One of the two water wheels in the nearby mill. I spend all day there yesterday to free it from the bushes that were in the process of overgrowing it.

Sometimes I wonder whether I made the wrong choice to get into academia. Now that I have been spending a few days planting trees instead, I get reminded once more that there is a sense of satisfaction after a long day of physical work that has no real equivalent in a desk job. The getting into a rhythm of repetition, the sense of visible progress, and the feeling of relaxed exhaustion in the evening. Something to be appreciated, for sure!

Then again, it might well be the case that the positive valence comes purely from the contrast to everyday life. Probably I would quickly get fed up, if I had to do boring physical work day in and day out.

I was again planting forest today and I listen to podcasts while doing that. As a nice follow-up to yesterday, I very much enjoyed this one about ending factory farming for chickens.

Many insights into when it makes sense to antagonize and campaign against the people doing the things you consider bad, versus working with them to improve the situation. In this example, chicken farmers in the US are often stuck in a bad system that they do not approve of themselves, which opens the door for win-win situations.

Overall another great interview by @robertwiblin!

About two thirds done with planting 4000 saplings on 2.5ha of forest area. The colored lines are GPS-tracks of how I walked (a bit incomplete), which is mostly determined by terrain.

Imagine what would happen if we had a magic wand that could solve climate change. Should we wave it?

Apparently, most people answer no. Mark Lynas and Yascha Mounk discuss why. Recommended 45 minutes to listen! Transcript available.

I agree with most of what they say, and like the idea of the new movement of ecomodernism. Finding pragmatic solutions to environmental problems and working on a positive vision of the future make so much more sense than trying to get people to reject the benefits of technological development.

Lynas' story about how he helped banning GMO in Europe and how he now thinks this was a mistake is a harrowing example of doing great harm with good intentions. I get chills when I imagine having to live with that. Luckily, I have never been sure enough about anything to become an activist.

I recently watched Terminator 2 from 1991. Twice. Don't ask. I had almost forgotten how good this one is; one of the rare exceptions of 80-90s action films that hold up really really well. If you haven't seen it in a while, I highly recommend you do.

Just a few of the reasons why it is great:

• Sarah Connor is a total bad-ass. Modern films sometimes pretend female action heroes are a new thing. Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley are prime counter-examples.
  • She is not getting rescued from the mental asylum, she's on the way out by herself when the heroes meet up with her.
  • She is prepared, methodical, needs no extra time to react to crazy situations - a real pro!
  • At the same time she gets to show how broken she is, without weakening her.
  • She's less sentimental than even robot-Arnie in the final scene.
• Her son John is a rare example of a character that is introduced as a spoiled brat but gets to redeem himself. The things one gets to know about his upbringing totally explain him being messed-up. And the late-eighties slang he teaches Arnie is soo quaint!
• Arnie got to to do the same role as in T1, but with a sense of humour and irony this time, which makes it endlessly entertaining - that smile when he finds the mini-gun! Both the interactions with John and the exposition dialogues are written and executed well; there are very few moments to roll your eyes at.
• Robert Patrick as the liquid-metal villain is also fantastic, mastering the cold stare of a machine.
• The action scenes themselves still look great today and they are plenty, but with enough of down-time in between to make them feel intense. The pacing of the film is very good and the story relentlessly presses on.

I am repeating myself, but go watch T2! The first part is worthwhile too, if you feel like it, but I don't like it as much myself. The sequels T3 - ∞ are not worth anyone's time, unfortunately.

I spent most of the day planting trees in the forest and I'll do the same tomorrow. This video (in Swedish) shows how it's done.

Three more YouTube-videos I enjoyed recently:

• xkcd's "Map Projections", animated
• Duct tape space suit
• Robin Hanson discusses his model of grabby aliens with folks from FHI, including Nick Bostrom.

The planting of the forest has begun. 200 down, 3800 to go.

So this is what 4000 saplings look like; I was quite unsure how many boxes this would turn out to be. They were delivered yesterday, in frozen state, and now they have to thaw in the shadow for a few days before the boxes get opened and the seedlings planted as quickly as possible. It looks like there is a rainy week coming up, which should be perfect.

I am as quick in dismissing anything that sounds like a conspiracy theory as anyone. But I also recognize that the perceived consensus is oftentimes just that, perceived.

This is also true for science. While we often claim that everybody tries to disprove everyone else to gain recognition, the reverse is more often true. Going againt the mainstream opinion is costly, it damages reputations and funding; after all it is others in the same field who get to decide what is good science, and what is bad.

Which brings me to this article, which argues that a lab origin of the COVID virus it is not as unlikely as generally believed. The author shows that the pieces that very much shaped the consensus are not very convincing, that virologists know this but have no strong incentives to make this opinion heard. That the lab-origin claim is associated with Trump does not help.

As a layman I have no strong opinion on this, of course. But dismissing any possible origin of the Coronavirus out of hand does not sound right to me. Needs more research!