I use this page to track the books that I have finished.
One of the best books I have ever read.
Captures beautifully many of the social phenomena which arose during the COVID pandemic.
Kelton lays out an argument for a MMT lens of the economy as well as how the observations made by MMT support progressive policy agendas. Notably Kelton does not address any criticisms that economists have with MMT.
Kelton continually bemoans pundits asking "where will the money come from" because under a fiat currency there are no limitations on how much money can be printed. She also acknowledges that MMT does have real constraints, namely it must contend with inflationary pressures. While it is literally true that the government can print as much money as it likes, Kelton's argument misses the point. Even under MMT we accept that there are limits on how much money the government can print (namely we are limited to printing less than would cause rampent inflation), and thus the question "where will the money come from" remains a good question to ask. Because if we can't print as much as is being asked for, we (the federal government) do need to come up with the money from somewhere. Kelton's failure to address this point seems misleading.
I think that overall this a valuable book in the sense that it shows how a standard zero-sum economic view is extremely limiting. MMT embraces the fact that one can bootstrap real economic growth by flooding the economy with fiat dollars. This is very literally an investment in the productive workforce of the United States and ironically (since Bernie Sanders seems disposed to a dislike of "capitalism") the same principle underlying capitalism: namely that putting up large sums of money to bootstrap a company can yield large real returns.
If one values capitalism as a driver of growth, one really should try and internalize the value of a fiat currency and also support a federal jobs guarentee. The thinking here is that the US economy, and in particular the workers in the US economy, are the greatest drivers of economic growth in the history of the world. Offshoring jobs is essentially an investment against American workers. A jobs guarentee is a bet for American workers, the idea being that paying them to work now will dramatically increase the real productive value of our workforce. I see no reason to doubt this is true.
My fundamamental takeaway from MMT is something that venture capitalists and investors have known for a long time: If you find people who are willing to work and able to execute on work you should expect high real rates of return over time. There is no difference between Coke-Cola as a long-term growth company and the American workforce, so let's invest in the American workforce (by printing US dollars to fund a jobs guarnetee) and get rich in real assets.
I think that conservatives overlook MMT since they see it's proscriptions as a hand-out instead of an investment, and progressives abuse MMT by overlooking the fact that we cannot, in fact, pay for everything by simply printing more money.
In Kelton's conclusion she rallies us to have a "people's economy", where everyone has a job, access to healthcare, and the economy is geared towards clean energy. I can imagine such a world, but MMT does seem a bit optimistic in this regard. For example I am not convinced that the United States has the real resources to support universal healthcare. One cannot simply print money to fix this problem, and if we try something like just paying for everyone's healthcare costs without addressing the number of doctors or hospital beds it is not a leap to imagine incurring rampent healthcare inflation. I think that in general MMT people are too eager to see what could be possible and ignore what is realistically possible. Kelton's failure to mention any limits on MMT in her book only further reinforces the idea that MMT can solve all our social problems. It can't in a vaccum. All MMT can confidently claim is that we can print more money than we currently do and that our current understanding of full employement is probably wrong.
This book falls into the "wasn't long enough so the publishers had the author add pages to get to 200" category.
I agree with the thrust of what Sandel is trying to say, but I do not think that this book makes a strong argument for the points. Sandel too often relies on a shaky understanding of market principles, shallow thought experiemnts which find contradictions which are not there, and a general argument from "I don't like it". At it's core Sandel is concerned that the "commodification" of everything, putting a monetary price on everything in society, is damaging our moral existence. I think that he is correct, some things should not be put on a monetary market. However Sandel ends up in the trap of thinking that he is arguing against economic thinking and markets, when in reality he is arguing against the converstion of assets to a specific market, namely one in which I can buy everything in US Dollars. He uses this (shakey) argument to say that markets really do have associated moral values, and seems to miss the point that the market still has no moral value, but that someone is willing to offer an exchange rate between a moral principle and US Dollars. I ultimately agree with Sandel that offering an exchange rate between these things is not always advisable, that the government likely has some role to play in preventing such things, and we as a society should figure out what should be for sale. Where I disagree is in who's responsibility this is. When Yosemite offers campsites for extremely cheap on a first come first serve basis they create a market which encourages scalpers (arbitrage). If you were trading foreign currencies at a huge discount to "provide wider access" you would be laughed out of the room as people made up the difference in arbitrage. One must recognize and be cognizent of the markets they are creating. If what Yosemite wants is a first come first serve basis for cheap campsites it must impose a non-monetary cost which prices out scalpers (arbitragers). In the currency market example you could impose a 90 day trading hold on the issued currency which would dissuade arbitragers by making the trades extremely risky (high price). The intended buyers (people who aren't trading) will not view the hold as expensive. This by the way is how stock option vesting in Silicon Valley works. The companies want to dissuade employees from job hopping and dumping their stock compensation so they create vesting periods. They want to give stock to employees who are loyal to the company and in it for the long haul, and to these employees a vesting period is not expensive. I actually am liking this book and agree with Sandel's major point that we should value things vbeyond what financial markets value. I also think that he is correct that the "over-marketization" of our world leads to unintended moral and ethical knock-on effects that we should try and understand better. I also agree with Sandel that some things shouldn't be bought and sold, such as organs and children. I am also less Libertarian on this point and I think that the government has a role in prohibiting the sale of organs and children. But the reason it is not okay to sell organs and children is not that it is immoral, it is because the unintended consequences are so obvious! Selling organs immediately encourages organ harvesting, and it seems a short leap to say that selling children will lead to kidnapping! I think that the obviousness of these knock-on effects plays a much stronger role in our objection to these things being for sale than any moral argument. While I do have some qualms about these things being sold (the same qualms as with the paying for sterilazation), ultimatley I do not think it's immoral to sell organs or sell orphaned children to the highest bidder (with a bunch of caveats). I think that a more pragmatic approach is to recognize that if we put a price on things, people whose exchange rate between money and morality is low will fill the gap to do things that most of us find morally reprehensible, and by preventing a market for these things and punishing the members of a black market we can force the morality towards where we want it.
On The Ethics of Queues: Sandel argues that the queue is being supplanted by the market through line-standers, fast passes, and ticket scalping. Specifically on ticket scalping there are easy ways to prevent scalping. For example, you must produce an ID to buy a ticket and then show ID that matches the ticket when you go to the concert or event (as an example that I thought of in about 10 seconds). The moral outrage over ticket scalping usually says more about the failures of the ticket issuer (i.e. Yosemite) than the ticket buyers and scalpers. Sandel's point overall in this chapter is correct though: queues are markets based on time instead of money, and allocate goods differently than a money based market. He goes further to argue that the time based markets (queues) are better suited to some situations. I think that if the issuer of a good is deliberately attempting to "sell" their items in the currency of time, then there is something unsavory about scalpers, etc. filling the arbitrage gap. However I think that in general arbitrage is not unethical, and issuers (like Yosemite) should not be surprised or upset when they offer market goods at a vastly discounted rate which are then resold at their market rate. My suggestion above addresses this by making the resale market rate of a campsite $0. The key thing to realize here is that the issuer controls the resale market as well as the original market. This fact seems to dissapear in the treatment presented in this book. I have some other minor squabbles with some of the arguments presented in this chapter but I think that the above argument is the one I feel most strongly about.
On Incentives: Sandel mistakenly argues that fining parents who pick up their children late is an example of a violation of the price effect. He is wrong. Sandel is applying the price effect only to the monetary cost of the late pickups. But this is not correct. The price of picking up the child late is not purely monetary. There is no violation of market principles. It turns out that charging parents to pick up their children late lowers the market price for a late pickup. Prior to the fine (fee) there was a social stigma associated, or perhaps the parents were worried about judicial action against them. In this case the school understimated the going rate that parents were willing to pay. If they charge 500 times more with a threat of jail for non-payment, or lock the children in a dark room until the parents show up, etc., one can be fairly certain that the late pickups will decrease. So the price effect isn't violated here. Sandel keeps saying "non-market norms", failing to recognize that the whole point of economics is that the market hypothesis can be applied to anything, including the market of "non-market norms". The queuing is a market with a differnt underlying asset than money, namely time. Social interactions are a market in "friendship", there are many markets which operate on the fact that we value some sense of morality and value not being ostracized from the group. Clearly we value something, and are willing to exchange on the market. Fundamentally Sandel is concerned that by putting prices on certain activities we "corrupt" their "non-market norm" and move them into the "market", which in Sandel's conception is a monetary market. My more precise rephrasing is roughly this: We should be careful when moving an asset which previously did not have a monetary price into a monetary based market by assigning it a price. I actually agree with Sandel on this point. We too often overlook the consequences of putting a price on previously non-monatary assets. His examples include big game hunting and picking up children from school. In the school example, we are assigning a monetary price to picking up the children late. There used to be a moral price to picking up the children late, but we have priced in the cost. One can think of this as arbitraging, the parents who now pay the "fine" have a different moral-to-cash exchange rate than the teachers were expecting. I ultimately agree with Sandel that offering to make this exchange may not have been wise, but I don't think that it is fair to say that the market is "corrupting morality" here.
Tyler Cowan's love letter to economic growth.
I think that Cowan's arguments for sustained economic growth ar compelling. Cowan makes a sound argument for why capitalism is a good system: namely it is the only system we hace come up with which has propelled our historic sustained growth.
The discussion of time-preferences gave me a thought: most discussions of time preferences assume a constant in time time-preference. I think that this assumption is invalid, and probably leads to many of the "counter-intuitive" and frankly unpalatable conclusions that are reached by assuming a non-zero time-preference. Obviously the reason to assume a constant in time time-preference is that it is easy and one can reason about the results. However I think that it may be better to abandon the current conception of constant in time time-preferences for a more pragmatic approach to understanding future value in relation to present value. Cowan has several "absurd" examples which illustrate my point, including if my ancestors stole from your ancestors it is not clear that I will be better off in the present than I would have been had your ancestors not stolen from me.
I should note that in the context of short-term risk assesment for something like a financial asset the constant in time time-preference model makes a lot more sense. It is important to distinguish where these models are realisitically applicable.
In the chapter "Must Uncertainty Paralyze Us", Cowan talks about the butterfly effect and how we cannot rationally figure out the consequences of our actions. The common example is someone in 19th century Austria dropping a coin, which Hitler's father picked up, thus jostling his sperm and leading to someone other than Hitler being born, and altering the course of history.
There is, of course, a firm theoretical framework underlying this idea. However I think that the effects are often widly exaggerated. It has been argued (I think compellingly), that if not Hitler, someone else would have rose to some form of power and done some similar act as invading Poland. More generally, mathematical chaos theory states something very specific mathematically: namely that a system is not continuous with respect to initial perturbations. But this does not rule out the possibility that all initial data lead to a *qualitativly* similar outcome. For example if all initial data correspond to a trajectory terminating on a finite set, despite the system being chaotic we can say with some degree of certainty what the long term behavior of the system looks like.
I think the "butterfly effect" trope is often abused when making philisophical arguments since it assumes the chaotic attractor is uniformly distributed across the range of potential outcomes. In reality the attractor may have small measure in some "qualitative" topology, in which case while your actions do matter quite a bit, the difference between pulling the chicken out of the oven a second early or a second late is inconsequential. The argument that I am making has some mathematical subtleties which must be made rigorous, but the main thrust of my argument is that the standard "butterfly effect" argument is not particularly sound.
Pursuing this thread even further, it is not clear to me that there is strong evidence for thinking that human history is a chaotic system, especially when their are billions of actors and unfathomable numbers of quantum fluctuations affecting history. For example, the overall trajectory and outcome of the COVID19 pandemic seem insensitive to the time that I chose to brush my teeth in 2019. Perhaps the argument then becomes "on a long enough time-scale", but I think that this quickly becomes an unstestable and untennable argument. Perhaps my only objection to the butterfly effect argument is that I intuitively reject the idea that the trajectory of humankind is a chaotic system.
Perhaps you object that the weather is a chaotic system which we are subject to, and thus our trajectory must be chaotic as well. However there are systems which have chaotic inputs but are not subject to chaotic outcomes. For example the rotation of the Earth is affected by the weather on Earth, which is conventionally seen as a chaotic system, yet we can say with a great deal of certainty that not only will the sun rise tomorrow but when and where it will do so (all governed by the rotation of the Earth). This is to say, even if we are affected by chaotic events, we may not exist on a truely chaotic trajectory.
Dissapointing. Haidt's "The Rightous Mind" was a great book and one of my favorites. This is not.
I have never read the author's article by the same name, but this 269 page book felt like it could have been a 10-20 page article. The book more or less feels like it wasn't meant to actually be read, almost as if it was intended as a time capsule for future historians.
I was excited to read this book but ended up skimming the last 3/4. I can't really figure out who the target audience is.
I do not reccomend.
Wonderful book, I have already seen results using the wisdom in this book, and I think that following the ideas and frameworks in this book will prove valuable for me in my relationships and career. The book shows how to effectively navigate negotiations, whether they be with your spouse, a friend, or a business associate.
A fascinating look in the world's largest Ponzi scheme and it's collapse. My three big takeaways were that you should not put all your financial eggs in one basket, if it's too good to be true it isn't true, and that you should listen to your own red flags even if people you trust have ignored those same red flags; be responsible for your own decisions.
I had always assumed that Madoff was an extremely gifted swindler, but the book highlights that the fraud continued mainly through the incompetence of the regulatory agencies and scores of people ignoring deliberate red flags. As the book highlights, there were banks and investors who **didn't** invest with Madoff because he could not pass their basic due-dilligence tests, which means that everyone who invested with him either did not run the due-dilligence or ignored what they found. I think that this is one of the most powerful lessons of the book: listen to yourself and your intuition!
This book was a good read, and I would reccomend it to anyone who likes financial true-crime. I have been following the recent SBF case and this felt like a nice way to whet my appitite in preperation for more about his fraud coming to light.
I had never read Peter Pan as a child, so I finally got around to it. This book is exceptionally symbolic.
Some key takeaways: - While the United States did emerge from the Cold War as the single dominent global superpower, Reagan's credit for ending the Cold War seems misplaced. The narrative I learned in school is that Reagan won the Cold War by outspending the Soviet Union, which in the end could not sustain the conflict and collapsed. In reality, the ending of the Cold War seems more properly attributed to Gorbachev, whose coceliatory nature in the 80's led to a radical de-escalation of tensions and eventual ceding of the Eastern bloc to democracy. Gorbachev shifted Soviet priorities from defending Communism at any cost towards more humanistic goals, like preserving the longstanding European peace and furthering the economic interests of his own people. Nuclear war, or even non-nuclear war, has become unviable in the late 20-th and early 21st centuries. Our globally connected economy means that the citizens of a nation are better of participating in the world than fighting it. Certainly idealogical concerns remain, as with Putin's restoration of a paranoid nationalism, but by and large diplomacy is a better strategy, especially in a world which is increasingly globally connected, rendering distinctions between people's more amorphous and less potent. The collapse of the Soviet Union has its roots in poor economic leadership to be sure; overspending on military initiatives for example. However it does not seem to be accurate to say that Reagan's policy was a direct cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather, it seems that Reagan was fortuitius (from the perspective of the history taught to American school children) in his timing, that the collapse appeared to correlate with Reagan's leadership. However the Soviet system was doomed to fail, regardless of the American leadership. For the four decades between 1940 and 1980, the Soviet economy wore a mask of strength which never accurately reflected the underlying reality. They never had a strong economy, and justified poor economic management in the egoic pursuit of idealogical rationalization; We must prove to the West that Communism works by outwardly showing a strong economy. In this idealogically driven mindset, the Soviet leadership overextended itself globally, could not sustain it's defensive puppet states, and began failing to even provided basic consumer goods to it's population. None of this was a consequence of actions by the American's and the Soviet collapse more accurately reflects a failure of governance from within than a threat from without. - America was extremely aggressive during the Cold War, justifying the paranoia of the Soviet leadership.
Main takeaways: - Bolshlevism provides a strong analogy to modern day leftism in it's explicit and implicit goals. - The Soviet Union illustrates the struggles of second best. Throughout it's history the USSR constantly sought to compare itself to the United States, with the effect of never becoming itself (in a Jungian sense). A persepctive on the failure of the USSR is the following: A socialist country tried to beat a capitalist country on metrics which capitalism outpreforms socialism on every time; the socialist system cannot hope to provide the incentive structure to mobilize its workforce to outpreform a country where workers are being paid based on value, rather than paid based on central planning (which distorts value). - Human beings naturally organize themselves into markets. The existence of a thriving black market in the USSR, the politburro implementing differential reward systems, having to ban barter and other forms of trade; socialism is fundamentally concerned with organizing humans in a way which is antithetical to their nature. Perhaps one should see this as a laudable goal, but in practice the mental gymnastics, brutal policies, and human suffering which are required to cajole a society into behaving against it's ingrained nature are not worth it in my view. Additionally, even with the enormous human cost of the USSR's policies, the operating universe for many citizens WAS capitalist. Food and services were traded in 'blat', and markets existed to fill the soviet's burning desire for material posessions, food, and other goods.
A book of aphormisms by the thinker Eric Hoffer. Hoffer's insights into the human condition are profound and delivered elegantly.
It can be frustrating to read social critiques from the 1970's and feel that nothing as changed, that despite members of our society calling attention to important problems more than 50 years ago, their ideas have not been adopted writ large.
Another concern which has become relevant since the 70's is that the criminally low pay of teachers encourages mediocrity. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights that teachers are paid more for almost any job they take instead of teaching, and that the private sector currently values teacher's skills more than our schools. We should not be surprised at the dismal quality of teaching in the 21st century given that our actions (in the form of teacher pay) indicate to everyone that teaching is not important. Especially at a time when we are competing with China for global hegemony, a state whose valuing of education is pushing it ahead of the United States in many key metrics, it is unthinkable to continue to so poorly value education.
Stewart O'Nan chronicles the closing night of a Red Lobster's last night of operation.
The book is a meditation on averageness, a story not about a hero but of the average person. This book forces us to confront why we read, and what we read about. We idolize hero myths, elevate people to the level of biography based on their achievements and let them transcend their humanity. Those we write biographies about are exceptional, but somehow predictable. They are distant, and can feel fictional. The employees at the Lobster are different types of characters. They love the wrong person, they ...; they are more like us than any of the great men and women of history whose stories we read in biographies.
This is a fairly niche book and I suspect many people will not like it. This book is good for someone who doesn't need
A classic in the field of mathematics. I think that this book is essential reading for anyone in the field of mathematics.
This is my second reading of Hardy's classic book (essay?), and in the interleaving time I have read the essay "Why I Write" by George Orwell. Hardy views mathematical research as a creative art form for which he identifies "intellectual curiosity, professional pride, and ambition" as the primary motivators. Orwell identifies "sheer egoism", "esthetic enthusiasm", "historical impulse", and "political purpose" as the primary motivators for writing. These two sets of motivations are the same.
"Professional pride" and "ambition" are Hardy's words for Orwell's "sheer egoism"; Hardy's "intellectual curiosity" is Orwell's "esthetic enthusiasm". Orwell elaborates on "historical impulse" as the "desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity". That this could just as easily be a description of mathematics should reverberate with the mathematician. Indeed, Hardy describes the "noblest ambition" as "leaving behind one something of permanent value" . All that remains then is "political purpose". Orwell said "all art is propaganda", but Hardy's contention in the apology is that mathematics is uniquely useless in a sense which I believe he would have extended to include lacking political merit. In these sense of motivation then it seems that the only difference between mathematics and journalism lies in this political merit.
Hardy notes in passing that "journalism is the only profession, outside academic life, in which I should have felt really confident of my chances". The comparison with Orwell becomes even more poignant in light of this remark. We see mathematicians and journalists as differing in kind, yet here we have the greatest mathematicians and journalists of the early 20th century in exact agreement about why they do what they do.A tribute to the muses; a guidebook to capitalizing on your artistic drive. I highly reccomend this book to anyone in a creative endeavour.
Bronowski is one of my favorite thinkers from the last century. This book explores some ideas that I have encountered from him elsewhere; Bronowski articulates why science can establish a morality in a culture, without appeal to religion. While I don't agree with Bronowski for a variety of reasons, I think that the books is worth reading.
Included in this book is Bronowski's dialouge "The Abacus and the Rose", which is an exploration of the close similarities between science and art. Bronowski's understanding of this unity is deep, and the dialoge proves an effective setting to communicate his insights. This dialoge was my favorite part of the text.
Bronowski writes with a pleasant, clear, artistic style which makes him worth reading for no other reason but as an example of what beautiful philisophic writing can look like. b
A very short introduction to Russel's philosophy of math.
A stimulating anthology of ethics essays.
Amazing book, I reccomend to everyone. Gripping book rife with eerie predictions made prior to the pandemic.
Alain de Botton (a philosopher) writes a beautiful love letter to the fields of architecture, architectural critique, and architectural appreciation. de Botton's prose and style of writing perfectly complements the material, and the end result is a harmonious aesthetic experience. I reccomend this book to anyone with a glancing interest in architecture, beauty, or aesthetics.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Ellenberg's book covers the third, and demonstrates the pitfalls of statistical illiteracy. While Ellenberg's intention may not have been to cast doubt on almost all scientific and political claims, that was certainly the effect. Among the most troubling are the widespread practice of p-hacking, the fact that p-value standards are already extremely low, using clever wording to spin statistical "facts" in any direction you choose, and unsettling examples of expected value failing spectacularly.
The book is longer than it needs to be, but an important tool for responsible citizens. Among other things, the reader of this book will realize how many claims in news articles (scientific and political) are misleading, not well supported, or just straight up wrong. I would go so far as to say if you see a statistic in a news article, it is almost certainly not true.
A short book articulating Justice Breyer's principle of "active liberty". The book reads a lot like Breyer talks, in short quips.
Bryer illustrates the application of "active liberty" through its applications to cases that his court has decided. In some cases, I felt that the principle led Breyer to the correct conclusion, but in others, especially when he sided with a corporation over citizens, I think that he can be wildly misled.
I think that some middle-ground between textualism and living constitution is likely the "best" judicial philosophy... whatever that means! Breyer's book didn't push me in any direction, but it was nice to hear an articulation of the principle from an active Supreme Court Justice.
A perspective from a doctor and network scientist on the pandemic. Lots of interesting facts in here, like that vaccine has the same root as "vaca"; the Spanish word for cow. The short of it is that we vastly mishandled the response to the pandemic, and despite many experts presenting sound, realistic responses, both the Trump and Biden administrations have fumbled every second of the response; starting with Trump's vehement denial of the virus and, at present, Biden's continued doubling down on vaccines without an emphasis on proper testing.
A collection of essays by Stephen Jay Gould, Daniel J. Kevles, R. C. Lewontin, Jonathan Miller, and Oliver Sacks, exploring various topics in the history of science. All these men are phenomenal writers, and the collection reads extremely well.
This book is a historical survey of turbulence research from it's start in the early 20th century to the 1990's. The book provides good historical context for the field.
The final chapter (Turbulence as a Challenge for the Historian) argues that the historical progression of the turbulence problem does not fit into the Khunian paradiagmatic framework for scientific progress, but rather proceeds in an "evolutionary" fashion, adapting to new experimental evidence and new mathematical tools in a methodical way. Evidence that turbulence research lacks a paradigm is illustrated by the introduction and adoption of chaos theory into turbulence research, without needing to replace any previous aspects of the theory. (Tangent: I wonder if the Khunian framework doesn't apply to math and applied math because the tools remain "true" even when we shift perspectives).
Great book. Wonderful writing, great narrative, excellent point. On par with Bad Blood for an example of "narrative journalism". It had me on the edge of my seat and I think everyone should read.
This book was a nice followup to "Perilous Bounty" as it follows the case of a man accused of spying for China by stealing proprietary tradecraft about growing corn. It reiterated many of the "corn facts" that Philpott presents in "Perilous Bounty".
Hvistendahl simultaneously critiques the US food system, big agribusiness, the justice system, the intelligence community, the FBI's anti-espionage practices, Chinese norms about IP, and racial profiling in the United States. Rather than picking a hero for this story, she highlights the human nature; there are a lot of actors, all of whom are trying to do their job and improve their lot in life, and when these interests collide it makes a mess. The author touches on many important contemporary issues in a (in my opinion) balanced way.
What struck me is how top-down narratives proliferate and subtly inform our view of the world. (SPOILER) central to the plot is that Robert Mo is treated as a Chinese spy, working for the Chinese government. In reality, he is a middle manager at a fairly large Chinese seed company. He is consistently treated by the FBI as a statecraft mastermind, and consistently portrayed by those he meets as a well-meaning suburban dad. In reality, the latter is far more realistic. The United States post Cold War issued statecraft guidance on Chinese spying that is, at least in this case and many others, not applicable. They maintain that the Chinese government is operating under the "1000 grains of sand" strategy, whereby every Chinese citizen living abroad is contributing to Chinese spycraft. In the case of Robert Mo, this couldn't be less accurate, but this narrative is believed at the highest levels of our government, and trickles down to the day-to-day operations of the FBI; in concrete terms, agents are more likely to use excessive force and resources apprehending Chinese scientists because their alleged participation is spying is perceived to be more nefarious than it really is.
The author also brings up an interesting point, which is that it's hard to feel like Monsanto-Bayer is a victim in ANYTHING. While this argument reeks of whataboutism, much of Mr. Mo's trial revolved around the harm he had done to Monsanto and Pioneer (which in reality is next to none). The companies lawyers in court whined about the impacts he could have on their future profits. But there is a hypocrisy in a multi-billion dollar company whining about seeds being stolen in a criminal trial, and it makes me uneasy to think about how much money the US government spent in an attempt to protect a multi-billion dollar INTERNATIONAL corporation. I don't think that Monsato-Bayer needs more assistance from the government than it's already getting.
Finally, this book hits home the idea that even if a group of people satisfies some stereotype on average, this stereotype is unlikely to apply to any given person you're interacting with. In the context of this book, if you grant (and I don't actually grant this) that more Chinese scientists are spying for China than the general population, this doesn't mean that when you're talking to a Chinese scientist they are a spy. In fact, they almost certainly are not. We should treat everyone kindly and judge each person on the merits which we uncover in the process of getting to know them, rather than our preconceived notions of who they will be.
Our food system is in peril, careening towards a cliff. In an increasingly familiar story, mega companies
At least for the corn belt, there are some surprisingly realistic solutions; replanting a fraction of their corn acres with vegetables for example, or expanding cover-crops in the winter.
A hobby horse of mine is pointing out how unscientific many "scientists" are, and how members of the public seem to either write science off completely or to treat the word of "scientists" as gospel. I think this is worrying for many reasons, and Hossenfelder (a particle physicist) presents a case-study of how egregiously unscientific some branches of particle physics have become. I am of the belief that many "scientists" who study theoretical physics should be considered science fiction writers rather than scientists, and have not earned the "dump trucks of flaming grant money" being hurled at them. This book articulates what I have already criticized: today's field of theoretical physics isn't science because it doesn't produce scientific (testable) theories, and it isn't math because it claims to be describing the world. So what is it? I maintain that a fundamentally untestable theory is called "myth" or "fiction" or "religion", and that it deserves no place in a department which claims to be doing "scientific" work. Hence, I view Brian Greene as a science-fiction author who happens to be quite good at a specific type of math. He is not a physicist.
While this book was written prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of its lessons can be applied to the state of "science" in the wake of March 2020; especially group think of scientific communities. I am thinking first and foremost about the complete write-off of the lab-leak hypothesis by "scientists", a theory which now appears to be the most likely. Attendant is the apparent infallibility of Faucci (I've seen people wearing Faucci shirts, as if he's a superhero), which is fundamentally caused my a lack of understanding of how science works. Just because Faucci practices science (which he doesn't anymore, he is a bureaucrat), doesn't mean his word is law, or that what he says is true.
The writing is so-so, but Hossenfelder adds in quick spurts of wit, and content-wise it is fantastic. A must read for people who think that physics is "true".
"Not everything, everywhere is for us" pg 214. The book gives a take on the limits of human imagination and pushes back against the notion that the universe exists for us. We are but tiny specks in the current of a grander narrative.
Some great advice in here. Especially about email; taking a break from it and sending better emails. Definitely a book I want to revisit and a book I encourage anyone to read who feels (like me) that they aren't getting enough done in a day. Spoiler alert: you're just not using your time well.
I was first introduced to Boorstin through Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death", and since then Boorstin has become one of my favorite authors and thinkers. He is "conservative" writer in the sense that he understands and values established institutions without dogmatically craving novel interpretation. Boorstin's work more singularly gets to currents
The following are a selection of my favorite essays from the collection, and some brief thoughts I had on them, or were provoked by them.
I recognized Waters' name from the famous cookbook "The Art of Simple Food"; a cookbook which I hold in high regard (and taught me how to make bread). You may also know Waters as the mentor to Samin Nosrat, author of the bestseller "Salt Fat Acid Heat". I am glad that I bought this book, because Waters articulates, through the language of cooking and food, many misgivings about our culture that I feel strongly.
The subtitle is "A Slow Food Manifesto", and Waters delivers a rallying cry against what she terms "fast food culture". She contends that the proliferation of fast food in the United States and around the world, whether casual or a symptom, is intimately tied to our adoption of morally shallow values, a stressed and shorter life, and a general malaise about our conditions here. In seven chapters she lays out what she sees as the "values" of fast food culture, and the myriad ways in which those values manifest themselves in our daily lives. For example, a value of fast food culture is speed: food should be obtained quickly and eaten quickly. She says that this value begins to permeate the rest of our lives; we expect our deliveries to be next day, we expect to learn a foreign language in a week, we stop reading books because it takes too long, we are concerned when friends don't text back instantaneously. Waters outlines these values and their consequences deliberately, all through the lens of being better people, which is to say not politically.
After the fast food values come seven values of "slow food" culture; which values what we eat, who we are, and our communities. She makes a case for embracing values which recognize the work that goes into our existence, to break away from being a cog in the advertising machine.
It is refreshing to hear such a cogent point made outside of an academic-rationalist framework, and Waters is able to make her point all the more poignant through an observational tone, couched in the language of eating; something we do every day.
This is a wonderful book. Its short and I recommend that everyone read it.
The second book I've read now by C.S. Lewis. This book is a series of "letters" written by the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, who is tempting a human soul to hell. Through this lens Lewis explores Christian theology and uses sarcasm to indicate what proper Christian living is. I found this style of presentation less profound than his direct approach in "Mere Christianity", however I could see "The Screwtape Letters" being a better introduction to Christianity for someone who prefers reading novels to reading non-fiction and theology.
Most of this book I found to be a cogent articulation of my views on love and relationships. However there was a section which I found concerning and counter productive on keeping secrets from your partner.
The authors maintain that one should keep some things from their partner. Examples given included kissing your co-worker or finding your partner's sibling more beautiful than them. They also suggest not bringing up some things which you resent about your partner, so as not to hurt them.
Beyond my personal experience of this strategy being counterproductive, let me elaborate from "first principles" why this is a doomed strategy. It helps to illustrate with an example: We (including the authors) recognize that if you kiss your co-worker that this is "bad" in the sense that you are not living up to your commitment to your spouse. Therefore there is some problem in the relationship which led you to take this action. As something we recognize as bad, it should be clear that we wish not to repeat this behavior. However, if you take the cowards way out, and don't tell your partner; don't "hurt" your partner with this truth, than there is no way for either of you to address the underlying issue. You must talk about it, your partner will be mad, and they will resent you. But this is the first step in growing as people. You are flawed, as evidenced by your mistake that made your partner mad, and if you want to grow as a person, grow as a couple, you must tear down the illusions of stability to start building a stronger foundation. These storms are not impossible to weather with the right attitude, but one must be constantly evaluating where they are at.
This section felt out of place in the book. The authors had talked previously about how dangerous it is to "protect" your partner from the world. A successful marriage is built on the idea that you are together, that you will face difficulties as one, that you must accept the fact that you will hurt your partner and they will hurt you. Love is not a painless institution. It seems hypocritical for them to follow this up by suggesting you hold secrets from one another. I can tell you from personal experience that this advice will not do you any favors.
This is another one that I think everyone would benefit from reading. It is quite short, and keep in mind the aforementioned objections.
This book was profound. Everyone should read it. Quite short.
Malcolm Gladwell's books have always read like his podcasts, even before he did podcasts. Perhaps because I have been listening to his podcasts I am more aware of this, but this book reads like one of his podcasts (which isn't a bad thing).
Good story of the evolution of bombing strategy during the second world war, culminating with Curtis LeMay's firebombing of Japan.
I think that this book is a good jumping off point for further reading into World War II, especially the Pacific campaign.
The book is a short read.
A perspective on Christianity from someone who was previously an atheist.
I am a sucker for Orwell books.
Aristotle is another book that I have trouble "rating", so I have assigned the Ethics a 7. Rating "classics" in any discipline is difficult; certainly these books should be read by everyone, so in some sense they should score perfectly. Yet on the other hand, Aristotle is difficult to read, belabors certain points, and has a style of rhetoric which doesn't necessarily hold true in the modern conception of argument. For example Aristotle repeatedly argues that things are true because our wise men tell us they are true (appeal to authority). As well as arguing for terrestrial morality based on the behavior of the gods.
Now, in a few paragraphs I am unable to unpack the nuance of appeals to authority and appeals to the gods (for example, gods are instantiations of collective morality which validates them as an argumentative point). Suffice to say that the Nicomachean Ethics do not read like contemporary philosophy, yet I still think that anyone interested in philosophy should read them.
There are profound points Aristotle makes which remain applicable today, especially with regards to moderation, friendship, and willpower. It is always striking how similar (and different) to Aristotle's society our society is today. The problems of heart and mind that face me faced Aristotle and his contemporaries. In this regard, the book is timeless, and reiterates points on, for example, friendship which are echoed in contemporary self-help books.
I couldn't help but come away from reading Aristotle with a deeper appreciation for philosophy in general. The currents which steer us today can be traced back to this great philosopher, and his powerful intellect is carried through the pages. From asking questions which we care about, to laying out an argument, Aristotle is a foundation for further philosophical exploration.
One of my all time favorite books. Everyone should read this. I need to read it more frequently than every two years.
I haven't nailed down a formulaic approach to assigning number values to books, but I think I should start; I have no idea how to rate this book, so I gave it a seven.
This book is Corbusier's manifesto against a generation of architects who were producing crap (my words, not his). Corbusier was a radical in more ways than one, and reading the manifestos of radicals is always an experience (*ahem* Marx). But (continuing the analogy with Marx) Corbusier was enormously influential in the architectural direction established in the early 20th century, and his aesthetic philosophy continues to have a profound impact on (good) architects of today; perhaps only implicitly.
I found the book thoroughly though-provoking, and I think for this reason alone it is worth reading for anyone who is interested in architecture.
The sequel to 'An Antidote to Chaos'. JBP synthesizes the work of Jung, Freud, Nietzsche, Goethe, and many others into a digestible book on living 'aligned' (my wording, not his).
I recall that the previous book suffered a bit from the academician curse of language; this book was far less dense than I remember the first being.
I found rules 6-10 the most valuable and well-written of the 12. I especially liked the discussion of art and museums from Rule 8 (Try to make one room in your home as beautiful as possible).
Overall the same themes from An Antidote to Chaos occur here as well, and readers familiar with JBP will be unsurprised by much of what is contained in this book. I recommend his first book more broadly, but if you liked the first book I think that you will also find this book valuable; if for nothing else but a refresher on some important philosophical tenants.
Francis Su is a bit of a personal hero to me in a somewhat tangential way. I have never actually read much of his writings, but have always heard good things about him and respected the things he was doing. Now I feel confident in saying that I respect and admire Su.
The book covers 13 aspects of human flourishing and how math is intimately involved in each. Rather than write a manifesto, Su has accomplished a comprehensive work of philosophy, and paradoxically a meta-pedagogy text without being instructional. The book establishes a framework for teaching and interacting with mathematics and mathematical ideas. I read the book through the lens of an educator, and I know that I am in part the intended audience, however I cannot speak to the book's impact for someone outside of math education.
At the end of each chapter is a letter from Christopher Jackson, an inmate at a federal prison who is studying (quite successfully) to become a mathematician. Chris's (this is his preferred familiar) story is saddening and motivating, his passion for math comes through in the letters and it is heartbreaking to know how long he will remain incarcerated. It is heartening to know that someone can develop as deep a knowledge of mathematics as Chris has in such adverse circumstances. It also brings up the inhumanity of our "justice" system, but this is a digression for another day (and a digression I was thankful Su never focused on, since this is not a book about the criminal justice system).
A goal for me reading this book was to attempt to make connections between philosophical principles regarding teaching and doing math, and the reality "on the ground" of teaching math, especially over Zoom. I am teaching a differential equations class this Summer, and have been confronted with the thorny issue of how to do this in a way that will benefit the students. Su's philosophy is attended by concrete (for philosophy) suggestions for implementing these principles in a classroom. It was helpful to read about things I already do to make conscious how these things benefit my students.
Some suggestions I wrote down are
I am glad I found this book, I think that if you are in mathematical education of any sort it is an important book for you to read. If you aren't in math education I think it is still an important book to read. If you're interested in math or math education you should pick this one up!
My gradnmother introduced me to Mucha several years ago while I was living with her in the Bay Area, and I have been captivated by his art ever since.
This book gives a brief timeline of his life, his philosophy, and how the two manifest in his art. Throughout are high quality printings of his art, and this book will serve as a phenomenal reference for my own artistic endeavors.
A fantastic introduction to the philosophy and examination of architecture. Topics include uses of negative space, contrast, color, scale, rhythm, texture, light, and acoustics. The author manages to be philisophically poetic without waxing in a burdonsome manner. I thouroughly enjoyed reading this book.
I read this book as part of my current art and architecture kick. Among other things it was a great example of how to write about beautiful things, a skill I would like to work on improving.
A history of the ideas and thinkers which coallesced into the American pragmatism movement. Well written, with an emphasis on the thinkers behind the ideas, and how their experiences shaped their conception of the world.
Well written critique of "historicism", which I can best describe as the viewpoint that one can explain historical changes in society by overaching sociological theories (i.e. Marxism).
The book was a bit advanced for my philisophical bona fides and about halfway through I began wishing I had been taking notes. This is definitely one I will read again.
Popper is one of the easiest philosophers to read, he does not commit the sin, so common in philosophy, of using excessivly difficult language. His ideas are presented clearly and understandably.
Another one of my favorite novels that I have ever read.
An inspirational book that defies classification. I am not sure wether to put this on my philosophy shelf or my textbook shelf!
There are some fairly technical chapters on signal processesing that, while useful, I didn't feel they fit the theme of the book.
I think that anyone in a technical field should read this book! And I will certainly be coming back to it in the future.
A must read for those interested in whiskey. I read this book several years ago and it was great going back and reading it again after all this time. The book contains all the information you might like to know about the varieties of whiskey and the work that goes into making them.
Content wise this book is fantastic. Kershaw's writing style is drawn out and convoluted at times; the book felt like it could have been about 1/3 shorter had the author been more concise with his writing. For example, Kershaw seems to be a fine of multiline appositive phrases, which I personally find confusing.
A collection of essays by Bronowski covering topics in science, art, and ethics. Bronowski is a deep and original thinker who is exceptionally readable. I disagreed with several of his essays but found the majority to be profound and well-reasoned.
I particularly like his ideas on the creative process in art and science, and I appreciate his view of science being closer to art than we tend to consider. His ideas about imagination were also stimulating.
Apparently I am late to the party, Taibbi's book was a bestseller when it was released back in 2014. The book is either a comedy or a trajedy, depending on whether you are a elite graduate from an Ivy Leauge school, or a poor black American living anywhere in America. Taibbi outlines the egregious miscarrying of justice which is occuring in the United States today and systematically punishes citizens for the crime of being poor, while absolving the wealthy from any punishment.
Taibbi's main purpose is to concretely illustrate the stark contrast between the non-persecution of the Wall Street bankers' obvious crimes and the voracious persecution of poor (mainly Black) Americans for crimes as inane as standing in front of thier own home.
Additionally, the book is an indictement against the Obama era DOJ under Eric Holder, which so catagorically abdicated its obligation to the American citizen that it is incredible the Obama presidancy was able to leave the legacy that it did. The policy promlugated under Obama, through the DOJ, and defended by Obama himself, is embarrasing at best and criminal at worst. The effect of these policies was to encourage financial crimes on a massive scale simply because Holder and Obama managed to set the consequences at nil. It remains to be seen how these non-prosecutions will manifest themselves in the coming decades, but there are troubling signs that there is a second wave of CDO/subprime derivatives being marketed as far more valuable than they are in reality, which could easily lead to another collapse in the global economy.
The recent energy surrounding the "Black Lives Matter" movement this year is a clear signal that the injustices revealed by Taibbi are still alive and well in the US some six years later, and that we as a society have a long ways to go before the Black community is treated with the same dignity afforded to a white Wall Street banker. I was unaware of the injustices carried out against members of our society, and Taibbi's measured journalistic exploration is far more convincing than any angry emotional argument seen on TV or soical media. It is clear that Taibbi is incensed by the stories which he is telling, but he has managed to remove emotional pleas from his narrative. He states the facts of the story, and the reader has no choice but to be disgusted. In my opinion this is the best form of journalism.
I should make clear that I was a Taibbi fan before reading this book, but now I'm fully sold. This is an important book, and still relevant today in the midst of new conversations regarding the treatment of Black Americans. The book also raises philisophical questions about the purpose of law enforcement in the United States, and the role that justice serves in our country. Everyone should read this book.
It is refreshing to read a "self-help" book from an era before self-help was a genre. It seems that philosophy served an important role in our lives, guiding us and orienting us in a confusing world. As Jung puts it, "our philosophy is no longer a way of life [...]; it has turned into an exclusively intellectual and academic affair". There is enormous value in learning from philisophical texts, and I consdier this particular book by Jung to be philisophical in nature.
Several themes continually manifest themselves throughout, despite Jung touching on so many topics in such a short book. Jung
A striking consequence of reading this book was realizing the unoriginality of Jordan Peterson's philosophy. Peterson makes no claim to be original and brings value as an educator of Jungian ideas, which is to say that my illusion of his originality was my own folly. Reading Jung sheds light on just how deep the Jungian ideas prevade Peterson's teachings, and I encourage anyone who is a fan of Peterson to read Jung and gain a deeper understanding of the foundational ideas which Peterson has expanded on.
Boorstin's third and final book in his tour de force Knowledge Series. The first book, "The Discoverers", chronicles scientific and geographic knowledge, explorations of the physical world. The second book, "The Creators", explores artistic knowledge through the great Western artists. The final book, "The Seekers", follows humanity's quest to understand our purpose through religion, philosophy, and science.
Boorstin describes, in 41 chapters, important "seekers" in the Western Cannon, following the more or less historical timeline from Moses and the Old Testament seeking of Isreal, all the way to the 20th century's Malraux and Bergson. Throughout, Boorstin emphasizes these thinkers' contributions, as well as connecting them to one another to show how the thoughts of one seeker are built on the shoulders of another.
I found the selection to be well chosen, and I have vastly extended my philosophy reading list based on many of the famous men described in this book. I found Nietzsche conspicously absent, and would have liked to read Boorstin's perspective on Nietzshce's "God is dead" and how Nietzsche's conception of truth fits into the greater framework of thought on truth with thinkers shuch as William James.
This is the shortest of the three books in the Knowledge Series, and equally readable and enlightening. I reccomend this book to anyone curious about the historical foundations of modern philosophy and thought, and I actually think everyone could benifit from reading the trilogy in it's entirety. Boorstin is a phenomenal author and deserves every one of his acolades (including a Pulitzer prize).
The subtitle to this book is "The seductive lure of authoritarianism", and Applebaum sets out to explore why Western democracies seem to be going through an "authoritarianism" phase. She sets out to answer this question through an anecdotal exploration of her own friendships with prominent and powerful people who have given up their democratic bona fides in favor of an authoritarian outlook on the world.
Applebaum, as always, is a phenomenal writer and her prose is magnificent. This is probably her shortest book to date; despite being a quick read, it is packed full of insights into democracy, authoritarianism, and the expectations that the citizenry has for it's government.
I must start by flaunting my Malcolm Gladwell bona fides: I have read every one of his books and listened to many if not all of his podcast episodes. Needless to say I am a fan.
Talking to Strangers is written in Gladwell's familiar voice. Narrative, short sentences, well placed quotations, and quippy paragraph and sentence enders ("Amanda Knox was one of those mistakes.", "He's the dishonest person who acts honest."). (As a side note, this is not a new style for Gladwell, but it reads EXACTLY like his podcast. I was reading this book with his inflections playing out in my head!) The book, in following the Gladwellian tradition, spins a story about things we don't understand very well, pulling from social science research, interviews with military men, and conversations with historians. Fundamentally, Gladwell is aiming to show us that our assumptions that we understand the people around us are wrong, and how those wrong assumptions play out in our world.
I think overall Gladwell succeeds. There are many points he makes which are thought provoking, chief among them that we (humans) suck at detecting liars, what implications does this have for law enforcement, judges, and everyday interactions. Gladwell does a good job illustrating his points using real world examples from the CIA, court cases, and empirical studies, and I always learn very interesting things reading Gladwell's books. He starts the book with the Sandra Bland case, and his conclusion comes back to this case and puts all the pieces together in a fantastic way. Despite disagreeing in some very specific places, I wholeheartedly get behind what is essentially a call for better policing through understanding the sociological pitfalls involved when talking to strangers.
The sections on sexual assault evidently makes some readers uncomfortable; for example if you're not prepared to re-evaluate your feelings on Brock Turner and Jerry Sandusky then you may want to skip those chapters. However I actually think that if you're not prepared to re-evaluate those feelings then that is evidence that you probably should read those chapters and face yourself with things that will be difficult to hear (for example, maybe Brock Turner's punishment wasn't as egregiously light as we have been led to believe).
Overall if you are a fan of Gladwell you will love this book. If you have never read a Gladwell book before I recommend digging deeper into his assertions before assimilating his world view into your own. Sometimes his reading of studies can be myopic and misleading.
Fromm's essays on disobedience are relevant today and quite powerful, and I would give these essays a 9/10. However the collection is finished by a description of Fromm's "Humanistic Socialism", which falls short for many reasons, primarily that it could never be implemented, and is difficult to strive for.
Fromm prompted me to consider an interesting problem, namely the ethics surrounding following laws. We are raised to believe that we should be good citizens and follow the laws, but in the case that these laws are not ethical or
A stunning indictment of the media institution, written in Taibbi's familiar scathing tone. Taibbi's central claim is that the current incentives of the media, combined with turning a blind eye to journalistic ethics, has rendered the contemporary media establishment a sham. Taibbi is an insider, he wrote a book called "Insane Clown President", and reveals shocking insights into how the media has utterly dropped the ball in the last four years.
Once you get over Taibbi's choppy paragraphs, the book is an easy read and the tone is forceful throughout. The book is decidedly non-partisan; after spending a chapter ripping apart the Bush administration for WMD, he proceeds to rip into establishment Democrats for pushing lies regarding Russiagate. I think this book is enormously important, especially as our country plunges into turmoil caused by a pandemic and racial tensions; we as citizens must recognize that media is not a panacea, and should be treated with the same skepticism as utterances from our Executive. I think all responsible adults who participate in our democracy should read this book cover to cover, and internalize its message. The press has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that they cannot be trusted as an authoritative source of current events.
Pan weaves an impressive narrative by following the lives of Chinese people struggling under the authoritarianism of the one party system. Through this citizen focused approach, Pan addresses the horrors of the Great Leap forward, the Cultural Revolution, the fallout from the Tienanmen square massacre, the subjugation to further poverty of the proletariat during the move to capitalism, and the suppression of free thought by the party sanctioned propaganda department.
What is amazing about China over the past 70 years is it's adherence to the Orwellian state described in '1984'; either Orwell saw the end state of communism uncannily precisely, or the founders of one party rule used '1984' not as a warning but as a guidebook. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has struggled in it's efforts to control history, largely because their citizens were there and remember. Efforts to re-write the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution and the Tienanmen Square Massacre leave the Chinese people in a disturbing state of dissonance. Through fear and fist, the CCP is banking on those who remember these events aging out before the stories are recorded for all to see.
China should be a shining beacon to the West that free thought is an effective check on authoritarianism. When an 'official narrative' is imposed on a population, we lose the ability to check corruption. China subverted rule of law by reinforcing to party officials that they didn't need to follow the established law, which ballooned into unmitigated corruption. China illustrates the need to punish all criminals, regardless of their political standing. We are already seeing this start in the upper echelons of Washington, where we have quasi-legalized bribery through lobbying, which goes unchecked by the judiciary system.
The irony of any Marxist revolution is that the power vacuum is eventually filled by the same hierarchical structures which were torn down by the revolutionaries. Eric Hoffer in "The True Believer" discusses this phenomenon whereby the bourgeois is replaced by the proletariat, who fill the power vacuum to become the 'new bourgeois'. There is a certain inevitability of societal hierarchies which any Marxist oriented governmental system fails to account for.
This book is important, and more important now than ever. China shows the West where our current foibles lead us, and we should be scared. The President is pushing an 'official narrative', as are the media and corporate institutions. The difficulty lies in the fact that there can only be one 'official narrative', and unless diffused, the situation will come to a head. The left is explicitly calling for a revolution, and it appears that our entrenched media and political classes are all aboard.
Revolution is a blunt and bloody way to change. The efforts to 'burn it down' rarely end well. Marxist doctrine ignores the emergent nature of hierarchy in society, and is remarkably callous towards large swaths of a population; which is why Marxist revolutions tend to be the most horrific in terms of lost human capital. It is undeniable that Marxist ideology has proven to be the most lethal idea of the 20th century, vastly eclipsing Nazism in terms of lives lost.
The United States was founded around the idea that hierarchies are emergent, and humans are susceptible to toxic ideas. Our government is an elaborate set of checks and balances imposed to prevent mob rule, prevent ideological proliferation, and to prevent tyranny. Yet over the past 100 years, we have slowly eroded these protections, and enshrined in the Executive branch far more power than the founders ever intended. My hope is that there is an effective strategy to pull back from the brink without resorting to a revolution, which would almost certainly lead to civil war. My main worry is that neither side respects our founding values, and we will lose the most liberalizing enlightenment government ever created.
Nowhere near as good as Guns Germs and Steel.
This book could have been condensed from 500+ pages to about 120. Diamond goes into excruciating detail about the collapse of various societies, far more detail than is necessary for him to make his points. His personal anecdotes are frequent and pointless.
Overall, I think the main message of this book can be gleaned by skimming the final chapter: Societies have a tendency to collapse due to factors such as over exploiting resources, conflict with others, and conflict among themselves. Changes are slow, and societies often don't realize what is going on until its too late. There is hope because we might be able to stop the current unraveling of our globalized society before its too late.
You can skip this one.
I am not sufficiently lettered to appreciate this work, which I can only assume is far more profound than I gleaned.
The writing is sufficiently obtuse to make it difficult to understand what Kierkergaard is trying to say. I would like to revisit this book at a later point and give it more time to really try to parse out his points.
The first book in the "Resistance Library" by Harper Perennial is a classic by the moral philosopher Eric Hoffer. He establishes his theory of the true believer and how mass movements come manifest themselves. Written in the middle of the 20th century, there is emphasis on the mass movements led by Hitler and Stalin.
While reading this book I couldn't help but compare Hoffer's prognostications with contemporary mass movements. Namely Trumpism and Anti-Trumpism.
So much space has been devoted to identifying the mass movement aspects of Trumpism and the rise of Donald Trump, and I think even the alarmists largely have this correct; he is a figurehead for a movement consisting of discontented people who have a blind devotion to an illogical (in the technical sense of not adhering to first order logic) doctrine. Even without reading this book I think that this is plain to see and largely acknowledged. However reading this book certainly helps to crystallize and give context to the rise of Trump in the United States.
I am more concerned with the fact that there is another mass movement which gets far less attention, the Anti-Trumpists. Certainly I grant that Trumpism is more "dangerous" at least superficially, but there are many Anti-Trumpists who have an air of superiority of which they are undeserving.
Paradoxically, I think that a subset of Americans worship a demagogue who doesn't exist; the Anti-Trump. The Anti-Trump is a specter who represents the opposite of Donald Trump. Despite not existing, the Anti-Trump seemingly acts for many as the leader of the mass movement which I call "Anti-Trumpism". This movement checks off many of the boxes required for a mass movement, and its adherents have a similarly blind faith in the Anti-Trump that Trumpist's have with Trump. The doctrine is simple and illogical (again in the technical sense); Trump can do no good, and must be removed from office for progress to be made (incidentally, it should be noted that the Senate Republicans adopted a similar "Anti-Obama" viewpoint during Obama's second term).
I would be curious to find explorations of movements with figureheads who do not exist; in some sense perhaps Catholicism fills this role, however I would argue that the Pope fills the role of a figurehead while God and Jesus are artifacts of the faith rather than leaders. The specters of Anti-Trumpism and Anti-Obamaism seem as powerful as their Trumism and Obamasim duals.
Overall I think everyone should read this book. It is short, and at times technical, but it is worth the small effort.Adhering blindly to a faith is easy, and we tend to follow the path of least resistance. I think that this book can help open your eyes to the ways in which you follow blindly a mass movement. A healthy democracy requires a certain degree of self-awareness, and I think that reading this book helps build that self-awareness.
Lest this book be seen solely as a scathing rebuke of Trump; recognize that if that is your take away, you are likely worshiping blindly at the feet of the Anti-Trump. And as Hoffer points out, there really isn't a difference between the two.
This book is a history of Silicon Valley, from its rise beginning after WWII to now.
Historians write books to tell a story, and the author has an enormous amount of control over how that story is told. Most historians have a central thread or common principle guiding their exposition. O'Mara's book was more or less a disjointed thread of ideas meandering through the history of the Valley. To the extent that there was a binding narrative it was that sexism and racism abound in the hiring practices of the Valley companies. I don't have a problem with writing a heavily agendaded history book (I don't think it will be a successful book, but I digress), and I do think that there are issues with the culture in Silicon Valley that need to be addressed. However, O'Mara tries to sneak her agenda in without the reader noticing, and it becomes so blatantly apparent that it becomes irritating.
She has picked the stories of several random women who lived in the Valley during its rise, and tells their stories. Again, I have no problem with this, but it was narrativly jarring to have the story of the meteoric rise of Steve Jobs interrupted by a chapter long digression about a women who was a programmer during the same time who had few female colleagues.
I think O'Mara was split between writing two different histories, couldn't decide, and ended up writing a mediocre mishmash. I think based on her (poorly hidden) agenda she should have followed Howard Zinn and written a "People's History of Silicon Valley", spending far more effort illustrating how Silicon Valley was built on the backs of minorities and women who got no credit while greedy white men took the money and credit. I think that this is a valuable history to write, and the perspective is not at all baseless. I feel like this is where her heart was, but she tried to write an economic history instead. I feel like O'Mara could have written a good "History" book, or a good "People's History", but she chose to mediate between the two and fell flat.
From a stylistic perspective I have several gripes as well. Her use of informal language feels forced, at times she writes like a historian, but interspersed are sentences that sound like they were written by a teenager in a text message. Another stylist complaint I have is the frequent reference to names (of people, places, and companies) and events with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with them. I have worked in Silicon Valley, and consider myself at least somewhat knowledgeable about Valley lore. There were several times were O'Mara referenced something I had no context for, with no subsequent follow up. For example Elon Musk is mentioned, but in context the reader has to already know who Elon Musk is! This book cannot stand the test of time with writing like this.
Another section that was out of place was a not so subtle targeted jab at Peter Thiel, for seemingly no reason than to align the author against him. It was distracting and had zero relevance to the story she was telling.
Overall the book WAS interesting, and I filled in some gaps in my Silicon Valley knowledge, but I don't think this book will be "the" history of Silicon Valley.
This book is an interesting look at the history of gastronomy in France. There were three main reasons it didn't resonate with me. 1: I am not French. This book was originally written in French and is translated to English. There is an assumption that the reader is familiar with French geography and cultural history. This is a fair assumption, and it makes me appreciate the implicit assumptions made by American authors about my level of inherent knowledge. This mainly made me want to read more about France and French history. 2: This book is academic in nature, I think. I couldn't quite tell who the intended audience for this book is. 3: Meandering. There was quite a bit of meandering, and it was often difficult to tell what the author was trying to say.
This book is a classic and it is my understanding that it is still recommended as an introductory book on the subject of Rome. It is a bit more academic in tone than many non-fiction books, aimed at a university level. My father used this book as a textbook when he was in college. The writing style can be a bit difficult at times due to the time when the book was written.
Overall this book is a good jumping off point for further study. It gives a good characterization of the three periods of Roman history and highlights the character of the Roman people.
The story of Jesus between birth and his time preaching the gospel in Israel. Classic Christopher Moore humor and littered with biblical references. Well researched with many inside jokes. Overall I enjoyed it but find the "Bloodsucking Fiends" series more to my liking.
The stunning story of a Silicon valley healthcare startup which spent years misleading investors, clients, doctors, and patients.
Fun book that I have been wanting to read for a while. Very quick read, but certainly entertaining. The book goes through some humerus applications of mathematics to Christmastime.
This book had been on my reading list for a while and I am glad that I finally read it. This book has earned an outpouring of positive press, and it is well-deserved.
This book is a classic and everyone should read it. Every time that I read it I feel like I should be reading it more frequently.
Carnegie has many wonderful insights into managing people in your life, whether in your work, personal, or familial spheres. well written and helpful. I am always reminded after reading this book how much more I have to work on in interpersonal communication.
Not sure this one counts as self-help, but it is certainly self improvement. This is a really cool little book which outlines strategies for improving your memory. It is pretty incredible how much you can memorize in a short period of time, and I am excited to continue implementing these strategies in my day to day life.
I recommend this book to everyone, it is very neat and only stands to enrich your life.
The self-help marathon returns with this quick read.
This book is a collection of tips put together by the author and intended to increase daily productivity in your career and family. I appreciated many of the suggestions, and I think they are all good tips. Harris writes in an easygoing and approachable style, and doesn't make any grandiose claims about results. Among other things, he recommends eating a healthier diet to avoid midday crashes and to improve lifelong health, tracking your habits and how you spend your time, and being assertive about saying no and only allowing people as much time as you have.
This book fits into the theme that I have been trying to adhere to of: be responsible for yourself (your time, money, ect.), be deliberate in your actions (spending money, choosing tasks to do), always look at the bright side of things (read positive intent into the world), and consistently plan for future personal growth while acknowledging your past successes.
Vincent Harris and Jordan Peterson would likely get along. While Peterson is very explicit about the importance of personal responsibility, Harris is much more subtle, and this book definitely has personal responsibility as an undercurrent
More psychology than self-help, this book is choc full of interesting psychological and anecdotal information about willpower and self control.
This book seeks to help readers reorient their relationship with money so that their lives no longer revolve solely around working for a living. The book presents nine "steps" for readers to take on the road to "financial independence", i.e. living off of a passive income.
This is the first book in my "pre-graduate school self-help tour" and I quite liked it. I think that the steps that are outlined will help me to manage my spending and build a financial safety net. I also liked that the book isn't as "cultish" as many self-help books. Additionally the authors aren't promising anything radical, their thesis is, more or less, "you can change your relationship with money and it is likely that you can live on less than you do right now." This is no "get rich quick book".
This is a good book. Muller is an established experimental physicist and does a good job of explaining the various phenomenon which contribute to our understanding of time. He is against the string theorists argument that it is so beautiful that it must be true, and argues that a physical theory must not only be testable, but actually make predictions which are confirmed (String theory has made zero predictions which have been confirmed, and many which have been shown false). He discusses the limitations of science and the latter part of the book is a philosophical discussion revolving around humanity's place in the universe. Overall the philosophizing was insightful and I think a strong argument for the limitations of scientific reductionism.
I would recommend to people who enjoy general public physics books and anyone interested in the philosophy of science.
Edward Lorentz is widely credited as being responsible for the study of chaos taking off. His famous "Lorentz attractor" (what he calls the butterfly) sparked a global frenzy of chaos studies, one which he was completely unprepared for.
This is a good read and I appreciate the perspective on chaos from such an esteemed scientist. He is humble about his contributions throughout, and does a good job of explaining the "essence" of chaos.
Boorstin chronicles the history of discovery, of mankind learning about the world and themselves. Boorstin's choice of topics are great and he asks overlooked questions. Along the way we learn about the discovery of time, history, statistics, and the discovery that the world was bigger than we thought and the discovery of the new world. Throughout, Boorstin emphasizes the context in which these discoveries were made, and highlights the courage needed to explore the world in a time before we knew what the world looked like.
I found the sections on time and history particularly interesting, since I had never considered that prior to some way of measuring time, humanity was at the mercy of the sun. It was also interesting to learn about the evolution of history; for much of European history, Europeans were not concerned much with the past. It took radical thinking to begin to explore the past in a capacity which went beyond the bible.
Boorstin is an incredible writer, and throughout the entire book remains engaging and eloquent. This book is a fantastic read and I recommend it to anyone interested in expanding their view of the world. Every chapter contains insightful discussion of interesting "discoveries" and the world in which those discoveries were made.
Pinker shows that the modern age is the most peaceful time in the history of humanity. This book stands as a beacon of rationality in a constant barrage of 'bleeding' news. This book is incredibly well written, keeping with Pinker's standard of exceptionality.
I think that everyone should read this book, however due to the length I recognize that this is unrealistic. Barring a full read, I hope everyone at least reads a synopsis online. If you have the time, it is an important book that really should be read in its entirety.
Very quick read. Has some helpful tips for doing well in mathematics classes, mostly common sense stuff. It is helpful to read about all the stuff that you know you should be doing but aren't. I think that reading this book will motivate ANYONE (math, non-math, grad, undergrad) to do better in their coursework.
I recommend this to anyone who wants to improve their grades in school and has two hours to spare. I also HIGHLY recommend this book to students coming to college math courses (specifically lower division ones like algebra and calculus) who feel like they are not cut out for math courses. You are, and you should read this book!
Sebastian Junger never ceases to impress, and this book is no different. His writing is unrivaled in this genre: simple, elegant, and emotional. I have little interest in fishing yet this book had me on the edge of my seat. Junger does a great job of engaging the reader, and presents the material in the best possible way.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story, which happens to be true. Junger manages to hold the reader's attention like a novel while remaining true to the events that took place.
I think that for what this book is, it is perfect.
Interesting book written before Omnivore's Dilemma. The book outlines four foods which have 'domesticated us' through the exploitation of a human desire (sweetness, beauty, intoxication, control). Pollan writes poetically about each, and my biggest complaint about the book is that he could have edited it down quite a bit.
I will review chapters 1-14 separately from 15, 16, and 17 after which it will be clear why I wanted to set the book down and why I am glad I did not.
Chapters 1-14: 1/10 I dislike both the content and the style of the first fourteen chapters. These chapters present a historical overview of word leaders who Albright feels have historically or are currently eroding small "d" democracy (western ideals of freedom, ect).
Albright begins the book by setting the tone that this will be a case for why Donald Trump is a fascist. I think that this was a mistake, probably commit ed after the other chapters were already written, when Trump was elected. Later in the book it becomes more clear what her intentions are, but the first chapter presents a thesis that is not supported by any of the remaining chapters. She proceeds to give brief, simplistic, and slightly misleading accounts of historical "fascists" rising to power, with strong implications that Trump is doing these same things. However, the implications are stretches at best, and to avoid ruining her credibility, she forces the reader to make the connections, rather than making them herself. This leads to a weird feeling of not being entirely sure what her purpose is.
Additionally, she makes several false claims which erode her credibility as a historical author. The most notable is the Mussolini ran on a platform in which he promised to "drain the swamp". This is true, but Albright is of course implying that Trump is employing Mussolini's fascist strategies in the United States. In fact, Mussolini was talking about literal swamps, which were breeding grounds for mosquito's carrying malaria. Politifact has rated Albright's statement half-true for obvious reasons, and as a former Secretary of State who is a supposed authority on this subject, she should know better. She also quotes without reference contested labor statistics to make a point.
Next is her writing style, which is much worse in the first chapters, but doesn't improve much later on. The book reads like a high-school history assignment written hastily with thesaurus in hand. Examples of ill-placed and fancy sounding words abound, and Albright liberally misuses the semi-colon, in ways that would make an English teacher wince. Albright would benefit from reading any style-guide, and the publisher (Harper) would benefit from hiring better editors. Other offenses include inconsistent numbering (1997 vs. Nineteen ninety-seven) and poorly worded sentences. The writing style was distracting and reading the first part of this book was an uphill battle.
Chapters 15, 16, and 17: 6/10 These chapters are better. There is a fair critique of Trump as a president, and points out areas where Trump is advancing the interests of the United States, and areas where his rhetoric could be damaging. I appreciate her speculative nature, and unlike many pundits her criticisms are neither exaggerated or undeserved. Next are three 'nightmares': Far right fascism in the United States, far left fascism in the United States, and the rise of a centrist fascist leader in response to increasing terrorism in the United States. All three scenarios are plausible, and she presents them in an effective manner. She closes with a list of questions that we should ask about political figureheads as a litmus test of the autocratic tendencies; questions that we should ask to ensure that democracy remains the dominant political philosophy and freedom prevails.
Albright is clearly left of center politically, but fair to the right, a trait that I respect and think adds weight to her words. She acknowledges that the Trump election is a symptom of a much bigger problem, rather than castigating Trump voters as "deplorable". Overall, she is a truer patriot than many on the right, and cares deeply about freedom, whether that freedom comes from the right or the left.
I give this book a weighted average score of 1.9/10, generously rounded up to a 4 because I think the last few chapters are fairly good. Overall, read the last three chapters and skip the rest. Albright could have done with publishing the last three chapters as op eds and done away with the rest.
Cedric Villani is a character. His eccentricities come to light in this book and make for sometimes surprising reading. Villani wears a three piece suit with cravat and spider broach... every single day. He is clearly quite brilliant, with a nonlinear train of thinking characteristic of mathematicians.
Birth of a Theorem reads like a diary, with interspersed blurbs on pieces of math or profiles of famous mathematicians. I appreciated the background on these mathematicians because it gives a good contextualization for working mathematicians who are leading mathematical research today.
The book goes into great detail about some esoteric aspects of PDE theory, and it feels like the book is intended for mathematicians rather than the general public. Villani does not hesitate to include jargon and (non-trivial) equations. Overall, I would only recommend for mathematicians.
Atul Gawande addresses medicine's shortcomings in dealing with patients in the end of their life. We resign the elderly to nursing homes which force the ends of their lives to be miserable and depressing. We put terminal patients through increasingly harrowing treatments despite knowing that the outcome will be the same.
Atul Gawande says that medicine and doctors should focus on what the patients want for the end of their life, what their fears are, and how to allow them the best possible end. He advocates shifting away from the all guns blazing approach that medicine currently has to one of palliative care and hospice, focusing on the patients and their families rather than the illnesses.
The book is heavy, with no shortage of heart-wrenching end of life stories. I think this book is hugely important though for influencing the way we view mortality, and our expectations for how the end of our lives should go. Modern medicine cannot stave off the inevitable, and often times modern medicine significantly decreases quality of life for little, and sometimes reduced, extra time in this world. I think this book has something to offer everyone and I couldn't recommend it more highly
E. D. Hirsch presents several arguments critical of the current education system in America, mainly lamenting the lack of a structured curriculum, and our inability to effectively teach children to read.
Recent research has shown us that reading skill is largely dependent on a general knowledge base, and Hirsch argues that rather than spending 250 minutes a day on 'critical reading skills', we should instead focus on building a framework of general knowledge which will help children to understand the things they are reading. Hirsch cites research showing that this approach leads to higher reading scores in later grades as children accumulate a vast amount of general knowledge.
Hirsch address American schools's lack of a coherent curriculum, which he says leads to inconsistency in teaching across grades. An example he gives is that many American children read Charlotte's Web three years in a row in the early grades. He proposes more concrete standards being imposed, and forming more rigorous state and federal curriculum standards to replace the vacuous standards that we currently have.
Hirsch also addresses the discrepancy in education achievement between middle and upper classes children and their lower class peers. Because upper and middle class children (in general) have parents who share general knowledge with their children, and speak in more descriptive language, upper and middle class children have a distant advantage when it comes to reading. Hirsch suggests modeling the classroom after the middle class home, which he argues will bring the lower class students up to speed with their more fortunate peers.
Hirsch is a bit more measured (shall we say realistic) than someone like Gatto, and echos some of Postman's sentiments. Although if memory serves me, Postman has been critical of Hirsch's 'general knowledge' approach.
Those interested in American education should pick this one up. Hirsch offers great insights and the book is quite short.
This book is way too long. Alan Weisman is very good at describing things. Too good. The book is basically 300 pages of vividly described events, to the point of obscuring the actual things that Weisman is trying to convey. The book is a collection of essays on what will happen to various human creations should all of humanity disappear overnight, leaving all other creatures and structures intact. Weisman addresses what will become of cities, statues, forests, oceans, and much more.
The nail in the coffin for me was when Weisman proposed a solution to our effects on the planet is to implement a one child policy to reduce our population. Anyone who seriously considers this an option for the future is ignorant of the moral and ethical implications of such a policy, fully played out in China, where female children were regularly killed or abandoned. This pessimism about the world is an underlying theme throughout the book, and a pessimism which I do not hold. Weisman clearly has a certain degree of distain towards the human race, a distain that is not entirely unwarranted. However I think that his extreme pessimism is unwarranted. Humanity has collectively overcome major hurdles, and the present climactic and environmental changes are just another hurdle on our track.
Overall, this is one that you can skip.
This book is a little too long.
The first half is very good, Rebanks shows how the modern world doesn't value human history, and how landscapes become more about the land and less about the holistic landscape; farmers, culture, community, animals, and history. This section forces the reader to evaluate a different perspective of what life can be, and the book is targeted at the intellectual type who would miss the forest for the trees. The implications for policy are implicit too, that we should consider how our decisions and move towards heavy industry strip us of something special that makes us human, and our larger national and global connections to the planet, each other, and the things that keep us alive. Implicit is that modern culture has forgotten where it came from, and ignores things like where food comes from, and not for the better.
The second half, while interesting, is largely farming stories. These give context to the author's life, but lack the profundity of the first half of the book. The author writes in a very specific style (which he is doing deliberately in the style of one of his childhood favorites), but this style can and does get old for a while.
Another thing that I found interesting is the motivations of the author to continue farming despite it costing, rather than making, his family money. He takes on a second 'educated person' job to support the farm. It is an interesting view of why there is more to the world than capitalistic domination. The book gives insight into why celebrating traditional cultures is still valuable, and how the modern way of living is trampling on thousands of years of our history.
I think that the first half offers a wonderful perspective on considering the lives of people who are different, very different, from you, but the second half could be skipped and the reader will be none the worse off.
Haidt explores the psychological foundations of morality and how those influence our political discourse. Central to his argument is that we have (in general) six moral taste receptors which represent six different moral triggers. He argues that both liberal and conservative viewpoints are necessary to a successful country, but that conservative morality is rooted in all six moral tastes, while liberal morality is based on just two.
He argues that this is fundamentally why liberals and conservatives are divided on so many things; that they do not have a good understanding of the other's moral framework. Liberals are concerned with care above almost all else, while conservatives are concerned with collective morality and freedom from oppression.
Haidt suggests that everyone should seek to understand the morality of those you disagree with, because very few people are evil, and productive discourse requires that we treat everyone as good faith actors.
The book is extraordinarily well written and I recommend this book to everyone.
This book does a good job summarizing the history and current state of affairs with regards to the court system's treatment of privacy in the United States. A somewhat esoteric book, if you are looking to scare people with the Snowden revelations, I would recommend Data and Goliath instead. This is a nice follow up book for people who are interested in learning more.
Bryson gives a short history of our time on earth, touching many disciplines of science. Among the topics are physics, chemistry, geology, and paleontology.
The book is a bit too long, and drags on a fair amount. About halfway through it turned into a bit of a slog. Maybe this is because I am familiar with many topics in the history of science. I did learn some interesting new things, and Bryson does a good job highlighting the eccentricities of some of the scientists.
More than anything, the book made me realize how much of scientific 'fact' is merely conjecture based on small amounts of evidence. Paleontology especially seems to allow its body of 'fact' to contain wild speculation. In reality we know very little in many fields that are considered 'science'. Natural sciences especially do not follow the scientific method, and it seems a wonder that they fall under the same umbrella as physics, chemistry, and mathematics.
This would be a good read for someone interested in the history of natural 'sciences', or someone who wants to understand why discoveries in the natural sciences seem to change so frequently.
Our education system lacks purpose. People are educated, but to what end. Certainly upon graduating students will be capable of securing a high paying job and ammassing a large amount of material possession, but can we say that they have been educated? Is churning out economic worker bees the true purpose of school?
Postman says no, and claims that American Public Schools have only false gods to which they serve. He argues in favor of a revaluation of why we educate with the goal of finding a reason for students to go to school that has the end goal of them being 'educated'. Among the false gods which Postman feels schools serve are the god of economic utility, the god of multiculturalism
He suggests four alternatives and points out that these are but a few of the possible gods our schools can serve. The goal is to find a way for our students to get an education and become productive members of society.
Of course, Postman's argument hinges on his conception of what it means to be education and the assumption that the reader does not think the current state of affairs in schools is moving in the right direction. He freely admits as much and does not write with any intention of swaying those who think education is already good.
A quarter of a century later this book reads as describing today. This was true of 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' as well, and my understanding is that the same is true of much of Postman's work. In particular Postman talks about multiculturalism, which refers to the school's rejection of traditional western values and media and replacement by the values and media of other cultures. Postman thinks we should explore other cultures, in fact he encourages the practice, but worries about two things with regards to multiculturalism.
The first is that he is saw the start of a trend towards educating groups celebrating only 'their' accomplishments. He says that this leads to group isolation and an ignorance of other cultures, with an inevitable buildup of racial and intergroup tensions. This trend has only continued to the sentencesaccessible modern day situation, where the eschewal of 'patriarchal white media' has led to rising racial tensions not only in the United States but in Europe as well. Ironically, in the pursuit of 'equality', the agenda pushed by multiculturalists seems to do just the opposite, creating an environment where racial minorities detest whites, and whites do not learn about the struggles of minorities as to have any basis of understanding of their situation.
Among other things, Postman touches on the dangers of cultural relativism,
Postman is one of the only thinkers I have read who writes in a way that seems accessible to the general public. His writing is superb, and his arguments are cogent and easy to follow.Good survey of mechanics, thermodynamics, and several other topics. Well written and informative. Some sections include dated material, but for the topics contained in this volume, not much has changed in the past century.
I was pleased to find a section on introductory Fourier analysis. The sections on waves and the wave equation are good self contained reference resources.
I think that reading these books is a rite of passage for physicists and applied mathematicians.
Thinking about graduate school has revealed the need to work on my writing. Writing clearly and elegantly is important for communicating scientific discoveries to the scientific community. Many scientific papers are unapologetically opaque, leaving the reader stranded looking for the core arguments.
Steven Pinker would like to help. Pinker brings together psychology and linguistics to help support his view on good writing. There is a chapter dedicated to the tree structure of language and how to use that structure to make your sentences sound better.
The book is, unsurprisingly, well-written. It is the kind of book that should probably be picked up every once in a while for a re-read. Most of the technical justifications went over my head, but I came away with a good feeling about my own "writer's ear". I also found many examples of places where I myself have made writing mistakes. I think that my writing will improve as a consequence of reading this book, and urge anyone interested in writing to read this book.
There are more cats than people in the United States, and one third of American households are home to a feline friend. This is despite domestic cats being considered an invasive species by the Australian government, despite research showing that they are inept rat hunters, and despite carrying a parasite called Toxoplasmosis that is known to cause birth defects in newborns. Abagail Tucker sets out to explain why house cats have thrived in spite of these impropriates.
Cat puns abound, with prose both lively and engaging. Tucker, a self proclaimed cat enthusiast, does not shy away from the controversy surrounding these animals. She succeeds in getting to the heart of why the domestic cat has come to occupy such a special place in our society, despite objectively being a terrible pet. Along the way, we learn many thought provoking theories about cats, presented by experts in feline related fields. Cat's eyes are binocular and forward facing, and alongside owls, cats are the most human-looking animal. Their facial architecture is particularly similar to the human infant, and looking at cats causes the same neurochemicals to be released that looking at a child does.
Tucker succeeds in answering her own question; why have cats taken over the world? The book is easy to read, engaging, and informative. I would recommend this book to anyone with even any interest in cats, and for cat owners this is a must read.
This book should be required reading for everyone, not just students of math and science; a strong statement, but I am a mathematician. Good problem solving techniques are pervasively applicable in every aspect of life and with the rise of the internet and cellphones, problem solving ability is severely lacking. The book doesn't actually say much that will be particularly surprising, especially to someone with a mathematics background; most of the heuristic techniques have already been implicitly taught and subconsciously executed. What makes this book useful is that it outlines these heuristics explicitly, and allows the reader to consciously identify the problem solving strategies they are already using. Bringing the problem solving process into the conscious mind is vastly helpful, and even before finishing this book I noticed an improvement in my problem solving abilities.
This is not a "book" in the traditional sense, but rather a combination example guidebook and dictionary; the closest thing that that compares is a literary style guide. The book has two distinct parts, an exposition of a conversation between student and teacher, followed by a dictionary of heuristic problem solving techniques. The first part is straightforward, and can be read like an ordinary book. The second part, the dictionary, reads a bit like a... dictionary. The author has alphabetized the heuristics and provides a comprehensive explanation for each, ranging from a few sentences to a few pages. This part of the book is a bit tedious to read, since the various heuristics reference one another, and their is no clear progression of ideas linking them.
On the one hand, I understand that the goal of this book is to be some sort of quasi-reference text while retaining some semblance of being a "guidebook", but on the other hand, I do not know if I agree with the author's decision to present the material as a dictionary, especially because it doesn't feel like the kind of thing I will pull out and read one entry from at a time. The book feels like something that should be re-read in its entirety somewhat periodically rather than a book I will pull out when I am stuck on a particularly difficult problem. With that being said, my one sentence summary: EVERYONE should read this book.
This book is not great. It drags on, and on, and on. I think that the book is far less controversial than many make it out to be, but I wouldn't recommend reading it.
Nick Bostrom has delivered a fantastic analysis of the risks and dangers of humanity's development of superintelligence. Bostrom has a mature and well thought out delivery of the key points regarding the concern of our trajectorial journey towards superintelligence. Bostrom avoids both fear-mongering and blanketed speculation, instead focusing on a well organized and pragmatic analysis based on the current state of the art artificial intelligence and philosophical research. The allegory to the unfinished tale of the sparrows, included at the front of the book, is potent and even more powerful after reading the book.
The book starts with the history of the field of artificial intelligence, before diving into the somewhat speculative task of elucidating humanity's possible paths towards obtaining superintelligent capabilities. Next, he explores the dynamics of the so called "intelligence explosion", and how such an explosion could lead an AI towards obtaining a "decisive strategic advantage". He then outlines the potential "superpowers" that a superintelligent agent would possess, and the possible driving factors behind their decision making.
Bostrom proceeds to address the dangers of superintelligence, and what kinds of things could (and likely would) go wrong should humanity succeed in creating a superintelligent artificial intelligence. He follows this by addressing the tools we have at our disposal to confront the problems associated with making sure that a superintelligent AI will not take over the world and exterminate humanity as a means to its incessant pursuit of some literally defined goal.
He takes a brief departure to discuss the broad classes of possible superintelligences, and to explore the possibility of multiple superintelligent agents becoming active at the same time (the so called multipolar scenario).
Next, Bostrom returns to the topic of prescribing value to superintelligent agents, and making sure that a superintelligent agent would have humanity's best interest as its primary objective.
He finishes with an overview of the unintuitive nature of rapid and slow research and development, and a subtle call to action that humanity needs to start taking seriously the threat posed by superintelligence, and that we develop the necessary safety infrastructure prior to an intelligence explosion.
Throughout, Bostrom makes explicitly clear his desire to avoid anthropomorphisising artificial intelligence, which is an important and often overlook component of talking maturely about superintelligence. I think that this point may be one of the most important points touched on in the book, as the popular media and culture has adopted a sort of attitude towards superintelligence as it has towards a zombie epidemic, an attitude of fear combined with the confidence that such an existential threat cannot and will not occur. Bostrom argues fervently that superintelligence is not only achievable, but possibly achievable in our lifetime, and that we are woefully unprepared for such an existential threat to occur.
The only downside to this book is its approachability. Bostrom has an incredible vocabulary, and the book is densely packed with information, which can be daunting to many readers, especially those that do not have the time or patience to look up words and decipher the meaning of some of the "philosospeak". For this reason, I recommend this book to anyone who feels comfortable feeling challenged by a book, and is interested in the mature coverage of artificial intelligence.
I would say that this book should be required reading for anyone in the field of artificial intelligence, and possibly even computer science. The dangers discussed in this book should be in the back of the mind of every serious AI researcher.
Another great book by Sebastian Junger! The book follows the case of a woman from Belmont (a small suburb of Boston) who was raped and murdered in Junger's childhood neighborhood when he was an infant. The murder took place at a time when the Boston police department was in a frenzy looking for the so called "Boston Strangler", a serial killer who had committed many similar murders in the greater Boston area.
The police arrest an African American man, Roy Smith, who was cleaning the victim's house that afternoon, and sentence him to prison for the murder. Mr. Smith maintains that he is innocent, even during sentencing, and is convicted by a jury of the murder.
However the murder is not so cut and dry, and a few years later, a local workman (who was working at Junger's childhood home), confesses to almost all of the Boston Strangler murders. He is also convicted, although his testimony seems dubious, before being stabbed and killed in Prison.
The book ends in a sort of limbo, with no satisfying conclusion, as many such stories end. Roy Smith died in prison, so the only people who know the actual events that transpired on that day in Belmont are deceased.
After the book was published, DNA evidence was released that indeed confirmed that Al DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler.
The book is incredibly well written in a concise and matter of fact style that is characteristic of a piece by Junger. He allows the reader to deduce that Roy Smith may be innocent, and that Al DeSalvo is the Boston Strangler early on, leading the reader to be in suspense for most of the first half of the book. Junger's concise delivery and pragmatically presented accounts of events made for an enjoyable read, and as always, Junger writes in an approachable and friendly manner. The tangential material serves only to enhance the core story, and includes many useful but potentially irrelevant details that highlight the situation the police would have been faced with investigating this crime.
The book reads a bit like a mystery book, however it diverges from this theme by presenting a somewhat omnipotent narration and concluding in ambiguity. Junger has done a fantastic job of highlighting the pitfalls inherent in our judicial system, and elucidating the fact that we cannot know things for certain.
Overall a fantastic read and I would recommend to anyone who enjoys true crime non-fiction.
Hunt and Thomas deliver a wonderful technical book which outlines 70 principles practiced by so called "Pragmatic Programmers". The book steps through each principle, and the principles are collected together in "chapters" by their relevance to one another.
Rating: 8/10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: 6/10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: 9/10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics, technical
Rating: 7.5/10, Categories: non-fiction, physics
Rating: 5.5/10, Categories: non-fiction, physics
Rating: 9.5/10, Categories: non-fiction, sociology
Rating: 9.5/10, Categories: non-fiction, sociology
Rating: 9/10, Categories: fiction, drama
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, computer-science, technical
Rating: 9/10, Categories: non-fiction, computer-science, technical
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: 9.5/10, Categories: fiction, drama
Rating: 10/10, Categories: fiction, drama
Christopher Moore delivers a side-splitting romantic, vampire comedy that follows a young writer (Tom Flood) who moves to San Fransisco and begins a relationship with a vampriss (Jody). The book follows the hilarious mis-adventures that the couple gets into.
Rating: /10, Categories: fiction, sci-fi
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, mathematics
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, finance
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, technical, computer-science
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, food
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, self-help
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, intelligence
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, history
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, politics, finance
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, technical, finance
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, technical, computer-science
Rating: /10, Categories: non-fiction, technical, computer-science