“As soon as you can read, you are incredibly rich.”
A very clever writer if you like dry NYC style humor
Riches
Book Recommendation Three
Against Empathy by Paul Bloom
In this short book Bloom argues against the instinctive empathy that drives so much of our reaction to events. It is good he argues to have sympathy for those suffering or in need but when it is empathy we might react to the immediate suffering at the expense of helping a larger group. It is worth a read because it makes you think about the way both policy and personal decisions are made.
Photo is the sunset from our balcony on Feb 3
Book Recommendation Two
Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
Black Lives Matter has been on the agenda longer than Covid 19. Gladwell sees the issues of race from both sides and tells some stories that allowed me to see how minorities would see issues like aggressive policing. He offers some reasonable advice and some attainable policy proposals. It is an easy read about a difficult subject. In the margin it changed my behavior.
Photo is of an Inukshuk I built on Piestewa Peak in January.
Book Recommendation One
“Urgency is one of the worst distorters of our world view.”
Hans Rosling in Factfulness
I read Factfulness twice and it definitely was the top book I read in 2020. I quoted it numerous times on the blog and I could easily find another ten quotes. See one above. Link to many more Factfulness quotes. Rosling studies the data. He doesn’t try to make the data fit the narrative.
Earned Prosperity
A lot of people could be employed in the tedious work of digitizing and cataloging old books and records. I seems it would be a better way of distributing money than welfare or eternal unemployment checks.
If the owners of the moldering archives were incentivised to get it done, it would create an opportunity for small businesses and give low skilled people work.
Words Seldom Seen: Savant
Words Seldom Seen: Bowdlerize
Their Eyes Were Watching God
“It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime.“
by Zora Neale Hurston
There is a great audio version of this book available read by Ruby Dee. Even though you read it 20 years ago I highly recommend listening to it again . Really wonderful.
Binge Reading Factfulness
I just finished binge reading Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Even conceding that for me a lot of it is confirmation bias, I found it to be one of the best books I’ve read in years. It taught me not only lots of things I didn’t know about the world, it also taught me new ways to think about the issues facing the world. And it made me confront a couple of mistakes I make when forming my opinions. Yes it is germane to our current pandemic.
A couple of quotes: (i’m saving lots of them for future Maxims.) “Urgency is one of the worst distorters of our worldview.” and “Cultural and religious stereotypes are useless for understanding the world.”
The Widow’s Strike
Since many of you are sheltering at home and are already giving up on reading Thackeray or Adam Smith I’d like to recommend The Widow’s Strike by Brad Taylor. It is a thriller that has a main plot element a virus. So it is timely, time consuming and does not require much concentration. It is not War and Peace. I listened to it on Audible while playing Spider Solitaire. I normally don’t read this genre but this one was a pleasant distraction with the benefit of learning a few things about viruses.