Hal
https://www.goodreads.com/galvestonsailor
“there’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value. However, there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.”
― The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
― The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
“The Maya collapsed because they overshot the carrying capacity of their environment. They exhausted their resource base, began to die of starvation and thirst, and fled their cities en masse, leaving them as silent warnings of the perils of ecological hubris.”
― 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
― 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
“In all of history, humankind has been able to domesticate only twenty-five mammals, a dozen or so birds, and, possibly, a lizard.”
― 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
― 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
“The experience of the Mayas is one more reminder that any interpretation of human evolution based on the idea of unilineal progress forwards (or upwards) is an illusion. Peoples decline as well as rise.”
― Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico
― Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico
“Monte Albán is today a decorous sprawl of walls and pyramids enveloped by a lush lawn (this last is an import from Europe; lawn grass did not exist in the Americas prior to Columbus).”
― 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
― 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
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Hal’s 2025 Year in Books
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