false 3 325 231 true 5911644 read 1 true 330136 currently-reading 49 true 330135 to-read 22 true 330303 reference 13 true 1837403 abandoned 9 true 2609808 to-finish-reading 7 false 7304519 essential 6 false 2609827 to-reread 1 false 7232277 public-policy http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77579762 Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever (Kindle Edition) by Ray Kurzweil
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69508882 to: Sprawl: A Compact History (Paperback) by Robert Bruegmann
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69622496 to: This Alien Shore (Paperback) by C.S. Friedman
While This Alien Shore has some compelling ideas — particularly the Gueran society of what would today be called "neurodiverse" individuals — the author gets the flavor of computer technology completely wrong. She seems to be heavily influenced by traditional cyberpunk, and throws around ridiculous conceptions of programmers and code. She even gets her science dead-wrong here and there, e.g., claiming that evolution is "random". (Mutations might be random, but evolution itself is anything but!) The plot itself also felt weak, with an unsurprising "twist" and a yawn-inducing ending. Friedman's imagery is otherwise quite compelling, although she's on much stronger ground when she sticks to fantasy (e.g., her Coldfire Trilogy); it's always easier without reality getting in the way. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72246922 to: Applied Economics (ハードカバー) by Thomas Sowell
bookshelves: essential
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77579720 to: Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes (Hardcover) by Kyle Cassidy
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/63107782 to: The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self (Hardcover) by Thomas Metzinger
The Ego Tunnel is an interesting but unfortunately marred overview of the science of consciousness. The lesser issue is Metzinger's somewhat awkward prose: he never completely succeeds in his goal of writing for a lay (i.e., non-neuroscientist/philosopher) audience. His writing isn't bad — you just get the constant, somewhat distracting feeling that it could be improved; this may be due to English not being his first language. The interviews he tacks onto the end of chapters also disrupt the flow of the book; they're mildly interesting (despite Metzinger's patently leading questions), but should have been integrated better if at all.

The far more annoying factor, and what cemented my 3/5 rating, is his insistence on making ridiculous normative claims in the final third of the book. It seems that Metzinger couldn't help but let his philosophical background get the better of him, and even takes the crazy position that it would be unethical to create artificial consciousness because it has the *potential* to create suffering in the awareness of those artificial beings. (He then goes on to make the expected claims that meat-eating can't be justified either, etc., etc.) This is all quite aggravating, as he's reasoning from values he assumes he shares (and wrongly so!) with his audience. He should have stuck with evaluating the quite-interesting state of research and the conclusions we can draw from it, and left the ethical consequences (if any) as an exercise for the reader.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74635574 to: The Sunless Countries (Virga, #4) by Karl Schroeder
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/63108563 to: Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing American Schools Back to Reality (Hardcover) by Charles Murray
Real Education starts off solid; Murray points us in the direction of some much-needed realism with regards to the American educational system. We are indeed absolutely wasting our time by expecting that every child has the same innate capacity for academic achievement, or that expecting that every child (or even most children) will benefit from a liberal arts college education.

Where the book falls off the rails is in Chapter 4, where Murray expounds on what he believes the gifted should be learning in college. He clearly believes in objective values, and that furthermore a broad liberal arts education can help people become "wise" in coming to grips with questions relating to such values, as they need these in order to make better decisions which will ultimately affect the lives of those around them as members of America's elite. I just can't help but roll my eyes in contempt at anyone who honestly lays claim to there being such a thing as objective values; since there's no basis for a value statement which does not itself include a value statement (the "is-ought problem"), anyone claiming otherwise is peddling bullshit. Furthermore, I would hope that an economic conservative like Murray would trust that the best way to avoid the messy problems of an elite screwing up is to put most decisions in the hands of the most efficient, powerful system we've ever devised: the free market. When people are free to make mutually beneficial arrangements with one another that can succeed or fail on their own merits, much of the angst over an "elite" goes away.

Real Education is worth reading if you have an interest in the topic and avoid Chapter 4 (and related parts of Chapter 5); this unfortunately guts much of the book, which really could be condensed down to an essay that hits the salient points without the silly "elite" nonsense. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73968824 to: Pirate Sun (Virga, #3) by Karl Schroeder
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73665189 to: The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, #1) by R. Scott Bakker
bookshelves: abandoned
This bored the living hell out of me; I abandoned it after two chapters. I probably shouldn't have been surprised after my disappointment with Bakker's Neuropath; I'll be avoiding anything else he puts out, methinks. ]]>