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Kindle Notes & Highlights
gunpowder was invented accidentally, by Daoist alchemists searching for the elixir of life.
On 10 April 1802 the Great Survey of India was launched. It lasted sixty years.
The British conquered Bengal, the richest province of India, in 1764.
Mississippi Bubble, the largest financial crisis of eighteenth-century Europe.
Some religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.
On 15 September 1830, the first commercial railway line was opened, connecting Liverpool with Manchester.
In 1700 the world was home to some 700 million humans. In 1800 there were 950 million of us. By 1900 we almost doubled our numbers to 1.6 billion. And by 2000 that quadrupled to 6 billion. Today there are just shy of 7 billion Sapiens.
It was primarily the French who decided who would be Syrian and who Lebanese.
There is an important cognitive and ethical component to happiness. Our values make all the difference to whether we see ourselves as ‘miserable slaves to a baby dictator’ or as ‘lovingly nurturing a new life’.2 As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how. A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.
if we developed a cure for Alzheimer’s disease that, as a side benefit, could dramatically improve the memories of healthy people? Would anyone be able to halt the relevant research? And when the cure is developed, could any law enforcement agency limit it to Alzheimer’s patients and prevent healthy people from using it to acquire super-memories?
but according to the book: why we sleep, didn't we learn that Alzheimer's disease is caused by a particular protein's excess of clotting in a particular brain area. If we were to find a cure then that would be to reduce or cut short that protein. How does that help in gaining super memory? it's not about capacity afterall.
