Book Release Announcement: "Evolutionary Politics: Socialism for Social Species"

Hello everyone,

I’m very pleased and excited to announce that my second book, “Evolutionary Politics: Socialism for Social Species”, will be published worldwide in late November 2020. The ebook version is already available for pre-order via Amazon and Apple Books - and the paperback will be available soon as well.

So what’s the book about?

The foundational myth of contemporary capitalism – the individual alone, in a state of nature – is just that: a myth. Both Darwin and early anarchists like Piotr Kropotkin understood that mutual aid lay at the heart of nature’s conquest of the earth. A rich tradition of evolutionary socialism and left-wing Darwinism has been forgotten and disparaged.

"Evolutionary Politics: Socialism for Social Species" applies the new science of cultural evolution to the modern world, showing that the rise of fascism, political extremism and tribalism can be best understood through an evolutionary lens. By demonstrating that humans are adapted for group life in symbolic communities, we can show how the myth of the rational actor has led economists, political scientists and policymakers to fundamentally misunderstand the human social world.

As we become ever more fractured and isolated from one another, "Evolutionary Politics: Socialism for Social Species" argues that not only is a better, more solidaristic world possible – it’s necessary if we are to survive as a species.

Contact me!

If you work in media, as a book reviewer, or if you’re an academic or activist working with game theory or cultural evolution, please reach out to me on Twitter at @ASkews2000 and I’d be happy to provide you a review copy in advance of the formal release.

And if you read the book and like it, why not drop a review on Amazon or on the book’s page on Goodreads? Every bit of feedback helps!

Listen to my talk at NIBS

A couple of weeks ago, on 2 April, I gave a talk on my first book, “Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying Positive Amidst Disorder” at the New International Book Store in Melbourne. For those not able to be there, there are now two recordings of the talk available online:

Firstly, via the podcast of NIBS itself here.

Secondly, there’s a slightly edited version available in the first half hour of the 6 April episode of 3CR’s Solidarity Radio here.

Politics for the New Dark Age on the David Pakman Show

On 11 July, David Pakman invited me on his internationally syndicated radio show to talk about my book, "Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying Positive Amdist Disorder", and the Intellectual Dark Web. David came across my article "On Reputation: Or, how and why bad ideas need rebranding" and wanted to discuss my hypothesis that Harris, Peterson & Co. are more interested in protecting their personal reputations than in promoting free speech. It was a good conversation, and went in some interesting directions. You can find the podcast here (interview starts at at the 29:45 mark). The YouTube version of the clip is embedded here:

Are the Intellectual Dark Web snake oil salesmen?

During the show, David advanced the thesis that the Intellectual Dark Web are akin to charlatans who inflate their social reputations during eras of uncertainty in order to spread ideas of dubious value. I actually wrote a piece advancing a similar metaphor a few months back, which you can find here: "The Omnivore's Dilemma Redux: Understanding Anti-Vaxxers". For the record, the IDW seem to me to be the inverse of that phenonmenon: they're not promoting new, bad ideas by exploiting uncertainty about their personal reputation, but rather propagating old, bad ideas by defending the reputation they already have as a result of their high social status. If we're looking at a nineteenth century medical paradigm, the IDW are not snake oil salesman selling miracle cures in fake lab coats, they're the existing establishment getting huffy when new science shows that bloodletting and treating the humours were never effective in the first place.

One Year Blogversary!

Well, it's official. This blog has existed for exactly one year. One year of blogging in support of my (first) book, "Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying Positive Amidst Disorder"; one year of commentating on politics, philosophy and the culture wars from Geneva and outside of the government mothership. Getting the chance to be interviewed on a podcast as a result of my piece on social media and social trust was definitely a highlight. In honour of the anniversary, today's post will be a little different, looking back at what worked, and what didn't. 

Over the last twelve months, this blog:

• was visited by >2,700 unique individual readers;
• roughly half of those visitors were from the United States. Australia, the UK, Canada and Switzerland made up most of the remainder;
• one third of my readers came from Reddit, which explains the considerable increase in readership I got on posts that were posted there;
• finally, 74 of my visitors clicked through a link to buy a copy of my book. Thank you to each and every one of you!

The top three posts from this year were:

• "The Structure and You! Privilege Preference and #MeToo". With 925 unique views, this was the first post I wrote that ever spread even modestly widely, and is still being discovered by new people even six months later. 
• Unsurprisingly, the follow-up to that post: "It's OK to be hypocritical (Part 2): Vegans, Morality and Aesthetics" was also modestly popular, with 468 unique views. 
• Finally, my post on the so-called "Hereditarian Left" also did well, at 360 unique views, a sign that it always pays to offer views on 'controversial' topics at just the right time. Gratifyingly, several of the players in that debate took the time to respond and engage with me. 

Overall, the keys to success appear to have been a) wading into controversial areas, and b) making sure my work was seen on high profile sub-reddits. Oddly enough, my book reviews have also performed solidly, with my review of Yuval Noah Harari's "Sapiens" just barely missing out on the top three. 

What posts performed the worst?

• Sadly, my holiday writings on the issue of a 'Voice' for Indigenous Australians received the lowest readership of all my posts, despite it being a touchy issue in Australian and me sharing the entries widely on Reddit. 
• I'm more personally disappointed that some more philosophical writings on evolutionary ethics ("Three Duties") and the evolution of sex and gender categories ("The colour analogy") were both read less than ten times. I'm rather proud of both pieces: perhaps the abstract titles and topics were to blame?
• Finally, it's odd that my follow-up to that podcast interview, "Climate Change Broke the Neoliberal Consensus Too" fared so poorly, despite being promoted by the "Connected and Disaffected" podcast crew and being clearly linked to that appearance.

So what's next? Expect the pace of new writing to slow down a bit over the next few months as I manage the return to Australia and gear up to write the first draft of my second book. That's right, there's a follow-up coming that I'm quite excited to get started on. Perhaps by the second blogversary, I'll be able to tell y'all a little more. Until then, thanks for reading!

I was on a podcast!

This week, I was interviewed on the "Connected & Disaffected" politics podcast about my book, "Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying Positive Amidst Disorder", my current work on cultural evolution and the role of social media in feeding political polarisation. If you want to here me talk a little more about the origins of the book, I highly recommend checking it out.!

In other news, for non-Australians looking to obtain a paperback copy of the book, I'm pleased to announce that "Politics for the New Dark Age" is available from the Book Depository - who will ship it to anywhere in the world! No excuses now!

Follow the link here and buy "Politics for the New Dakr Age: Staying Positive Amidst Disorder"!