In Strangers to Ourselves, Rachel Aviv explores the unique experiences and challenges faced by individuals struggling with mental illness.
One of the In Strangers to Ourselves, Rachel Aviv explores the unique experiences and challenges faced by individuals struggling with mental illness.
One of the main lessons of the book is that each mental patient is distinctive, with a highly unique set of problems. Through a series of case studies, Aviv demonstrates the importance of personalized, individualized treatment, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.
One of the book's strengths is the diversity of the six case studies, which showcase the breadth of issues faced by people with different mental illnesses over their decades of suffering. However, this same diversity also makes the book feel uneven, as it is difficult for readers to connect equally with every case study presented. Most importantly, the portfolio of the studies feels highly inadequate: the book could have covered more ground with at least four to five more examples.
Despite these limitations, Strangers to Ourselves is a valuable and thought-provoking read. Aviv writes with empathy and insight, and her depiction of the lives of the people she has handpicked is impactful. Overall, I hope that the debut author continues to explore these important themes in future work....more
A lot of arguments in The Sum of Us are highly debatable. The author's extreme takes convert numerous inequality, corporate greed, and electoral systeA lot of arguments in The Sum of Us are highly debatable. The author's extreme takes convert numerous inequality, corporate greed, and electoral system rigidities into race issues which is at least partly driven by the author's politics. The solutions - also reflective of the author's political and economic leanings - do not attempt to solve the inherent racism issues as much as issues of the other realms. Ideally, these non-racism issues should be debated separately for the proponents and opponents to argue the pros and cons more dispassionately.
All that said, the book refuses to pull any punches in throwing light on the topic the privileged want only to gloss over. Through discussions that often turn extreme, it covers the well-trodden grounds and exposes issues from other realms having outcomes that perpetuate and reinforce the racial divides. They are issues of inequality, corporate greed, and electoral system rigidities, which now intersect with and exacerbate issues of racism.
All humanitarians should read this book carefully, even if they are not from the United States or from vastly different economic or political schools compared to the author. ...more
It is good to read books that tout blindingly obvious messages.
The book effectively has three messages: the organization should think long-term, haveIt is good to read books that tout blindingly obvious messages.
The book effectively has three messages: the organization should think long-term, have motivated workers, and not do the wrong things. It is sometimes inspiring, but at most others, it is repetitive w and with messages that are so plain that they come off preachy rather than informative.
It does not help that the examples used are curve-fitted to suit the author’s perspectives. The book refuses to pick genuine real-life examples where the decisions involve difficult compromises, unexpected fallouts, or bad outcomes. If presented with examples of someone failing while practicing the book’s methods, the author will likely find a way to make it the practitioner’s fault for not doing things exactly the way he would do them.
Going by the evidence of the book, the author is unlikely ever to admit that there are many circumstances where what he preaches could result in bad outcomes or what he preaches against may work.
The messages are incontrovertible in a vacuum. Even if their utility as a decision-making framework is questionable in many cases, they are the beacons to be kept in mind even in arduous circumstances. Despite their monotony and self-evidence, hearing them now and then will provide areas for reconsideration to most real-life managers. One must suppress the impulse to dispute the examples used and how the author presents them. ...more
Existential Physics is a rare book I read twice back-to-back. This was not because it was difficult to understand (actually, some of the technical andExistential Physics is a rare book I read twice back-to-back. This was not because it was difficult to understand (actually, some of the technical and philosophical discussions are) but because I wanted to ponder more over so many new points the author had put forward.
Ms. Hossenfelder is an accomplished, empirical experimentalist scientist who is also a gifted writer. She is clear about what she believes in and why. More importantly, she is clear about what she does not believe in, cannot believe in, would not believe in, and where she has no way of knowing whether to believe in or not. Her conceptual clarity may not convert others who do not share the same views, but they would surely spark many worthwhile new thoughts.
The author is not exactly a fan of theoretical physicists. If the previous books had not clarified this clearly, it comes out far more forcefully in Existential Physics. The armchair physicists are frequently put in the same category as the prophets, sages, charlatans, and others from time immemorial that claimed to have figured out how the world works. The path chosen to come down heavily on this group is through the notion of scientific versus ascientific theories. The author makes it clear that just like most religious assertions, theories like inflation, loop quantum, string, etc., are speculative without any basis in known or even knowable science. The book is about how much we really know and what we can know. It does the first part extremely well. But it isn't easy to agree with the author's binning of a lot of good theoretical work despite their speculative nature.
Some propositions and assertions, often misnamed as theories, are clearly wrong. In taking a liberal view, the author not only shies away from picking the most obvious wrong ones, but she also refuses to acknowledge that some of the theoretical physicists' suppositions are significantly less wrong compared to made-up assertions from other fields. Historic, non-rational theories are issued as given; they are unmodifiable and non-mathematic. To equate them with mathematical, modifiable forms with current theoretical physicists' is needlessly extreme in many cases.
As the author says herself, we need hypotheses for science to progress. From a given circle of relatively proven "science," one path of progress is by observing and fitting more data (and, in the process, expanding our equations/theories). This is the path of experimentalists like the author. The other path is by first hypothesizing what further progress could be and then looking for data for confirmation or repudiation.
The second method, by definition, will start speculatively. It may often have to turn bombastic, too, like in search of better math (or alternate math) that can deal with the infinities/singularities that recur in current mathematical equations (of science) but somehow get resolved without problems in reality as we experience. For example, the Navier-Stokes equation could be more resolvable using completely outlandish math, like Fermat's last theorm. If such math is proposed Today, it may not appear to have any utility at the outset until it suddenly begins solving unsolvable equations using current methods.
This hypothesis-first path of theoretical scientists has worked spectacularly for centuries. Given the state of Today's data, tools, and science, it might not be possible for humans sitting behind a desk to produce the correct theories out of thin air like Einstein before, but proposals that make some sense could be put forward by machines too. If they are not falsifiable in their first versions, many of these proposals could be modified/amended in their equations to become more verifiable over time. This reviewer is with the author in seeing a diminished role for theoretical innovations in the periods ahead, but to equate their ascientific theories with other ascientific theories from the non-physics realm, like the way the author does, is extreme.
The book makes some excellent points on fundamental versus emergent theories. The author asserts that there are no strongly emergent theories. All emergent properties, like the structure of DNA or waves of an ocean (let alone consciousness or love the mother has for her child), emerge from more fundamental laws of particle physics/relativity, even if we may not be able to provide the full calculation linkages Today. As much as the author claims that she is not a reductionist - ontological or theoretical - her assertions against strong emergence appear ascientific. If Today's fundamental theories - along with 26 constants, 25 particles, four forces, and the current set of equations - cannot precisely explain why the H-O-H bond in a water molecule is 104.5 degrees and not 125 degrees or predicate why proteins take certain shapes but not others, there might be something in emergent properties not completely available in fundamental theories as we know them.
In other words, we are supposed to take it for granted that all higher-level emergent properties come out of the same lower-level equations even when it is not mathematically possible to achieve it currently. The reviewer, like the author, believes that there is no mind or consciousness or free will below the emergent properties of underlying forces and matter, but this is another ascientific assertion, in a way. This is not much different from multiverses the author argues against because they are ascientific and arbitrary.
The larger point is that almost all of us are prone to fall for unprovable assertions without realizing them. The author is far more obviously ascientific in her views on artificial general intelligence.
The book is not only good in addressing many philosophical issues but also in explaining many scientific concepts. One example is the discussions on why it might not always be possible to predict completely deterministic systems. The author explains this through quantum uncertainty and then the chaotic nature of calculations first, but soon moves beyond. Godel's incompleteness theorem and the halting problem are used to show how notwithstanding the rest, there are always problems that cannot be solved in finite steps using any mathematical system. There are many other problems that encounter singularities and infinities in the math we operate, even while they resolve beautifully in real life.
Here are some other small nuggets of information:
-- Is the world mathematical, or is math just the language we use for its description? The second is demonstrably true, while the first is an ascientific assumption. It is unlikely we figured out what the world is or even what the best description language of the world is on our first try
-- All laws are time irreversible, except the collapse of the wave function and the information lost at the black hole.
-- Quantum collapse is something that happens when a wave function interacts with any sufficiently impactful macro matter. There are non-zero chances of quantum equations being emergent and not fundamental.
-- Time irreversibility means that from any fully described system, we can deterministically determine both the full past and present.
-- Today's theoretical world is full of speculative conjectures on items 10-15 orders different from our best ability to observe - like inflation, protein decay, black hole evaporation, etc. One should realize that these ascientific theories are hopeless in many ways.
-- Quantum entanglement is observed non-locally but has to be enacted locally.
-- General relativity does not limit the speed of light but merely states that acceleration from below the speed of light level to above requires infinite energy.
-- No cloning means you cannot ever copy a neuron completely faithfully
Overall, the book has many extreme conclusions for almost any type of reader. The author stands her ground well. As a result, she will make her readers think deeply to understand what they honestly disagree with. ...more
The reformation paved the way for the renaissance and political revolutions that together birthed modernity as we know it. For an outsider like this rThe reformation paved the way for the renaissance and political revolutions that together birthed modernity as we know it. For an outsider like this reviewer, the book is a concise and readable summary of one of the most seminal historic episodes. For those who know even somewhat about the rise of Protestantism, there might be precious little as the author does not attempt to uncover anything new.
The last chapter - bar its final section that tries to link the current US political morass to the events of the sixteenth century - is the most edifying. It all started with an individual's struggle with the far-away Catholic headquarters' indulgences and corruption. The resistance, as the book shows, soon morphed into casting doubts on numerous theological issues that the Church had settled through decrees. A host of coincident forces - political, ethnological, technological - forces played a role, as did the circumstances of key individuals. The apparent result was the reformation, but it was much more.
The implications from the querying of the edicts and not believing in anything arbitrarily branded preordained (including the "rights" of kings and monarchs) sparked a wildfire transforming humanity everywhere. Martin Luther's repudiation immediately led to a fragmentation of the ecclesiastical structure, which in turn gave rise to the first instances of pluralism and tolerance a few decades later (it was not an easy process). The use of reason and senses to better understand the world was not far away, nor was the tendency to treat the rulers as just regular people who could be cast away when deemed incompetent. The rest of the world caught on, albeit with a lag of a century or more.
A good primer for those not too aware of this history.
The Romance of Reality keeps shuffling between a bit of sublime and a lot of ridiculous. The prose gets extremely muddled with heavy name-throwing wheThe Romance of Reality keeps shuffling between a bit of sublime and a lot of ridiculous. The prose gets extremely muddled with heavy name-throwing when the author makes significant, unsubstantiated claims as if they are accepted, scientific facts by many experts, or just so obvious that only narrowly focused scientist types would miss them!
That said, the book is most readable in the initial sections, where the author argues why life might have been inevitable somewhere in our world rather than a low-probability accident. Paraphrasing the book's arguments, the forces that propel the world towards increasing worldwide disorder - led by the second law of thermodynamics - are more than counterbalanced by other forces/processes that foster self-catalyzing, recursive complexity in microspheres. While the author does not mention this adequately, the order-creating mechanisms emerging from all the other laws of physics sans the second law of thermodynamics are why we have atoms and galaxies and all the chemical elements, let alone life.
As the book progresses, it turns mystic, never mind the author's repeated claims of everything being rational and proof-driven. Many sections are laughable, like those coming down heavily on the thinkers who argue against free will with the most naive objections imaginable. The other sections ascribing purpose and direction, including somehow providing a space to blockchain in the teleological destiny of our universe, are incomprehensible even for those who want to hear out the alternate ideas without prejudice. Data-driven scientists will have more issues with so many word-based assumptions, and conclusion jumps on the back of sheer didactic and polemic.
The author's take on consciousness provides the best example of how little attention he may have paid to the various debates on the subject and the simplicity of the conclusions based on his wishes and already-formed views on what reality has to be rather than what it might be. ...more
I write this review a few days after the book's publication and the day after the US announced a sweeping set of restrictions on US tools sold to any I write this review a few days after the book's publication and the day after the US announced a sweeping set of restrictions on US tools sold to any advanced Chinese semiconductor chip manufacturer. There could not have been a more forceful endorsement of the relevance of any book.
Chip War is more than topical. It presents a highly readable history of the industry. While refreshingly unbiased in many arguments, the book sheds light on the thinking pervasive amongst US policymakers. In a world where most software (from the search to finance to consumer use related) is relatively easily replicable, most policymakers feel that the non-duplicable part of the technology industry is what one can do on a silicon wafer. The US believes that it is the leader in this segment - along with a few others who are a part of its influence sphere - and should use not just innovations but also other political tools to retain supremacy.
The author is clear in drawing his lessons from a chronological set of main events and personalities that built the industry in the West. The following are some of the questions not asked in the book but worth thinking about based on the same historical facts.
a. If one looks at the market caps of upstream chip manufacturers as a percentage of the total technology industry capitalization over time, semi-companies do not seem to hold as much monopoly power or importance in the eyes of investors as believed in many other circles
b. While the book mentions a good number of early innovators by name from the earliest decades, there has been almost no named scientist in the last twenty-five years (this is eons in the tech industry). There are several potential reasons behind here: narratives and tales surrounding innovators are far more common in the United States than in Eastern nations. Also, innovation stories are more relatable when they are easier to understand - most semiconductor manufacturing innovations for the last thirty years are in detail and not in broad subjects like transistor or UV lithography. And lastly, the latest tech innovations are team- and resource-based rather than individual-driven.
c. Semiconductor manufacturing knowledge is highly diffused. Many in the US may feel that the knowledge is all American because of the work of the earliest giants, but this is no different from if Europe were to seek credit for early innovations in internal combustion engines or nuclear theories. Even if some of the knowledge had been previously stolen, the most critical parts of advanced manufacturing now are not all necessarily in the US. The rise of the likes of TSMC and Samsung Electronics, along with the inability of American companies to keep pace, are proof. The diffusion of the know-how happened quite early as reflected in the dominance of the Japanese - well described in the book - in the 1980s.
d. Nobody has been able to maintain dominance in this space for long. The book is littered with the tale of well-known names that led the space for a few short years. From Fairchild, Texas Instruments, through Motorola, Nikon, and now Intel, one can name a couple of dozen companies that seemingly had an unbeatable innovation lead only to see someone else take over. Is semiconductor manufacturing so challenging to master that a lot of money and an army of engineers cannot solve it without being a part of an existing establishment?
e. One wonders if the military establishment needs instruments created by the most advanced fabs of this year? It is clear that most rival superpowers of the world have access to technologies of a few years ago - say 2014/5 - even if they are blocked on the latest fabs. If, in the worst case, either the US or China does not have access to the latest processes of - say - TSMC, how bad is that truly?
f. Irrespective of whether semis are indeed the new oil or not (some of the questions posed above suggest that the industry might not be as critical or unique as made out to be), perceptions are going to keep them at the center in global geopolitics. The industry makes Taiwan far more pivotal for both US and China in their rivalry. The developments are likely to make China more committed to self-sufficiency in semis. It might not be as difficult as presumed, even if they remain somewhat behind compared to the cutting edge.
g. There is a tendency amongst some US nationalists (at times in the book too) to look down upon others' progress. If they see an advanced fab in a foreign land, they feel it is because of a transfer of technology or worse, or because of the low cost of debt (never mind the low cost of equity funding in the US), subsidization, government policies, etc. A lot of this is true, but even more accurate is the rapid, unheralded, vast number of innovations - as reflected in the patents filed - in these Asian countries.
Even fifty years on, Chip War is about a fast-changing industry. It is about the world's most politically colored industry also. The book will surely become dated soon, but the sections on the early days will be helpful for any reader who wants to learn how the industry evolved in its first few phases....more
Reading this book three decades after its publication is not as illuminating as its author planned. The work hailed as revolutionary appears inevitablReading this book three decades after its publication is not as illuminating as its author planned. The work hailed as revolutionary appears inevitable as humanity began developing the use cases of exponentially growing computational abilities. In fact, the pioneers and their pioneering work were small first steps in the long journey to where data analytics and its impact on all sciences are a few short years ahead. This reviewer had a handful of other takeaways, even though none were intended in the story.
It is fashionable to assume, as oft-repeated in the book, that most giants of various fields of the previous eras truly believed in linear, polynomial equations comprehensively providing answers about whatever they were investigating. The doyens worked with pens and papers, log tables and limited precise information; they were simply providing some logic or structure they could, based on the capacities of the tools at their disposal. The celebrated scientists and philosophers were not as stupid as often made out to be because of the theories they championed that appear highly simplistic (or worse) in our era.
Until the arrival of digital computers, it was impossible to explore the fields of recursive, iterative, circular equations involving a small number of simple linear equations. Digital computers not only made it possible to do calculations using higher power polynomial equations but afforded the luxury of having equations feeding into each other and measuring their impact after thousands of iterations (of course, the abilities are far higher now).
Santa Fe pioneers - as described in the book - were one of the first to witness the results of some such interplays. Should they be credited as the first to come up with ideas like "markets do not have an equilibrium"? I feel the author goes too far in such assertions.
The other problem is the importance assigned to armchair work without theoretical rigor or genuine practical links. If there is a set of all mathematical equations, linear equations - a highly specific case - will be an infinitesimally small part. Any claims that almost all rule-based life equations are nonlinear are stating an obvious and not necessarily radical. And this has been true from time immemorial. Most thinkers of the past sought refuge in linearity out of necessity, as explained above, and not dumbness.
It is easy to comprehend how those who first harnessed the powers of early computers to play around with hypothetical recursive, iterative equations were surprised by what they ended up with over time. With modern computing power and visualization tools, a neophyte learns how a seemingly homogenous cloud could be converted into lumpy clusters with a tiny perturbation and simple recursive mathematical steps that favor clustering. The pioneers of the book were the first ones to generate some of it, but their work is not as radical as claimed despite big words like the title in the book. Similar simulations were going on at countless places in those years with the new-fangled machines. It is almost given that many others had obtained the same results in those years with their hypothetical equation sets. It would have been different if the academics discussed in the book had come up with some precise, universal laws before anyone else. That certain types of equation interplay can suddenly turn chaotic from orderly or vice versa is not novel enough now and was perhaps not even then.
The holy grail in any field - scientific, economic, or any other walk of life - is to find the equations that work (to explain alone would be a great enough start). Given that the book's heroes were not pursuing any pure mathematical concepts and coming out with generalized laws, their work needed applicability for validity. In the absence of these, it was certainly not an idle pursuit, but this reviewer would join the ranks of many baffled colleagues of the pioneers discussed in wondering what all the fuss is about. The author might have missed that such bafflement does not equate to disagreement with the conclusions.
All that said, the book is at its best when explaining the dominance of nonlinearity in dynamic systems we see all around. ...more
The End of the World reads like a political manifesto. Most of the book will resonate well if the reader is an American nationalist, particularly a MAThe End of the World reads like a political manifesto. Most of the book will resonate well if the reader is an American nationalist, particularly a MAGA-believing Trump supporter. Otherwise, a lot in the book would be so deeply offensive that most readers are unlikely to retain their objectivity enough to pick the good points in between.
It must be recorded that the author declares himself a democrat as well as an internationalist in the passing. He is definitely not a climate-damage denier. Some sections support the climate claims, although they too are used more to prove that those the author likes will gain and the others will perish, rather than for any other genuine purposes.
In summary, the author strongly believes that almost all non-Americans are people without resources, industry, innovativeness, and any good institutional structures. These folks - variously called lazy, without creativity, fractious, herd-like, but thankfully not identified as having wrong religions or skin colors - have benefited from America-sponsored, America-created globalization of the last few decades. American sacrifices - something he explicitly mentions - made it possible for the rest of the world to have decent economic existence. The rest of the world has grown as the US, as per the author, sacrificed some of its. The book's first conclusion is that this is coming to an end (although it often reads like he desires rather than predicts it).
To be clear, the author has a concise list of nations that he favors. Many are preferred because their populations are not falling, while others are because of positive relationships with the United States. His preference order starts with the favorites as France and Argentina, followed by Sweden, Japan, UK, Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Germany, New Zealand, South Korea, India, and SE Asia/Australia as a region (I might have missed a couple). However, almost none of these are seen as able to survive independently but could be worthy protectorate candidates for America. The rest are so doomed that at a certain point, the author even predicts a billion or more (of course, from the places he dislikes, with the most intense dislike reserved for China) to perish.
The author can and does offend anyone who does not belong to his echo chamber (effectively people who believe in perpetual population growth, fossil fuels, Southern American values/beliefs/lifestyles, apart from the belief that no one except the US can truly innovate and grow). His tone on American Exceptionalism is designed to denigrate everyone else. The basic idea is to close the US economy because the US can not only survive easily without others but also do far better relying on its own resources and workers (particularly from the South, including Texas) with occasional help from Mexico and a handful of others. Such closing of the US will almost send the rest to doom because of their inherent inadequacies.
In terms of the content, the book is littered with errors, not just while demeaning every other economy's ability or promoting American supremacy/isolationism but also while making points on topics like demographics or the impracticality of green energy. There are multiple good observations on how little green energy has contributed, agricultural challenges, and changing demographics. Still, most points fail to make a good impression because of the quickly drawn and often-disconnected, extreme, biased conclusions.
With this book, Mr. Zeihan may have significantly boosted the chances of being invited for a senior government position when a nationalistic leader becomes the US president in the future. This work should not be ignored for its potential impact on policymaking despite all the flaws....more
What we know about life in the period prior to video cameras is tainted and tinted by sanitized depictions in modern movies and shows. The book presenWhat we know about life in the period prior to video cameras is tainted and tinted by sanitized depictions in modern movies and shows. The book presents an entirely different picture. It was a dark, smelly, smoggy, dirty, and spartan existence, bared through numerous data points and factoids. Consider this: the US population at various times in the nineteenth century was less than today's Singapore, or an average American had a life expectancy (at 46) at the beginning of the twentieth century less than the last-placed country in the world today. The book has plenty to offer for history buffs who care more about information than narratives.
And still, the book is a narrative on the evolution of our harnessing of various forms of energy. The focus is more on small technical innovations in all types of fields that cumulatively transformed the world from the swamp it was to what we have today. Details of innovations sometimes turn strenuous, particularly in the early chapters that read more like an account of the industrial revolution rather than a backstory of energy (even when they both are highly related).
Notwithstanding the occasional discussions on current issues and what the future may hold - mostly connected to pollution and the climate - this is a history book. The author will not discuss the most obvious topics - like why innovations exploded in a particular part of the world or the factors that led to their accumulative pace. To a degree, the absence of opinions and value judgments makes for a relatively drab and detail-heavy account.
Despite all flaws, a great read backed by extensive, objective material. ...more
This book on human stupidity is beautifully written, bringing forward some highly thought-provoking discussion points. The main question - whether we,This book on human stupidity is beautifully written, bringing forward some highly thought-provoking discussion points. The main question - whether we, let alone everything surrounding us, are better off with human intelligence - is almost offensive. Through a series of studies (most involving animals), the author succeeds in seeding the doubts.
That we have not used our intelligence to the best effects is known to any believers of the climate damage or opponents of wars and weapons. The author goes a step ahead by highlighting how our superior skills in asking why, detecting causality, possessing an elaborate consciousness, having a sense of morality, etc., have a plethora of seldom discussed disadvantages.
The book's biggest positive is its presentation. The author addresses points squarely and rarely equivocates while providing research studies and making points as he hurls toward his conclusions at the end of each chapter.
The main drawback is its over-arching conclusion. The author falls into many of the traps he warns against and makes somewhat of a mess by the end. The following are the reviewer's counterpoints.
Our own brain is a marvel but of an imperfect kind. As psychologists and behavioral scientists have bared starkly for a while now, even the best of us is unable to apply sound logic to arrive at the most optimum guiding principles to live. What is as marvelous as the intricacies and powerfulness of our mind/thinking process is the sheer simplicity of our blind spots and failures. Despite all that, our brains scale better than anything else living on this rock. The gap is exponentially widening with our ability to harness history to improve the ability to manipulate available resources.
Our worst blind spot is - the author rightly shows - the sheer inability to think genuinely long-term. We optimize for the trivial time scales by universal standards, and we cannot stop the negative externalities that keep accumulating. All this is true, but does it even justify the question of whether it would have been better if we were not so intelligent?
Let's forget the errors in counting bacteria as one species while glorifying their longevity. If the author truly wants to think about the purpose of any existence at a cosmic scale, the first question for a universal being should be the value of one rock and whatever number of species on it. The universe has potentially billions of earth-like places with earth-like life forms. At the cosmic level, the universe is likely better off with some of the intelligence forms from some of these planets succeeding in harnessing resources at galactic levels.
The above may sound over the top. And it does because it is. The point is that on a cosmic scale, the earth is past its halfway mark before it becomes uninhabitable, even for the bacteria and viruses. Evolutionarily, humans or more intelligent-than-human entities (natural or human-created) are the earth's only hope of some of its creators taking the seeds of whatever is developed here to some other part of the universe. One cannot decide the utility of any species based on the time it survives on the earth or the "pleasure" it has (with pleasure meaning whatever it may). Irrespective of all our flaws and damages we are doing, evolutionarily, we are on the right step. In the worst case, our actions will cause a bad extinction cycle, but the earth must hope for another species more intelligent and prescient in the next cycle.
In the face of prospective death, the author himself turns needlessly nihilistic and moralistic! The resultant conclusions are well-intentioned and even better sounding, but they do not follow everything presented before. ...more
Bizarrely and mostly unwittingly, A Natural History is a weirdly positive book on the fate of nature around us. Dunn's iron laws of ecology or paleontBizarrely and mostly unwittingly, A Natural History is a weirdly positive book on the fate of nature around us. Dunn's iron laws of ecology or paleontology may not be as accepted or sound as he claims, but they are an engaging and informative read. They provide a stinging critique of anthropogenic climate change and its impact on the existing species diversity.
When one looks at long time scales, the author's laws lead to numerous inevitabilities that might be comforting for nature lovers despite their apparent short-term doomsday-isq consequences. The author did not intend these; in many ways, they are still macabre about the fate of the species most important to us, our own one.
The book claims that every species, like every organism, eventually goes extinct with an average age of around two million years. At 200,000 years, the Homo Sapiens are young and with a large future ahead, but we are immensely harming the species diversity critical for our own survival through our lifestyle. Given that most of our climate repair-related measures are extremely short-term on such time scales, with enormous damage already underway, an environmentally ghoulish winter of sorts is unavoidable for our race lasting possibly a few thousand or tens of thousands of years.
However, this phase does not have to start within the next few generations, let alone the next few decades, and it may not end with our complete and quick annihilation. The book provides numerous examples of species' natural adaptability and resilience in light of the changes in its environment. Add in our spread on the planet along with human ingenuities, the Homo Sapiens are unlikely to die as a species with the ongoing climate change. Yes, there will be enormous inconveniences and miseries for all of us compared to what we have begun to take from life/nature for granted. Still, the long history recounted in the book argues for both futility in fighting the looking darkness first and the reason for hope in the very long-term at the specie level.
We are responsible for tens of thousands of species going extinct already. The harm to biodiversity is real and irreversible. As the book shows, this is hurting our survivability (not on the scale of a few thousands of years, though). That said, with billions of bacterial species and even more (trillions?) of bacteriophages and other microbes in the deepest recesses of the earth, the earth's evolution cycle is not in any danger. The book rightly emphasizes how the species to come may not correlate to the species we are making extinct during this Holocene epoch.
Once again, the book's intention is not to provide conclusions like the above. It has fresh and highly original ways to make us focus on the degradation we are causing to biodiversity and their implications on our species' survival. This critic's personal sidenotes above are an effort to find long-term positives in an otherwise scary scenario painted by the book....more
For those interested in numbers, The Biggest Number is a unique and tremendously interesting book. It is not always understandable, but that's preciseFor those interested in numbers, The Biggest Number is a unique and tremendously interesting book. It is not always understandable, but that's precisely what the dilettantes interested in the subject would be looking for. The professionals of the field - which are some of our race's best minds - have predictably taken the search of the largest finite and transfinite numbers to realms inaccessible without decades of training and more.
Almost every part of the book beyond the initial chapters boggles the mind. One gets transfixed in the maze created by the new nomenclatures, let alone by the enormity of what is put forward. In the end, there is not much of utility value for a common reader as could be expected of what one does for most hobbies. That does not reduce the joy of this ride in the tiniest, though. ...more
This is one of the weakest books one is likely to come across on a serious subject. More staggering that three celebrity intellectuals wrote it. PerhaThis is one of the weakest books one is likely to come across on a serious subject. More staggering that three celebrity intellectuals wrote it. Perhaps, the book is so weak because the authors could not be made to come together for any coherent, novel take on the subject. From the history of innovations told in a few paragraphs to sketches of AI versus traditional computer programs, the short book has plenty of digressions as fillers. The authors would pose serious, although well-known, questions in between about what AI might do to aspects of our existence. Still, before providing even any hint of solutions, it would issue the banalest directives on what some unknown amorphous authority, called "we," must do to restrain this beast.
The reviewer would add some notes of his own on the subject, although this has nothing to do with what is presented in the book. In our world of competing entities, call them companies or countries, it is nothing but a fantasy to assume that everyone somehow comes together to regulate the rise of a technology that provides at least a handful of short-term advantages. Yes, there is no harm in having pundits warning us what the rise of an intelligence that transcends our comprehension would do to humanity. However, the utility is more with experts who provide more practical explanations and suggestions.
AI impacts our dominance on this blue rock in two fundamental ways: for the first time since the Homo sapiens became the world's most intelligent creature with the second one growing miles behind, our creations are about to upstage us in a similar fashion and on a tiny timescale. Secondly, our rise equates to continuous growth in our ability to comprehend and manipulate our surroundings. With AI, what is created by these machines makes what we understand and control a diminishing fraction of the forces at play. For instance, the proteins created by an AI may increase our life span or equations derived might combine relativity and quantum physics, but we as humans will spend far longer trying to comprehend what machines do while they gallop ahead.
The rise of AI should not be analyzed in the time frame of a few years or decades, like what is done in this book. In fact, it is quite possible that the supposed AI-humanity association remains the primary way this technology progresses into the next century. However, what our 100-watt processors, aka minds, contribute to progress could continue to reduce incessantly as machines become more powerful, irrevocably resourceful, and with more data. The point on irrevocability is essential - once a machine intelligence learns how to beat us in chess or identify a cat, there is no going back on that superiority.
A universe where humans remain at the top of the chain is desirable for our race but it is not necessarily the best possible universe out there. A selfless evolutionary analyst may want to celebrate our world moving beyond humans. Yet, the authors, like most AI critics, are right in their desire to prevent such a pass. The answers, however, are not going to be found in directive-based assertions/hopes/dreams like in this book and more in the best brains creating competing machine learning systems (perhaps). ...more
In the latest edition, the book cover has the byline "Is global agreement on global challenges possible?". One would expect a renowned professor of phIn the latest edition, the book cover has the byline "Is global agreement on global challenges possible?". One would expect a renowned professor of philosophy to have a lot of theoretical and history-based arguments to address this question head-on. Instead, the question is addressed only in the last few pages of the small book and that too without any insight.
What one gets are student-written-essay-like chapters on well-known issues facing humanity. These sections are based on secondary research without any new information or arguments. The shorter chapters on inequality and moral relativism are so truncated that they do not even define the problem sufficiently. At the same time, the first two on climate and AI /technology excesses also fail to scratch the surface, given the vastness of the topics.
Rather than picking up a handful of problems and describing them, the Professor should have written about what problems are solvable and what are not given the competitive local and global political structures. The author should have focussed on how almost all the problems by definition will not be seen in the same way by everyone because of the issues in descriptions, understanding, and individuals' different priorities. The author should have separated problems that are solvable versus those unsolvable in the world of different interpretations, a plethora of governments serving competing groups, as well as limits to what we will care. For example, at the majority level, we are incapable of really caring about the planet's health a thousand years from now or a lightyear from here from our actions. And maybe we are incapable of sufficiently caring even two-hundred-year consequences if we have to inconvenience ourselves massively for it.
Covid era illustrates that our society cannot come together even for problems that are extremely local in time and place and those that are easiest to define. Collective actions in the world of market forces and non-totalitarian governments are impossible simply through the use of information, guidelines, and appeals.
The world faces huge issues, but what we don't need is another book describing them. Empty words on what should happen based on one's leanings are also not helpful in a world full of such opinions. The book does not offer anything more....more
Nearly four decades since the horrible murders, Small Sacrifices remains bloated and incomplete, even if it is an authoritative account of the aftermaNearly four decades since the horrible murders, Small Sacrifices remains bloated and incomplete, even if it is an authoritative account of the aftermath. The book reads like an unedited, extensive research paper with an obsessive focus on including everything available. The overload of details makes the reading painfully slow, with a majority of the particulars turning more irrelevant over time. In strange ways, the account also appears incomplete, as the crime is never fully explained (or proven) even if one firmly believes that justice was meted out to the right person. ...more
The highly informative book on an essential and less-addressed market/economic sector has everything right except the tone.
The stories that start froThe highly informative book on an essential and less-addressed market/economic sector has everything right except the tone.
The stories that start from a small group of traders in the seventies and lead to the activities of the current giants are disjointed and yet compelling. Most of them are not well known, like the stories of famous bond or equity investors. The authors are right to claim that these working-in0the-shadows individuals and firms have had a larger impact on global affairs than their celebrated public market contemporaries who dominate the financial journals.
The authors do a good job throwing light on the many murky activities of these entities as they amassed staggering wealth. The authors rightfully claim that commodity traders alter the course of the lives of many millions globally and the political and geopolitical history of many nations.
Nevertheless, the book lacks balance. Perhaps, it is enormously difficult to provide balance while discussing this field of goods essential to human lives and with actors and practices that have been downright abominable from the time immemorial.
Let's start with a few undisputed facts. We all need resources - from food to energy to metals and others - to lead a decent life. What we need is not evenly distributed around the planet. Monopolists of all types have tried to corner the production of these resources from the era of the feudal lords to the miners and energy barons using unsavory means. It was easy for all these producers to recognize the power of the larger size (or the ownership of a higher amount of whatever resource they were in) in their quests to control the market. This led to power grabs, corruption, and exploitative production practices of all kinds by the most powerful producers, with some joining politics and others moving into commodities after they got their political powers.
Our history and literary books are filled with the events caused by commodity-control methods even to this present day. We all wish we could banish all these producers out of regular modern circles and still continue with a good economic life. The utopian fantasy - reflected in the book - is that politicians from a group of large, rich, democratic nations would come together to clean up the commodity production space. In this dream world, all the much-needed resources are within democracies, produced in the most sustainable and moderately profitable ways without any exploitative labor practices and ideally without monopolies.
It is important to keep striving for such a world, but it is equally important to understand that we are not in such a utopia. Some idealists' overzealous bans, sanctions, or price/trade controls could inflict more miseries on the consumers and users. Practically, intermediaries - like those discussed in the book - will provide those layers between producers that nobody wants to be seen dealing with and the users who need resources for their daily life.
Ever since the advent of modern trading intermediaries and financialization started by them, the world has seen fewer shortages of commodities than ever before. Debatably, prices have also been less volatile, with global consumers allowed to have a higher proportion of income left for non-commodity expenses. The trading companies have somewhat counterbalanced producer monopolies across commodities. As high as their absolute gains look, as reported in the book, we need more studies to show whether intermediary profit margins are up or down on a long trend and whether consumer surplus is growing or shrinking versus the producers because of these trading companies' activities.
One should not condone many acts of the trading companies. Those who violate laws should pay for their acts. The book is right about these. It is not right - at least in its tone - where it fails to discuss the important, practical role played by these intermediaries in our world. Commodity companies will continue to exist in the coming decades. They may have different names, with most players going through the inevitable personal boom-bust cycles despite the aggregate profits on an uptrend. In a world geopolitically divided, their roles will become even more critical to provide the veneer of political acceptance to sanction- and countersanctions imposing classes. They will also come under far more scrutiny because of political divisions, ESG/climate reasons, and the return of the resource price inflation....more
Some ideas are so preposterous that when they come from respected authors and thinkers, a reader must pause to reflect on own sanity and mental framewSome ideas are so preposterous that when they come from respected authors and thinkers, a reader must pause to reflect on own sanity and mental frameworks. Are not the best ideas in the world were those that sounded funny all around when first proposed? The author makes no bones about claiming how revolutionary his ideas are. The book castigates any doubters or non-believers as those enslaved by the forces of capitalism.
The global economic system is not working for the vast majority. Every suggestion on improvements and alternatives should be viewed seriously, even if the evidence of any non-market systems yielding even half-decent results for the downtrodden is scant. That said, one must remember that many well-intentioned ideas are also plain ridiculous. No amount of the powerful rhetoric on how the current system is not working can make those ghastly ideas worth thinking about. This book contains multiple ideas of this variety - once again, regardless of powerful arguments on what is not working currently and good intentions.
Take the concept of hierarchy-less organizations that is at the root of one share, one vote corporate structure. The author clearly does not envision a military, or a political system or judiciary based on consensus-based working. Somehow, he believes that a phone can be built, or a university run, or people hired without empowered decision-makers. The sketchily presented DAO-like system may work in specific cases. However, didactic claims that such commune-like builds worked for farms or with hunter-gatherers are not enough to demand one for industries and organizations of our era. Parliaments and senates have done little to inspire confidence that a nation can run without presidents or cabinet ministers, let alone companies providing all the goods and services we need. Yes, there are many ways to prove that the current system is sub-optimal, but there is little to prove that the one offered in the book is not significantly inferior. Imagine if this book's content was modified through votes by everyone involved in the publishing process.
In another place, the author wants the nations who create surplus goods or services to provide them effectively free (or at a discount - in a roundabout way) to the nations who cannot balance their books on trade alone. This proposal is presented to ensure that no nation can indebt another or have claims on the other's assets. The author's background helps in understanding the cause of this impractical proposal. Under the author's leadership, should one assume that Greece would happily welcome tourists at deep discounts from other emerging countries with bilateral trade deficits? Or even if such surpluses are punished only at aggregate, the author's world Germany or China may still shut the shop beyond a point rather than keep working for no gains? One does not need to have the Capitalists fleeing to some Ayn Rand devised communes (Atlas Shrugged) to see how global trade will collapse to a halt if trade surpluses are not allowed to be capitalized.
The fact that the author wants to maintain the nation-state boundaries under his proposals is politically expedient but inconsistent with everything he is clamoring for. Can the author's system be equally just if the money deposited in an India-based newborn's account is different from a US-based? If someone from a sub-Saharan African country wants to work in Greece or live in Athens, why should the person's claim be lesser compared to a disenfranchised in those communities? After all, the author proposes a near elimination of property rights in the book and more vote/lottery-based systems for homes, just like for jobs.
The author's parallel-world utopia does not have markets, private banks, indebtedness, managers, and also information privacy! As one is not allowed to ask much about how goods would be distributed in such a system when something is not readily available to all who desire (expect answers to be based on more lotteries!), presumably one cannot provide a counterargument assuming bad actors too. The assumption that anything anyone does digitally is public will cause equality is a complete misreading of the human psyche. The smartest, most ambitious ones would find the most innovative way to suppress if the more susceptible ones are not afforded any privacy.
The list of proposals is vast, disconnected, and inconsistent. Given the story structure, the short book has even less space for any genuine discourse. The nature of the story allows the author to arbitrarily pronounce how his construct would make everyone happy without providing any arguments on the operational or behavioral nitty-gritty. Somehow, in this libertarian system, there will not be any opposition, demand would stay manageable, supply optimum, and everyone content with work and rewards.
As discussed above, the author's intentions are right. He dares to make a case for a society without many of the cherished, most celebrated parts of the current system. Yet, the author's inability to see the sheer impracticality of not just one but multiple proposals cast a dark shadow on anything potentially useful....more
Calculus is important, and anyone who doubts this will find the book useful. The book's best parts are when Prof Strogatz discusses its strange applicCalculus is important, and anyone who doubts this will find the book useful. The book's best parts are when Prof Strogatz discusses its strange applications in diverse fields.
That said, the book fails in its primary mission of making calculus more understandable. Some of us need to learn it in the classrooms if we plan to apply the tools it provides for any purpose whatsoever. There is no escaping its equations and methods, and this book is not a good place for classroom-bound readers despite various elucidations (ie, not to learn the subject).
The book, however, is for readers who do not have the patience for the field's mathematical formulae, say like, Herman Wouk, as per the author. This is where it fails repeatedly. The author takes refuge in quick equations and calculations whenever he approaches a tricky point. Subsequent explanations are worse than what they would be in a textbook, as verbalizations of equations involve shortcuts that make matter worse even for those who do not mind following the equation route.
Almost all chapters contain standard calculus problems and solutions except that the formulaic steps are truncated and explanations cumbersome for the uninitiated. The book is most suitable as an adjunct to the course material of high-school students learning the subject; the book clears the doubts on why one is learning what one is learning. However, the book is not for those strangers to the subject to develop an appreciation for it....more
The Genetic Lottery is a compassionately and logically written book on a controversial topic. It is articulate, with great examples strewn everywhere The Genetic Lottery is a compassionately and logically written book on a controversial topic. It is articulate, with great examples strewn everywhere to support numerous unambiguous points. The author has a remarkable ability to make things understandable, which is quite rare amongst the experts in this field. She selects just sufficient technical material to bolster her claims but often uses other literary and narrative props for emphasis.
It is quite likely that those with strong views on race-based genetic studies or inequality (causes or solutions) find a lot to disagree. However, the author should be commended for introducing to general readers like this reviewer why race-based studies are essential despite the linked history of eugenics. Those with supremacist agendas will always find ways to interpret what they want from any study or data. Their misuse or abuse should not prevent serious scientific work from searching for the truth. The fundamental nature of the impact of ancestry and race on our lives is important, partly just for the basic understanding and more for the consequent utilities in health, social and political policies.
One still wonders whether genetic studies can reduce reference to race. Let's say a particular genotype (single gene or polygenic index) is linked to a particular behavior or phenotype. Even if this genotype is always present in people identified with one race and absent in those from every other race (an extremely unlikely pattern), it is perhaps far better to label things differently like in Cornonaviruses after the first twelve months. If this genotype is referred to as something technical like Omicron that is always present in a particular race, it becomes easier to discuss its impact on individuals' or groups' tendencies.
As the author says, races, as assumed in everyday life, are not genetically as similar within or diverse between each other as generally made out to be. Despite all the points convincingly made in the book, the field may benefit from a careful rethink of the nomenclature to prevent the worst abuses.
Back to the book: it is immensely readable also for pithy sentences, quick pace, and relevant anecdotes/allegories. ...more