Matthew Royal > Recent Status Updates

Not unpleasant, but more vibe than data. I wish it had a little more specificity in its prose -- which scientist said that? whose idea was that? It feels like learning without facts -- an indoctrination in the culture of botanists from an outsider's perspective.

A bit squishy, will evaluate for DNF heap by 33%.

These last two chapters feel unconnected to the rest of the book. Very little practical application.

"There are many ways to kill trust and goodwill. The simplest is to pay people directly for their performance. Imagine... I asked you to stay late three times over the next week to help complete a project ahead of deadline. At the end of the week, you will have not seen your family but .... [a] bonus, however, would put a numerical value on something that wasn’t countable to begin with: your commitment."

"Apprentices in all fields and times are restless to be journeymen."

"My first reaction, rereading these stories, was oh my God, accompanied by physical symptoms we shouldn't dwell upon. My second thought was about some kind of a wall-to-wall rewrite. These two impulses have given way to one of those episodes of middle-aged tranquillity, in which I now pretend to have reached a level of clarity about the young writer I was back then."

Schur takes for granted that there are always "right answers" to ethical questions, so he loses me when he assumes we're all on the same page on things like the Trolley Problem. I think the reason why it's hard to find an overall principle of ethics is because there isn't just one: there are an ensemble of conflicting behaviors that are beneficial to human society, which must be applied conditionally.

Great scene writing in Venice.

I still feel like the story has barely gotten started, and I'm 3/4 through this book, yet I do not believe this is a 2-parter.