Author

Tim Palmer

Summary

An introduction to the geometry of chaos and the important role it plays in understanding scientific phenomena.

Takeaways

The climate and the economy are examples of highly complex non-linear systems. The evolution of these systems follows a fractal geometric pattern along an attractor, i.e. a set of allowed states in a high dimensional state space. Despite the fact that an exact future state is often uncomputable, mathematical models have been successfully developed to characterize possible future behavior in the form of ensembles along the attractor. These models allow to make probabilitic forecasts and statements about the likelihood that a future state will be vastly different from the present.

Invariant set theory applies the concept of the “geometry of chaos” to quantum mechanics and concludes that the laws of physics are deterministic and that its laws describe the geometry of the attractor/invariant set of the highest-order system imaginable-the universe as a whole.

Quotes

“The whole universe is a nonlinear dynamical system evolving on some fractal attractor in cosmological state space."

“Using the geometry of chaos, Einstein’s picture of an ensemble of deterministic worlds may be right after all. If this is so, we conclude that we do live in a world in which elementary particles, and indeed the notion of reality, are certain and definite."

“In short, I am suggesting that to be conscious of an object is to be aware that the object has an existence independent of the rest of the world. I am speculating that this awareness is itself a consequence of two claims: that for reasons of energy efficiency quantum physics does play a role in cognition, and that the laws of quantum physics at their most fundamental describe the geometry of the cosmological invariant set."

Summary

A historical analysis of the working mechanisms of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Takeaways

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been the sole legitimate governing authority in China since 1949. By the end of 2009 when the book was published, the CCP had 78 million members.

The Party consists of a giant network of people that are involved in every important decision and its members have built up the skills and experience to run the country. It has remained in power by supporting a boisterous private economy and keeping strict control over personnel, propaganda, and the army. Since the Party was founded it has systematically “has eradicated or emasculated political rivals; eliminated the autonomy of the courts and press; restricted religion and civil society; deningrated rival versions of nationhood; centralized political power; established extensive networks of security police; and dispatched dissidents to labour camps.”

Quotes

“As an organization, the Party sits outside, and above the law. It should have a legal identity, in other words, a person to sue, but it is not even registered as an organization. The Party exists outside the legal system altogether."

“The Party’s control over personnel was at the heart of its ability to overhaul state companies, without losing leverage over them at the same time. So important does the Party rate its power to hire and fire government officials that it places it on a par with its control over the media and the military."

“The policy cycles follow a familiar pattern, the Chinese economists say: ‘Decentralization leads to disorder; disorder leads to centralization; centralization leads to stagnation and stagnation leads to decentralization.’"

“Deng, and Jiang after him, grasped what many of their conservative opponents never did–that the Party had much in common with private entrepreneurs, who disliked democratic politics and independent unions as much as they did. The Party’s authoritarian powers not only kept workers in line. They also bestowed on policy-makers a flexibility that politicians in democratic countries could only dream about. Even by the standards of a capitalist economy, the Party could be unusually pro-business, as long as the state got a cut along the way."

Author

Sabine Hossenfelder

Summary

Scientific answers to existential questions.

Takeaways

Existential questions deal with the origin and working mechanisms of the universe, and the role of humans in it. While the fundamental theories of the standard model of particle physics and the theory of general relativity have been very successful in providing explanations, many questions have no scientifically sound answer yet. In their attempt to extend our knowledge, some scientists include assumptions in their theories that are unnecessary to explain observations, conflating scientific reasoning and belief.

Quotes

“While the situation is not entirely settled, it seems that the laws of nature preserve information entirely, so all the details that make up you and the story of your grandmother’s life are immortal."

“But in which sense are they real? Unobservable universes are by definition unnecessary to describe what we observe. Hence, assuming they are real is also unnecessary. Scientific theories should not contain unnecessary assumptions, for if we allow that, we would also have to allow the assumption that a god made the universe."

“That way, we can rephrase any discussion about free will or moral responsibility without using those terms. For example, instead of questioning someone’s free will, we can debate whether jail is really the most useful intervention."

Author

William Dalrymple

Summary

The history of the rise and fall of the East India Company.

Takeaways

The East India company was a trading company based in London that rose from humble beginnings to a fully fledged imperial power that managed to replace the ruling Mughal empire on the Indian subcontinent in a short period of time between 1756 and 1803. In that time period the East India Company extended their sphere of influence through treachery, forged contracts, collaboration with local banker, bribes, and military prowess in armed conflicts and wars.

As a company, the EIC was answerable only to its shareholders. With no stake in the just governance of the region, or its long-term well-being, the Company’s rule quickly turned into the straightforward pillage of India, and the rapid transfer westwards of its wealth.

Quotes

“In many ways the East India Company was a model of commercial efficiency: one hundred years into its history, it had only thirty-five permanent employees in its head office. Nevertheless, that skeleton staff executed a corporate coup unparalleled in history: the military conquest, subjugation and plunder of vast tracts of southern Asia. It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history."

“In the end it was this access to unlimited reserves of credit, partly through stable flows of land revenues, and partly through the collaboration of Indian moneylenders and financiers, that in this period finally gave the Company its edge over their Indian rivals."

“Because it was not the British government that seized India in the middle of the eighteenth century, but a private company. India’s transition to colonialism took place through the mechanism of a for-profit corporation, which existed entirely for the purpose of enriching its investors."

Author

David Goggins

Summary

The personal story of former Navy SEAL David Goggins who overcame traumatic experiences to become a successful soldier and athlete.

Takeaways

Most people do not know what they are truly capable of and resist challenging themselves physically and mentally to stretch the limits of their potential.

Unlocking this potential requires hard work and dedicated exposure to uncomfortable experiences and pain to “callous” the mind and become mentally strong.

Quotes

“By the time I graduated, I knew that the confidence I’d managed to develop didn’t come from a perfect family or God-given talent. It came from personal accountability which brought me self-respect, and self-respect will always light a way forward."

“A true leader stays exhausted, abhors arrogance, and never looks down on the weakest link. He fights for his men and leads by example."

“Starting at zero is a mindset that says my refrigerator is never full, and it never will be. We can always become stronger and more agile, mentally and physically. We can always become more capable and more reliable. Since that’s the case we should never feel that our work is done. There is always more to do."

Author

Vincent A. W. J. Marchau, Warren E. Walker, Pieter J. T. M. Bloemen, Steven W. Popper

Summary

A review of methods and applications for decision making under deep uncertainty.

Takeaways

Situations with deep uncertainty are characterized by a lack of knowledge about how future events will unfold. In complex systems, the predictability of potential outcomes is low.

When confronted with deep uncertainty, decision makers are advised to shift from a predict-then-act paradigm to a monitor-and-adapt strategy. Traditional planning approaches make assumptions, predict outcomes, and tailor a policy to the predictions. Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMUDU) approaches, on the other hand, propose a policy, identify vulnerabilities, and assess the best options for reducing the identified vulnerabilities.

Quotes

“The intrinsic limits to predictability, the existence of legitimate alternative interpretations of the same data, and the limits to knowability of a system have important implications for decisionmaking. Under the label of ‘decisionmaking under deep uncertainty’, these are now being explored."

“There is ample evidence that human reasoning with respect to complex uncertain systems is intrinsically insufficient. Often, mental models are event based, have an open-loop view of causality, ignore feedback, fail to account for time delays, and are insensitive to nonlinearity (Sterman 1994)."

“That is, under deep uncertainty decision support should move away from trying to define what is the right choice and instead aim at enabling deliberation and joint sense making among the various parties to a decision."

“In short, there are five categories of components: policy architecture, generation of scenarios, generation of alternatives, definition of robustness, and vulnerability analysis. Any given DMDU approach makes choices with respect to these five categories. For some, these choices are primarily or almost exclusively in one category while remaining silent on the others. For others, implicit or explicit choices are made with respect to each category."

Author

Bob Joseph

Summary

A sample of 21 of the destructive and damaging statues and policies that constitute the Indian Act.

Takeaways

The Indian Act, passed in 1876, regulated and still regulates the lives of Indigenous Peoples in Canada. One of the most damaging and destructive parts of the act was the introduction of residential schools that forced children to move away from their families and forbade them to speak their home language and practice their traditional religion.

In recent years, the Canadian public and government have increased focus on reconciliation, paving the way to dismantle the Indian Act and move towards self-governance for Indigenous Peoples.

Quotes

“If Canada and Canadians are going to reconcile with Indigenous Peoples, then the existing relationship —the one based on the Indian Act— has to be rebuilt. The past cannot be overlooked or dismissed as ‘ancient history’, because it isn’t; the impacts of the past are ongoing."

“The focus should now be on dismantling the Indian Act, moving towards self-government in an orderly and timely fashion, and creating a self-governing future for Indigenous Peoples outside of the Indian Act."

“While self-government is not a quick fix for the deeply rooted social, health, and economic issues that plague Indingenous communities, it is a step towrds empowering communities to rebuild and heal from the intergenerational effects of residential schools."

Author

Philip Reeve

Summary

The fictional tale of traveling cities and their residents that battle for survival in a distant future.

Takeaways

Devotion to an ideology can be a strong motivator but also a destructive force. The actions of the characters are driven by their dedication to their way of living and their role in a world that leaves little room for exploring alternative ideas.

Quotes

“But he mustn’t feel sorry for them: it was natural that cities ate towns, just as the towns ate smaller towns and smaller towns snapped up the miserable static settlements. That was Municipal Darwinism, and it was the way the world had worked for hundreds of years, ever since the great engineer Nikolas Quirke had turned London into the first Traction City."

“You aren’t a hero, and I’m not beautfiful, and we probably won’t live happily ever after,” she said. “But we’re alive, and together, and we’re going to be all right."

Author

Hans Rosling

Summary

A plea to overcome the human instincts that prevent us from developing a fact based worldview.

Takeaways

Knowledge of global patterns and trends is poor across demographics even though data is publicly available. Common assumptions about topics like population growth, income inequality, education and health, are not only wrong but are systematically distorted. Developments appear more negatively than they are. Reasons are a lack of statistical literacy and our instincts to generalize, blame others, and consider things without appropriate comparison frames and proportions. To develop a fact based and more accurate worldview, we need to be aware of these instincts and work actively to overcome them.

Societal change is happening steadily but slowly and often not considered newsworthy. The lack of attention makes it hard to identify emerging patterns and adapt to a changing landscape. The Western view is systematically underestimating the progress in Asia and especially Africa, and the significant role these continents will play in a future global economy.

Quotes

“The data shows that half the increase in child survival in the world happens because mothers can read and write. More children now survive because they don’t get ill in the first place. … So if you are investing money to improve health on Level 1 and 2, you should put it into primary schools, nurse education, and vaccinations. Big impressive-looking hospitals can wait."

“People in North America and Europe need to understand that most of the world population lives in Asia. In terms of economic muscles ‘we’ are becoming the 20 percent, not the 80 percent. But many of ‘us’ can’t fit these numbers into our nostalgic minds. Not only do we misjudge how big our war monuments should be in Vietnam, we also misjudge our importance in the future global marketplace. Many of us forget to behave properly with those who will control the future trade deals."

“Anyone who claims that democracy is a necessity for economic growth and health improvements will risk getting contradicted by reality. It’s better to argue for democracy as a goal in itself instead of as a superior means to other goals we like."

“In fact, resist blaming any one individual or group of individuals for anything. Because the problem is that when we identify the bad guy, we are done thinking. And it’s almost always more complicated than that."

Author

Adam Rutherford

Summary

A scientific view of the role that DNA plays in understanding human history, and what we can and cannot conclude when analyzing it.

Takeaways

Depicting our ancestry looks more like an entagled mesh than a tree. Everyone living today shares the same group of ancestors if we go back long enough in time.

DNA influences observable characteristics in a probabilitic way. There are only a few genes that have a clear physical manifestation. The scientific reality is more complex than newspaper headlines make you believe.

Quotes

“It’s important to remember that the commercial DNA ancestry tests don’t necessarily show your geographical origins in the past. They show with whom you have common ancestry today."

“The truth is that we all are a bit of everything, and we come from all over. Even if you live in the most remote parts of the Hebrides, or the edge of the Greek Aegean, we share an ancestor only a few hundred years ago. A thousand years ago, we Europeans share all of our ancestry. Triple that time and we share all our ancestry with everyone on Earth."

“No one will ever find a gene for ‘evil’, or for beauty, or for musical genius, or for scientific genius, because they don’t exist. DNA is not destiny. The presence of a particular variant of a particular gene may just have the effect of altering the odds of any particular behavior. More likely, the possession of many slight differences in many genes will have an effect on the likelihood of a particular characteristic, in consort with your environment, which includes all things that are not DNA."