Just wanted to give you a heads up that Siderite's blog now has a Discord server and you can easily talk to me and other blog viewers that connected there by clicking on the Discord icon on top of the search box. I just heard of this Discord app and it seems to permit this free chat server and invite link. Let me know if anything goes wrong with it.
One can take a container in which there is water and keep pouring oil in and after a time there will be more oil than water. That's because oil is hydrophobic, it "fears water" in a direct translation of the word. You can then say that the percentage of oil is higher than the percentage of water, that there is more oil in the container. Skin color in a population doesn't work like that, no matter how phobic some people are. Instead of water and oil, it's more like paint. One can take a container in which there is white paint and keep pouring black, red, yellow and brown paint in, but from a very early stage, that paint is no longer white.
I keep finding these statistics about which part of the world is going to have Whites in a minority after a while. Any statistic counting people by color of skin is purist in nature and, as we should know by now, the quest for purity begets violence. The numbers are irrelevant if the basis of these statistics is conceptually wrong. In a true openly diverse population, white skin color should disappear really quick. The only chance for it to exist is if people with white skin would not mingle with people of any other color.
What is a White person? Someone who has white skin? Someone who has European ancestry? Someone who has no ancestry that is not European? Are Jews white? How about coptic Egyptians? Some Asians are really white, too. There is no argument that uses the concept of White which is not directly dependant on the idea of racial purity. And then there is Non-White. A few days ago someone was noting that it feels weird to use the term Latino, considering how many different countries and interests are represented by the people labeled as such. So how can anyone meaningfully use a term like Non-White, which groups together Black people, Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, Eskimos and Native-Americans, among many others? Two "African-American" people of identical skin color may be as different as someone can imagine: one a many generations American with slave ancestors, the other a middle-class African recently arrived in the US.
What I am saying is that the most politically correct terms, used (and imposed) by proponents (and arbiters) of racial justice and equality, are as purist as they could be. The only argument that one can possibly bring here is that purism is somehow different and distinct from racism. This is absurd. One can be a purist and not be racist, but not the other way around. In fact, when people are trying to limit your freedom of expression because some of your words or concepts may be offensive, they are in fact fighting for the purity of ideas, one that is not marred by a specific idea of purity that they are against. These are similar patterns, so similar in fact that I can barely see a difference. No wonder this kind of thinking has taken root most in a country where a part of its founders were called Puritans!
So how about we change the rhetoric to something that does not imply segregation or a quest for purity or a war on something or cancelling other people or creating safe spaces or hating something that is other? And the phrase above is not ironic, since I am not proposing we fight against this kind of ideas, only that we acknowledge their roots and that we come up with new ones. Let us just grow in different directions, rather than apart.
This is one of those books that when summarized sounds a lot better than the actual story. In The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, we discover a brutal medieval and magical world, where magic is related to people from the stars who are considered gods, but may just be very technologically advanced humans. Yet this is just a vague backdrop for a two hundred and something pages novel. The main focus is on a guy who alternates between a very rough vernacular Black English and technobabble which one else seems to understand, who has magical powers and is part of a gang of fighters that work as security for caravans. He is a demigod, the blood of the star people courses through his veins, but he hides that part of him from the world. He is also in love with another guy who has the blood and much of the text concerns this gay relationship, which he also hides from the world. There are also some brutal fight scenes, but they don't bring anything to the story other than to make it a fantasy.
I saw other people just as confused as I am. Maybe there was some subtlety that I missed and that is why so many people praise this first novel of Kai Ashante Wilson, a guy who started writing in 2013. Why are the reviews so wonderful? To me it felt like an above average pulp story, akin to those about cowboys riding dinosaurs. The writing style is also difficult enough to make the book less entertaining that it could have been. It's like Wilson rubs our noses into some intellectual shit that I can't even smell. Or is it that is it just another mediocre book that gets positive political reviews because it promotes Black culture and features gay people?
So my conclusion is that I did not enjoy the book. It took me ages to finish it and I couldn't relate to any of the characters. I thought the world was very interesting though, which makes this even more frustrating, since it was barely explored.
It has been a long time since I've finished a book. I just didn't feel like it, instead focusing on stupid things like the news. It's like global neurosis: people glued to their TV screens listening to what is essentially the same thing: "we have no control, we don't know enough and we feel better bitching about it instead of doing anything to change it". I hope that I will be able to change my behavior and instead focus on what really matters: complete fiction! :)
Anyway, Unfettered is a very nice concept thought up by Shawn Speakman: a contribution based anthology book. Writers provide short stories, complete with a short introduction, as charity. The original Unfettered book was a way by which writers helped Speakman cover some of his medical expenses after a cancer diagnosis and the idea continued, helping others with the same problem. This way of doing things, I believe, promotes a more liberating way of writing. There is no publisher pressure, no common theme, writers are just exploring their own worlds, trying things out.
Unfettered III contains 28 shorts stories from authors like Brandon Sanderson, Lev Grossman, Mark Lawrence, Terry Brooks, Brian Herbert, Scott Sigler and more. Funny enough, it was Sanderson's own addition to the Wheel of Time literature that I found most tedious to finish, mostly because I couldn't remember what the books were about anymore and who all the characters were. But the stories were good and, even if the book is twice as large as I think it should have been, it was entertaining. Try it out, you might enjoy this format.
There is this feeling in the online community that no matter what governments and corporations do, we will find ways of avoiding restrictions and remain free. Nowhere is this feeling stronger than in the media and software piracy circles. Yet year after year people get more and more complacent, moving from having to find and download the content they enjoy to streaming services that end up asking for more money than TV and cinema combined, moving from desktop games to mobiles, switching from software you own to software you subscribe to and lease. And every year more and more "hydra heads" get cut and none grow back.
Today we say goodbye to HorribleSubs.info, a web site that provided a free archive of hundreds of anime show torrent/magnet links which were subtitled in English. "You could technically say COVID killed HorribleSubs.", the notice on the web site now says. If you think about it, it was difficult to understand how the site survived for so long, when my blog was closed for showing a manga image taken from Google and a YouTube video after a copyright request from Japan. How could these guys maintain a directory of almost every popular anime and get away with it? But they will be missed, regardless of the real reason for their disappearance.
It's hard to say how this will affect people. TorrentFreak hasn't even written something about it yet. Will this mean that less translated anime will be available? Or maybe even make it harder to find anime at all? It's a shocking development... Hail Hydra!
I've read today this CNN article: 'Star Trek: Discovery' to introduce history-making non-binary and transgender characters. And it got me thinking on what this means for the Star Trek universe. It means absolutely nothing. Star Trek has had people turned into other species, duplicated, merged, their genetic code altered and fixed, made young and old. It has had species with no gender, multiple genders and various philosophies. It has interspecies relationships, including sexual.
Star Trek has tackled intolerance many times, usually by showing the Federation crew having contact with an alien species that does the same things we do today, in caricature. It tackled race intolerance, from Kirk's kiss with Uhura to the episode with the species with black on one side and white on the other discriminating the people who had their colors the other way around. It tackled gender discrimination in multiple situations. It tackled sex change and identity change with the Trill. It featured multi sex civilisations. The happy tolerance train seems to stop with anything related to using inorganic technology with the human body, but no one is perfect and Janeway was awful with everybody.
A person who is biologically a man yet desires to be treated as a woman would be normal for Star Trek. It would be inconsequential. If they go the way of the oppressed member of another culture that they meet, they will not solve anything, they will just have another weird alien around, which defeats the purpose. If they go with a non-binary crewmember they should not acknowledge the fact except in passing. Yes, habituate the public with the concept, let them see it in a series and get used to it, but the people in Star Trek should already have passed that point. Hell, they could go with a person who changes their sex every one in a while, to spice things up.
What I would do is have a character who is clearly of a different sex than the gender they identify with and someone badgering them to have a proper sex change while they refuse. Now that would be a Star Trek worthy dilemma. You want to make it spicy? Have them go to the doctor and change their race instead, behave like a black person while wearing the high tech equivalent of blackface. What? Are you refusing someone the ownership of their identity?
I really doubt they will go that way, though. Instead they will find some way of bringing the subject up again and again and again and throw it in our faces like a conflict that has to be resolved. In the bright and hopeful future, there should be no conflict about it! This CBS announcement should not have existed. You want to put some transgender people in, OK, put them in. It's not a boasting point, is it? The announcement basically does the opposite of what they claim to do: "Oh, look, we put non binary people in our series! How quaint! Hurrah! Only we do it, come watch the freak show!".
Please, writers, please please please, don't just write stories then change the gender or race of characters because it's en vogue. Stop it with the gender swapping, which is the creative equivalent of copy and paste. Write with the story in mind, with the context, with the characters as they would normally behave. Don't add characters after you've thought of the story just to make them diverse either. Just write stories with characters that make sense! You don't know people from that demographic? Find one, spend time with them, then adjust your characters accordingly. I am so tired of tiny female action heroes, flamboyant and loud gays and the wise old lesbian. How come no one finds those offensive? It's like someone said "OK, we will have shitty black and female and non-cis characters for now. When people get used to them, we will actually have them do something and be realistic and perhaps in 2245 we'll even have them be sympathetic".
They tried the woke way from the very beginning in Discovery, with the Stamets/Culber gay couple. They kept showing them kissing and washing their teeth together and other stuff like that, when it made little difference to the story. Most people on Star Trek are written as single, for some weird reason that makes no sense, unless their relationship furthers the story. Riker and Troi could be the exception, though, yet even they were not kissy kissy on the bridge all the time. I never understood that couple. Dax and Worf made more sense, for crying out loud! And remember Starfleet is a military organization. You may put women and men and trans and aliens and robots together in a crew, but their role is to do their job. Their sex, their gender even less, makes no difference.
Gene Roddenberry was a dreamer of better futures, where all of our idiotic problems have been left behind and reason prevailed, but even he imagined a third World War leading to humanity changing its ways as a start. Star Trek has always analysed the present from the viewpoint of an idyllic future, a way of looking back that is inherently rational: "Imagine the future you want, then wonder what would people from that time think of you". It's brilliant! Don't break that to bring stupid into the future. To tackle present social issues you have to first be a Trekkie, already there in the exalted future, before you consider the dark ages of the 21st century with a fresh perspective.
I've just read a medical article that seems to be what we have been looking for since this whole Covid thing started: an detailed explanation of what it does in the body. And no, it didn't come from doctors in lab coats, it came from a supercomputer analysing statistical data. Take that, humans! Anyway... First of all, read the article: A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged. And before you go all "Oh, it's on Medium! I don't go to that crap, they use a paywall!", know that this is a free article. (also you can read anything on Medium if it seems to be coming from Twitter)
Long story short (you should really read the article, though) is that the virus binds to the ACE2 receptors - and degrades them, then tricks the body to make even more ACE2 receptors (even in organs that normally don't express them as much) to get even more virus in. The virus also tweaks the renin–angiotensin system which leads to a Bradykinin storm which causes multiple symptoms consistent with what is seen in hospitals and leaves many a doctor stumped: dry cough, blood pressure changes, leaky blood vessels, a gel filling one's lungs (making ventilators ineffective), tiredness, dizziness and even loss of smell and taste. Also, because of a genetic quirk of the X chromosome, women are less affected, which also is shown in statistical data on severe cases.
Quoting from the article: several drugs target aspects of the RAS and are already FDA approved to treat other conditions. They could arguably be applied to treating Covid-19 as well. Several, like danazol, stanozolol, and ecallantide, reduce bradykinin production and could potentially stop a deadly bradykinin storm. Others, like icatibant, reduce bradykinin signaling and could blunt its effects once it’s already in the body.
Good stuff, people! Good stuff! The person responsible for this is Daniel A Jacobson and his research assistants should take all the credit! Just kidding.
But how new is this? Bradykinin is not an unknown peptide and we have known from the very beginning what ACE does and that Covid binds to it. My limited googling shows doctors noticing this as soon as the middle of March. In fact, the original article that the Medium article is based on is from July 7! Here is a TheScientist take on it: Is a Bradykinin Storm Brewing in COVID-19?
For more info, here is a long video talking about the paper: Bradykinin Storm Instead of Cytokine Storm?
[youtube:tDbRfur36sE]
If you really are into medicine, check this very short but very technical video about Bradykinin, from where I also stole the image for this post: Bradykinin | Let the Drama begin!
[youtube:d39-IcoWHkY]
I hope this provided you with some hope and a starting point for more research of your own.
There are a lot of fascinating ideas and anecdotes in this book, especially in the areas which I wouldn't have considered interesting before reading it. Rabid is the type of book that I love, both because the subject is fascinating but also because of the effort the author made to research and write the content in a digestible format.
In this book Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy describe the history of the rabies virus, how it affected humankind culturally, historically and, of course, medically. We learn in this book that there is a strong possibility that the myths of vampire and werewolf stem from the behaviour of people affected by rabies, the theme of beast biting person and turning them into one of their own proven irresistible even in times where no one understood how diseases work. Was Hector rabid when fighting Achilles? Were berserkers affected by rabies? Then we go into the actual zoonotic origin of the virus, a staggering 60% of infectious diseases affecting humans being of animal original initially. An idea I found extremely interesting is that farmers took over from hunter gatherers in so little time and so thoroughly because raising animals made them get new diseases to which they developed immunity, any contact with non farming populations thus fatally destroying them. Finally, a very nice perspective on Louis Pasteur, who is more popularly renowned for developing pasteurization and thus providing us with better tasting drinks than his final triumph which was a vaccine for rabies and an institute dedicated to studying infectious diseases.
Bottom line: it might sound like a weird subject to read about or at least one hard to digest. The authors' writing is very good, the research splendid, and the book short enough to not take too much of the reader's time. I recommend it!
The Book of the Ancestor trilogy consists of Red Sister, Grey Syster, Holy Sister, books that tell the continuous story of Nona, a girl with magical powers who is trained as a warrior nun by the church on a feudal world called Abeth. It feels almost the same as the Harry Potter books: a school for children where they learn only exciting stuff like magic and fighting and where the group of friends that coalesces around the main character has to solve more and more complex and dangerous problems. And it pretty much has the same issues, as any of the actors in the story could have easily handled a little child regardless of her powers because... she's a child! Also, the four "houses" are here replaced with genetic lines that provide the owner with various characteristics.
Anyway, I liked all three books, although I have to say that I liked them less and less as the ending approached. Tools used to solve some problems were not used for similar issues later on, the girls were learning more and more stuff and become more and more powerful, while all of their opponents seemed to lack the ability to reach their level even with greater numbers and funding and, maybe worse of all, whenever it was inconvenient to detail the evolution of the characters and the story, Mark Lawrence just skips to some point in the future. Thus, each of the last two books is separated from the previous one by two years!
Another qualm that I have with the series is that the author spent a lot of effort to create a magical world, with a dying sun and with a vague history that may or may not have involved spaceships and an alien race, with various magical tools that can be combined to various and epic effects, with several kingdoms, each different from another. Then the story ends, as if all we could or should ever care about is what happens to Nona.
Bottom line: if you liked Harry Potter, you might want to read this series. It pushes the same buttons, while getting less and less consistent as more stuff is added, then leaving you wanting more of the world that was described, even if you didn't especially liked the characters or their choices.
The Broken Ladder is a sociology book that is concise and to the point. I highly recommend it. Keith Payne's thesis is that most of the negative issues we associate with poverty or income are statistically proven to be more correlated with inequality and status. And this is not a human thing, as animal studies show that this is a deeply rooted behavior of social animals like monkeys and has a genetic component that can be demonstrated to as simple creatures as fruit flies.
There are nine chapters in the book, each focusing on a particular characteristic of effect of social inequality. We learn that just having available a sum of money or a set of resources is meaningless to the individual. Instead, more important is how different those resources are from other people in the same group. Inequality leads to stress, which in turn leads to toxic behaviors, health problems, developmental issues. It leads to risk taking, to polarization in politics, it affects lifespan, it promotes conspiracy theories, religious extremism and racism.
It is a short enough book that there is no reason for me to summarize it here. I believe it's a very important work to examine, as it touches on many problems that are present, even timeless. Written in 2017, it feels like a explanatory pamphlet to what gets all the media attention in 2020.
I have to admit this is a strange time for me, in which I struggle with finishing any book. My mind may drift away at a moment's notice, thoughts captured by random things that inflame my interest. And with limited time resources, some things fall through the cracks, like the ability to dedicate myself to books that don't immediately grab my attention. Such a book is The Ten Thousand Doors of January.
And you know the type. It's one of those where the way the word sounds as you read it is more important that what it says, a sort of magical white poetry that is attempting to evoke rather than tell, feel rather than reason, while also maintaining a rigorous intellectual style. Alix E. Harrow is a good writer and it shows, however she is too caught up in her own writing. This story features a girl with an ability that is manifested when she writes words of power. She is an avid reader and, in order to learn about her capabilities, she receives a book that tells the story of another girl who was similar to her. And the style of that book is, you guessed it, words crafted to evoke rather than tell.
So at about 40% of the book nothing had happened other than a girl of color living in a house of plenty, but imprisoned by rules and starved of knowledge or power. Her captor and adoptive father is a white and powerful aristocrat, cold as ice and authoritative in every action or word, while she is a good girl caught between her desires and her upbringing. I've read books like this before and I liked some of them a lot. And this may yet evolve into a beautiful story, but as I was saying above, I am not in the mood for paying that much attention before something happens.
In conclusion, while I get a feeling of being defeated and a desire to continue reading the book, I also have to accept I don't have the resources to struggle with it. I would rather find a more comfortable story for me at this time.
The Authenticity Project is one of those books that got great marketing and so I got to read, so there is a little feeling of getting tricked to read it, but it's not a bad book. It is, however, terribly naive. It almost begs for the Brit-com makeover transition to the big screen with its physically perfect characters that feel their lives had lost meaning, but have all the resources to change them, the courage of telling the truth leading to strong friendships and not people taking advantage of them and the serendipity for all of them to meet each other and fit together. But it is a feel good book, so why not enjoy it?
Clare Pooley graduated from a blog turned book about her own struggle with posh alcohol addiction to fiction with this book, after feeling inspired by the power of being truthful. In the book, someone decides to write their most personal truth in a notebook and leave it around so other people can read it and maybe also write in it. This brings together these people who have been living financially rewarding lives, but spiritually empty existences. The writing is decent, the story is obvious and lacking much subtlety, so if you want to read an uplifting fantasy about people getting everything right in their lives, this is the one for you.
However, despite the book's premise that underneath the facade people are really different, the characters are quite cardboard. Instead of them having layer over layer of complexity, which would have made the story worth reading, it's like they hold party masks over their faces and when they drop them, you get to see all they are, vulnerable and normal while being amazing. There is a twist at the end that was kind of unexpected and a good opportunity to add more dimensions to the whole thing, only it fizzled immediately after the initial shock value.
Bottom line: it feels as real as a fairy tale. The princesses get the princes, the dragons live happily ever after and everybody gets to keep the gold. It was not unpleasant to read, but I wouldn't recommend it, either.
A few days ago I was stumbling upon a global pandemic book that I couldn't finish because it was avoiding the exact parts that would interest me in the scenario: the disease, the cause, the immediate aftermath. Instead it used the disease as a prop to describe a world in which only children survived. Disappointed, I randomly picked another book, this time one from Liu Cixin, the author of Three Body Problem, which I liked. Lo and behold, it was about a global catastrophe that kills all the adults, too! And while it started great, I have to say that it ultimately was also a disappointment.
In Liu's defense, it is a story he wrote in 1989, only published in China in 2003 and translated to English in 2019 because of his success with other works.
Supernova Era has a very interesting premise: a nearby star, occluded from us by a dust cloud, goes supernova, bathing the Earth in deadly radiation. People quickly realize that the genetic damage has affected everybody and only children under the age of 13 will be able to shrug it off, while all the adults will die. Children will have finally inherited the planet. What will the outcome be?
Unfortunately, this is where the nice part ends. The genetic damage on animals and plants is swept under the rug, logistic issues such as how children would be fed and countries run are only touched upon, the actual effects of radiation damage, its long time effects, the way it would have affected people are completely ignored. And this, also, because the supernova was only a prop to describe a world in which only children survived.
Liu had a really weird outlook on children back then. In his mind, children are lacking empathy, are only interested in games and even after a ten month training period from adults, they can only superficially grasp the nature of the world. And even if they are as old as 13 year old, they have no sexual drives. To be fair, I doubt that part would have passed by the Chinese censors, but not even mentioning it and portraying prepubescent teens as asexual feels even creepier than mentioning it too much.
And I remember myself at 12: I was reading five books at the same time, was interested in natural sciences and was avid for knowledge. If people would have said "Now we will teach you how to do what we do", I would have been immensely happy, at least for a little while. But one thing is certain, I loved my friends without reservation and I was always thinking of how I would change the world when I would grow up.
Not these children. They are written more as psychopathic caricatures of their nationalities. American kids start shooting each other for fun, Brazilians play games of soccer with a hundred thousand players and one ball and the Chinese succumb to fear when they find themselves under no authority and have to resort to a quantum computer to tell them what to do. They play war games that kill hundreds of thousands, but they are emotionally unaffected. They nuke their opponents for laughs. The ending is even more confusing, as it involves switching populations between the countries of the U.S. and China, for no apparent reason and ignoring transport issues and the immediate famine that would lead to.
Bottom line: an interesting premise that fails miserably at the end, even though the author did make the effort to finish the book. But that's exactly the feeling one gets: someone struggled to finish this, changing direction, bringing in random ideas that are never explored and ignoring the obvious.
Station Eleven started really well. It had the fresh scene setup, the internal thoughts of a complex character, a dissection of actual motivations and emotions, rather than cardboard cliches. Because I have a bunch of books to read and when I start reading I just pick one at random, I didn't know what it was about, and so I had that feeling of "Oh well, it's not sci-fi or fantasy, but I like the writing!". I was convinced I was going to like the book.
A chapter later and there is a killer epidemic starting. One chapter later twenty years have passed and everybody except young people are alive in a post apocalyptic non technological world. I just couldn't go on. The complex character at the beginning and the interesting setup had been completely obliterated and replaced with tired formulaic ideas. I couldn't care less about any of the new characters or what was going to happen. I don't know what Emily St. John Mandel was thinking when she started writing the book, but it is clearly not for me.
One of the main reasons to put the book down and not continue reading was the lazy and unscientific treatment of the killer pandemic. We are talking about a flu virus that infects just by breathing for a few seconds next to someone, then disabled those people within a day. Viruses like this do not spread! Moreover, there is no way that a flu virus kills everybody. There are always exceptions, whether due to immunity, isolation or other factors. I love pandemic stories, I read them all with glee, and I did that way before the current situation, and when I see one that teaches nothing, because the epidemic is just a prop in an otherwise unrelated story, I get frustrated.
A few years ago I was watching a movie with my wife. We both didn't quite enjoy it, but were curious on how it ended, so I told her to skip scenes to get to the end. She was skipping all the scenes I was interested in and watching the ones I couldn't care less about. This book is the same. I understand why people would like it, as I said, the writing was good, but the focus of the story and the characters were in complete opposition to my own interests.
Almost a year ago I was reading Vaccinated, by Paul A. Offit, an ode to vaccines and their de facto promoter in modern medicine, Maurice Hilleman. Offit was angry in the book when talking about the vaccine craze started by Andrew Wakefield, a self interested psychopath that gained money and fame while feeding on the fear and desperation of parents. Yet, he is not even close to how angry Seth Mnookin is in The Panic Virus, a book dedicated solely to exposing the roots and mechanisms of the industry of fear towards vaccines.
The author systematically dissects, with proof and careful analysis, the entire argument of harmful vaccines causing autism, mercury poisoning or damaging immunity. Let me be as blunt as he is: the theory that vaccines cause autism has been thoroughly debunked and whoever continues to spout such nonsense has not read anything about the subject other than Facebook. Mnookin talks about Wakefield, David Kirby, Jenny McCarthy, Oprah Winfrey, exposing them for the profiteering promoters of deadly lies that they are. He talks about law trials and medical trials and research papers as they destroy any leg these theories stand on, but which never reach the news. He talks about devastated families, tricked into wasting their lives and money championing harmful ideas just for the tiny hope their child might get better.
However it is ironic that this book suffers from the same problems that made the vaccine argument lean so much towards the emotional, dramatic, sound-bite sized bullshit: it is technical, precise, verbose, intellectual. It is difficult to read the book because it engages with your brain, assaulting it with educated language and loads of information. Meanwhile, the opponents of the Mnookin's views use animated gifs with large colorful font texts and the occasional kitten. But it is a book that needs reading.
Consider The Panic Virus as a form of vaccine itself. You need to read it so you don't fall prey to soulless predators that would use targeted well crafted yet completely misleading arguments to sway you to their side for their own profit. I am warning you, though, this is not a happy book. It made me question the worth of the human race as a whole. If such cheap techniques can be so effective in brainwashing so many people into believing absurd lies, then don't we deserve it, all the death and suffering? Aren't we failing at... I don't know, evolution? And the sad part is that most of the affected are fairly educated people, who start to rebel against "the establishment" and branch out into alternative theories without actually employing any technique of differentiating between fact and fallacy.
Bottom line: I will rate this book the maximum value, because it is important to be read, but it is not a perfectly written piece of literature, nor it is easy to finish. But give it a try.