This is a very interesting book, and I liked the listen. It goes into depth about the raising and slaughter of animals. Factory farming vs. pasture farming. How factory farming is pushing out any pasture farming they can. It makes me think more about the mindfulness proposed by the Buddhist books i’ve been listening to. This book is all about the mindfulness of eating. It makes complete sense about how Buddhists have a strict vegetarian diet. This is something that I’d like to be more mindful about, but it will be hard. The book also makes a note about how the social nature of eating can make it hard to start doing anything mindful about eating. If you say that you are not eating anything that comes from a factory farm, then people will have no idea how to meet your eating requirements. If you simply say you are vegetarian then people will know how to meet your culinary requirements. On the same point that it is hard to be around people and eat mindfully, it will make other people around you eat more mindfully if you do so. The social impacts of the eating go both ways, and can have a critical mass.
This book looks at many of the similarities of evolution of genes and memes as has been put by other authors. The book also looks at the power laws associated with speed of activity, and how the requirements of a body, or city will diminish with the fourth root, the output will actually increase with the fourth root. This law doesn’t just apply to the physical world, but also applies to the digital world. The author then breaks does the innovations into two dimensions individualist vs. group and market vs. open source. He points out that the shift in the innovations of the past decades has been to group and open source. I think the principles of this book bring to mind some ideas that can be applied in larger settings, such that the previous norms will be destroyed, and replaced with much more open and fluid methods. I can think of a few markets that could use this kind of opening up. They open source does not need to be fully open, but only on the scale of a mostly open API. With your API and data being at the source of the platform. The example of this mostly open API that the author goes into detail about is twitter.
This was a pretty good summary of the basics of Confucianism and Taoism. I like the points it makes about how the view of ethical leadership in Confucianism is a great way to take it in as a modern person, but some of the patriarchal and controlling ideas that stem from it’s practice don’t mesh with modern life. The little part on Taoism was short, and said that there are lots of good ethical points made in Taoism, but it is more personal and deals with balance. Both of these have prospered in their pure forms due to not being made into political weapons like many other religious or philosophical beliefs have been. I listened to this twice, just to make sure I got the smaller points it made.
This was not as strange as the first book but a lot more meta. The first book had a lot about physical things that simply could not happen. This book focused on the mind and how we can view thoughts as though they are simply thoughts and not necessarily us. I like the theme, but the exact way they define it leaves no definition of self. That is somewhat the point of the definition, but I don’t agree with it. I can tell that this concept was used by Scientologists to define the concept of Thetan, but there are many significant differences.
The overarching practice of being mindful, and always aware of what you are doing and why. Using this you can teach yourself to think objectively more often instead of emotionally, realize that your actions should not follow from anger, confusion, sloth, or ‘desire.’ Desire as they put it is something that I would more describe as coveting. The idea of desire being a bad influence isn’t something I fully agree with, even though that is more or less what they mean. The subset of desire, which I would call coveting, is what I would consider a bad influence. I believe that there are many desires that can be good influences. When I was reading the section on good and bad influences I got images in my head of hands representing the good and bad, while being the same shape. Coveting is a hand reaching out trying to grab something, while charity and good desire is a hand reaching out to give. Both these hands are the same shape, only one is palm down, the other palm up. Similarly the idea of confusion and clarity are two hands making circles between the thumb and middle finger. The confusion has the hands linked, and the clarity has them separate. Anger and Empathy are hands illuminated from the top by a red light and the hands are flat. The angry hands were palm down showing bright red knuckles, the empathic hands were palm up and looked like they were cupping blood. The slovenly vs. productive hands were in the shape of holding a rod. The one was holding a tool, the other was holding something else.
I think the last book will be far too meta for me to enjoy, but I still look forward to listening to it.
This book was a lot more about the history of Hinduism than the beliefs. Due to the fragmented nature of the beliefs it is necessary to explain the history of the different traditions, but there was surprisingly little on the actual belief structure as it exists today. Some of the interesting parts were about the rebirth cycle and how the god/gods work by being separate, but the same. It reminds me a lot of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is said to be separate but the same. I’m going to need to listen to a few more books on hinduism before I feel that I have a decent understanding of the religious beliefs.
This book points out a lot of ways to determine if a person you are talking to is under stress, how to identify exactly what part of what you are saying is causing stress, and how to lead that to determining what the stress is about with regards to that part. The author points out many times that the techniques will indicate stress much more than they will indicate deception. Deception is only one thing that will cause stress. The biggest thing the author says is an indicator is a change in behavior. The behaviors themselves can be normal, even if they seem strange, but a change in a behavior is indicative of something no matter what kinds of behaviors are normal for a person.
I love this book. It is a book that I would gladly listen to several more times, even though I understood mostly everything it was talking about. This is using applied game theory to talk about inequalities and market forces. It shows how many things that don’t make sense on a macro scale can make sense on a aggregated micro scale. It talks about how special interest groups can get really far ahead without anyone caring that they are being abused by them. It also supports the manufacturing of incentive programs in specific ways to drive the results you are looking for. I will recommend this book to many people as a way to understand game theory in practice.
This is the history of scientology, not it’s beliefs. The history is incredibly interesting, especially in the way they go into the psychology of the group and how they used different systems in unintended ways. They used the legal system to harass, they used lie detectors to tell lies, and they used words to mean different things. They did have some really impressive methods that can be used in less sinister ways. I’d be somewhat interested to read a bit more about the beliefs of Scientology to see how strange they really are, but I’m not that desperate to find out.
This draws a lot from the Bible in all of the stories and parables. I noticed a very consistent theme to the book, Jews and Christians are OK just misguided, God is merciful for not destroying you for the smallest transgressions, and if you don’t believe in the Abrahamic form of God you should be destroyed. One interesting point that is made in the book is that “if God wanted it to be so, then it would be so.” The interesting part is that doesn’t seem to apply to non-believers. There was surprisingly little about God, and most about the stories and how a person should live a good life. I’ll have to read more on religious analysis of the Koran before I can understand everything that it is saying and what that means.
It's an Exciting World 