mwr > Recent Status Updates

Halfway through and this is one of the worst political biographies I’ve read. For as long winded as he is, absolutely nothing is explained. Were I not to have read other material about the time is be lost. Hecksher constantly apologizes for his subject, and inexplicably foreshadows, at great length, the same events time and again. Atrocious.

The author (of the biography—not its subject) is insufferable.

Im trying to disprove my conviction that no hood political satire is the trump era exists. I’m sure it’s possible, but either we’re too close to it, the author’s own political beliefs get in the way. Possibly our political climate changed rapidly enough that we haven’t gotten a grasp on how to satirize it.

We'll see if something great comes through in the end, but I think there just isn't enough here to sustain ~500 pages. His earlier Empty Words does what it needs to do well. Disappointed, since this appears to be regarded so highly.

We need an army of Caros

It's only because I'm going to Belize. I hate having 6 books going on at once. Darnit!

As though Diogenes were born in Iceland in the 60s and recorded some part of his life. Warms my heart.

Another depressing flaw with democracy: people are loss averse and hold narrow scopes. Because of this they are susceptible to the sunk loss fallacy (they throw good money after bad). Individuals can overcome this, but as a group that will be the preference. Once you put the first stake in the ground, if you want to keep getting paid, let the project grow and threaten to go public if your plug gets pulled.

It is nice to see him grow up a bit.

An idea for a book: Social Psychology for Philosophers. You could teach prospect theory (risk aversion, endowment effect) through a discussion of Rousseau's yammering about how much harder it is to give up luxury once attained. Of course this would lead philosophers to say "look, we invented it centuries ago" because they're a defensive lot, but they could learn, none the less.

Well, the book seems to inadvertently make the case for a forced choice between metaphysical nihilism and mysticism. This leaves room open for a morality grounded in something else (e.g. Habermas' supposition that it's grounded in the biological constraints of our species) , of course. In other words, I read it in a way that confirms my own sensibilities, which corroborates its argument.

*many of*

I cannot express how much delight I derive from reading a book that explains with precision all of the ways that the human brain is a broken organ for making decisions.