% domestic zero carbon electricity… and 90% if you count very green international flows today
https://x.com/DBBurt/status/1771864724092731717?s=20
On church of England and quiche
https://x.com/_F_B_G_/status/1771109546108293560?s=20
On loss and grief
https://x.com/PoppyMardall/status/1770771053431722270?s=20
In praise of slow writers.