Today’s TTT is books we were excited to see released in 2024, but I read both of the books whose release I was looking forward to, so today’s it’s just a tease from Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.

The logic of the Soviet system was always to resist independent initiatives and to value human life very cheaply. Jews in ghettos were aiding the German war effort as forced laborers, so their death over pits was of little concern to authorities in Moscow. Jews who were not aiding but hindering the Germans were showing signs of a dangerous capacity for initiative, and might later resist the reimposition of Soviet rule. By Stalinist logic, Jews were suspect either way.

That’s a…grim one. Let’s try again…

[T\he enormous amount of radio energy that we’re pouring out today
is due to three sources. One is the high frequency end of the AM broadcast
band, another is just ordinary domestic television, the third is the radar
defense networks in the United States and the Soviet Union. Those are the
only signs of intelligent life detectable on Earth from .a distance. It’s pretty
sobering. It’s often asked, if there is extraterrestrial intelligence how come
they don’t come here? Now we know. Just listen to what we’re sending out. (Conversations with Carl Sagan)