If you enjoyed The Martian, skip Artemis and read this one. It's what a friend of mine called "competence porn", the characters solve engineering puzzIf you enjoyed The Martian, skip Artemis and read this one. It's what a friend of mine called "competence porn", the characters solve engineering puzzles at a steady and captivating clip, and you as the reader are nicely pulled along through a fairly interesting story. It's an easy sci-fi page-turner and I can happily recommend it....more
The book is a discussion of how we should consider the idea of the garden of Eden, as laid out in Genesis: Fairly interesting but I haven’t read Dante
The book is a discussion of how we should consider the idea of the garden of Eden, as laid out in Genesis: is it something we as humans can return to and strive towards? Or is it something we’re doomed to be excluded from forever. Canonical catholicism claims the latter, but this began with some questionable reasoning from Augustine (which Agamben discusses in great detail), and the idea of Eden has been considered differently by other equally brilliant minds such as Eriugena and Dante.
Agamben wants to conclude that Augustine is a bit full of it, Eriugena and Dante are much more interesting, and that the Eden idea is something we can strive towards. And probably the idea of original sin is not really worth its salt (unless you’re trying to justify the necessity of baptism and the institution of the church).
I particularly enjoyed the first part of the book with its discussion of Augustine’s interpretation of the early bible and other works in order to make an argument for original sin— a feature of catholic christianity which (I wasn’t aware) didn’t exist prior to Augustine, and whose origins and motivations are deemed pretty suspect by Agamben.
Specifically, Agamben accuses Augustine of engaging in motivated reasoning, coming up with the necessity of original sin to justify the necessity of the institution of the Church and of the scrament of baptism. At some point Augustine flat out says that if there’s no original sin then Jesus died in vain. Augustine also begins to consider the story of the garden of Eden as a *literal place* rather than allegorical (as he did earlier in life). All this reads to me as pretty suspicious reasoning on Augustine’s part.
I’d also never heard of Eriugena prior (perhaps more out of my own lack of education than his actual obscurity), and was thoroughly fascinated to learn more about him.
I skimmed most of the parts on Dante since I haven’t read the Divine Comedy, sadly. Maybe I’ll get to that next....more
Fun at times but not really a serious criticism... reads more like a delicious rant than anything else. Does have its moments though, and it’s not thaFun at times but not really a serious criticism... reads more like a delicious rant than anything else. Does have its moments though, and it’s not that long....more
Pretty dense, strong arguments written for a critical audience of economists. Full of horrible fun facts, eg that wealth inequality in the US is worsePretty dense, strong arguments written for a critical audience of economists. Full of horrible fun facts, eg that wealth inequality in the US is worse today than it was in europe pre-WW1...more
The book takes place as Marco Polo recounts his adventures through Kublai Khan's empire, to the emperor himself. The format is of several short (paragThe book takes place as Marco Polo recounts his adventures through Kublai Khan's empire, to the emperor himself. The format is of several short (paragraph to 2-page-long) descriptions of (fictional) cities, interspersed with dialogue between Polo and the Emperor.
At first the descriptions of the cities were a little too simplistic for me, and I was not too drawn in, but over the course of the book the tales of Polo's travels become more pithy and metaphorical, and I found many of these entrancing.
At one point Khan asks Polo why he never speaks of his home city, Venice. Polo responds that all his descriptions of other cities are in fact descriptions of Venice--we describe our adventures in the context and contrast of our familiar homes.
I would read this book again, especially on a trip to somewhere new....more
All animals are equal, some are more equal than others. Quick read, clear parable about the dangers of destroying your masters only to be subjugated bAll animals are equal, some are more equal than others. Quick read, clear parable about the dangers of destroying your masters only to be subjugated by new ones. Rings of what (i think) happened in the soviet union. In the introduction to the book, the person (not Orwell) talks of animal farm as a mythological tale, a fairy tale, of the likes of Sleeping Beauty. I see the comparison but I'm unsure where the line is between fairy tale and propaganda--especially since this is such an _obvious_ story about the USSR. Surprised we didn't have to read this in high school....more
I'm like, so woke to the white house now. For as much as the current administration seems like a TV show, this is the definitive 'behind the scenes' dI'm like, so woke to the white house now. For as much as the current administration seems like a TV show, this is the definitive 'behind the scenes' dialogue track. Fairly tabloid-y, plenty of "who said what about whom". Nobody expected them to win the presidency, Trump does not read books, Bannon seems like the only figure with a real plan (ostensibly a plan for a white american ethnostate), and of course Bannon is out now. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't terrifying.
Main takeaway: Trump doesn't read books, doesn't really read anything (news headlines? twitter? these don't really count...). Gets all info from TV shows and makes lots of phone calls....more
As a friend pointed out: Vaguely crass stoicism for millenials.
Key takeaways are 1) You can't give no fucks about anything (results in nihilistic doomAs a friend pointed out: Vaguely crass stoicism for millenials.
Key takeaways are 1) You can't give no fucks about anything (results in nihilistic doom). 2) You have to give a fuck about some-things. 3) You have a limited amount of fucks to give. 4) Pay attention to what you're _choosing_ to give fucks about. Also, you're going to die anyways so there's no reason not to just _do_ stuff.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Follows classic self-help book format of 'say the the same thing in different ways over and over and over again until your reader gets it. Good stories, easy read. ...more
Interesting to me because I didn't know much about the area through this geopol lens, as well as because my family is from India. Kaplan follows a samInteresting to me because I didn't know much about the area through this geopol lens, as well as because my family is from India. Kaplan follows a sampling of nations bordering the Indian ocean starting with oman, and including pakistan, india, bangladesh, thailand, cambodia, myanmar, and china. Overall I learned about the historical trading patterns and how that developmentally has figured into the modern situation in this area.
Key takeaways I think are that US naval dominance will recede in the face of growing chinese dominance in the area as China starts to build a blue-water fleet (because now china is no longer pouring majority resources into securing land borders). Philosophically allied nations like india will share the responsibility with the US wrt policing indian ocean and securing trade channels. I think he also suggests that china while not democratic is sufficiently compatible with US markets that conflicts seem very unlikely. At time of writing china had 0 aircraft carriers, they have at least 1 now.
Other interesting portion was about Indonesia, which Kaplan kinda suggests is an ideal Islamic landscape-- they're much more progressive in part because the hot/humid weather doesn't let you wear too much repressive clothing, and the utility of the hijab is toward 'symbolically entering the workplace', things like that. Topped by the fact that indonesia has the largest population of muslims in the world... pretty positive outlook to me because I think most of what I hear is "rah rah islam can't coexist with Christianity"....more
This book was anti-recommended to me by a friend who's now in medical school—she said when she originally read it, the book repulsed her away from medThis book was anti-recommended to me by a friend who's now in medical school—she said when she originally read it, the book repulsed her away from medicine for over 2 years, before coming back to her passions in it to finally go to med school. Seemed like a pretty drastic reaction! Having read the book though, makes perfect sense.
House of God is described as being to medicine what Catch 22 is to war, or what Animal Farm is to.. being a pig in a slaughterhouse. Though I haven't read either of the others (probably should), so I don't have the privilege of describing it the same way.
House of God is a dark, satirical-yet-realistic look at the inside of the medical system as it existed in the 1970s, from the perspective of a beginning medical resident named Roy Basch at a technically-fictional hospital in New York (named, you guessed it, the House of God), based off the author(Samuel Shem)'s experience doing this exact thing at the non-fictional Beth Israel Hospital.
This book is.. disturbing. Hilarious. Sexually explicit. Throughout, it follows the dehumanization of patients, the detachment of the doctors, the corruption of the incentive structure(s) of medicine: towards high-priced high-powered "cures" for patients who will never be cured. As our narrator-protagonist concludes, "to do nothing for the [patients] was to do something, and the more conscientiously I did nothing the better they got.". What everyone needs in the end is a hand to hold theirs, someone to talk to, and really to not be pumped full of rat poison in a quasi-heroic attempt to stave off leukemia rooted in the hero-complex of the doctor and explicitly unwanted by the poor patient, unable to die in peace.
I replaced into that last quote the word [patient] instead of the term used in the book: gomer. Short for Get Out of My Emergency Room, gomers are the inpatients-who-never-die-and-yet-never-live of the hospital. The book's full of the LAWS OF THE HOUSE OF GOD.
LAW NUMBER ONE: GOMERS DON'T DIE.
By the late middle of the book, and the late-middle of Roy's first 12 months of residency it's clear that the real challenge is not to save his patients, but to save himself. To still feel warm in the face of so much death, to still care about his relationships and friendships, to be able to grieve the suicide of his fellow resident. To notice his coping mechanisms and those of the older doctors around him (running for heath, fishing for calm) for what they are—but not to lose the essential humanity inside himself.
In the end Roy (and the author, given the semi-autobiographical nature of the book)'s final decision is to TURF himself to psychiatry and study mental health. To focus on talking with people rather than wielding the size 14 needle and 4-plussing declining LOLs in NAD to death.
I liked it for taking the sheen of the medical profession. I have the utmost respect for doctors, and I think the geist is that we ascribe unto them superhuman qualities, that they're "medical professionals" and have compartmentalized away their human characteristics. Or even that the field of medicine, given its politics and sometimes perverse incentives, works the way we want it to (keeping in mind that *no field* works the way we want it to). But also that everyone's trying to do what's right, and shit's complicated.
Technically I've only read the first of 5 sections of this book, only the first is written by Jung and the rest are written by a set of his collaboratTechnically I've only read the first of 5 sections of this book, only the first is written by Jung and the rest are written by a set of his collaborators. I'm more interested in reading Jung's primary stuff so I don't think I'll continue to read more of this.
This is Jung's most accessible and final work, and likely a good intro to someone totally unfamiliar with his thought.
Jung talks about the importance of the specific materials in dreams, the reconciling of ancient mythology with psychological knowledge into archetypal forms, and the importance of doing this for modern humans who have fallen partially into a dead materialist ontology which we know is not totally accurate.
Looking forward to reading his really meaty stuff....more
Story of a man's journey through life first through exploration of life's meaning, first in English litera(Read cover to cover over the last 3 hours.)
Story of a man's journey through life first through exploration of life's meaning, first in English literature (getting a PhD in the subject), and then towards medicine; finally becoming chief neurosurgeon at Stanford Hospital before dying from lung cancer.
Beautifully written and infused with poetic wisdom and snippets from writers of ages past (nodding to his literary explorations). Short and touching....more
Full of wise tidbits from Bezos, and interesting strategy he's followed in the course of building Amazon.
“ When you are in the thick of things , you cFull of wise tidbits from Bezos, and interesting strategy he's followed in the course of building Amazon.
“ When you are in the thick of things , you can get confused by small stuff , ” Bezos said a few years later . “ I knew when I was eighty that I would never , for example , think about why I walked away from my 1994 Wall Street bonus right in the middle of the year at the worst possible time . That kind of thing just isn’t something you worry about when you’re eighty years old . At the same time , I knew that I might sincerely regret not having participated in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a revolutionizing event . When I thought about it that way … it was incredibly easy to make the decision . ”
On working in the warehouse: “ You can’t do a job like that on caffeine . You have to do it on carbs , ” he says .
“He gave Blue Origin a coat of arms and a Latin motto , Gradatim Ferociter , which translates to “ Step by Step , Ferociously . ” The phrase accurately captures Amazon’s guiding philosophy as well . Steady progress toward seemingly impossible goals will win the day . Setbacks are temporary . Naysayers are best ignored .”
On growing your intial systems so very fast as at a successful startup
“During the early years of frenzied growth , new product categories had been plopped onto Amazon’s logistics network with little preparation . Employees remember that when the home and kitchen category was introduced in the fall of 1999 , kitchen knives would fly down the conveyor chutes , free of protective packaging . Amazon’s internal logistics software didn’t properly account for new categories , so the computers would ask workers whether a new toy entering the warehouse was a hardcover or a paperback book .”
Several Bezos-isms
“ If that’s our plan , I don’t like our plan . ”
“ I’m sorry , did I take my stupid pills today ? ”
“ Do I need to go down and get the certificate that says I’m CEO of the company to get you to stop challenging me on this ? ”
“ Are you trying to take credit for something you had nothing to do with ? ” “ Are you lazy or just incompetent ? ”
“ I trust you to run world - class operations and this is another example of how you are letting me down . ”
“ If I hear that idea again , I’m gonna have to kill myself . ”
“ Does it surprise you that you don’t know the answer to that question ? ”
“ Why are you ruining my life ? ”
[ After someone presented a proposal . ] “ We need to apply some human intelligence to this problem . ”
[ After reviewing the annual plan from the supply - chain team . ]
“ I guess supply chain isn’t doing anything interesting next year . ”
[ After reading a narrative . ] “ This document was clearly written by the B team . Can someone get me the A team document ? I don’t want to waste my time with the B team document . ”
On software developers:
“ Developers are alchemists and our job is to do everything we can to get them to do their alchemy . ”
Ruthless corporate tactics:
On its first day , Endless[.com, amazon’s direct compete to Zappos.com when they were trying to aquire zappos] offered free overnight shipping and free returns . The deal ensured Amazon would lose money on each sale . But it would clearly apply pressure to a certain company in Las Vegas . The Zappos board members considered Amazon’s opening maneuver , gritted their teeth , and a week later matched it with free overnight shipping . The difference was that the new Endless.com , unlike its rival , enjoyed almost no traffic or sales volume and so lost little with its overnight - shipping offer ; Zappos ’ profit margins took a direct hit .”...more
Orwell spends the first half of the book traveling to various towns in early 1900s England and attempti(For context, this book was published in 1937.)
Orwell spends the first half of the book traveling to various towns in early 1900s England and attempting to experience the lives of those living there. Throughout, the theme is of the general squalor in which the lower class exists, and how it's not something they're really going to be able to get themselves out of magically, or through hard work alone.
He spends time as a coal miner, actually going down into the mines on a regular workday, and describes the terrible working conditions, underpay, and long hours of the miners. He goes into their homes and describes the terrible living conditions, decrepit architecture (unpleasantly small spaces packed with too many people, no gardens and generally no happiness), lack of toilets (one for many houses), often no plumbing, etc etc.
On questioning his own status as an intellectual in light of his experiences with the coal miners:
"In a way it is even humiliating to watch coal - miners working . It raises in you a momentary doubt about your own status as an “ intellectual ” and a superior person generally . For it is brought home to you , at least while you are watching , that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior . You and I and the editor of the Times Lit . Supp . , and the Nancy poets and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Comrade X , author of Marxism for Infants — all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground , blackened to the eyes , with their throats full of coal dust , driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel ."
This continues for the first half, generally describing how shitty it is (for the lower class(es)) in early 1900s England.
For the second half of the book Orwell unleashes an absolutely withering tirade against socialism as a political movement. He attempts to describe what would need to be done to lift people out of poverty and generally make things better, but ends up targetting the mis-steps of the socialist movement in being overly trivial and petty, and generally pushing away anyone who would want to join it. Orwell views Socialism as the necessary, obvious, and only direct counter to Fascism (which is the more obvious evli) but laments that socialism in its current form is just generally stupid and needs to get its story together.
On the contradition of trying to build a utopia: “The tendency of mechanical progress is to make your environment safe and soft ; and yet you are striving to keep yourself brave and hard . You are at the same moment furiously pressing forward and desperately holding back . It is as though a London stockbroker should go to his office in a suit of chain mail and insist on talking medieval Latin . So in the last analysis the champion of progress is also the champion of anachronisms.”
I found this section of the book both fascinating and hilarious. Basically, Orwell points out that the things we value in humans are our courage and strength (especially physical beauty as it relates to being fit and strong). But contradictorily, we’re striving to build some sort of a utopia which would be safe and soft (as he points out in the quotation above)— and therefore make unneeded the types of strength and physical courage which we value. He actually goes so far so to ridiciule the idea:
“But in a world from which physical danger had been banished—and obviously mechanical progress tends to eliminate danger—would physical courage be likely to survive? Could it survive? And why should physical strength survive in a world where there was never the need for physical labour? As for such qualities as loyalty, generosity, etc., in a world where nothing went wrong, they would be not only irrelevant but probably unimaginable. The truth is that many of the qualities we admire in human beings can only function in opposition to some kind of disaster, pain or difficulty; but the tendency of mechanical progress is to eliminate disaster, pain and difficulty. In books like The Dream and Men Like Gods it is assumed that such qualities as strength, courage, generosity, etc., will be kept alive because they are comely qualities and necessary attributes of a full human being. Presumably, for instance, the inhabitants of Utopia would create artificial dangers in order to exercise their courage, and do dumb-bell exercises to harden muscles which they would never be obliged to use.”
This is funny! From almost 100 years ago, Orwell is predicting EXACTLY the situation we have today: disney land world where there are no real physical challenges, but everyone spends their time doing dumb-bell exercises to harden muscles which they’ll never be obliged to use. Brilliant!
On Marxism’s failures to relate to reality:
“I have very seldom met a convinced Socialist who could grasp that thinking people may be repelled by the objective towards which Socialism appears to be moving. The Marxist, especially, dismisses this kind of thing as bourgeois sentimentality. Marxists as a rule are not very good at reading the minds of their adversaries; if they were, the situation in Europe might be less desperate than it is at present. Possessing a technique which seems to explain everything, they do not often bother to discover what is going on inside other people’s heads.”
“It is a pity that Marxists nearly always concentrate on letting economic cats out of ideological bags; it does in one sense reveal the truth, but with this penalty, that most of their propaganda misses its mark. It is the spiritual recoil from Socialism, especially as it manifests itself in sensitive people, that I want to discuss in this chapter. I shall have to analyse it at some length, because it is very widespread, very powerful and, among Socialists, almost completely ignored.”
On worshipping the Machine (as socialism does):
“Put a pacifist to work in a bomb-factory and in two months he will be devising a new type of bomb. Hence the appearance of such diabolical things as poison gases, which are not expected even by their inventors to be beneficial to humanity. Our attitude towards such things as poison gases ought to be the attitude of the king of Brobdingnag towards gunpowder; but because we live in a mechanical and scientific age we are infected with the notion that, whatever else happens, “progress” must continue and knowledge must never be suppressed. Verbally, no doubt, we would agree that machinery is made for man and not man for machinery; in practice any attempt to check the development of the machine appears to us as an attack on knowledge and therefore a kind of blasphemy.”
On combatting Fascism:
"In order to combat Fascism it is necessary to understand it , which involves admitting that it contains some good as well as much evil . In practice , of course , it is merely an infamous tyranny , and its methods of attaining and holding power are such that even its most ardent apologists prefer to talk about something else . But the underlying feeling of Fascism , the feeling that first draws people into the Fascist camp , may be less contemptible . It is not always , as the Saturday Review would lead one to suppose , a squealing terror of the Bolshevik bogey - man . Everyone who has given the movement so much as a glance knows that the rank - and - file Fascist is often quite a well - meaning person — quite genuinely anxious , for instance , to better the lot of the unemployed . But more important than this is the fact that Fascism draws its strength from the good as well as the bad varieties of conservatism . To anyone with a feeling for tradition and for discipline it comes with its appeal ready - made . Probably it is very easy , when you have had a bellyful of the more tactless kind of Socialist propaganda , to see Fascism as the last line defence of all that is good in European civilisation . Even the Fascist bully at his symbolic worst , with rubber truncheon in one hand and castor oil bottle in the other , does not necessarily feel himself a bully ; more probably he feels like Roland in the pass at Roncevaux , defending Christendom against the barbarian . We have got to admit that if Fascism is everywhere advancing , this is largely the fault of Socialists themselves . Partly it is due to the mistaken Communist tactic of sabotaging democracy , i.e . sawing off the branch you are sitting on ; but still more to the fact that Socialists have , so to speak , presented their case wrong side foremost . They have never made it sufficiently clear that the essential aims of Socialism are justice and liberty . With their eyes glued to economic facts , they have proceeded on the assumption that man has no soul , and explicitly or implicitly they have set up the goal of a materialistic Utopia . As a result Fascism has been able to play upon every instinct that revolts against hedonism and a cheap conception of “ progress . ” It has been able to pose as the upholder of the European tradition , and to appeal to Christian belief , to patriotism and to the military virtues . It is far worse than useless to write Fascism off as “ mass sadism , ” or some easy phrase of that kind . If you pretend that it is merely an aberration which will presently pass off of its own accord , you are dreaming a dream from which you will awake when somebody coshes you with a rubber truncheon . The only possible course is to examine the Fascist case , grasp that there is something to be said for it , and then make it clear to the world that whatever good Fascism contains is also implicit in Socialism .”
On Socialism needing to get its shit together:
“For a long time past , certainly for the last ten years , the devil has had all the best tunes . We have reached a stage when the very word “ Socialism ” calls up , on the one hand , a picture of aeroplanes , tractors and huge glittering factories of glass and concrete ; on the other , a picture of vegetarians with wilting beards , of Bolshevik commissars ( half gangster , half gramophone ) , of earnest ladies in sandals , shock - headed Marxists chewing polysyllables , escaped Quakers , birth - control fanatics and Labour Party backstairs - crawlers . Socialism , at least in this island , does not smell any longer of revolution and the overthrow of tyrants ; it smells of crankishness , machine - worship and the stupid cult of Russia . Unless you can remove that smell , and very rapidly , Fascism may win.” ...more
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