Gopnik takes Evolutionary Bio to task (and: Pinker decries tech-phobia)

This sums up well the argument against there being different human races. And it's a 150 yo, so obviously it'll be widely accepted in no time.

Hopefully, eventually, because he's not now, Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker editor and author, will be seen as a greater thinker/writer (he writes about a much wider range of subjects) than Steve Pinker--not that I dislike him, just disagree more.


Except here, where I totally agree with him about all the tech-is-rotting-our-brains shit.

The most recent iteration, which began at least fifteen years ago (reading a book of essays about tech and lit and language from '95; and while only half of them are doomsday predictions, it's interesting to read the same urgency, hasting toward the precipice, we hear so much of today), goes: print is dying, we're stopping reading, our brains are turning to mush. Bullshit. Language, as it always has, will mutate and be mutated by the mediums and environments we humans find or put ourselves in. I'm starting to think that language is the height of human accomplishment, the greatest technology, and all subsequent developments are similarly oriented towards encouraging mutually-beneficial bonds within the species, possibly with other species, by way of expanding empathy and compassion. (This is a combination of thoughts taken from the one of the essays mentioned above and Pinker's evo-bio concept of the purpose of empathy.)

Holy shit, I've turned Buddhist and linguist in one paragraph--Jesus.