THG Recom. 8: Was Darwin wrong?
The insights from the work of Suzanne Simard on how life on earth may be, in fact, collaborating rather than competing with one another
Let’s start this week with some decidedly eye-opening talk by Suzanne Simard.
Want to dive deeper into her world of research in the forests? Here is a long-form podcast from NYT:
The Sunday Read: The Social Life of Forests
This is how NYT previews the podcast:
Foresters once regarded trees as solitary individuals: They competed for space and resources, but were otherwise indifferent to one another.
The work of the Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard upended that. She found that while there is indeed conflict in a forest, there is also negotiation, reciprocity and even selflessness.
Ms. Simard discovered that underground fungal threads link nearly every tree in a forest. Seedlings severed from this network are more likely to die; chemical alarm signals to warn of danger can be passed between trees; and a dying tree can sometimes pass on a share of its carbon to neighbors.
And here is author Richard Powers, among other things, explaining how Simard’s work impacted his worldview:
Best Of: This Conversation With Richard Powers Is a Gift
The upshot: while the ‘social Darwinism’, the perverted extrapolation of ‘survival of the fittest’ from natural to social world, was always contested, the basic maxim itself of Darwinism in living ecosystems stands contested with Simard’s findings. And that may be a good thing for fight against climate catastrophe as this understanding can underpin a more empathetic human behavior towards other species. After all, we seem to have reached this point by collaborating with all other lives, not merely competing with them and causing a wave of mass extinctions.
In Nepali media this week, I explain why the convergence between the left and the far right has come to the surface with unprecedented September 4 protests in Prague:
किन एक ठाउँ उभिँदै छन् विश्वभरका वामपन्थी र उग्र दक्षिणपन्थीहरू?
My conclusion: while this may benefit the left in the short term, they will hemorrhage support from the oppressed and the downtrodden because of this marriage of convenience with the far right. If you are out to oppress the oppressed and glorify the powerful oppressor, why would you look for a hammer-and-sickle flag instead of a Nazi or KKK flag?
Special substack recommendation this week:
Bonus read this week in Nepali:
मर्नुअघि by नवराज पराजुली; one of the finest long reads from Nepali media; the vivid portrayal of the Nepali poet’s misadventure through Turkey through a dark night when his poems save him twice.
Finally, the title speaks for itself: