October Links

What I'm reading

Author

Riley Haas
October 30, 2025

A monthly collection of the books and articles I’m reading, plus the podcasts I’m listening to.

What I’m Reading:

  • Haruki Murakami: 1Q84 (2009-10): This is a weird book. It is both a struggle and very easy to read. It’s not a difficult novel in any sense, and I find it easy to keep reading it. It’s enough of a page-turner that I am still reading it. On the other hand, it takes forever for anything to happen - I am well over 600 pages in and it feels like the real plot has only really set in motion. The entire first “book” and some of the second was, essentially, scene setting. So far, I really can’t recommend it. (Also, I have some concerns about a plot point but I’ll leave that for my review.)

  • “No Good Art Comes From Greed”: I have listened to only three Taylor Swift albums, as they were recommended to me by my cousin. They were her pandemic/post-pandemic albums, though, so they are not representative of the two genres that made her famous. I am, otherwise, fairly oblivious. This despite her being the most or second most famous woman in the (English-speaking) world. I’ve heard the odd hit, because how could I not? (Sometimes I say to Jenn: “I’m not sure I could name more than 5 Taylor Swift hits without help.”) But the Swifties I know don’t tell me they’re Swifties and I am mercifully ignorant of most of The Discourse around her. This savage review of her latest album I read more because of the idea behind it - that she is no rich that she is perhaps incapable of making relatable art any more - and the fact that she is trying to milk her fans for all they’ve got, despite becoming one of the wealthiest musicians alive. (Certainly the wealthiest under 40.)

  • “Fandom’s Obsession With Winning Has Made Pop Culture Boring”: Jenn and I were talking about this right before this got published, as we had both noticed this kind of behaviour online. It’s really fucking weird.

  • “A window into modern loan origination”: Super in the weeds, about loans in the US. (In this case for windows. Yes, windows. For your house.) But fascinating to learn how the sausage is currently made. I suspect (hope) it is different in Canada.

  • “Canada’s Tech Bros Have a Plan for the Country. Too Bad a Chatbot Wrote It”: I don’t agree with every single thing here - uh, we do have a points system for immigrants (or at least we did when I worked in immigration) - but I still really enjoyed this. Fire these people into the sun. (I don’t mean that literally. Really, I’d love to see how any of them would do on the citizenship test - without the chance to prep - or any simple quiz about how Canada’s political system works.)

  • “The End of Windows 10 Support Is an E-Waste Disaster in the Making”: I hate this so much. I’ve switched to Linux!

  • “I Watched Stand-Up in Saudi Arabia”: And her own post, “Fear and Laughing in Riyadh.”Fun.

  • “Mortality in the news vs. what we usually die from”: About the US but it’s true of media everywhere. Don’t watch the news! (Yes, I know this isn’t just about TV but TV news is the worst.)

  • “Populism fast and slow”: “Narrowly construed, it is a rebellion against executive function.” Don’t just read it for that zinger. This is a really great piece on what populism is and why it’s such a problem (but also why the technocrats cause it).

  • “Generative AI is a societal disaster”: I wouldn’t go that far but that Irish politician story sure is concerning.

  • “Genetics-Obsessed Internet Racists Don't Understand Particulate Inheritance”: Imagine emailing someone to say that their kid doesn’t look like they belong to them.

  • “Notes of many things: Best of recent notes”: Literally what it says, curated Substack notes from Philosophy Bear. I used to write like this a little bit. My first book has some of this. I don’t believe I was ever close to this thought-provoking, though.

  • “Our age of kings”: This is an interesting theory. I don’t know how much it is actually true, but it’s interesting. (Compare and contrast it with “the revolt against ‘cognitive elites’” above.)

  • “What is civil society, and why should we care?”: On why it’s bad that the people who’ve hijacked the Republican Party want to conquer Civil Society.

  • “The Decline of Deviance”: Human behaviour is converging, it seems, likely due to affluence. (This is about the US.)

  • “The NBA Media Is Not Built to Cover a Gambling Scandal”: True.

What I’m Listening to:

  • Behind the Bastards:

  • Canadaland:

    • Commons:

      • “The Police”:

        • “Toronto’s Finest”: This is specifically about one cop and the people he’s shot. He was not only still employed as of 2023 (presumably he retired at that time), but he was promoted over the years to Superintendent.

        • “Starlight Tours”: I must have learned about this at some point but, growing up in Toronto, it wasn’t something I knew about.

    • Politics:

  • Darknet Diaries: “Oak Cliff Swipers”: This is one of those characters who I am inclined to think likes to tell tall tales. However, unlike some other guests a ton of this is backed up by public record. As with so many criminals, it's amazing how smart this guy is while being so dumb.

  • Democracy Now: “Enshittification”: The beginning of this chat actually starts at the end of the previous episode. (Don’t ask me why!) I mostly seek out Doctorow’s appearances here because I am interested in what we can do going forward. I have mostly abandoned Big Tech. (It’s just Gmail/Drive and Whatsapp I haven’t dropped yet.) But, as a country, we can do much more and I like his idea that Canada should make jailbreaking US tech legal and allow us to become a hub for it.

  • Dunc’d On:

    • “Season Predictions”: I had to assemble a bookcase. (I tried to listen to their Raptors preview too but it was mostly paywalled.)

  • In the Dark: Season 3: This just got paywalled out of the blue so now I have to find a new way of listening to it.

  • The Zach Lowe Show [nee The Lowe Post]: My usual basketball podcast.

  • Reply All:

    • “Fool’s Trade”: This feels very 2019.

    • “The Great Momo Panic”: This was good for me to listen to because I too am very likely to dismiss any concerns parents and media have over anything online. Turns out, kids YouTube is really, really weird.

    • “The Reply All Hotline”: Some interesting stuff and some less interesting stuff.

    • “The Roman Mars Mazda Virus”: Probably a Top 25 episode. The solution wasn’t that interesting but how they get there is very fun.

  • Science Vs.:

  • The Bill Simmons Podcast: “NBA Over/Unders”: Four hours of predictions about all 30 NBA teams.

What I’m Watching:

  • Last Week Tonight:

  • “The War on Science”: Are you into the idea of a 4-hour take-down of a book collecting scientists and professors (not of hard sciences!) ranting about “woke” as a threat to “science” but published after RFK Jr was appointed? Well, you’ve come to the right place.