There is a charm to Ms. Marcum's well-written travelogue to the jungles of Belize and the locals she befriends. However, the exoticness for the readerThere is a charm to Ms. Marcum's well-written travelogue to the jungles of Belize and the locals she befriends. However, the exoticness for the readers who are strangers to this land and its culture, nature, or history is short-lived, with the tale meandering aimlessly. Every interesting anecdote - and the book turns into a collection of them with the main story thread disappearing completely between the first and the last chapters - is surrounded by descriptions of extreme regular activities. ...more
Russia has replaced the virus as the biggest risk to world health at the time of this review. Putin's People is the best and most updated book on the Russia has replaced the virus as the biggest risk to world health at the time of this review. Putin's People is the best and most updated book on the single most important individual at this moment. There are informative descriptions of Russia-Ukraine history and dynamics too. But most importantly, the book is unwittingly reflective of how Russia's staunchest opponents - many of them in the decision-making seats in the West - view its political class, which bodes ill for not just the Russians but the whole world in light of recent events.
Let's start with the last point first. The book does not have a single good thing about Putin and his governments. It often turns into the worst kind of partisan trope. A kind that would make fruitful discussions between people on the opposing sides an impossibility, as we know from national politics in so many countries. This reviewer has no way of verifying countless claims made without any qualification in the book. However, what is implied in the section on Trump highlights how various well-researched verifiable facts, casual anecdotes, and rumors are stitched together to show the people the author strongly dislikes in the worst possible way. The author must be commended not just for her meticulous research but more for her ability to create a politician-type, "this is the only fact" narrative. Insufficient evidence will most obviously surface in the Trump section for any objective reader familiar with US politics irrespective of her political leanings. By extension, the same is likely a possibility for many other topics in the book.
The book describes Putin's ascension and the subsequent power grab exceedingly well in the chaotic early years after the USSR break-up. Much of it was not designed but accidental and fortuitous for him. The set-up reads like a gang-war in movies where the most ruthless and one most willing to bend any moral/ethical laws (little other rules applied with the previous era constitution in tatters) emerges as the winner who takes it all. It appears like there were no good people at the Russian political and corporate top in the last two decades; almost all named as the sufferers in the book - and not just those who sided with Putin - have their list of ethical inexactitudes.
That said, the author presents the best work so far on the kleptocrats that have emerged in Russia in the last twenty years. There have been momentous events of all types in this young nation, and the book beautifully glides through the most disturbing ones. ...more
A Little History has too little to offer for anyone familiar with some aspects of Western Philosophy and its history. It is an easy read, particularlyA Little History has too little to offer for anyone familiar with some aspects of Western Philosophy and its history. It is an easy read, particularly for anyone beginning their journey on the subject. The author does well in packing a lot of information in pithy chapters. It distills (to a large degree) what philosophers do excessively - criticize other philosophers' thoughts. This results in a tremendous and unusual focus on constructive ideas. By focusing only on one or two major ideas of each big personality, it provides good ammo to anyone more interested in throwing names in social gatherings too.
All that said, the book is not a reference book of any kind because of the same reasons of being too short and quick. Anyone even faintly familiar with the names or thoughts mentioned is likely to find the ideas oversimplified. Most big ideas are reduced to meaningless obviousness so much that neophytes that the book targets may wonder what all the fuss is about some of the greatest thinkers. ...more
Curve-fitting is the unavoidable bane of anyone with high convictions. Niall Fergusson falls prey to this spectacularly in Doom in trying to accommodaCurve-fitting is the unavoidable bane of anyone with high convictions. Niall Fergusson falls prey to this spectacularly in Doom in trying to accommodate Covid-19 events to his previously crafted narratives on historic trends. Unfortunately for the author, many Covid affairs have unfolded differently within a few months of the book's publication. If the author were to revise the book to include the new events, he would surely find ways to fit the new events too in agreement with his pre-formed views and conclusions. Still, such methods only expose the weaknesses of pop history - and the methods used to construct it - championed in the book.
The book is at its best while detailing and describing historic episodes of disasters. The episodes covered are from all over the world and span three thousand years. The author's biases are visible in the episodes he selects (they reflect the aspects of history he knows extremely well), but rich details that emerge from the author's knowledge base more than make up for the flaw.
The book also makes a handful of interesting deductions in these disjointed chapters that jump from one doom to the other. One such point is when the author shows how most disasters have been made worse by the incompetence of the prevailing authorities. That said, it is also equally clear that few governments will ever emerge unscathed or competent-looking in the face of egregious events, the way few communities come out intact when caught in the eye of a storm. Many other theories - like those on grey rhinos, black swans, dragon kings, or network effects - are less original, without new conclusions, but still imminently readable.
The author stops being an accomplished scholar and turns into another average individual with strong views on where the world is headed whenever he turns to Covid 19 and tries to project its vicissitudes on current politics/geopolitics. The lessons he tries to draw from historic episodes are contrived and carefully sieved to bolster the conclusions he had reached long ago. ...more
Lombard Street is a much-needed, jargon-free treatise for those thinking about the viability of the cryptos, defi, and the like. While the messages heLombard Street is a much-needed, jargon-free treatise for those thinking about the viability of the cryptos, defi, and the like. While the messages here do not rule out a decentralized financial system without a lender of last resort or a centralized policymaker/rule-setter, the book will provoke many thoughts and spawn ideas in the minds of both their believers and skeptics.
Of course, the nineteenth-century authored book is simply the work of a genius; this aptly celebrated, landmark work helped found the first central banks and has influenced central banking ever since. Walter Bagehot's clarity of thoughts and writing in this book must have helped quash many needless policy debates before they reared their heads for decades while shaping conversations in many other directions.
For instance, the book cleared the way for the emergence of a central, government-owned, non-profit, competent person (as against a minister aka politician) led lender of last resort across the world. The book makes a comprehensive case for countercyclical policies by this institution in times of deep distress. It equally provides solid justifications for various lending or liquidity rules during normal times. As a result, the needs behind capital adequacy norms, reserve requirements, or central bank liquidity supporting/moping operations have rarely been debated even in highly non-capitalist systems until the arrival of the crypto crowd in recent times.
It may not matter how much of it all started with this book and the author to current readers. The leading utility of the book is in all its indirect messages when repurposed. The strongest crypto believers are highly dismissive of central banks for their fiat money issuer role. In some ways, the book has nothing on fiat currencies as it was published for a system that believed in the gold standard. Yet, the path paved here (by establishing the central banking processes that need the creation of reserves - aka money - from nothing when times are tough) was invariably going to lead to the emergence of fiat currencies a few decades hence.
That said, the book is the most lucid evidence of how history has been rather than the way many modern decentralized system proponents paint it. Centralization - through the central banks - was not borne out of the desire to print an unlimited amount of money or to invade anyone's privacy or because the intermediaries wanted to make more money. It happened because the decentralized financial world of the mid-nineteenth century (and before) had too volatile cycles borne out of regular market/liquidity/confidence forces. These cycles that first manifested themselves in money market flows and prices had to be pruned before they became circular and wreaked far more real-life damage when allowed to go on unchecked. As the author knew then and we all know now, central institutions like central banks do not solve all problems at all times, plus they come with their own "side effects," but a world without such institutions and attendant rules existed before this book was far worse.
Once again, this jargon-free book was the first paper that showed why a central institution was needed to bring order to a completely decentralized financial system that existed at the time. It was like that era's Satoshi paper! This reviewer cannot imagine how a decentralized system without such an institution can function for long in real life with repeated confidence and liquidity extremities that are a regular feature in trading markets. Real-life with real people and activities cannot afford impacts arising from unchecked financial gyrations because of the vicious cycles/circularities they create. Maybe, there is a decentralized system possible without such gyrations, but that's not what the crypto crowd is attempting to create when they discredit the current centralized system for its money printing and privacy-related flaws. ...more
Graeber and Wengrow's Dawn makes many radical points but, in the end, turns out to be nihilistically pointless because of the methods they consciouslyGraeber and Wengrow's Dawn makes many radical points but, in the end, turns out to be nihilistically pointless because of the methods they consciously or unwittingly deploy.
The authors comprehensively discredit theories of all types of well-known social commentators, historians, anthropologists, or economic historians based on the following single premise. However, this is not in their words.
Language tools, categorizations, framing, etc., that we use in studies now oversimplify the life that was. Rousseau to Pinker, Hobbes to Hariri, Pinker or Diamond, all celebrated thinkers, used later-day descriptions to tell us how some pre-historical communities lived in contrast to what emerged later to make their stories and conclusions. As per the book, what is painted is invariably simplistic, based on scant evidence, and never reflective of the complexities and diversities that existed over millennia of human life in all parts of the world.
The authors comprehensively show that there were no first farms, kings, cities, or even states that marked the beginning of some sort of modernity the way we are made to believe in these books. The archaeological proofs discussed in the book are no less patchy, though. The authors liberally debunk claims of others based on their conclusions of Mesoamerican societies of the last two thousand years or of Harappan/early Egyptian civilizations' archeological findings a few more thousand years before. The theories debunked are often for the communities living tens of thousands of years earlier everywhere.
The book's real arguments are more logico-rational and exceptionally well made, although one does not need any training in history, archeology, or anthropology for these discussions. The way human life or history evolved was never with any intentions, preordained path, or inevitability. The eras that we earmark as periods when many of the modern constructs are said to have emerged - like cities, ruling classes, farms, inequality, etc. - were extraordinarily prolonged periods whose realities famous theorists vainly and willingly generalize to build their narratives. As per the authors, and rightly so to a degree, the vacuity behind those famous sociological theories, stories, and conclusions- no matter how well known- becomes evident when one decides to objectively examine the details behind any claims made on any pattern in history.
One can take the book's arguments further, although this is not a point made by the authors. Whenever a historian of a later time (let alone those Hollywood moviemakers) tries to describe the life of people even a few thousand years before using modern tools at her disposal, she is doomed to misrepresent massively. Studies or conclusions built on top of such misrepresentations, as per the chain of thoughts adopted by the authors, serve little purpose. The authors pick only a handful of most famous claims to debunk, but the argument chain can discredit absolutely any claim made in these fields.
High school debaters master the technic of going after the definition of terms used by the opponents to score points. The terms we use - not just in spoken languages but even in sciences - can never adequately represent the reality they try to describe. The language-based and continuously evolving categorizations (say through abstractions like hypothalamus in a brain, electron in physics, internet, or even what we mean by a farm) provide a truncated description of reality. Constructs built on top may help us analyze some future problem or situation better, but they are far shakier when examined closely than typically implied by their proponents.
If, as the authors nearly conclude, all generalizations are wrong, and hence the narratives based on them, subjects like history are sucked out of any practical utility and reduced to a hobby. Observing events in atomized isolation is the only pure path under such schema as one assiduously avoids any language-based descriptions, which become definitionally violative. The real critique in the book is not towards opposing specific theories like claims on the origin of inequality with the exhortations for better theories in those realms. The arguments are against almost all theories. Clearly, pattern recognition cannot be so useless.
Rationality spends most of the book length covering elementary concepts from a collection of subjects. Even when it comes to pulling them together forRationality spends most of the book length covering elementary concepts from a collection of subjects. Even when it comes to pulling them together for something original in conclusions, the book fails equally abjectly.
For some strange reasons, the author recounts the topics well covered in hundreds of books from the fields of probability theory, statistics, game theory, logic, behavioral sciences, and the likes. These discussions are staggeringly unoriginal in their conclusions and the details - say in the examples or illustrations used, descriptions, or explanations of the formulas. These chapters form almost 90% of the book; they are without a single aha moment for those even somewhat familiar.
When one finally reaches the most anticipated part - something even the author pens in as many words to start the section - the disappointment compounds with the banality of the postamble. Rather than spending any more time about the book's content, the reviewer is jotting down his thoughts sparked by the book - not necessarily original but undoubtedly personal.
Nothing is entirely rational, or everything is, because of the massive range of issues that impact any rational analysis. A deployment of rational concepts and tools for human brains - even those straightforward ones in math and logic - requires immense training. Behavioral finance is replete with examples of how our intuitions crumble in various reasonably objective settings. At the same time, other psychological fields prove our mental inadequacies in dealing with situations that require intricate interplays.
In real life, many factors that go into rational-conclusion-throwing-cauldron are highly subjective. What one decides as a rational course of action is dependent on the highly subjective utility functions, ethics, and personal histories. Circumstances and experiences play additional random roles in what the person doing the analysis prioritizes as the primary goal at a specific time point while relegating the other discordant types.
All of the above does not count the role played by norms and expectations. The book shows well through discussions on taboos, the societies and communities around us erect artificial bounds on rational tools, methods, analysis, and conclusions available to us.
One of the key conclusions the book fails to draw despite coming close is the circularities involved in rational thinking because of the concepts like Bayesian priors. Priors are those critical irrationals - call them axioms, beliefs, superstitions, assumptions, or whatever else – at the root of most real-life rational analysis. Like in Newton Method in calculus, and actually far worse, the results of a supposedly rational exercise are utterly dependent on the initial assumptions for which there is often no obvious agreement.
Say my faith in what I hear from my ancestors makes me believe that there is almost a hundred percent probability of the existence of black swans, even if extremely rare. Let's say that while I meet a hundred who consider me a looney, I also meet a believer who claims that he spotted a black swan in the dark of the night recently. The others may consider this person delusional, but given my priors, I would not only give higher credence to such one-off data points but use them to increase my overall conviction levels.
One can replace Black Swan with a ghost or a unicorn or a particular type of god or even geocentric views at the times of Galileo to see how what is deemed irrational by one may not be irrational at all in the contexts of the highly subjective priors one starts with. And all this is not factoring in limits of rationality most cleverly exposed in game theory situations but more realistically observed in people with differing goals. In practical life, it often pays - "rationally" - to be irrational.
What is rational is not a zero-one game, but it is not even a scale where at one end you have things as true as 2 and 2 equals four, with the opposite having the claims of the same as five. Rationality is a multi-dimensional landscape shaped by the above and more - like rules, laws, generally accepted objective facts, etc.
Any conclusions veering towards the paucity of absolutes for a field searching for the truths would leave almost everyone unhappy, including the most liberals. Clearly, many with specific input parameters would rationally decide to be intolerant of anyone who does not subscribe to their views. Even a few in any mix would create those game theory situations where it is rationally better for all to become intolerant of dissenting groups.
With such extreme analysis, rationality turns out to be not just axiomatic (and almost irrational or faith-based) but also nihilistic. Or in other words, it does not pay to overthink rationality!...more
The Tyranny of Merit has its heart in the right place but not necessarily or not always the head.
The first thing the book gets entirely right, althougThe Tyranny of Merit has its heart in the right place but not necessarily or not always the head.
The first thing the book gets entirely right, although perhaps to its consternation with no disagreement from anyone anywhere, is that the world is not a fair place. In many fields that people claim those with merits win are full of winners who happen to be at the right place at the right time or, much worse, with the winners emerging on top using unacceptable methods. Not only that those with merits do not always win, but many who have the merits - as the book wonderfully shows - acquire their merits due to chance factors. For example, some people are born with the right talents or background that help them be good at certain things. In a way, these are people with merits because they are lucky.
As important as the above points are, they are incontrovertible even in the eyes of extreme libertarians, conservatives, free-market proponents, capitalists, or others of similar ilk. When reduced to the extent the author tries to bear down on in the book, everything - including one's tendency to persevere or work hard - is due to some or the other chance factors in one's gene or environment. Even if one stops before completely ruling out free will along these lines, it is easy to claim that nature plays a huge role in anyone's success, if not all the role.
The second point the book gets right is that those who are unlucky are punished excessively in our unequal world. We live in a world of insidious inequality that is getting worse and turning more entrenched. Our world's winners are racing away with more share of the world's riches and resources while the rest face ever diminishing prospects of breaking the rut.
The book throws no new light on inequality, even if its moral viewpoint that the unlucky, often branded as the ones without merit, do not need to be so disenfranchised is compassionately and convincingly well made. The solutions offered - through consumption-, wealth-, and financial transaction taxes - are neither original nor substantive. The wage subsidy arguments - mentioned in the briefest possible ways - are utopian in the way they are discussed. Any real-life practitioner would be able to elaborate why a minimum basic income will be far more practical than trying to decide the extent of subsidies for thousands of diverse types of jobs based on their arbitrarily decided societal value. Plus, a minimum income - not touched upon - will be moralistically more compatible with the chance factor arguments discussed by the author than having everyone disagreeing with everyone on which jobs are more or less important compared to the other and the extent of their importance/unimportance.
Simply put, in one fell swoop, the author discussed dismantling the market economy from all walks of life using examples of its failures but providing no objective evidence of how the scantily discussed, throwaway, proposed solutions would be better overall. One cannot destroy every human creation or societal construct by simply pointing to weaknesses. Far more, carefully prepared details must be offered on proposed alternatives than what the author does, especially when what one proposes involves something as radical as removing price signals.
The biggest issue with the book is how the author, who tries to be all-inclusive in providing the moral or philosophical base for his humanistic arguments, is wilfully blind to the role played by one's luck in where she is born. The author's inclusiveness is limited to those who have lagged in America. When the author abandons his philosophical musings and turns to politics, his rationale almost shifts zero-sum with little regard for those far poorer foreigners who lose out when the US turns more inward to protect its poor. There is nothing wrong with one taking a limited view in one's desire to reduce inequality only within a well-defined group of any kind, but such people should not try to theorize so much as the author does about the sacrifices more privileged must make for the less fortunate. The least unfortunate of the world are not the poorest of the richest countries.
The author is also wrong in dissing merit to the extent he does. Let's suppose there is a parallel world where tennis and sports have the meritocratically abused, elevated levels that the author sees so specifically in our society's math/science and education. Another author authoring a book on that society's inequality rightly starts by making the points on how the winners are luckier rather than being entirely on merit given that some of their natural gifts are just chance factors while a lot of their expensive training is due to their parents' affordability.
After rightly discussing the role of chance and correctly criticizing excessive prizes for winners versus the pittance for those behind or nothing for the folks unable to play tennis, the same author begins making political points in his book. Suppose he starts elaborating on a recent populist leader's success by endorsing the need to keep outside players out of the nation's tournaments to ensure that it is the best way to have citizens retain higher winnings and feel less unhappy. From there, while continuously mouthing those best sportspeople are more watchable and have more viewership, he begins discussing why sports competitions should have winners based on a lottery!
The logic, of course, would begin from the arguments that there is little that separate the top players, as is clearly evidenced in the fact that not the same player wins all the time. The author also points at the top performers' anxieties in staying at the top while the rest's frustrations at their inability to win as other reasons why such competitions should be banned at every level, starting from schools.
Returning to our world and the book, the lottery-based college admissions or arguments against exams are similar suggestions. The author's radical idea of making life more a lottery than it is as a solution is simply ridiculous. He may claim that he is suggesting this only for some walks of life, like in university admissions, but such wonkiness, if implemented, will have others suggesting doing away with all exams and using lottery in job selections, parental care, sports, or even politics. Once a society brays for an authority based on some philosophers' musing to roll the dice and pick winners arbitrarily as a way of life, a cultural revolution to obliterate any signs of individuality cannot be far away.
In the section on credentialism, the author bemoans how some implicitly or explicitly brag their better fortunes (in the form of university degrees or educational certificates in the author's examples) to the chagrin of others around. Once again, the example is not much different from winners pumping fists on a sports field or displaying their awards on their mantels. If every life activity's losers' feelings are used as a yardstick to dictate how everyone should behave, the resultant, joy-banning, totalitarian state will be more mechanistically socialistic than most left-leaning economists have ever asked for.
Humans create contests out of everything. From games of stones, chariots to beauty contests and money or computer games, we heave on emotions generated by them. One can list chance factors involved to any winner of any of these games while beseeching humility or the need to make the game fairer or asking for more just rewards, but to ask for a larger role of chance is a step in the backward direction.
So yes, the author should be credited to make the point that our societies need to spend far more time on those who are falling behind. We need to reduce the winners' winnings substantially and lift the rewards of the rest through more distributive policies. We must ensure that everyone knows that all who win have a lot to owe to Lady Luck. We must turn more decent and humane towards those who are not lucky rather than implicitly accept that the unfortunate must deserve what befell on them somehow. The author is not universal enough in applying his first principal-based humanitarian arguments, and his economic solutions do not follow the Hegelian self-actualization that he wants to help everyone achieve by making life a bigger game of dice....more
The Narrow Corridor is a deeply flawed construct even if one does not go into its utility for any historian, planner, or thinker. Let's start with theThe Narrow Corridor is a deeply flawed construct even if one does not go into its utility for any historian, planner, or thinker. Let's start with the second issue first - why does one need a theory like that of the "Shackled Leviathan" to explain that liberal democracy is not a natural state that all political systems eventually end at but a fragile equilibrium that few ever obtain.
Liberalism has unsustainable contradictions in its roots: a true, Voltairic liberal should theoretically tolerate a violent illiberal who wants to behead her. For a liberal system to come into existence, it must snuff out all illiberals who do not believe in whatever is deemed fundamental tenets of that liberalism - and the absolutism stated here contains more contradictions for a system that is built on abhorrence towards absolutisms.
One can look at this differently. Any commune that only thinks about its own denizens while throwing or keeping out anyone it decides to count as a non-citizen is not liberal the way colonial systems were not when they had different rules for the people they were ruling. Any society with closed borders is by definition illiberal somewhere.
Suppose some society succeeds in building a limited, liberal state on such contradictions. In that case, it is easy to see why the delicate balance may not last forever (rather than an ever-lasting End of History) as some or the other actors will always try to gnaw at the frailties for their own benefits. A liberal system cannot rein in the desires and dreams of its members, even if some members want to assume tyrannical power in some or the other sphere that disadvantages those they decide to brandish as outsiders.
The book's Shackled Leviathan is a poor representation of the same contradiction - an ultra-powerful set of checks and balances that monitor themselves as much as all-around to ensure that everyone can do all they want to as long as they do not do anything that takes away much from others. The previous mouthful may appear like a good enough reason to build a term that the authors prefer and write a book, but there are bigger issues.
In traversing through three millennia of historic events from all parts of the world, the authors arbitrarily assign certain societies as liberal and successful while denouncing the others as either totalitarian or anarchic illiberal and failed. Almost all the authors celebrated liberal systems were partially and transiently such and not necessarily successful. None of the historic systems were fair to all races, genders, subjects, natives, religions, and classes. This is true for present liberal democracies too. One only needs to look at the treatment of desiring migrants or weakened minorities to understand that liberal societies should be ranked on a scale rather than on a yes/no box.
The authors use various nation-states' current economic prosperities to evaluate some of their historic liberalism or illiberalism. In the process, they allow their biases to come in and muddle the concepts of Leviathans, Red Queens, and Corridors even more. The authors feel that certain European nations of today are destined to be liberally inclined for factors that go back to the days of Socrates without ever pausing at the absurdity of making a continental-wide generalization spanning thousands of years. Even if the book occasionally highlights the examples like Nazi Germany to bring about the other side, what it sweeps under to bolster Europe's liberal credentials is unhelpful.
Europe is more liberal, on average and as of today, but the reasons behind this emergence are not as much in societal tendencies as in individuals who emerge from nowhere and shape the history - as may be the case in the states of affairs in various parts of Africa, Middle East, China, India, US or anywhere else. Suppose one has to use a Corridor analogy. In that case, liberalism is a leaky corridor rather than a narrow corridor - right efforts of a small number of right individuals at the right time could make any system highly tolerant and democratic for a while. Still, equally, even the most robust democracies could kill themselves with wrong individuals emerging at a bad time.
Individuals have played far bigger roles in constructing and deconstructing political systems in human societies than all the other factors described endlessly in the book. The authors are right that ideal democracies are difficult to build and even more difficult to sustain, but the rationale is incomplete if not wrong.
All societies tend to majoritarianism, which bubbles to the surface whenever there is any turbulence - geopolitical, economic, nature-led, man-made, or because of human/group rivalries. Such turbulences contain the seeds of destruction for whatever political systems that may exist at the time. If the leaders who prevail decide to go with their favored herd after any minorities (those who may be small in numbers or feebled), the ensuing illiberal system could keep going for a while until some other major turbulence and a different thinking set of leaders. Once in a while, the prevailing leader or winner has a high moral compass and uses his goodwill to stand with the minorities while asking the majorities for sacrifices - these Mandela's or Lincon's or Gandhi's are the bigger drivers of liberal systems - a point the book misses completely. ...more
The Code presents a compelling case on the law being the real oil of Capitalism. One rarely comes across a powerful, original idea in a short statemenThe Code presents a compelling case on the law being the real oil of Capitalism. One rarely comes across a powerful, original idea in a short statement, like when the author asserts that an asset, intellectual property, financial instrument, or anything similar becomes capital only when legally codified.
A part of the book explains how capitalistic societies evolved only with legal shields on assets through various state-granted rights. Professor Pistor makes her case thoroughly, in a way only a good lawyer can. The rationales are especially forceful with the counterfactuals. In the author's hands, the dividing line between the leading and lagging market economies is not the varied implementation of free-market principles but their codification of capital.
As insightful as these arguments are, the book takes it a few notches higher with the discussions on the difference between private and public codes. State laws - or Public Codes - are not even a small part of the story of Capitalism. Lawyers' ability to draft contracts between consenting parties, or Private Codes, using effectively whatever state laws or jurisdictions they find suitable is the real driver.
Amid thickets of great insights of all kinds, the author keeps coming up with absolute gems. For instance, the author makes a convincing case when she argues how global markets can function with decent statutes from only a handful of jurisdictions - like New York or London or ISDA - since private players can shop around for the jurisdiction that works for them.
The book is particularly useful for the proponents or the opponents of smart contracts in the cryptosphere. Both sides will find a lot to ponder, even if they don't find anything to change their firmly held views. On the one hand, the supremacy of the Private Code should bolster the proponents' claims of the utility of quick, customizable, state-independent, smart contracts. The opponents will find more support in how the real power of any contract stems from the details and the resolutions that require lawyers, state coercive powers, and human negotiations ("no contract is ever complete" - another gem) rather than mere digitalization.
Many conclusions are extreme when taken verbatim. Do lawyers rule the economic world more than politicians, entrepreneurs, bankers, innovators, or consumers? The author's recommendations towards the end on what is needed to fix current economic malaises, notably inequality, are idealistic and in some contradictions to the arguments on how private contracts are shaped before. None of this takes away a tiny bit from the immense original and powerful nature of the book. ...more
The Unspoken Rules is an unvarnished, straight-shooting book for the young in the workforce. This practical guide does not balk at talking about thingThe Unspoken Rules is an unvarnished, straight-shooting book for the young in the workforce. This practical guide does not balk at talking about things that could be the most obvious or throwing highly practical directives that are difficult to enunciate without offending some woke crowd.
The book is as practical as it comes - it never resorts to academic studies or social science theories. The plain-speak will evoke reflective thoughts in the highly experienced or even top executives in charge of managing others.
A refreshingly different type of management book. ...more
Here is a self-help book full of hundreds of directives. The rules are grouped under a handful of buckets, but they come thick and fast in small packeHere is a self-help book full of hundreds of directives. The rules are grouped under a handful of buckets, but they come thick and fast in small packets all through. The suggestions are almost always without qualifications. They are supposedly based on scientific studies, but the book shies away from providing references to any research work. The case studies used as support at the beginning of every chapter are easy reads, but they are also carefully selected and recounted to make the points the author has decided to make.
The point is that a thoughtful reader will find dozens of definitive conclusions that he will strongly disagree with. A careful reader will be annoyed by repetitive occurrences of many points. A diligent will notice frequent evaporation of a supposedly rational or scientific basis when the author dishes out rules based on personal beliefs and experiences. Some will undoubtedly have issues with the style, and others with the case studies too, which are not all as factually established or interpretable as the author makes them out to be.
And yet, the book works because of the useful tips strewn in between. This reviewer found the body language discussions most helpful. The book is also refreshing for its unabashed propagation of what it deems as right or given compared to almost everything else in psychology and behavioral sciences that leave too much to interpretations. As discussed earlier, the approach gives rise to multiple highly controversial or disagreeable propositions. Still, on balance - and because of the nature of conclusions - it works more than where it fails....more
Reading The Party about a decade since its publication throws good light on issues raised by perennial China skeptics. The book is informative in its Reading The Party about a decade since its publication throws good light on issues raised by perennial China skeptics. The book is informative in its details on CCP's hold over life and everything else in China. Its absolutism is laudatory at a level, even though most readers will wonder if the author - and similar commentators - would apply the same brush to nations and governments strategically more important to their host nations.
The main conclusions are elsewhere. There is no dearth of experts uneasy with the Chinese ways ever since its growth started drawing their attention, particularly from the Tiananmen protests. Almost all have forecasted an imminent political and economic collapse stressing the unsustainability of the Chinese ways while excessively drawing on the mistakes of the Mao times.
China will have ups and downs in the years ahead. The downcycles will be different from those elsewhere, even if equally or more/less painful, characterized by the Party's unique structure. And yet, three things are lost in the analysis of the kind presented in the book.
One, every system in the world is unique and causes its community to go through its distinctive cycles. This is not to say some systems are not more wrong, but a perspective on any success matter to analyze any predicted doom. None of the forecasted collapses of China have come to a pass so far. Books of the kind must discuss what has allowed the party to go on so long before turning to incremental changes that could lead to a complete collapse from now.
Two, Xi Jinping's era further solidifies that the Party continues to shift. This is not a hindsight analysis, but even when the book was written, it was clear that the 2010 CCP was utterly different from the one in 1995, 1979, or 1965, as it is now from 2010. It is important to recount events and disasters of the previous fifty years but the author - and many others - excessively use them to give their interpretations of reality now.
Three, some things on human rights and individual freedoms are wrong absolutely. End results in economic or political successes should not be used to either justify them or predictions of failures to announce their futility. Champions of such causes, however, always bear the burden of proving their credentials that they are not prejudiced. The book fails to establish this.
In conclusion, the book is a helpful read to understand the pitfalls of standard China analysis we see in abundance these days.
The book's most prominent point, although understated, is the need for people from all sections in the US to agree on China as a strategic rival. The The book's most prominent point, although understated, is the need for people from all sections in the US to agree on China as a strategic rival. The book is less about China - real or imaginary - and threats it poses - again real or imaginary - than about the author's frustrations with the inability of factions to come together.
Superficially, the book is about China as the US's prime threat from now on. The author tries to provide an ethical and moral logic, but what he deems inevitable is more borne out of the unease that China can now compete with the US on a large number of economic, geopolitical, and technological fields where the US lead earlier was unassailable. At multiple points, the author could not contain himself in blaming China for the US-like ambitions it harbors in influence and affluence.
Unlike the US's past enemies - in Japan, Russia, and radical Islam - China is more a rival and competitor. China refuses to play by US rules which is not merely frustrating but also destabilizing for the US, as the author highlights indirectly. Let's examine this closely.
As the author writes, China should be blamed on suppressing political dissent, avoiding democratic reforms, human rights, trade protectionism, IP pilferage, capital subsidies, low wages, territorial expansionism, rampant nationalism, religious suppression, and a host of others. Whether true or not, and whether the US likes it or not, China will not change its current ways for the sake of the US.
The more significant point is that many factions within the US, like in the Trump administration, as shown in the book, do not agree on squashing China for what the author sees as proven infringements or violations. For the US to have all major parts of the society work together in fighting China, many of its own rules on freedom of expression, business practices, market norms, and engagements need to change.
The author may feel that there is a legal or moral ground to do most of it - like forcing the US market to stop listing China companies or helping the anti-China political causes - but none of this is possible without top-down edicts given the rules of US society. Without the categorical top-down directives to reduce the engagement with China, effectively declaring the start of a clear cold war 2, the US individuals and corporates will have many reasons to work in ways that will displease China-bashers like the author.
In its single-handed China-is-bad context setting, the book plays fast and loose with facts. The sections on capital markets reveal the ignorance - if not the bias - more to this reviewer than anyone else, with the things turning laughable in the discussions on index providers. Frequent "hacking" claims - as indicators of most China successes being a result of IP stealing - are ignorant of how innovations truly happen. The author has his own ideas on how large firms from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, industrial and mineral, real estate to universities should be behaving, based on alleged wrong done to or through them.
In conclusion, the US and China strategic rivalry is the new reality for everyone for the coming decades. We are beyond the point where one could ask whether this is needed, as is clear in this book. The US policymakers will need to embrace offensive realism to hold their competitive ground. Its partisan setting will lead to both sides having their own version of truths and righteousness. This book will go down as one of the early efforts asking for disparate US political factions to come together by showing how unfocussed efforts of the previous years, and particularly the Trump administration, have handed over the advantage to China. Will these factions actually come together even in the slightest? It would have been far more unlikely except for the Covid origination theory discussed at the end. ...more
The Problems of Philosophy is a profoundly insightful book by a master philosopher for ordinary people. Given the advance of science since its publicaThe Problems of Philosophy is a profoundly insightful book by a master philosopher for ordinary people. Given the advance of science since its publication, most of its assertions appear questionable, if not outright wrong. Yet, the book retains its power to make readers think. The rest are some of my thoughts based on the reading here (I am sure all these musings have been debated, improved upon, and in many cases, disregarded by other philosophers ever since, but that does not make them any less completely my thoughts).
As Mr. Russell says towards the end, Philosophy begins where other sciences stop providing more objective answers. What the author does not elucidate is that as a reason, the subject matter is irrevocably and provocatively speculative. Without the hopes of finding absolute truths of the unsolved queries in their lifetime, its pursuers use words and intuitive logic of various types to build their answers to difficult questions. They run the risk of appearing stupid to the later-day beings with more objective data and theories at their disposal. In fact, almost all of them appear short-sighted and narrow-minded to their future readers since theories developed within a brain, based on limited/spotty observations and human languages, can never sufficiently describe the hard truths at the root of any real-life quandary.
Mr. Russell's assertions regarding the importance of sense data (including the categorizations of knowledge), arguments on apriori knowledge, the law of contradiction, and a handful of others require substantial alterations given the scientific discoveries of the last hundred years. His idealism appears fundamentally wrong once one factors in the recent progress in machine learning. The same can be said about his "evident truths" or facts on duality, which was undisputed before quantum physics.
One of the other fundamental problems with Philosophy is its tools of the trade. Philosophers are forced to deploy a vague language of words. Even when they strive hard to deploy rigidly defined logical straight-jackets, they cannot escape descriptives and attain the rigor of complex, manipulable mathematical formulas.
There is a paradox at play: the more time some philosophers - of the ilk of Wittgenstein or Russell - spend on providing precise definitions of terms, the less they seem to discuss the residual world left unexplained by the objective sciences. Lightly put, the rigid philosophers appear to spend all the time discussing the exact meanings of words and language structures they use. The rest seem to shout past each other, seemingly using the identical language but likely meaning wholly different things with the exact words.
Modern-day readers who are reasonably acquainted with the latest machine-learning-based algorithms will have strong objections to nearly something or the other in every section. In a way, the book's biggest positive is it makes philosophical thinking accessible, never mind everything else....more
Why Fish Don't Exist has a message that appears novel but is one of the oldest from the scriptures of all types. The short book's language is lyrical Why Fish Don't Exist has a message that appears novel but is one of the oldest from the scriptures of all types. The short book's language is lyrical but too little. The path chosen through an anti-hero is inconsistent with the positivity that is to permeate the mood of such a book.
The book is about the author's journey to realize that we must overcome our tendency to categorize, atomize, or individualize what we have in our surroundings. The reality is a constantly moving whole where each artificial construct to define or perceive any part separately - say, a fish - takes more out of our experience than adds to it.
Irrespective of how much one believes in this philosophy, the message is at least as old as the first recorded philosophical musings. Most saints and Sufis would demur that the author does not go deep enough: she is unable to abandon her own individualism anywhere. Her efforts to merge with the whole result in the yearning for another individual and creating another family unit.
This reviewer finds the epilogue moving in isolation! However, it also epitomizes the main problem with the book. All too frequently, the lyricism and romanticism of the core message are marred by the inconsistencies with the stories around. This is even when the stories are fascinating and well-told by themselves.
Take David Starr Jordan, for instance. The author sets him up by throwing lights on different facets of his life conveniently to reveal her conclusions. As explained well by the author, the taxidermist was a highly flawed and also a highly talented and dedicated man of his era. However, it is unlikely that the author learned about the positives and the negatives of the man in the same sequence as presented in the book, to come to her eventual realization on the futility of the categorization years later when she discovered the worst of his flaws.
The debut author has a way with words. Her ability to connect the seemingly unconnected is a testament to her creativity. Her romanticism is refreshing. However, the first concoction left a somewhat bitter taste for this reviewer because of the negativity of the primary subject matter....more
The reviewer knows one of the authors (Pawan) well. He came across the inspirational work when it was generously gifted. While the authors claim that The reviewer knows one of the authors (Pawan) well. He came across the inspirational work when it was generously gifted. While the authors claim that the book is mainly for the specialists in the field, there is a lot in it that would be of interest to readers interested in the evolution of emerging economies, their corporate culture, and differing regulatory regimes.
The authors - all selflessly dedicated to the cause that would make any sustainability observer applaud - do not intend to focus on Cambodia's emergence post Pol Pot nadir. However, the story of Phnom Penh Water Authority begins from the dark shadow of the genocide. One learns about the Khmer Rouge carnage more through some of the numbers presented rather than any events' descriptions. Consider this: Phnom Penh's population had estimated to have declined 90% in a single decade. Such low was the economic point that when PPWSA obtained a meager USD50k aid in 1993, it was a newsworthy item. This amount was meaningful enough to play a significant role in PPWSA's coming out story.
PPWSA may not feature in Asia's thousand or even ten thousand biggest corporate stories by many accounts. And yet, it is a highly unique account of a water corporate being able to do something unprecedented in the emerging world and compared to the developed world counterparts.
Consider this: because of PPWSA's efforts discussed in detail in the book, unaccounted water reduced from 70% in 1992 to less than 10% by 2012 in Phnom Penh. This non-revenue water percentage is better than even many developed world entities', like Thames Water of the UK, despite its privatization as early as 1983. In a short eight-year period from 1993, the customers getting the metered measurements at PPWSA went from 13% to 100%. Among the main drivers behind its spectacular development, as per the authors, were the autonomy granted to PPWSA in 1996 and its committed leadership.
It is difficult for current world readers to appreciate the low starting point of the early 1990s' PPWSA. For example, at the time of the first elections in 1993, Cambodia had no financial accounting standards. There were external agency-led programs for PPWSA to learn accounting. The authors highlight how simple things like the ability to produce audited accounts since 1997 played a role in the evolution of such a remarkable company leading to it becoming the first joint-stock company listed in Cambodia Stock Exchange by 2012.
PPWSA's singular achievement during its best phase was the changes it made in its tariff structure in the late 1990s and early 2000s. With the focus on its customer groups' ability to pay, it devised a tariff table that allowed it to meet all expenditures without excessively burdening the users.
The 4-D framework proposed by the authors details the company and its current state, which is not uniformly positive. In the gap analysis and discussion on risks, the book throws light on things that have started going wrong in the last ten years. Authors' recommendations include things as radical as the need to de-list the entity to find the right balance between its financial and social goals.
The book ends with quick sections on lessons for other water utility companies and their management. There is a lot in the middle sections of interest to Cambodia corporate historians or water industry specialists. Equally, there is a lot for general readers too....more
Michael Strevens' philosophy of science is somewhat novel but certainly not radical like those of Popper's or Kuhn's that the book begins with. While Michael Strevens' philosophy of science is somewhat novel but certainly not radical like those of Popper's or Kuhn's that the book begins with. While there are many subtle differences in details, the author's iron rule of explanation is quite similar to Popper's falsification construct.
This reviewer's rating of the book reflects an average of many ideas that it induced in his - the reviewer's - mind and overall straightforward conclusions. Rather than discussing the book, the rest of the space is used to sketch the reviewer's own philosophy of science. I am not a trained theoretician, and as a result, my approximate language and lack of details will make my idea far weaker than it is, but I hope they provide some food for thoughts to someone reading this review!
Humans developed word- or description-based languages first and data (including data-driven rationality) later. Our ways of making sense of the surround have had three distinct phases:
Words only, or what we call explanatory theory/conjectures A theory first, and proven/disproved/modified by observations/data gathered by ever-improving tools Data or equations first, and language-based theories later to satisfy our minds and their purported rationality Data only - this phase, which is our present and future, has many distinct categories of its own
Philosophers of science have struggled in trying to assemble all of these highly distinct phases into one. In fact, most of them have tried to include our discovery/innovation stage that started with Descarte (or some would have the starting point with Bacon or Newton), christening it as modern or the era of reason/science, and getting themselves all twisted with the arrival of quantum physics.
Newton-to-Einstein (roughly) period will prove an exception rather than the rule in humanity's progress in understanding and manipulating nature. This was the phase where our language-based, causality-believing, reasoning skills were advanced enough to explain the mysterious ways of the world through the minds of brilliant individuals sitting in a room and reflecting on observations or data available to them. This was also the phase where our ever-advancing tools' ability to observe, record, register, and analyze data were catching up to corroborate, improve or reject (or in the worst case, cast doubts on) previously described theories within some time.
Most of the science from here to forever is not going to be explainable in human languages, and as a result, it will not be what philosophers of science have made it out to be. There is no theory behind why a set of hydrogen and oxygen molecules make the water of specific characteristics or various spatial combinations of the same molecules create different amino acids. Our mind can not easily accept what is both a matter and a wave, as it cannot grasp whatever that does not follow a straight or even relativistic arrow of time in terms of causality.
Human languages are grossly inadequate in explaining how mRNA vaccines work to defeat a Covid or even our algorithms that create specific search results on Google or the essays that might be written by GPT-3. The classifications our forefathers came up with - for example, cat versus dog, male versus female, or planets versus stars - are all going to be proven inadequate as our data tools improve. When our machines identify species, improve our brains or identify the signals from the cosmos, its internal classifications - if we can call them - could be completely different from what our elementary minds designed.
Data-driven science will progress based on utility. "Utility" is a broad term, which some theoretician could write a long book on to make sense! The point is that no framework of Popper, Kuhn, or the author can explain the development we see all around us daily in the tech and post-tech world.
Too many philosophers have tried too hard to explain the extraordinary period of twentieth-century physics (while blithely ignoring biology, for instance) when human mental abilities and our tools' data capabilities were neck to neck, resulting in theoretical discoveries and practical validations or refutations happening in quick succession. Science for most times before and forever from now on does not fit this mold.
In the times we live in, it is not easy to unabashedly glorify a race as highly successful and sing songs of its unique facets as reasons behind that In the times we live in, it is not easy to unabashedly glorify a race as highly successful and sing songs of its unique facets as reasons behind that success. This is particularly difficult when the unique list consists of cultural norms and practices that might be widely unacceptable in other civilizations, implicitly demeaning others' practices.
The provocative book on the WEIRD does this and far worse. The author spends almost no effort on sugarcoating by highlighting any of the WEIRD cultures' adverse outcomes. He agrees in passing that there have been a few substantial ones, but the book sticks to its purpose of explaining why a particular group of people could embark on a substantial innovation quest while others could not.
The claims that different races are psychologically wired differently and the causes lie in their cultural history are sensational, if not outright sacrilegious. The author explicitly links these claims to these races' economic and lifestyle divergences, which is even more scandalous.
The book might not sit easily with a lot of people, but it is a compelling read with myriads of powerful and highly original arguments. If the text smacks of triumphalism of some kind, which could be abused by bigots with relevant agendas, it is a small side effect as those with perverse purposes do not necessarily need such books.
The main point about the co-evolution of psychology and culture is staggering. It might not be as theoretically solid as the author thinks, but it is worth exploring and knowing. That certain first Catholic, and subsequently Protestant, habits bred individuals that were less connected to and who less identified with their kins, which became the seed that eventually bloomed to market-oriented, selfish homo economicus is not an easy construct. The book makes the case solidly.
With many case studies, historical anecdotes, and behavioral experiments, the author has something new to offer in virtually every section of the book. Even those who vehemently disagree with the conclusions could walk away with a lot of new knowledge and information, given the breadth of the academic landscape traversed by the author.
From simple things like how people from different races respond to a simple question like who are you to the parking tickets of different countries' delegates at the UN, the distinction between guilt and shame to the way different cultures interact with strangers, how literate people's brains behave in recognizing faces to polygamy's impact on hormones...the book fluently moves from one new set of information to the next with staggering clarity and alacrity.
As more work is done and more books are written on the idea threads that originated in this book, a lot of criticism will be heaped on every logical leap made in the book. The bigger issue is what it means for future: WEIRD tendencies were great for a particular stage in human evolution - like in the last five- or so hundred years, but they would not have worked well in a hunter-gatherer community, for instance. Or, not when one is fighting a pandemic!
There is a massive transformation in many other societies in the post-tech world because of the changed lifestyles and information availability. From the author's well-argued different psychological starting points, one can argue, different societies are psychologically transforming differently and will likely have completely different economic evolutions going forward. In other words, it is quite possible that WEIRD may not remain economically ahead forever.
In summary, this is one of the rare works which will spawn a new field. The author's style and writing skills supplement staggering conclusions and mountains of new information/arguments. Worth reading multiple times.
In The World Until Yesterday, Dr. Diamond is excellent while on descriptive grounds. The book is a delightful, informative read given the author's extIn The World Until Yesterday, Dr. Diamond is excellent while on descriptive grounds. The book is a delightful, informative read given the author's extensive and unique research travels, but as long as the reader can overlook many flaws of the intermittent, and often prolonged, prescriptive sections.
Few evolutionary or social scientists have traveled the destinations Dr. Diamond has, and that too over decades. The wider world has so much to imbibe from his experiences, also because of the changes many of the communities he came across are going through. The author is highly perceptive in extracting lessons from his daily-life observations while living with the tribes of all types from different parts of the world.
While the author is not an equally accomplished writer, his descriptive sections are rich because of the content. There are numerous anecdotes in the first two-thirds of the book. They are a delight to go through, even if many are not as surprising or illuminating as some others.
The last sections read more like wise words from a seasoned sage rather than objective lessons. The sections on language and diet are preachy, without throwing any new lights. Don't allow these sections to diminish the value of what comes before....more
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