Selected Articles

Hello everyone, just reminding you that I'm still alive. I thought the following articles were pretty interesting & relevant to the kind of stuff I write about, and I figured you might enjoy them too.

"Face It, We Loved Watching Torture" - Matthew Gault, War is Boring
     - "Repeat After Me - Torture Doesn't Work"

"Dragnets, Dirty Harry and Dying Hard" - Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post
     - "In Pop Culture, There Are No Bad Police Shootings"
     - "How Police Censorship Shaped Hollywood"

"The Cheery, Ordinary World of Fascism", Annibale, War Nerd

"The Challenge For Anti-Racists Looking For Solutions In Trump’s America" - German Lopez, Vox

"Bolivia Files Formal Complaint Over Its Representation In Ghost Recon Wildlands" - IGN

"Television Is Trying To Kill Us" - TVTropes

Also, please check out my older reading list as well.

Finally, here are some of my own favorite (read: most-polished, still relevant) articles:

Analysis: 300
Authorship, Blame & Neutrality
Analysis: The Birth of a Nation
Dehumanization
Realism

I think if you read all of those you've got a pretty good handle on what I want to tell you.

But just in case, here's an even simpler summary:

1: Everyone learns unconsciously through fiction (even important people, and on every ideological spectrum), which should scare you because fiction is written by unreliable writers who shave down the complexities of life to make exciting stories (at best) or biased propaganda (at worst). Please do not learn from fiction if you can help it. Please refer to real data when making decisions, formulating views, and crafting arguments.

2: Because you can't avoid learning from fiction, writers should have at least some responsibility to minimize the damage caused by their material. At the very least they shouldn't propagate overtly false information, especially for cheap entertainment.

Thanks for reading!

J.Shea

Paperbacks are now available

This is an update / addendum to my previous post. In addition to eBook format through Smashwords, Kindle, and Books2Read, "World Cultures" is now available in paperback form through Createspace.

Once again, thank you for your support.

Book Release: "World Cultures: Analyzing Pre-Industrial Societies"

Well, it's finally out! Clocking in at 221 pages and around 64,700 words, World Cultures: Analyzing Pre-Industrial Societies in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas covers as many aspects of life and culture as I could cram between two covers. This includes

- Cultural Traditions
- Gender & Sexuality
- Religion & Spirituality
- Social Castes
- Government Types
- Crafts & Economics
- Art, Fashion & Architecture
- Warfare & Militarism

I attempted to cover as many cultures as I could, as broadly as I could, in order to give readers an understanding both of how societies work generally as well as outlying peculiarities and unique cultural paradigms. I definitely put a lot of work into it, but it is available for free if you so choose. I would certainly appreciate any donations but it is honestly more important to have people read it than to make money off of it, so please do not feel obligated to spend money if that would dissuade you from getting it. And if you do find it informative and/or entertaining, please do me a huge favor and tell people about it.

World Cultures can be obtained through the following outlets:

Smashwords (Pay-what-you-want)
Hub page for Baker & Taylor Blio, txtr, Library Direct, Baker-Taylor Axis360, OverDrive, Gardners Extended Retail, Yuzu, Odilo, and Gardner's Library

Kindle (Free)

Books2Read (Free)
Hub page for 24Symbols, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, PageFoundry, Scribd, and Tolino

Createspace ($8.99)
Paperback

If you prefer one of the free methods but would still like to support me, feel free to use my Paypal.

Thank you very much for your support!