Tom
A fairly sober take on the state of policing as it exists today. The main argument here is that punitive approaches to mental illness, homelessness, drugs, schools etc. are not effective or moral and that instead we should look to community-based solutions or things like harm reduction. The issue being that funding police is easy and protects the interests of the elites while things like social/racial justice are hard and challenge the status quo.
A interesting look into the machinations of the bankers involved in the 08 bailout. Conveniently (and perhaps necessarily) leaves out the wealth extraction that caused the crisis and instead treats it more as an ill defined 'shortfall' that needs solving. Also gives too sympathetic a view of the individuals involved which again I think is inherent to this kind of account.
The setup of Hill House as an antagonistic force is so compelling that the events end up feeling restrained and slightly underwhelming.
I love the idea of a house that has been built (or has morphed) to be disorientating. Lulling it's inhabitants into a literal false sense of security. I suspect that The Devil in the White City will make for a good companion piece in this regard.
Does a good job of covering the various reasons why the current approach to drugs is failing. None of it feels particularly surprising almost 10 years later but it's worth a refresher on why these policies fail on economic as well as moral grounds.
What would have elevated this analysis for me would be to further probe into the way in which the War on Drugs is driven by political interests outside of just protecting society from dangerous drugs. It's a cruel policy and the cruelty is partly the point here as it's useful to have a militarised border that separates more impoverished nations (amongst other benefits). A sensible book with sensible suggestions but nothing more than that.
The characters are just as well drawn as the previous two but the plot is significantly weaker.
I missed the investigative aspect and having an outcome to root for. There are too many despicable people and not enough "good guys" with agency. The writing has a momentum that had me engaged throughout but I left feeling like there was an opportunity lost and that the strengths of the first two books were diminished in the pursuit of a tidy ending.
A salient reminder that if you look closely at any company, no matter how special and hyped they are, you will just find the same kinds of exploitation, greed and ego. Sam Altman is not going to bring about AGI, OpenAI is not going to make money obsolete and AI is not going to solve climate change, it's all just one compelling narrative told by a particularly good storyteller.
Shocking but not surprising. Also serves as a cautionary tale about how difficult it is to 'fix the problem from the inside' and how you often end up simply perpetuating the issues that you came in to solve.
Some takeaways:
- Being attacked by a shark sounds almost as bad as having negligent parents
- Mark's staff let him win at Catan and he's too self-important to notice
- The answer to balancing parenting and work at that level is to let other people manage the children for you
- Sheryl is a horrible horrible person, espousing feminist ideals while doing the very opposite
- Joel is even worse, I can't believe these kind of men continue to get away with such obvious sexual harassment
- These people have blood on their hands
A useful collection of Chomsky's thoughts on anarchism. Some takeaways:
- Anarchism helps solve the 'animal' problems but not necessarily the 'human' problems
- All anarchists are socialist but not all socialists are anarchist
- It's important to have a desired political system in mind but not all actions must contribute to bringing this about in the short term
- It is the responsibility of power to justify itself
America-centric as expected and can't resist the urge to bring up Moore's Law at every opportunity but otherwise a good history of the micro-chip and it's profound effect on geopolitics. Some observations:
- The steady state that we have reached is one where foundries manufacture chips primarily for fab-less companies, it's easy to imagine an alternative reality in which chip design and manufacturing is done by a limited pool of massive companies
- None of this is possible without the funding, direct or otherwise, of nations
- Chips are becoming more and more specialised for a single use case rather than being 'general purpose'
- Catching up to the incumbents in the race for more advanced chips is basically impossible at this point
I initially started with the Re: Dracula podcast which releases episodes on the actual diary entry date. I found the voice acting to be good and I enjoyed the novelty but I could not abide by the ads and content warnings so I eventually dropped off in mid September and I only picked it up again with the audible version several months later. This turned out to be a much better way of listening.
Content wise Dracula is something of an oddity. Its first third is excellent with the parallel stories pushing the story along at a satisfying pace. It starts to slow down as everyone eventually converges on London, at times it feels like we are reading through pages of meeting notes as our heros deliberate endlessly. The final third is so drawn out that I started to suspect that the novel was serialised (it's not).
Another irritation is that the novel is very much a 'male-fantasy'. The women are sidelined except as either recipients of the men's noble blood sacrifices, articles of the men's demeaningly progressive compliments (Mina being told she has a "man's brain") or by parroting just how brave and bold said men are.
This is not to say that the novel is bad, just flawed, and I did enjoy listening to it, especially the first half. It's cultural reach is also undeniable and you can feel it's influence well over a century on.
A concise and clear guide to the prevailing ideology of our time and why it's killing our world. Some takeaways
- Capitalism and Neo-liberalism is inherently reliant on colonial exploitation
- Rent-seeking is the primary mode of increasing wealth
- The rich and powerful launder ideas through think tanks that are uncritically regurgitated by the media
- There is a limitation of imagination when it comes to societal change, incrementalism is not the way
I wanted to dislike this book the moment the author insists in the first chapter that hedge funds have been unfairly maligned and are kind of good actually. But what follows is a fairly unbiased retelling of the history of the industry in a way that is both clear and engaging.
The author concludes that hedge funds are 'just big enough to fail' as opposed to the behemoth investment banks and therefore should be encouraged. I find this take both convincing and remarkably narrow minded. Hedge funds are indeed the ultimate form of capitalism but that doesn't make them good, they still inherit all of the perverse incentives and rot of their big brothers minus the ability to bully others as easily.
The author also has a convenient 'get-out-of-jail-free' card whereby he ceases to classify a hedge fund as such if it gets too big. When your lesser evil is predisposed to lead to your greater one then the distinction is moot.
I don't envy writers that take on complex investigations like this. By design, the financial machinations are obtuse and confusing, deliberately concocted to bewilder even the most experienced outsider looking in. Despite the inherent complexity, I think the author could have done a better job explaining the core aspects of this case study.
That aside, the key points I took from this book were:
1. Private equity moved assets between entities in an attempt to defraud creditors
2. Private equity owners used the size of the company during the bankruptcy to avoid personal liability for aforementioned fraud (just like Perdue)
Contains spoilers
A compelling premise that is let down by the character of Svetlana. Throughout the book I didn't know whether to be appalled or impressed that the author had created such a despicable, hypocritical and irredeemable character. By the end, the fact that I was actively rooting against her made the last act more frustrating than thrilling.
