I really liked all the individual books in this trilogy and altogether it really was an amazing and fun journey and so I'm giving a joint 5/5 to the wI really liked all the individual books in this trilogy and altogether it really was an amazing and fun journey and so I'm giving a joint 5/5 to the whole trilogy. On finishing and putting down "Death's End" I was immediately overwhelmed by the journey I've just been taken on and had lay down for a good couple of minutes on my bed. The series definitely changed my view of the universe as a whole and my thoughts on extra-terrestrial civilizations. It also made me think that some of the events that happen in the book are still very possible within my lifetime which is slightly terrifying.
Overall, great world-building and storytelling together with well explained plausible hard-sci-fi concepts. As the story progresses and humanity develops technological advances, I felt that every progression was realistic and well-explained by the author. The plot starts around the 1950s in China so when you start reading you have to get through a bit of the backstory before getting to the futuristic sci-fi.
This was a really great sci-fi trilogy - you'll enjoy reading it and will will probably have a different perspective on the universe and the civilizations within it after reading it.
Warning: spoilers ahead
What I liked about the series:
* It was overwhelming how after seeing all the struggle through the whole series that humans go through to survive, we are left to ponder the insignificance of our species, or of most species in the universe for that matter. While the mean lifetime of a human could maybe be 150 years, or even extended via hibernation to the hundreds of years, it's still nothing on the scale of the universe. In one part of the book characters are travelling at the speed of light for a substantial amount of time, and while they only aged 16 days, the universe has advanced 18 million years. Thinking about this was mind blowing. The time any of us are alive is such an insignificant time fragment when looking at the universe as a whole.
* Dark Forest theory. I've heard about the Fermi paradox a long time ago and always found it plausible that there must be many other intelligent civilizations in the universe. I remember reading about a number of proposed solutions to the paradox but the explanation of the 'Dark Forest' theory here was absolutely brilliant and makes me think whether this might the top explanation for the paradox.
* I don't really care much for politics but here I found the political discussions between the different civilizations in the universe very interesting. The whole interaction between Trisolaris and Earth, the rapid progression of technology on Earth and the worried Trisolarians, the various methods of deterrence used by both sides - all fascinating. Then we also see the highly advanced civilization for which destroying a whole another solar system and their inhabitant is an event not even deserving more than ten seconds of thought. Better be safe.
* More on insignificance - We learn that there were millions of intelligent civilizations in the universe that survived until the end of the current universe era, and probably orders of magnitude more that didn't survive due to the dark forest theory.
* Many more points that just all together make it a really fun story....more
This was a very fun read, I especially enjoyed the detailed story of Feynman being on the committee that was to figure out what happened to the space This was a very fun read, I especially enjoyed the detailed story of Feynman being on the committee that was to figure out what happened to the space shuttle....more
Good compilation of short tidbits of wisdom from successful people. I find it personally more engaging when advice is applied to real-world scenarios Good compilation of short tidbits of wisdom from successful people. I find it personally more engaging when advice is applied to real-world scenarios just like in this book; detached advice void of examples won't stay with you for long. Each chapter in this book is devoted to one person and their story. It's written from the view of the chapter subject, so I'm not sure if this was indeed written by them, or if it's the author collecting the information during an interview and then writing from the point of view of the interviewee. In any case, I liked this for its exposition of many stories of how some successful people got to where they are. ...more
I really enjoyed this. It's a story of a high-class English butler Stevens who while taking a road trip through the British countryside, is reminiscinI really enjoyed this. It's a story of a high-class English butler Stevens who while taking a road trip through the British countryside, is reminiscing of all that has happened during his time at Darlington Hall. The prose is extremely well written and really is a pleasure to read. I found it rather a sad story. Talking so much of the past Stevens seems to be living in it rather than thinking of the future and the present. We see how his rigidity and the quest to be a most proper and dignified butler has led him to a life without meaning. The past can't be changed and shouldn't be dwelled upon, you should use to the best of your ability what remains of the day....more
This was well presented career advice that's contrarian to what a lot of sources will tell you. The hypothesis the book the book is attacking is "FindThis was well presented career advice that's contrarian to what a lot of sources will tell you. The hypothesis the book the book is attacking is "Find your passion, and then find a career in it". Instead, the author is proposing to be "So good they can't ignore you" and that 'working right trumps finding the right work'. This is in stark contrast to a lot of career advice nowadays that proposes trying to find what you are 'passionate about', whatever that means, and then finding a job that's right for you. The author Cal Newport tell us how in the vast majority of the cases this won't end well - you'll be miserable because you think are you at a job that are you not 'passionate' about, will try something else you think you are passionate about but actually have no good skills for and in the end your venture won't succeed. There are some examples of this in the book, one of them a woman who left a career in law to become a yoga instructor even though her career-capital there was nonexistent (a term coined by the author, a type of resource that allows you to find and create work you love doing). In the end she couldn't make it work in the competitive environment of teaching yoga.
I couldn't decide between a 3 and 4 stars for this. In rating this book I might be falling for the 'argument from authority' bias as the author is an accomplished scientist with a PhD in computer science from MIT and the book clearly doesn't read like a bunch of other self help books. It's almost written as an academic paper, separated into four 'rules', with each rule defined by a couple of points and backed up by relevant examples.
Rule #1 argues against the 'passion hypothesis' and determines that finding work you love will come from developing your skills to a very high level, and not from finding something you are 'passionate' about. The order is hence reversed - work right and hard instead of finding the right work and passion and love for what you do will be an emergent property.
Rule #2 goes into depth on the "be so good they can't ignore you" mentality, more specifically why it's important and how to achieve it. It's important because you'll only be able to find good work when you are good at something. You need to adopt the craftsmen point of view, characterized by the value you are outputting, instead of falling for the passion hypothesis mindset where you concentrate on what value your job offers you. Now this sounds counter-intuitive at first, at least it did to me. Why should you not concentrate on what value a job is going to give you, after all that's what a person in an effort to maximize their happiness would try to do, right? It looks like the two are interconnected in a feedback loop, and given the examples in the book, trying to maximize the value you are producing will also maximize the value you are extracting for yourself. The book then discusses career-capital and how that's necessary to find good work. Creating career-capital is non-trivial and it's extremely easy to get stuck in a trap where your career capital is not increasing. This can be countered by deliberate practice, doing and learning things that are above your current ability. Deliberate practice is much more visible in people like athletes or chess players, but it's more subtle in knowledge workers. The task is for you to figure out what kind of deliberate practice you should be doing to steadily increase your career capital.
Rule #3 talks about the importance of control when it comes to being happy about what you are doing with your life. Control is a trait that the vast majority of people who love their jobs exhibit. Control is defined by having many high value options open and consciously choosing some of these paths out of your own volition. We go through some of the problems that might come up, such as trying to gain control if you don't have enough career capital. The example where a lawyer-turned-yoga instructor wasn't a success since a pre-requisite for control is career capital. The person was a novice yoga instructor and in the competitive environment of teaching yoga she was trumped by other instructors with more of that capital. Another problem is that once you do have enough career capital that opens up avenues for control, it's not really in the interest of the employer for you to exercise this option as you are a great employee creating valuable work (that's how you got your career capital in the first place). When trying to decide whether a specific route that has more control is high value to explore, the book proposes the following litmus test: Is it something people are willing to pay you for? If so, do it, if not, definitely reconsider.
Rule #4 is about the importance of creating a mission for your life. This is one of the traits that, given enough career-capital, will allow you to create careers you love. It takes a lot of expertise though to even find a mission, and then making it happen is a lot of hard labour of deliberate practice. One route for finding a mission the author proposes is a systematic exploration of the fringes of the knowledge of the subject you are working on. A good example was a Ruby programmer who was interested in programming in music. This systematic exploration led him to create an open source AI music creation engine that was a great success - people remarked about it, it increased the career capital and opened up avenues to even more work that the person would love doing.
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The contrarian approach presented here is illuminating and will definitely play into my future career decisions. I urge you to read this if you are ever finding yourself in a situation where you think you would like to be doing something you think you are more passionate about. Do you have enough career capital for it? At the current job, are you so good they can't ignore you?
The numerous examples in this book are also great at showing what specific people did to create work they loved and how there wasn't really 'passion' there are the beginning. It is created through high career-capital, control, and a mission. The content presented is not without some problems though. For some of the examples it could be easily argued that the people in fact had a lot of pre-existing passion to get they success they got. In my view there's probably a quick and repetitive feedback loop there - getting a little better at your work makes you slightly more passionate, which makes you do even a little bit better, etc. You just have to do a lot of deliberate practice to make sure the feedback loop is advancing. In this light, the core idea of the book makes sense and is hard to argue with - get really good at whatever you are doing....more
I really liked it. It's a very good overview of how our species 'Homo Sapiens' came about and developed into what it is today. First, the book covers I really liked it. It's a very good overview of how our species 'Homo Sapiens' came about and developed into what it is today. First, the book covers the history of the genus 'Homo' and the theories behind why we are the only member left from it. The book then uses the themes of 'Cognitive Revolution', 'Industrial Revolution' and 'Scientific Revolution' to delve into the themes that made us who we are today. I particularly enjoyed the discussions of how the modern economy developed from simple barter systems and how religions came about to fill the need for a shared belief. I'm sure a lot of this will be a repeat of what you've learned in high school or even middle school, but the ease of reading combined with how the author makes this a step-by-story makes it worth reading for a refresher. ...more
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