George Santayana

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pages: 194 words: 49,310

Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand

Albert Einstein, Brewster Kahle, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Babbage, Colonization of Mars, complexity theory, Danny Hillis, Eratosthenes, Extropian, fault tolerance, George Santayana, Herman Kahn, Internet Archive, Jaron Lanier, Kevin Kelly, Kim Stanley Robinson, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, life extension, longitudinal study, low earth orbit, Metcalfe’s law, Mitch Kapor, nuclear winter, pensions crisis, phenotype, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Metcalfe, Stephen Hawking, Stewart Brand, technological singularity, Ted Kaczynski, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, Vernor Vinge, Whole Earth Catalog

But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. The idea of history as horror and warning itself has a distinguished history. The philosopher George Santayana voiced the sharpest version of the perennial warning in 01905: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Blinkered willfulness leading to calamity is so common in human experience that we can count on it recurring endlessly unless attention is paid and lessons harshly drawn, diligently remembered, and then applied.

Mary Leakey, quoted by Neville Agnew and Martha Demors, “The Footprints at Laetoli,” Conservation (Spring 1995), p. 16. 1:27 “I love everything that’s old . . .” Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act I. 1:28 “This storm is what we call progress.” Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940), Illuminations (New York: Schocken, 1968), p. 257. 1:28 “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, The Life of Reason; Vol. 1: Reason in Common Sense (1905) (New York: Prometheus, 1998). 1:28 Describing Winston Churchill, Isaiah Berlin wrote. . . Isaiah Berlin, “Winston Churchill in 1940,” (1949) The Proper Study of Mankind (New York: Farrar Straus, 1998), p. 608. 1:29 “General knowledge of history is less and less characteristic of American decision-makers and their aides.”

Optimism Options, preservation and increasing of Ostrum, Elinor Out of Control Pace, contradictions of Pace-layering Packard, David Packard Foundation, David and Lucile Page, Walter Hines Papert, Seymour Parfit, Derek Past being free of and the Internet preservation of uses of PDP-10 (pioneer microcomputer) Pessimism Phase locking Picard, Rosalind Plagues and Peoples Pol Pot Population Prediction machines Preservation and determining what to save Prisoner’s Dilemma (game) Ptolemy VIII Pugin, Augustus Pyramids of Gaza RAND Real Time Release 1.0 Religion and the long view and time Responsibility long-term Responsibility Record Revelle, Roger Revolutions and continuity and the past Rise of the West, The Ritchey, Rob Robinson, Kim Stanley Robo-users of artifacts Rome, fall of Rose, Alexander Rosenstock-Huessy, Eugen Rothamsted Experimental Station Rothenberg, Jeff Rush Saffo, Paul and forecasting Salk, Jonas Santa Fe Institute Santayana, George Satellite systems Scenario planning Schaller, George Schwab, Klaus Schwartz, Peter Science Science fiction Scientific agriculture Scientific American Scientific studies, long-term “Serial Bit Adder” Serres, Michel Shakespeare Shih Huang-ti Sibylline Books Singularity, the Slow and good things Slowing down Social sector Software, brittleness or resiliency of Solar water heaters on roofs Space program Sparrow, Oliver SRI International Stapledon, Olaf Stein, Gertrude Steiner, George Sterling, Bruce Stonehenge Stoppard, Tom Sun Microsystems Superbus, Tarquinius Sustained endeavor Su Sung Synder, Gary Szymborska, Wislawa Technology accelerating definition of and the environment museum of history of “right” Techno-rapture Teledisc Temporal exhaustion 10,000-Year Library.


pages: 364 words: 103,162

The English by Jeremy Paxman

back-to-the-land, British Empire, Charles Babbage, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Etonian, game design, George Santayana, global village, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, Own Your Own Home, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Right to Buy, sensible shoes, Stephen Fry, Suez canal 1869, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

It’s a reasonable supposition that cold wet weather, which forced teenagers to stay indoors in winter instead of going to the beach or skiing, probably has something to do with the country’s capacity for inventive rock music. But is there something more profound? Has a mild and gentle climate, rarely too hot and rarely extremely cold, played a role in producing a moderate, pragmatic people? The Anglophile philosopher George Santayana believed that England is pre-eminently a land of atmosphere … English landscape, if we think only of the land and the works of man upon it, is seldom on the grand scale. Charming, clement, and eminently habitable, it is almost too domestic, as if only home passions and caged souls could live there.

Max O’Rell: John Bull and his Island, p. 18. 4. Michael Lewis: ‘Oh, not to be in England’, in the Spectator, 23 May 1992. 5. Hermann Muthesius: The English House, p. xv. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., p. 8. 8. Ibid., p. 9. 9. Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘English Traits’, in Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 59–60. 10. George Santayana: Soliloquies in England, p. 14. 11. Samuel Johnson: The Idler, No. 11. 12. Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island, p. 278. 13. Johnson, op. cit. 14. Prof. C. G. Collier, letter, 29 October 1996. 15. André Maurois: Three Letters on the English, pp. 261–2. 16. Odette Keun: I Discover the English, p. 151. 17.

RYE, WILLIAM BENCHLEY: England as seen by foreigners in the reign of Elizabeth and James the First, London, John Russell Smith, 1865. SACKVILLE–WEST, VITA: ‘Outdoor Life’, in The Character of England (ed. Ernest Barker), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1947. ST GEORGE, ANDREW: The Descent of Manners, London, Chatto & Windus, 1993. SAKLATVALA, BERAM: The Origins of the English People, Newton Abbot, David & Charles, 1969. SANTAYANA, GEORGE: Soliloquies in England, London, Constable, 1922. SCHAMA, SIMON: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, London, Viking, 1989. SELLAR, W. C., and YEATMAN, R. J.: 1066, And All That, London, Methuen, 1930. SHEPPARD, FRANCIS: London 1808–1870: The Infernal Wen, London, Secker & Warburg, 1971.


pages: 800 words: 240,175

Wasps: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy by Michael Knox Beran

anti-communist, British Empire, Charles Lindbergh, company town, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, Etonian, fulfillment center, George Santayana, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, Lao Tzu, Lewis Mumford, old-boy network, phenotype, plutocrats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Republic of Letters, Steven Pinker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, W. E. B. Du Bois, éminence grise

.: Belknap Press, 1988), VI, 371. 10. A CONSTANCY IN THE STARS: THE HARVARDS OF GEORGE SANTAYANA wizard’s mantle: McCormick, George Santayana, 99. steam yacht: Sagamore: For Warwick Potter’s voyage with Edgar Scott on the Sagamore, see Janny Scott, The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father (New York: Penguin, 2020), 70–73. “full of laughter”: For Santayana’s account of Warwick Potter, see Santayana, Middle Span, 109–110. “To W.P.”: George Santayana, Poems (New York: Scribner’s, 1928), 60–63. “my last real friend”: George Santayana, My Host the World (London: Cresset Press, 1953), 10. “philosophic metanoia”: Ibid., 9–11, 15–16.

Santayana, Soliloquies in England, in The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Irwin Edman, 357–358. “continual sense of the ultimate in the immediate”: George Santayana, Platonism and the Spiritual Life (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937), 83. “crop out marvelously in the sinner”: Ibid., 84. “play-life”: Santayana, The Realm of Essence, in The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Irwin Edman, 466. “established morality and religion”: Santayana, Platonism and the Spiritual Life, 83–84. “connections and education”: Santayana, Middle Span, 20. “ultimate reaches of contemplation”: George Santayana, “Enduring the Truth,” Saturday Review, December 7, 1929.

Time itself was standardized when, on November 18, 1883, American railroad engineers implemented a system of standard time that synchronized clocks within four newly differentiated time zones on the continent. Hollis Hall at Harvard, where George Santayana roomed. He deplored a university growing ever “more multifarious and more chaotic.” TEN A Constancy in the Stars: The Harvards of George Santayana maestro di color che sanno… the master of those who know… —Dante, Inferno Draped in a longish military cape—a wizard’s mantle, one of his students thought—George Santayana made his way through the Harvard Yard. The leaves of the elms were falling and his aspect was melancholy. He had just learned of the death of Warwick Potter.


pages: 407 words: 114,478

The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William J. Bernstein

Alan Greenspan, asset allocation, behavioural economics, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, butter production in bangladesh, buy and hold, buy low sell high, carried interest, corporate governance, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Dava Sobel, diversification, diversified portfolio, Edmond Halley, equity premium, estate planning, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial engineering, financial independence, financial innovation, fixed income, George Santayana, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, high net worth, hindsight bias, Hyman Minsky, index fund, invention of the telegraph, Isaac Newton, John Bogle, John Harrison: Longitude, junk bonds, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, low interest rates, market bubble, mental accounting, money market fund, mortgage debt, new economy, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Performance of Mutual Funds in the Period, quantitative easing, railway mania, random walk, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, risk/return, Robert Shiller, Savings and loan crisis, South Sea Bubble, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, stocks for the long term, survivorship bias, Teledyne, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the rule of 72, transaction costs, Vanguard fund, yield curve, zero-sum game

We tend to think of the stock and bond markets as relatively recent historical phenomena, but, in fact, there have been credit markets since human civilization first took root in the Fertile Crescent. And governments have been issuing bonds for several hundred years. More importantly, after they were issued, these bonds then fluctuated in price according to economic, political, and military conditions, just as they do today. Nowhere is historian George Santayana’s famous dictum, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” more applicable than in finance. Financial history provides us with invaluable wisdom about the nature of the capital markets and of returns on securities. Intelligent investors ignore this record at their peril.

Even with an appreciation of their behavior, dealing with both buoyant and morose markets is difficult. Sometimes even the best-prepared can fail. But if you are unprepared, you are sure to fail. 5 Tops: A History of Manias Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana There is nothing new—only the history you haven’t read. Larry Swedroe Men of business have keen sensations but short memories. Walter Bagehot To many readers, this section on booms and busts will seem out of place. After all, this book is a humble how-to tome; it has no pretension of being a documentary work.

Maddison, Angus, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992. OECD, 1995. Malkiel, Burton G., A Random Walk Down Wall Street. W. W. Norton, 1996. Nocera, Joseph, A Piece of the Action. Simon and Schuster, 1994. Ritter, Jay R., “The Long Run Performance of Initial Public Offerings.” Journal of Finance, March, 1991. Santayana, George, The Life of Reason. Scribner’s, 1953. Siegel, Jeremy J., Stocks for the Long Run. McGraw-Hill, 1998. Smith, Edgar L., Stocks as Long Term Investments. Macmillan, 1924. Sobel, Dava, Longitude. Walker & Co., 1995. Strouse, Jean, Morgan: American Financier. Random House, 1999. White, Eugene N., ed., Crashes and Panics.


pages: 408 words: 114,719

The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began by Stephen Greenblatt

Albert Einstein, Bonfire of the Vanities, classic study, complexity theory, Eratosthenes, George Santayana, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, work culture

Thus, in this war that has been waged from time everlasting, the contest between the elements is an equal one: now here, now there, the vital forces conquer and, in turn, are conquered; with the funeral dirge mingles the wail that babies raise when they reach the shores of light; no night has followed day, and no dawn has followed night, which has not heard mingled with those woeful wails the lamentations that accompany death and the black funeral. (2.569–80) The Spanish-born Harvard philosopher George Santayana called this idea—the ceaseless mutation of forms composed of indestructible substances—“the greatest thought2 that mankind has ever hit upon.” • The elementary particles are infinite in number but limited in shape and size. They are like the letters in an alphabet, a discrete set capable of being combined in an infinite number of sentences. (2.688ff.)

Suits, Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance (Rochester, NY: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press, 2003); and Stuart Gillespie and Donald Mackenzie, “Lucretius and the Moderns,” in The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, ed. Stuart Gillespie and Philip Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 306–24. 2 George Santayana, Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), p. 23. 3 This is one of those innumerable moments in which Lucretius’ dazzling verbal skills are inevitably lost in translation. Here in describing the innumerable combinations, he plays with similar words jostling one another: “sed quia multa modis multis mutata per omne.” 4 In The Logic of Sense, trans.

Peter’s Basilica, 46, 156, 240 saints, 10, 15, 93, 129 see also specific saints Salutati, Coluccio, 120, 122–26, 130, 131, 134, 135, 214, 289n Sammonicus Serenus, Quintus, 60–61 Samos, 72–73 San Clemente basilica, 90 San Marco convent, 110, 290n Santa Croce basilica, 111, 217, 218 Santa Maria del Carmine church, 111 Santa Maria Novella church, 110 Santayana, George, 186 Santo Spirito church, 111 satire, 138–41, 233–36 satyrs, 63, 195 Savonarola, Girolamo, 219–21, 252 Scaevola, Mucius, 295n Schaffhausen, 170, 174 Schofield, Michael, 277n School of Athens (Raphael), 252 schools, 28, 59, 91, 104, 151, 211, 226 science, 8, 59, 60–61, 71, 73–75, 87, 239, 253, 254–57, 261–63 Scipio, 274n scribes (scribae), 17–18, 32–33, 35, 37–41, 47, 49, 50, 84–86, 88, 109, 112–16, 121, 130, 133–34, 135, 152, 154, 155–56, 173–77, 179, 206, 296n script, 38, 84, 121, 130 scriptoria, 38–41, 109 scrolls, 39–40, 89 sculpture, 9, 104, 129 secretarius domesticus (apostolic secretary), 141–42, 154, 155–58, 161, 170, 180, 181, 205–15, 221, 224, 269n self-discipline, 6, 28, 37, 41, 77, 78–79, 94–97, 104–9, 195, 228, 244, 285n–86n Seneca, 43, 77 Septuagint, 88 Serapeon, 88, 89, 90, 280n–81n Serenus, Septimus, 272n Severus, Cornelius, 23–24 sexual intercourse, 99–100, 109, 143–44, 197–98, 247 sexuality, 1–2, 75–78, 99–100, 109, 143–44, 147, 166, 197–98, 247 Shakespeare, William, 3, 9, 75, 76, 77, 206, 233, 242–43 sheep, 40, 42, 156 shepherds, 68–69 “Should an Old Man Marry?”


pages: 410 words: 106,931

Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra

anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Brexit referendum, British Empire, classic study, colonial rule, continuation of politics by other means, creative destruction, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Evgeny Morozov, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, informal economy, invisible hand, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, Oklahoma City bombing, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, planetary scale, plutocrats, power law, precariat, public intellectual, Republic of Letters, Scientific racism, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, smart cities, Snapchat, stem cell, technological solutionism, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, traveling salesman, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Petersburg ‘catch-up’ with Atlantic West Christianity in collapse of Soviet Communism ‘Decembrists’ rising (1825) and industrial revolution literature see also Dostoyevsky, Fyodor muzhik (peasant) nineteenth-century revolutionaries peasant commune in People’s Will movement Peter the Great’s Westernization and the philosophes Putin regime serfdom in the ‘superfluous’ man in Tsargrad TV channel Russo-Japanese war Rwanda Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Salvemini, Gaetano San Bernardino, California Sand, George Santayana, George Sanua, James Sarkozy, Nicolas Saudi Arabia Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar Scheler, Max Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schiller, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Schmitt, Carl Schönerer, Georg von Schopenhauer, Arthur Schorske, Carl, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (1980) science Scotland Scott, Walter secessionism Second World War sexuality female Shanghai Shariati, Ali Shaw, George Bernard Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shestov, Lev Shinawatra, Thaksin Sikh militants slavery and serfdom Smith, Adam Snowden, Edward Social Darwinism social mobility socialism Soedjatmoko Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Sorel, Georges Soseki, Natsume South America anarchists in Buenos Aires impact of Western materialism Soviet Union Spain Sparta Spencer, Herbert Sri Lanka St Petersburg de Staël, Madame Stalin, Joseph Stalinism Stendhal Stephens, Henry Stifter, Adalbert, Indian Summer (1857) Stirner, Max The Ego and its Own (1844) Sturm und Drang Sudan, Mahdist revolt (1880s) Suharto suicide and depression rates suicide bombers al-Suri, Abu Musab Sweden Symbolist poetry Syria Tacitus, Germania Tagore, Rabindranath al-Tahtawi, Rifa’a Rafi’, The Extraction of Gold, or an Overview of Paris (1834) Tamil militancy Tanizaki, Junichiro Tata, Ratan Taylorism terrorism 9/11 attacks al-Suri’s jihad strategy anarchist (from 1870s) Brussels attack (March 2016) Charlie Hebdo attack ‘experts’ on fin de siècle crackdowns ‘global war on terror’ Hindu supremacist (1909) Islam-centric accounts of in late nineteenth-century France by nationalist groups in recent past Paris massacres (November 2015) ‘police actions’ policy in West present-day ‘propaganda by the deed’ Tamil pioneering of suicide attacks Theodore Roosevelt’s crusade against white perpetrators Tetsuro, Watsuji Thailand Thatcher, Margaret Theosophy Thiel, Peter Thoreau, Henry David, Walden (1854) Tibet Tocqueville, Alexis de on commercial society and democracy on despotic government and equality on Frederick of Prussia on French Revolution on George Sand on globalization and imperialism and individual freedom on philosophes and USA Tolstoy, Leo Hadji Murat (1902) War and Peace totalitarian politics Towianski, Andrzej trade and commerce rapid growth in eighteenth century Smith’s ‘hidden hand’ Voltaire’s praise of see also capitalism; commercial society transport and communications Treitschke, Heinrich von Triple Alliance (1882) Troeltsch, Ernst Trump, Donald Tunisia Turgenev, Ivan Fathers and Sons (1862) Rudin Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques Turkey 1915 genocide Erdogan regime revival of Ottomanism Young Turkey see also Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal; Ottoman Empire Tyutchev, Fyodor Ivanovich Umberto I, King of Italy unemployment United Nations United States of America (USA) anti-government sentiment in assassination of President McKinley (1901) Californian Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) contempt for elites in easy availability of weapons in economic decline since 1970s Fort Hood killings (2009) Haymarket affair in Chicago (1886) immigrant anarchists in imperialism individualistic culture National Rifle Association (NRA) New Deal new ‘Western Model’ (post-1945) Pearl Harbor attack (1941) post-WW2 hegemony radical left organizations Republican presidential primaries (2016) right-wing extremism San Bernardino shootings (2016) segregationist policies threats to Mexicans and Muslims Tocqueville on Treitschke on triumphalist history in white nationalists/supremacists in white perpetrators of mass violence see also African-Americans urban development urbanization utilitarian ethic Vidal, Gore Vienna, Congress of (1815) violence and Christian theology destruction as a creative passion as end in itself fin de siècle celebration of and Futurism glorified in post-unification Italy and Hindu nationalism imperialist justifications for Liang’s ‘destructionism’ mimetic nature of and modernity podvig in Russian literature post-9/11 intensity in USA present-day privatization and socialization of see also terrorism Vivekananda, Swami Voegelin, Eric Voilquin, Suzanne Voltaire and amour propre anti-Semitism of and Catherine of Russia and the Church in England and enlightened despots hatred of the masses Herder on praise of consumerism and trade and Rousseau and Russia wealth of Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (1756) ‘Le Mondain’ (1736) Philosophical Letters (1773) Wagner, Richard the Weathermen Weber, Max Weil, Simone welfare systems, state Western society (the West) advent of commercial-industrial civilization assumed convergence on ‘Western Model’ as civilization of a minority clash of civilizations thesis conceptual and intellectual architecture of failure of post-9/11 policies Foucault on global impact of materialism military overreactions new ‘Western Model’ (post-1945) nineteenth-century dominance of rapid growth from eighteenth century sanitized histories of shift eastwards of economic power ‘superior values’ rhetoric transcendence of geographic boundaries triumphalism at end of Cold War twenty-first-century decline West-versus-the-Rest thinking see also individual, liberal universalist ideal of; modernity; progress, Enlightenment/modern notions of Wilde, Oscar will, individual and Dostoyevsky and Napoleon Nietzsche’s will to power concept and present-day violence and Schopenhauer Williams, Serena Winckelmann, Johann Joachim Wolf, Martin Wollstonecraft, Mary Wooldridge, Adrian World Trade Centre attack (1993) Wyndham Lewis, Percy Xi Jinping Yazdi, Ebrahim Young Bosnia Yousef, Ramzi Ahmed Zakaria, Fareed, The Post-American World Zapata, Emiliano al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab Zionism Betar (youth group) Zola, Émile ALSO BY PANKAJ MISHRA Nonfiction From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India Fiction The Romantics A Note About the Author Pankaj Mishra is the author of From the Ruins of Empire and several other books.

The Second World War dealt a serious blow to Britain’s capacity to export or implant its institutions. But, in a strange twist of history, the fantasy of disseminating Anglo-American ideals and institutions worldwide was revived after 1945 and made central to political and economic thinking by Britain’s successor, the United States. * * * The United States, the Spanish-American writer George Santayana wrote, ‘has always thought itself in an eminent sense the land of freedom, even when it was covered with slaves’. Santayana had watched from his perch at Harvard University as commerce, industrialization and imperialism turned post-Civil War America into a powerful country, and the drearily respectable Yankee found himself replaced by the ‘pushing, cosmopolitan orphan’ with dreams of universal Americanization.

On Bagehot’s world view, see David Clinton, Tocqueville, Lieber, and Bagehot: Liberalism Confronts the World (New York, 2003). Herzen’s critique of liberalism is passionately articulated in his From the Other Shore, now available free on the internet at http://altheim.com/lit/herzen-ftos.html. George Santayana’s view of Americanism and liberalism was most engagingly expressed in his novel The Last Puritan (New York, 1935). Some sustained reflections can be found at http://www.archive.org/stream/soliloquiesineng00santrich/soliloquiesineng00santrich_djvu.txt. Enquiry into Cold War modes of thinking and acting is deepening, though a broad cultural and intellectual history is still unavailable.


pages: 223 words: 58,732

The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, affirmative action, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, call centre, carried interest, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, cognitive dissonance, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, computer age, corporate raider, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Santayana, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, imperial preference, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, knowledge economy, lateral thinking, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meritocracy, microaggression, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, more computing power than Apollo, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, one-China policy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, precariat, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, reshoring, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, Snapchat, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, superstar cities, telepresence, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, white flight, World Values Survey, Yogi Berra

That it is today so prized – a copy sits next to the Declaration of Independence in the US National Archives – is a measure of our amnesia. If the intellectual basis of Western liberalism is scepticism, we should learn to live up to its meaning. We should be particularly wary of the siren song of history. George Santayana famously said, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. The idea of history as a separate force with a mind of its own is a bedtime story to help us sleep. ‘History as contingency is a prospect that is more than the human spirit can bear,’ said Robert Heilbroner, the late American economist.

., 149 media: exposure of Nixon, 131–2; fake news, 130, 148, 178–9; falling credibility in US, 130; in Russia, 129–31, 172–3; television, 84, 128, 129, 130 medicine and healthcare, 35, 36, 42, 58, 59, 60, 62, 102, 103, 198 Medvedev, Dimitry, 79 Meiji Restoration in Japan, 78 mercantilism, 78 ‘meritocracy’, 43, 44–6 Merkel, Angela, 15, 180 Mexico, 29, 114 Middle East, 181, 183 Middle East and North Africans (MENAs, US ethnic category), 95 Midland, Michigan, 194–5 migration, 41, 99–100, 196, 198; current crisis, 70, 100, 140, 180–1; and welfare systems, 101, 102 Milanovic, Branko, 31, 32, 33 Mill, John Stuart, 161, 162 Mineta, Norman, 134 Mitterrand, François, 90, 107 Modi, Narendra, 201 Moldova, Grape Revolution (2009), 79 Mongol China, 25 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 164–5 Moore, Barrington, 12 Morozov, Evgeny, The Net Delusion, 129 Mounk, Yascha, 68, 123 Müller, Jan-Werner, 90, 118, 139 multinational companies, 26–7, 69–70 multipolarity, 6–8, 70 Musharraf, Pervez, 80 Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, 82 Napoleonic Wars, 156 Nathan, Andrew, 84 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 82 National Front in France, 15, 102, 108–10 National Health Service, 102 nationalism: comeback of, 11, 97, 102, 108–9, 170, 174; and end of Cold War, 5; European, 10–11, 102, 108–9; and global trilemma, 72–3; Summers’ responsible nationalism, 71–2 Nato alliance, 135, 140, 179 Navarro, Peter, 149, 167, 180 Negroponte, Nicholas, 127 Netherlands, 102 New York, 49–50, 54 New Yorker, 35 Nixon, Richard, 131–2, 134 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 85 North American Free Trade Agreement, 73 North Korea, 175 nuclear weapons, 5, 167, 174–6 Nuttall, Paul, 90 Obama, Barack: and AIIB, 84; and Arab Spring, 82; Asia pivot policy, 157, 160–1; election of (2008), 97; and financial sector, 193, 199; gay marriage issue, 188; gender identity order (2016), 187–8; on history’s long arc, 190; and Islam, 182; and nuclear weapons, 175–6; trip to China (2009), 159–60; US–Russia relations, 79; and world trade agreements, 73; ‘wrong side of history’ language, 187–8, 190 Occupy Wall Street, 139 oikophobia, 111–12, 117 Opium Wars, 23 Orbán, Viktor, 138–9, 181 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 29 Orwell, George, 69, 128 Oxford University, 4 Paine, Thomas, 126 Pakistan, 175 Philippines, 61, 136–7, 138, 160, 202 Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), 4 Plato, 137 politics in West: 1968 Democratic Convention, 188–9; decline of established parties, 88–90; declining faith in system, 8–9, 12, 14, 88–9, 98–100, 103–4, 119–23, 202–3; and disappearing growth, 13; falling voter turnout in UK, 99; left embraces personal liberation (1960s), 188–9; and ‘meritocracy’, 43–6; move rightwards of working classes, 95–9, 102, 108–10, 189–91, 194–5; and national identity, 71–3; privatising of risk since late 1970s, 191–3; responses to digital revolution, 52–4, 56–8, 59–61, 67–8; Third Way, 89–92; urban–hinterland split, 46–51, 119, 120, 130, 135; US political system, 131–6; voter disdain for elites, 14, 98–100, 110, 119 Pomerantsev, Peter, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible, 79, 130, 140, 172 populist right: ‘alt-right’ fringe, 97, 104; America First movement, 117; and automation, 67; cultural and economic anxieties, 190–6; Davos’s solution, 69, 70–1; in Europe, 139–40; Andrew Jackson’s election (1828), 113–14; and migration crisis, 181; as not democratic, 139; racism as not root cause, 97, 98, 100, 195; Republican Party dog whistles, 190; stealing of the left’s clothes, 103; ‘take back control’ as war cry, 190; and war against truth, 79, 86, 127, 128–31, 172–4, 178–9, 195–6; see also Putin, Vladimir; Trump, Donald Portugal, 77 Primakov, Yevgeny, 6 protectionism, 19–20, 73, 78, 149 Putin, Vladimir: 2012 presidential victory, 130; annexation of Crimea (2014), 8, 173; and fall of Soviet Union, 6; interference in Europe, 179, 180; and Islam, 182; mastery of diversion/confusion, 86, 129, 130–1, 137, 172–3; Medvedev succeeds (2008), 79; replaces Yeltsin as president, 78; Trump’s admiration for, 7, 129, 135; and Trump’s victory, 7, 12, 79; and US ‘war on terror’, 80; and US–China war scenario, 146–7, 152–3 Putnam, Robert, 38 Quadruple Alliance, 7 Quah, Danny, 21 race and ethnicity: and 2016 US Presidential election, 94, 95, 96–7, 98; and ‘identity liberalism’, 14, 96–8; majority-white backlash concept, 12, 14, 96, 102, 104; poor whites in USA, 95–6, 112–13; return of racial politics, 102, 103, 104; US classification data, 94–5; and welfare systems, 101, 102 racism, 97, 98, 99, 100–1, 104, 113–14, 195 Reagan, Ronald, 37 Reagan Democrats, 95, 189 Reeves, Richard, 44 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, 167 remote intelligence, 13, 61–2 Renaissance, 24 Reuther, Walter, 66–7 the rich, 32–3, 50–1, 68, 197; Aristotle on, 200; loss of faith in democracy, 122–3; and rising inequality, 32–3, 43, 46; Trump’s support for, 193, 195, 196, 199–200 robot economy, 34, 51–5, 56, 60–2, 123 Rodrik, Dani, 72, 73 Rome, classical, 25, 128–9 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 10 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 128 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 126 RT (Russian state TV channel), 84, 85 Rubin, Robert, 71 Russia: conference on ‘polycentric world order’ (Moscow, 2016), 5–8; dissidents’ view of West, 140; expulsion of Western NGOs, 85; as failed democracy, 12, 78, 79, 82, 173; and fake news, 178; media in, 129–31, 172–3; metropolitan elites, 130; and multipolarity, 6–8; and nuclear weapons, 175; privatisation fire sale in, 79; reality-TV politics in, 79, 86, 129–31, 172–3; Revolution (1917), 115; and Trump, 7, 12, 79; and Washington Consensus, 29, 78–9; see also Putin, Vladimir; Soviet Union Sajadpour, Karim, 193, 194–5 Salazar, António de Oliveira, 77 San Bernardino massacre (2015), 182 San Francisco, 49 Sanders, Bernie, 92, 93 Santayana, George, 10 Saudi Arabia, 175, 182 Scandinavia, 43, 101, 197 Schröder, Gerhard, 90 Schwarzman, Stephen, 199–200 science, 72, 171, 172 Scopes Monkey trial, 111 Scruton, Roger, 111–12 Seattle world trade talks (1999), 73 Second World War, 116–17, 163, 169, 170–1 Sessions, Jeff, 151 Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 80 Shultz, George, 132 Shultz, Martin, 15 Singapore, 21 Sino-Indian war (1962), 166 slave trade, African, 23, 55, 56 Smith, Adam, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 38–9 Social Darwinism, 162 social insurance systems, 42, 101–3, 191, 198 social media, 34, 39, 53, 54, 66, 67, 70, 178 Solow, Robert, 34 South America, 32 South China Sea, 147–8, 160–1 South Korea, 21, 29 Soviet Union, 80, 115, 130, 171, 174; collapse of, 6, 78, 168; see also Russia Spain, 43, 63, 77, 140 Stalin, Joseph, 128, 171 suburban crisis, 46–8 Summers, Lawrence, 71 Sun Tzu, 161 Surkov, Vladislav, 172–3 surveillance technologies, 68 Sweden, 101, 122 Taiwan, 145, 158, 164, 165, 166–7, 168; and US ‘One China’ policy, 145–6, 158; and US–China war scenario, 145, 151–3 Taiwan Strait, 152, 158 Task Rabbit, 63 taxation, 110, 198, 199–200 technology: age of electricity, 58–9; and globalisation, 55–6; leap forward (from 1870), 58–9; steam power, 24, 55–6; the telegraph, 127; as Trump’s friend, 131, 171; and utopian leaps of faith, 127–8; see also digital revolution television, 84, 128, 129, 130 tesobono crisis, Mexican (2005), 29 Thailand, 21, 82 Thatcher, Margaret, 189–90 Thiel, Peter, 34, 53 Thompson, E.P., 201 Thoreau, Henry David, 127–8 Thrower, Randolph, 132 Tillerson, Rex, 147–8, 161 Toil Index, 35–6 Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, 73, 167 transport, 54, 55, 56–7, 58, 61; self-driving vehicles, 54, 57, 60, 68 Trump, Donald: admiration for Putin, 7, 129, 135; and America First movement, 117; autocratic/authoritarian nature of, 133, 169, 171, 178–9; Bannon as Surkov of, 173; Chinese view of, 85–6, 140; confusion as strategic goal, 79, 86, 127, 128, 130, 131, 173, 178–9, 195–6; foreign policy, 167–70, 178–80, 181–4; ignorance of how other countries think, 161, 167–9; inaugural address, 135, 146; Andrew Jackson comparisons, 113–14; and male voters, 57; as mortal threat to democracy, 97, 104, 111, 126, 133–6, 138, 139, 161, 169–70, 178–84, 203–4; and Muslim ban, 135, 181, 182; narcissism of, 170; need for new Mark Felt/Deep Throat, 136; and nuclear weapons, 175, 176; offers cure worse than the disease, 14, 181; plan to deport Mexican immigrants, 114, 135; poorly educated as base, 103, 123; promised border wall, 94–5; protectionism of, 19–20, 73, 149; and pro wrestling, 124; stealing of the left’s clothes, 101, 103; stoking of racism by, 97; support for plutocracy, 193, 195, 196, 199–200; and Taiwan, 145, 166–7, 168; targeting of Muslims, 135, 181–3, 195–6; and Twitter, 70, 146; and UFC, 126; urban–hinterland split in 2016 vote, 47–8, 119, 120, 130, 135; and US political system, 131, 133–5; US–China war scenario, 145–53, 161; victory in US presidential election, 5, 6–7, 11–12, 15, 28, 47–8, 79, 87, 96–8, 111, 120, 194–5 Trump: The Game (board game), 7 Tsai Ing-Wen, 151 Tunisia, 12, 82 Turkey, 12, 82, 137, 140, 175 Twitter, 34, 53, 70, 146 Uber, 63 UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), 125–6, 127 UK Independence Party (UKIP), 90, 98, 100, 101–2, 190; xenophobia during Brexit campaign, 100–1 Ukraine: Orange Revolution (2004), 79; Putin’s annexation of Crimea (2014), 8, 173 United States of America (USA): 1968 Democratic Convention, 188–9; 2016 presidential election, 5, 6–7, 11–12, 15, 28, 47–8, 79, 87–8, 91–8, 119, 130, 133, 135; 9/11 terrorist attacks, 79–80, 81, 182; America First movement, 117; civil rights victories (1960s), 190; ‘complacent classes’ in, 40; Constitution, 112–13, 163; and containment of China, 25–6, 145–6, 157–61, 165; decline of established parties, 89; declining hegemony of, 14, 21–2, 26–8, 140–1, 200–1; domestic terrorist attacks, 182, 183; elite–heartland divide, 47–8, 119, 130, 135; foreign policy since WW2, 183–4; gig economy, 63–5; gilded age, 42–3; growth after 2008 crisis, 30–1; growth of inequality in modern era, 43, 44–8, 49, 50–1; history in popular imagination, 163; Lend-Lease aid to Britain, 169; middle-income problem in, 35–41; Monroe Doctrine (1823), 164–5; murder rate in suburbs, 47; nineteenth-century migration to, 41; Operation Iraqi Freedom, 8, 81, 85, 156; opioid-heroin epidemic, 37–8; Patriot Act, 80; political system, 112–13, 131–6, 163; post-Cold War triumphalism, 6, 71; primacy in Asia Pacific, 26, 157, 160–1; racial/ethnic make-up of, 94–6; relations with Soviet Union see Cold War; relative decline of, 170; ‘reverse white flight’ in, 46; technological leap forward (from 1870), 58–9; vanishing class mobility in, 43–6; ‘war on terror’, 80–1, 140, 183; Washington’s ‘deep state’, 133–4 Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposals, 196–7 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 8–9, 10 Vance, J.D., 108 Venezuela, 82 Versailles Conference (1919), 154 Vienna, Congress of (1814–15), 7 Vietnam, 166 Wallace, George, 113 Walters, Johnnie M., 132 ‘war on terror’, US, 80–1, 140, 183 Warsh, Kevin, 150 Washington Consensus, 29–30, 71, 77, 78–9, 158–9 Washington Post, 132 Weber, Max, 162 welfare systems, 42, 101–3, 191, 198 Western thought: on China, 158–9, 161–2; conceit of primacy of, 4–5, 8–9, 85, 158–9, 162; declining influence of, 200–1; idea of progress, 4, 8, 11–12, 37; modernity concept, 24, 162; non-Western influences on, 24–5; see also democracy, liberal; liberalism, Western WhatsApp, 54 White, Hugh, 25, 158 Wilders, Geert, 102 Wilentz, Sean, 114 Williamson, John, 29 Wilson, Woodrow, 115 Woodward, Bob, 132 Wordsworth, William, 3 World Bank, 84 World Trade Organization (WTO), 26, 72, 149, 150 Wright, Thomas, 180 WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), 124–5 Xi Jinping, 19–20, 26, 27, 146, 149, 168, 170; and US–China war scenario, 150, 152 Yellen, Janet, 150 Yeltsin, Boris, 78, 79 Young, Michael, 45–6 YouTube, 54 Zakaria, Fareed, 13, 119


Animal Spirits by Jackson Lears

1960s counterculture, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, behavioural economics, business cycle, buy and hold, California gold rush, clockwork universe, conceptual framework, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, Doomsday Clock, double entry bookkeeping, epigenetics, escalation ladder, feminist movement, financial innovation, Frederick Winslow Taylor, George Akerlof, George Santayana, heat death of the universe, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, Ida Tarbell, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Lewis Mumford, lifelogging, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, Norman Mailer, plutocrats, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Scientific racism, short selling, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, source of truth, South Sea Bubble, Stanislav Petrov, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Strategic Defense Initiative, surveillance capitalism, the market place, the scientific method, The Soul of a New Machine, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transcontinental railway, W. E. B. Du Bois, Whole Earth Catalog, zero-sum game

These cultural projects accelerated during the years before the war, converging in a new celebration of Energy, Force, and Power that derived much of its strength from a surge of vernacular vitalism. Before the war, no one knew they were on the brink of mass carnage, but a few perceptive observers sensed they were inhabiting an era of pivotal transformation. “The present age is a critical one and interesting to live in,” George Santayana wrote in 1913. “The civilization characteristic of Christendom has not yet disappeared, yet another civilization has begun to take its place.” In the Chicago Dial, Charles Moore provided an alternative interpretation of the cultural tremors that were coursing through American society: they did not signify the rejection of religion, he thought, except insofar as it had devolved into mere respectability; rather, they arose from widespread challenges to nineteenth-century science.

“In seeking to persuade men of the contrary, M. Bergson is holding out to them the hope that they may become wise by following the line of the least resistance, that they may grow ‘spiritual’ by diving into the flux.” Babbitt was not alone among conservatives in seeing Bergson as a symptom of cultural decline. George Santayana took a similar view, but placed it in a larger and more flexible framework. For him the disease of “overcivilization” took on subtler symptoms than it had for most prophets of decline. Santayana, a rationalist but not a dogmatic one, reflected on the significance of the vitalist distrust of intelligence: “if life is better the more intense and concentrated it is, intelligence would seem to be the best form of life.

“moral equivalent of war”: William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War” [1910], in William James, Writings 1902–1910 (1987), 1281–93. 7. ANOTHER CIVILIZATION “The fiddles are tuning up”: John Butler Yeats, cited in John Lukacs, A New Republic: A History of the United States in the 20th Century (2004), 23n. “The present age is a critical one”: George Santayana, “The Intellectual Temper of the Age,” in his Winds of Doctrine (1913), 1. “For fifty years”: Charles Moore, “The Return of the Gods,” Dial 53 (Nov. 16, 1912), 371. “blooming, buzzing confusion”: William James, Psychology: Briefer Course in William James; Writings 1878–1899 (1992), 24. “Certainty is the root”: Benjamin Paul Blood, quoted in William James, “A Pluralistic Mystic,” Hibbert Journal 8 (July 1910), 758.


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Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer by Duncan J. Watts

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, AOL-Time Warner, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Black Swan, business cycle, butterfly effect, carbon credits, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, clockwork universe, cognitive dissonance, coherent worldview, collapse of Lehman Brothers, complexity theory, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, death of newspapers, discovery of DNA, East Village, easy for humans, difficult for computers, edge city, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, framing effect, Future Shock, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Santayana, happiness index / gross national happiness, Herman Kahn, high batting average, hindsight bias, illegal immigration, industrial cluster, interest rate swap, invention of the printing press, invention of the telescope, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, lake wobegon effect, Laplace demon, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, medical malpractice, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, Network effects, oil shock, packet switching, pattern recognition, performance metric, phenotype, Pierre-Simon Laplace, planetary scale, prediction markets, pre–internet, RAND corporation, random walk, RFID, school choice, Silicon Valley, social contagion, social intelligence, statistical model, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, supply-chain management, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, too big to fail, Toyota Production System, Tragedy of the Commons, ultimatum game, urban planning, Vincenzo Peruggia: Mona Lisa, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, X Prize

And when we conclude from the surge in Iraq that it caused the subsequent drop in violence, we are invariably tempted to apply the same strategy again, as indeed the current administration has done in Afghanistan. No matter what we say we are doing, in other words, whenever we seek to learn about the past, we are invariably seeking to learn from it as well—an association that is implicit in the words of the philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”19 This confusion between stories and theories gets to the heart of the problem with using common sense as a way of understanding the world. In one breath, we speak as if all we’re trying to do is to make sense of something that has already happened.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, pp. 315–41. Salganik, Matthew, and Duncan J. Watts. 2009b. “Web-Based Experiments for the Study of Collective Social Dynamics in Cultural Markets.” Topics in Cognitive Science 1:439–68. Sandel, Michael J. 2009. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. Santayana, George. 1905. Reason in Common Sense, Vol. 1. New York: George Scribner’s Sons. Sassoon, Donald. 2001. Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon. New York: Harcourt, Inc. Schacter, Daniel L. 2001. The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Schnaars, Steven P. 1989.

Arguably, in fact, it is the capacity of the scientific method to pursue explanatory power, even at the cost of theoretical elegance and parsimony, where its real strength lies. 17. For Berlin’s full analysis of the differences between science and history, and the impossibility of remaking the latter in the image of the former, see Berlin (1960). 18. See Gaddis (2002) for a warning about the perils of generalizing, and also some examples of doing just that. 19. George Santayana (1905). CHAPTER 6: THE DREAM OF PREDICTION 1. See Rosenbloom (2009). 2. See Tetlock (2005) for details. 3. See Schnaars (1989, pp. 9–33) for his analysis and lots of entertaining examples. See also Sherden (1998) for additional evidence of the lousy forecasting record of futurologists.


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Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof, Robert J. Shiller

affirmative action, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, business cycle, buy and hold, collateralized debt obligation, conceptual framework, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, experimental subject, financial innovation, full employment, Future Shock, George Akerlof, George Santayana, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income per capita, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jean Tirole, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, market bubble, market clearing, mental accounting, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, new economy, New Urbanism, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, plutocrats, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, profit maximization, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, random walk, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, seminal paper, South Sea Bubble, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, tulip mania, W. E. B. Du Bois, We are all Keynesians now, working-age population, Y2K, Yom Kippur War

The term was commonly used in medicine through medieval times and up until Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1632) and René Descartes’ Traité de l’Homme (1972 [1664]). There were said to be three spirits: the spiritus vitalis that originated in the heart, the spiritus naturalis that originated in the liver, and the spiritus animalis that originated in the brain. The philosopher George Santayana (1955 [1923], p. 245) built a system of philosophy around the centrality of “animal faith,” which he defined as “a pure and absolute spirit, an imperceptible cognitive energy, whose essence is intuition.” 4. The so-called IS-LM model has had an enduring influence on macroeconomic thought.

“Social Osmosis and Patterns of Crime.” Journal of Political Economy 88(6):1272–95. Samuelson, Paul A. 1997 [1948]. Economics: An Introductory Analysis, 1st ed. New York: McGraw-Hill (reprinted, with a new foreword). Sands, David R. 1991. “GAO Chief Says Banks Must Win Confidence.” Washington Times, March 8. Santayana, George. 1955 [1923]. Skepticism and Animal Faith. New York: Dover. Sargent, Thomas J. 1971. “A Note on the Accelerationist’ Controversy.” Journal of Money Credit and Banking 3(3):721–25. Sargent, Thomas J., and Neil Wallace. 1975. “Rational Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule.”

See targets Russia, 2 Russian currency crisis, 84 Sachs, Jeffrey, 67, 185n25 Sah, Raaj, 39, 182n26 St. Vincent Millay, Edna, 183n1 Saks, Raven E., 183n14 Salomon Brothers, 83 Samuelson, Paul, 46, 107–8, 113–14, 189n2, 193n3 Sands, David R., 181n13 Sanford Spinning Mill, 60 San Francisco, California, 169 Santayana, George, 178n4 Sargent, Thomas J., 178n4, 183n8, 190n14 Saulnier, Raymond, 113 Save More Tomorrow, 121, 125 saving, 6, 116–30, 174, 190–92n1–26; cues for, 119–20, 128, 130; deviation from standard economics of, 122–25; framing of, 119–21, 122, 191n4; long-term consequences of, 116–18; mental accounts and, 120–21, 192n25; national impact of, 125–28, 129–30; variability of, 118–22 savings and loan (S&L) crisis, 30–33, 93, 172; cost of, 31, 86; deregulation and, 30 Sbordone, Argia, 179n9 Schank, Roger C., 51, 183n2 Schellhammer, Melanie, 181n9 Schmeidler, David, 194n32 Schnyder, Ulrich, 181n9 Scholes, Myron, 84 Schultze, Charles L., 189n1 Schumpeter, Joseph A., 62, 184n9 Schwartz, Anna Jacobson, 61, 186n7 Schwarz, Christopher, 182n23 securities, 27–29 Securities Act of 1933, 39 Securities and Exchange Commission, 33, 147 Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 39 securitized loans, 87, 90, 170 selfish behavior, 22–23 Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 83 Sender, Henry, 188n17 Seuss, Dr.


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Uncharted: How to Map the Future by Margaret Heffernan

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Anne Wojcicki, anti-communist, Atul Gawande, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, chief data officer, Chris Urmson, clean water, complexity theory, conceptual framework, cosmic microwave background, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, discovery of penicillin, driverless car, epigenetics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, George Santayana, gig economy, Google Glasses, Greta Thunberg, Higgs boson, index card, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, job automation, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, late capitalism, lateral thinking, Law of Accelerating Returns, liberation theology, mass immigration, mass incarceration, megaproject, Murray Gell-Mann, Nate Silver, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, passive investing, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, prediction markets, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Rosa Parks, Sam Altman, scientific management, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart meter, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, surveillance capitalism, TED Talk, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, Tim Cook: Apple, twin studies, University of East Anglia

Most of us can find times in our lives when we might have turned one way but went another. These are times when we feel we have freedom, but we need skill to notice it and valour to use it. The act of imagination required to see choices and imagine better ones is how we craft the lives that are our own. When George Santayana wrote: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,’ he was writing specifically about the development of young people, from childhood to old age.5 Progress, he argues, depends on retentiveness; if, every day, we had to learn from scratch, we would remain infantile. Instead, new learning creates new perspectives and memories which themselves prompt the creation or identification of new possibilities.

It’s Ruining Your Brain’, www.washingtonpost.com/­opinions/­ditch-the-gps-its-ruining-your-brain/­2019/06/­05/­29a3170e-87af-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.70c11f4d7c07, and O’Connor, M. R., Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2018 4 Gilbert, Dan T. and Wilson, Timothy D., ‘Prospection: Experiencing the Future’, Science, Vol. 317, Iss. 5843, 2007 5 Santayana, George, The Life of Reason, Ch. XII, Vol. 1, 1905. Can be accessed at ia801407.us.archive.org/­11/items/­lifeofreasonphas01sant/­lifeofreasonphas01sant.pdf 6 Gibson, Irving M., ‘The Maginot Line’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 17, Iss. 2, 1945 7 Kahneman, Daniel and Tversky, Amos, ‘On the Psychology of Prediction’, Psychological Review, Vol. 80, Iss. 4, 1973 8 Nevertheless, it is strikingly difficult to persuade people that the aesthetic similarity between stories isn’t meaningful.

., 94 ‘Rosina’ anecdote, 173 RTÉ, 145 Rubbia, Carlo, 207, 216 rules-bound games, 107–8 Rumi, 296 Russell, Bertrand, 97 Russia Today (RT), 111 Sagrada Família, 224–8, 232 St Margaret’s Hospice, 289–94, 321 St Patrick’s Cathedral, 260 Samaritans, 119 same-sex marriage, 140 Sanford Underground Research Facility, 204 Sanger Centre, 219–21, 224, 231, 232 Santayana, George, 51 Saquinavir, 266 Sargent, Singer, 15 SARS, 298 Saunders, Cicely, 289 scenario planning, 155–75 Schatz, Albert, 15 schizophrenia, 92, 93, 96 Schoenberg, Arnold, 197 Schrödinger, Erwin, 206 Schubert, Franz, 277 scientific management, 120, 199 Scotland, independence sort by, 39 Seagram Building, 226 Sears, 117 Second World War, 54, 73, 80, 99, 147, 152, 162, 164, 273–4, 279 seedbanks, 306, 316 segregation, 33, 97, 129 self-discipline, 19, 230 self-interest, 23, 29, 36, 174 Sencer, David, 58–9 sensitive humility, 192 Shafak, Elif, 191 Shakespeare, William, 31, 108–9, 184, 195, 198, 275–6 shamanism, 2 Sharper Image, 247 Sheffield Health Geeks, 118 Shell Oil Corporation, 154–66 passim short-termism, 78, 308 sickle-cell anaemia, 89 Siilasmaa, Risto, 248–50 ‘Silence = Death’ campaign, 265 Silicon Valley, 33, 129, 246, 285 Skidelsky, Robert, 25 Sky, 111 ‘sleeping beauties’, 82 sleight of hand, 3 Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, 296 social connection, 103 social efficiency, 101 ‘social rubbish’, 97 social turmoil, 4 soft data, 156, 159, 168 ‘something for everyone’, 76 soothsaying, 2 Sophocles, 177 Spence, Basil, 226 Spiritual Association of the Devotees of Saint Joseph, 224 SSC, 209 stability, 17–18, 22, 56, 113, 154, 158, 282 Standard Life (SL), 251 Stanford, 273 statistics, 16, 20, 23, 40, 74, 82, 92, 136, 139, 178 stereotyping, 79–80, 93, 95, 151 sterilisation, 97 Stonyfield, 113–14, 115 Strauss, Levi, 274 Stravinsky, Igor, 15 streptomycin, 15 Suez Crisis, 53 Sugrañes, Domènec, 225 Suharto, Tommy, 254 Sulston, John, 219 Sumpter, Donald, 195 super-collider projects, 185, 204–32 super-forecasting, 37, 38, 41, 63 SUperSYmmetry (SUSY), 216 surrender, 7, 36, 96, 102, 103, 202, 242, 319 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 309 SUSY, 216 Svalbard, 306–7, 316 swine flu, 57, 58 Symbian, 247 Syngenta, 160 Szabłowski, Witold, 121 Tambo, Oliver, 258 Tate, 186 taxation, 28 taxi drivers/driving, 42–6, 63, 181, 314 TB, 14–15, 19, 41 Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), 257–8, 268 terrorism, 15, 36, 85–6, 173, 305 test-tube baby, first-ever, 222 Tetlock, Philip, 5, 27–8, 36–7, 40 Texas University, 129, 163 Thamotheram, Raj, 279, 294 Thatcher, Margaret, 209 Thiel, Peter, 286 Third Law of Motion, 19 THT, 257–8, 268 Thunberg, Greta, 269, 317 Tóibín, Colm, 179 Toys “R” Us, 248 track record, 5, 28, 41 trade wars, 4 Transcend, 283 transformation programmes, 116, 166, 199 transhumanism, 280, 283–7 Trump, Donald, 4, 28, 39, 40, 170, 176 trust, 2, 9, 17, 19, 28, 41, 54, 70, 103, 108, 112, 140, 151, 163–5, 172, 182–7, 201, 211, 221–2, 234, 244, 249, 252, 255, 266, 270, 302, 304–7, 316, 318 tuberculosis, see TB 21/7, 85 23andMe, 95 Twitter, 4 tyranny, 7, 63, 121–2 Umbert, Esteve, 229–30 Unified Planning Machine, 154 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 312 United Nations (UN), 309, 313 unknowns, density of, 17 urban crowding, 14 US Congress, 1, 24, 58, 264 utopia, 6, 103, 312, 313 vaccines, 14, 57–8, 297–304, 298–304 Venter, Craig, 219 Vera Drake, 185, 192 Vidal, Francesc de Paula Quintana i, 227 Vietnam War, 53–4 Vision for Slovenia, 162–5 volatility, 3, 4, 17–18, 147, 155, 157, 224, 237 W boson, 207, 216 Wack, Pierre, 154, 155–6, 159, 168 Waksman, Selman, 15 Wall Street, 20 Walmart, 151 war on cancer, 82 Warnock Commission, 222, 223, 234 Warnock, Mary, 222–3, 316 Washington Mutual, 248 wasteful exuberance, 20 Webb, Beatrice and Sidney, 97 wellbeing, 118, 156, 164, 309, 312 Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (2015) (Wales), 309, 310, 311, 313 Wellcome Sanger Institute, 219, 224, 231 Wellcome Trust, 85 Wells, H.


pages: 1,106 words: 335,322

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

business cycle, California gold rush, classic study, collective bargaining, Cornelius Vanderbilt, death of newspapers, delayed gratification, double entry bookkeeping, endowment effect, family office, financial independence, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, George Santayana, God and Mammon, Gregor Mendel, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, Menlo Park, New Journalism, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, passive investing, plutocrats, price discrimination, profit motive, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ralph Waldo Emerson, refrigerator car, Suez canal 1869, The Chicago School, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, white picket fence, yellow journalism

Nevins, Study in Power, vol. I, p. 342. UC–JDR, B1 F2, letter from Dr. Augustus H. Strong, November 26, 1887. IMT, B 1/14, letter from V. C. Hicks to Ida Tarbell, June 29, 1905. McCormick, George Santayana, p. 283. Ibid. Wacker, Augustus H. Strong, p. 84. Ibid., p. 101. AN, B130, letter from Dr. Augustus Strong, January 4, 1887. Ibid., editorial note from T. W. Goodspeed. McCormick, George Santayana, p. 282. Santayana, The Letters of George Santayana, p. 22. UC–JDR, B1 F2, letter from Dr. Augustus H. Strong, November 26, 1887. Ibid., letter from W. R. Harper, January 11, 1887. John D. Rockefeller, Random Reminiscences, pp. 112, 116.

Murphy, August 16, 1905. RAC, vol. 217, no. 480, letter to Mrs. Watson Van Duyne, May 1, 1906. AN, B117 F59, letter to Bessie Strong, December 20, 1905. RAC–CAS, III, “Letters 1906–1907.” Santayana, The Letters of George Santayana, p. 86. RAC, Inglis notes, 4.12, “Hoster Manuscript,” p. 4. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 8. Flynn, God’s Gold, p. 424. Ibid., p. 423. McCormick, George Santayana, p. 284. Ibid. RAC, Inglis notes, 4.12, “Hoster Manuscript.” AN, B131. RAC, Inglis notes, 4.12, “Hoster Manuscript,” p. 27. AN, B117 F60, letter from George Rogers, July 9, 1906. RAC–CAS, III, “Letters 1906–1907,” letter from Charles A.

America’s Gilded Age: Intimate Portraits from an Era of Extravagance and Change, 1850–1890. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1989. Russell, Bertrand. Freedom Versus Organization, 1814 to 1914. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1934. Sampson, Anthony. The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Shaped. Reprint. New York: Bantam Books, 1975 [1973]. Santayana, George. The Letters of George Santayana. Ed. Daniel Cory. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955. ———. Persons and Places: The Background of My Life. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944. Schenkel, Albert F. The Rich Man and the Kingdom: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Protestant Establishment. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.


pages: 257 words: 13,443

Statistical Arbitrage: Algorithmic Trading Insights and Techniques by Andrew Pole

algorithmic trading, Benoit Mandelbrot, constrained optimization, Dava Sobel, deal flow, financial engineering, George Santayana, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, mandelbrot fractal, market clearing, market fundamentalism, merger arbitrage, pattern recognition, price discrimination, profit maximization, proprietary trading, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, risk tolerance, Sharpe ratio, statistical arbitrage, statistical model, stochastic volatility, systematic trading, transaction costs

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.’’ The Life of Reason, George Santayana. 6 STATISTICAL ARBITRAGE the output of the same, but the theory, models, and analysis are of an emergent process, not the causal mechanism(s) proper. No matter how impressibly we may describe routines and procedures of the regular players, from analysts (writing their reports) to fund advisors (reading those reports, recommending portfolio changes) to fund managers (making portfolio decisions) to traders (acting on those decisions), the modeling is necessarily once removed from the elemental processes.

See also Return decline catastrophe process, 194–198 catastrophe process forecasts, 198–200 catastrophe process theoretical interpretation, 205–209 Cuscore statistics and, 200–205, 211–221 risk management and, 209–211 trend change identification, 200–205 Revealed reversion, see Expected revealed reversion Reverse bets, 11 Reversion, law of, 67–89, 113–114, 139–140 first-order serial correlation and, 77–82 inhomogeneous variances and, 74–77 interstock volatility and, 67, 99–112, 164–165 looking several days ahead and, 87–89 nonconstant distributions and, 82–84 in nonstationary process, 136–137 serial correlation, 138–139 75 percent rule and, 68–74 in stationary random process, 114–136 temporal dynamics and, 91–98 U.S. bond futures and, 85–87 Reynders Gray, 26 Risk arbitrage, competition and, 160–161 Risk control, 26–32 event correlations, 31–32 forecast variance, 26–28 market exposure, 29–30 market impact, 30–31 229 Index Risks scenarios, 141–154 catastrophe process and, 209–211 correlation during loss episodes, 151–154 event risk, 142–145 new risk factors, 145–148 redemption tension, 148–150 Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD), 150–151 Royal Dutch Shell (RD)–British Petroleum (BP) spread, 46–47 S&P (Standard & Poor’s): S&P 500, 28 futures and exposure, 21 Sample distribution, 123 Santayana, George, 5n2 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), 175 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 3, 150–151 Seismology analogy, 200n1 September 11 terrorist attacks, 175 Sequentially structured variances, 136–137 Sequentially unstructured variances, 137 Serial correlation, 138–139 75 percent rule, 68–74, 117 first-order serial correlation and, 77–82 inhomogeneous variances and, 74–77, 136–137 looking several days ahead and, 87–89 nonconstant distributions and, 82–84 U.S. bond futures and, 85–87 Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), 175 Shackleton, E.


pages: 246 words: 116

Tyler Cowen-Discover Your Inner Economist Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist-Plume (2008) by Unknown

"World Economic Forum" Davos, airport security, Andrei Shleifer, big-box store, British Empire, business cycle, cognitive dissonance, cross-subsidies, fundamental attribution error, gentrification, George Santayana, haute cuisine, low interest rates, market clearing, microcredit, money market fund, pattern recognition, Ralph Nader, retail therapy, Stephen Hawking, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen

In today's world, going to high school, college, and graduate school is correlated with intelligence, persistence, and other qualities that make culture easier to appreciate. But this was not always the case. No one in Beethoven's audience, or in sixteenthcentury Florence, had a Ph.D. or, for that matter, a master's degree. Yet Possess All the Great Art Ever Made I 51 many of those people loved culture with a great intellect and a passion. Philosopher George Santayana remarked that the ancient Greeks were the uneducated people in European history; yet in cultural terms they did pretty well. For the most part, getting a lot out of culture is an acquired skill, dependent on periodic immersion in a cultural environment, combined with a willingness to learn and adjust.

See books and reading real estate, 84, 91 reality, 136-37 rebellion, 29, 67, 70 recipes, 160-62 Reddy, Padmaja, 216 regifting, 211 regulation, 177-78, 182 relationships caring in, 89, 91, 93 and happiness, 180-81 and incentives, 85, 178 markets that target, 165-66, 169-70, 174-75, 183 and pickup lines, 83-85 probabilities applied to, 127-28 and sacrifices, 74 self-deception in, 113-14, 118 signaling in, 79-85 relatively inelastic factors, 190 243 religion, 115, 191, 206 REM,71 rent exhaustion, 189 rents, 151-53 responsibility, 164, 182 restaurants appetizers, 145 choosing food, 140-41, 142-43 choosing restaurants, 147-50 ethnic food, 143-47, 147-57 fine restaurants, 140-41, 142-47,151 and healthy foods, 160 in Las Vegas, 157-59 rents, 151-53, 156 waiters, 142-43 See also food rewards, 27-29. See also incentives Richardson, Matthew, 6 Robertson, D. H., 186 RSVPs,37-38 Rubin, Max, 158 Santayana, George, 51 scarcity of altruism, 193, 200 of attention, 48, 49-51, 54 coping with, 3-4 and cultural consumption, 49-51 identifying, 47 and money, 47-48 of time, 48, 50, 54 Schelling, Thomas, 181 Schumacher, Michael, 197 Scientific Intake of Atlanta, 182 The Scream (Munch), 57 seed money, 204 self-deception, 113-37 and altruism, 136, 192, 206 areas of, 113-17 and control, 128-31 and gym membership, 118-20 managing, 122-28 necessity of, 120-21, 183 244 self-deception (continued) perspectives on, 117-18 pitfalls of, 131-36 and reality, 136-37 in relationships, 113-14, 118 and virtue, 136-37 self-fulfilling prophecies, 15, 136 self-image challenging, 136-37 and cultural consumption, 74 and insurance, 90-91 and temptation, 183 and tipping practices, 210 See also self-deception sensory-deprivation chambers, 32 September II th terrorist attacks, 198 Seven Deadly Sins, 166-73 sex adultery, 169-70 consent forms for, 170 and happiness, 180-81 markets relating to, 179 Sexual Personae (Paglia), 65 Shleifer, Andrei, 212 shopping, 124-25 signaling, 79-111 counter-signaling, 107-11 defined, 80 and families, 89-92 and gift giving, 213 in personal ads, 96-99 perspectives on, 93-96 in relationships, 79-85 resources required for, 85-89 and torture, 99-107 sin and human failings, 163-83 and costs, 176-82 cowardice, 173-74 in relationships, 165-66, 174-75, 179-81 and self control, 182-84 Seven Deadly Sins, 166-73 vanity, 175-76 Singapore, 154, 155-57, 159 Skilling, Andrew, 167 I Index slavery, 207-8 Smith, Adam, 4, 118 social revisionism, 93, 95 social status and art, 60 and control, 32 and donor priorities, 56 and human nature, 164 as incentive, 12 and meetings, 45 and monetary rewards, 33 and reading habits, 64 Society for Progressive Education, 24-25 The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner), 62 SounderCover, 169-70 Soviet Union, 11-12,46,123,221 Spandana, 216 Spence, A.


pages: 685 words: 203,431

The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant

George Santayana, Gregor Mendel, Henri Poincaré, Isaac Newton, long peace, mass immigration, means of production, MITM: man-in-the-middle, music of the spheres, Plato's cave, plutocrats, science of happiness, Socratic dialogue, the market place, the scientific method

The Revolt Against Materialism 2. Mind and Brain 3. Creative Evolution 4. Criticism II. Benedetto Croce 1. The Man 2. The Philosophy of the Spirit 3. What Is Beauty? 4. Criticism III. Bertrand Russell 1. The Logician 2. The Reformer 3. Epilogue CHAPTER XI CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PHILOSOPHERS Introduction I. George Santayana 1. Biographical 2. Scepticism and Animal Faith 3. Reason in Science 4. Reason in Religion 5. Reason in Society 6. Comment II. William James 1. Personal 2. Pragmatism 3. Pluralism 4. Comment III. John Dewey 1. Education 2. Instrumentalism 3. Science and Politics Conclusion Glossary Bibliography Index TO THE READER This book is not a complete history of philosophy.

Our standard of art and taste in the Atlantic states is English; our literary heritage is English; and our philosophy, when we have time for any, is in the line of British thought. It is this new England that produced Washington and Irving and Emerson and even Poe; it is this new England that wrote the books of the first American philosopher, Jonathan Edwards; and it is this new England that captured and remade that strange, exotic figure, America’s latest thinker, George Santayana. For Santayana, of course, is an American philosopher only by grace of geography; he is a European who, having been born in Spain, was transported to America in his unknowing childhood, and who now, in his ripe age, returns to Europe as to a paradise for which his years with us were a probation.

We shall study Santayana first, despite chronology; because, though he is the youngest of our greater philosophers, he represents an older and a foreign school; and the subtlety of his thought, and the fragrance of his style, are like the perfume that lingers in a room from which the flowers have been taken away. We shall have, very probably, no more Santayanas; for hereafter it is America, and not Europe, that will write America’s philosophies. I. George Santayana 1. BIOGRAPHICAL Santayana was born at Madrid in 1863 and died in Rome in 1952. He was brought to America in 1872, and remained here till 1912. He took his degrees at Harvard, and taught there from his twenty-seventh to his fiftieth year. One of his students describes him vividly: Those who remember him in the class room will remember him as a spirit solemn, sweet, and withdrawn, whose Johannine face by a Renaissance painter held an abstract eye and a hieratic smile, half mischief, half content; whose rich voice flowed evenly, in cadences smooth and balanced as a liturgy; whose periods had the intricate perfection of a poem and the import of a prophecy; who spoke somehow for his hearers and not to them, stirring the depths in their natures and troubling their minds, as an oracle might, to whom pertained mystery and reverence, so compact of remoteness and fascination was he, so moving and so unmoved.2 He was not quite content with the country of his choice; his soul, softened with much learning, and sensitive as a poet’s soul must be (for he was poet first, and philosopher afterward), suffered from the noisy haste of American city-life; instinctively he shrank back to Boston, as if to be as near to Europe as he could; and from Boston to Cambridge and Harvard, and a privacy that preferred Plato and Aristotle to James and Royce.


pages: 518 words: 128,324

Destined for War: America, China, and Thucydides's Trap by Graham Allison

9 dash line, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, conceptual framework, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, escalation ladder, facts on the ground, false flag, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, game design, George Santayana, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, Haber-Bosch Process, Herman Kahn, high-speed rail, industrial robot, Internet of things, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal world order, long peace, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, one-China policy, Paul Samuelson, Peace of Westphalia, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, selection bias, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, synthetic biology, TED Talk, the rule of 72, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade route, UNCLOS, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

If leaders in Beijing and Washington keep doing what they have done for the past decade, the US and China will almost certainly wind up at war. Second, war is not inevitable. History shows that major ruling powers can manage relations with rivals, even those that threaten to overtake them, without triggering a war. The record of those successes, as well as the failures, offers many lessons for statesmen today. As George Santayana noted, only those who fail to study history are condemned to repeat it. The chapters that follow describe the origins of Thucydides’s Trap, explore its dynamics, and explain its implications for the present contest between the US and China. Part One provides a succinct summary of the rise of China.

And the war came. 3 Five Hundred Years * * * It is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire . . . War is a violent teacher. —Thucydides, on the defense of the Athenian homeland, 424 BCE What’s past is prologue. —William Shakespeare History never repeats itself, but it does sometimes rhyme. —Mark Twain Only the dead have seen the end of war. —George Santayana The war between Athens and Sparta stands as the classic example of Thucydides’s Trap. But the centuries since have seen many cases in which successors have been caught in the dynamics between rising and ruling powers that drive events toward war. Reviewing the past five hundred years, the Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project has identified sixteen cases in which an ascending power challenged an established power.* Twelve of these rivalries resulted in war.1 Period Ruling power Rising power Domain Result 1 Late 15th century Portugal Spain Global empire and trade No war 2 First half of 16th century France Hapsburgs Land power in Western Europe War 3 16th and 17th centuries Hapsburgs Ottoman Empire Land power in central and Eastern Europe, sea power in the Mediterranean War 4 First half of 17th century Hapsburgs Sweden Land and sea power in northern Europe War 5 Mid- to late 17th century Dutch Republic England Global empire, sea power, and trade War 6 Late 17th to mid-18th centuries France Great Britain Global empire and European land power War 7 Late 18th and early 19th centuries United Kingdom France Land and sea power in Europe War 8 Mid-19th century United Kingdom Russia Global empire, influence in Central Asia and eastern Mediterranean War 9 Mid-19th century France Germany Land power in Europe War 10 Late 19th and early 20th centuries China and Russia Japan Land and sea power in East Asia War 11 Early 20th century United Kingdom United States Global economic dominance and naval supremacy in the Western Hemisphere No war 12 Early 20th century United Kingdom supported by France, Russia Germany Land power in Europe and global sea power War 13 Mid-20th century Soviet Union, France, and UK Germany Land and sea power in Europe War 14 Mid-20th century United States Japan Sea power and influence in the Asia-Pacific region War 15 1940s-1980s United States Soviet Union Global power No war 16 1990s-present United Kingdom and France Germany Political influence in Europe No war This chapter presents thumbnail sketches of the paths that led to five of these wars.

., 46, 106, 108, 279–80, 304 n56, 304 n58 Roosevelt, Theodore, xviii, 67, 85–108, 131, 144, 194–97, 222, 272, 305 n60, 313 n4, 313 n7, 315 n37, 316 n54 Roosevelt Corollary, 105 Root, Elihu, 102–3 Rough Riders, 96 Roy, Stapleton, 112 Royal Navy, 55–56, 63, 67, 72–78, 84, 195, 271–72, 307 n90, 332 n31 Royal Yacht Club, 68 Rudd, Kevin, 13, 117, 141, 151, 223 Rule of 72, 7, 296 n64 ruling power syndrome, 44, 50, 63, 161, 211, 267, 310 n119, 346 n153 See also rise vs. rule; rising power syndrome; Thucydides’s Trap Runyon, Damon, 212 Russia Britain and, 71, 196–97 France and, 63–66, 195, 263 imperialism and, 45, 178 Japan and, 43, 47–49, 73, 270–71 military and, 20, 64, 71–72, 175, 216 nuclear weapons and, 207–8, 229 predominance of, 47, 268–71 rise of, 23, 62, 81–82, 263–66, 274–75, 311 n122, 311 n124, 343 n72 United States and, 152–53, 200 war and, xiv, 214 See also Cold War; Soviet Union Russo-French coalition, 63 Russo-Japanese War, 45, 73–74, 81, 268, 271, 279 Russo-Turkish wars, 264 S Saddam Hussein, 129, 161, 163, 190, 324 n75 Safire, William, 216 Sakhalin Island, 45 Salamis, 31 Salisbury, Lord, 195 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty), 225, 283 Samuelson, Paul, 200, 282 Sandinista government, 191 Santayana, George, xvii Sarajevo, 57, 275 SARS epidemic, 229 Scarborough Shoal, 127 Schelling, Thomas, 166 Schuman, Robert, 192 Scotland, 223 Scott, H. M., 259 Scowcroft, Brent, 131, 147, 151 Second Industrial Revolution, 64 Second Naval Law, 70 Second Opium War, 112 Second Ottoman-Venetian War, 250 Second War of Italian Independence, 266 Selborne, Earl of, 195, 332 n31 Seller, Peter, 166 Senkaku Islands, 176–78, 227, 337 n18 See also Diaoyu Islands Serbia, 77, 82, 84, 224, 276, 311 n124 Sevastopol, 265 Seven Years’ War, 257, 260 Shakespeare, William, 240 Shanghai, 114, 139 Shanghai Communiqué, 226 Shenzhen, 13 Shevchenko, Arkady, 157 shi, 148 Shigenobu, Okuma, 279 Siberia, 45, 157 Silicon Valley, 13, 18, 182 Silk Road, 125, 255 See also OBOR (One Belt, One Road) Simms, Brendan, 251, 254, 264, 268 Singapore, 5, 60, 108, 116, 123, 211, 289 n2 Sino-Japanese War, 268–70, 279 Sinope, 265 Sino-Soviet border war, 155, 157–58 Skagway, 103–4 Smith, Adam, 7 Snyder, Jack, 280 social credit database, 120, 239 socialism, 213, 277 Socrates, 28 Somalia, 331 n10 Sophocles, 28, 32, 233 South Africa, 22, 57, 60–61, 178, 196, 202 South America, 98, 189, 255 South China Sea, xix, 106, 126–32, 150, 152, 155, 160, 164, 167, 170–72, 227, 235 South Korea, 24, 123, 155–56, 175–76, 179–80, 211, 219, 223, 227, 229, 346 n154 South Manchuria Railway, 45 South Sudan, 62 sovereignty.


pages: 300 words: 79,315

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, asset allocation, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, Everything should be made as simple as possible, George Santayana, index card, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rolodex

But it’s common sense that’s not commonly practiced, simply because it’s so easy for us to create things, get caught up in the form of what we’ve created, and let our connection with our real and primary intentions slip. Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. —George Santayana I know, based upon thousands of hours spent in many offices with many sophisticated people, that the “why?” question cannot be ignored. When people complain to me about having too many meetings, I have to ask, “What is the purpose of the meetings?” When they ask, “Who should I invite to the planning session?”

notebooks notes, processing of note-taking, electronic objectives, two key office actions lists office equipment office space, setting up office supplies, see work tools one-final-thing syndrome one item at a time, processing of open loops (incompletes) options, expansion of organization, in managing workflow basics of next-action categories nonactionable items planning in of projects workflow diagram for organizers organizing of action reminders of checklists of nonactionable data of project reminders seven basic categories in workflow diagram for organizing tools outcome focusing applied outcome thinking and fast track and and mastering the mundane multilevel outcome management and natural planning and positive organizational culture and outcomes, classification of outlines, planning and Ovid pagers paper and pads paper-based files paper-based workflow, management of paper-holding trays papers, loose “parking lot” for projects Pauling, Linus pending items personal digital assistants (PDAs) personal incompletion triggers lists personal notebook planners personal projects phone calls planning choosing projects in informal real-world application of support structures for tools for typical steps in see also natural planning; project planning positive organizational culture Post-its predefined work principles, in planning priorities ABC codes for process actionable do, delegate, or defer next action no action required “Projects” lists workflow diagram for processing “in,” description of guidelines for identifying projects and next action and no action required as one-directional workflow diagram for procrastinating productive state, getting into productivity professional incompletion triggers lists professional projects project planning key ingredients of relaxed control in natural model reactive model unnatural model vertical focus and projects choice of current definition of identification of informal planning and lists for subsorting of support material for triggers for actuation of, see triggers purpose, in planning random project thinking reactive planning read/review lists ready state, of martial artists reference material organization of variety of reference systems for reference storage reference systems, two types of resources, alignment of responsibility, areas of reticular activating system reviewing of bigger picture importance of lists for right time and place for six-level model for two major issues in updating your system of weekly what and when Rogers, Will Rolodexes ruthless execution Saffo, Paul Santayana, George scanning, emergency Schwab, Charles Scientific American setting up, see getting started sharing Shaw, George Bernard short-term memory Snyder, Steven software someday/maybe items lists for special categories of staplers starting, see getting started stress “stuff ”: corralling of definition of key to management of transformation of subprojects success Suzuki, Shunryu Symantec telephone calls telephones threefold model for evaluating daily work tickler files tickling time available departing from traditional management of setting aside as work factor time-specific actions to-do lists unworkable Toffler, Alvin Tomlin, Lily top item first, processing of trash guidelines for tricks of implementation triggers lists of Twain, Mark two-minute rule unnatural planning values thinking Van Doren, Mark vertical control or focus vision: planning and three- to five-year waiting-for lists wastebasket/recycling bins weekly review why, value of thinking about Wilson, Desmond Woodruff, Julia Louis work: ambiguous boundaries of definition of knowledge shifting job definitions and six-level model for review of threefold model for evaluation of workflow, five stages of mastering collect do organize process review work space, setting up work tools basic list of writing instruments writing paper and pads Yutang, Lin “zone,” 1 I consider “work,” in its most universal sense, as meaning anything that you want or need to be different than it currently is.


pages: 290 words: 82,871

The Hidden Half: How the World Conceals Its Secrets by Michael Blastland

air freight, Alfred Russel Wallace, banking crisis, Bayesian statistics, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Brexit referendum, central bank independence, cognitive bias, complexity theory, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, epigenetics, experimental subject, full employment, George Santayana, hindsight bias, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, minimum wage unemployment, nudge unit, oil shock, p-value, personalized medicine, phenotype, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, randomized controlled trial, replication crisis, Richard Thaler, selection bias, the map is not the territory, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, twin studies

Failure to know the future is often a good indication that we failed to know the present, out of which the future grows.24 That being so, failure to forecast reliably is often indicative of a failure to understand, period. And we are wretched forecasters. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it, wrote the philosopher George Santayana. We should add a counterpoint: those who do learn the lessons of history – or think they do – are condemned to play poker with the present. Which ‘lessons’ should we learn, and which should we discard? Which will travel from the past to the present or future, and which won’t? Now is not then across any boundary: past, present or future.

Index abstract formulas 141 Academy of Medical Sciences 133 adoption studies 41 aid, economic development 141 aid-effectiveness craze, the 153 alcohol consumption 180 AllTrials campaign 114–5 Altman, Doug 129–30 Amano, Yukiya 185 ambiguity 209–10 Amgen 111–2 Analysis (radio programme) 102 analytic validity 158, 263n18 anarchy 224 aphorisms 68–9, 149 apprenticeships 205–6 argument, beliefs and habits of 186 asthma 135 Attanasio, Orazio 225–9, 230 Autho, David 219–23 average knowledge 173 background influences 23–34 background norms, rejecting 24–5 bacon 161–3, 162–3 Banerjee, Abhijit 150–4, 157 Bangladesh 80–2, 82, 101–2, 158, 261n6 Bank of England 103, 216 Bank of Japan 103 Basbøll, Thomas 244–5 baseline data 165 base-rate neglect 176–7 basic laws 140 Bateson, William 245 BBC 88, 98 Beatles, the 52–3, 259n33 Begley, Glenn 111–7 behaviour context-specific 42–3 environmental cues 65–7 behavioural economics 157 Behavioural Insight Team 155, 156, 232 beliefs 60 contradictory 63–4 inconsistency of 60–6 justification 60–1, 63 manipulation 62–3 power of information on 66–8 self-contradiction 61–2 Berlin, Isaiah 199 betting, on knowledge 236–7 big causes, power of 35 big events causal intricacy 193–6 complexity 185–7 difficulty determining causality 188–96 power of circumstance 196–9 big picture, the 215–6 Bijani, Ladan 40–1 Bijani, Laleh 40–1 biographies 49 biological randomness 43–4 biomedical science, research standards 129–36 Bolsover 217–8 Boorstin, Daniel 17, 136, 138, 264n24 Booth, Charles 146–7 BP 211 brain, the 64 plasticity 56 self-justifying 83 breast cancer 45–6, 46 Brexit referendum 18–9, 20, 90, 214–8, 223–4, 241 Bunnings 77 Burckhardt, Jacob 255n20 Burke, Edmund 269n1 Burns, Terry 102–3 business decisions, failures 210–1 cancer 45–8 breast 45–6, 46 lung 174–5 risk 162–3, 166, 174–5 screening 132–3 Cancer Research UK 133 canned laughter 154–5 capitalism 118 Carillion 211 Carp, Joshua 123–4 Cartwright, Nancy 79, 79–82, 82, 193–4, 195, 202–3, 203–4, 263n18 causal instincts 123 causal interactions, complexity 239 causal intricacy 193–4 causal models 242–4, 243, 269–70n3 causal theorizing 212–4 causality assumption of 212–4 difficulty determining 188–96 existence of 276–7n12 hard 225–9 importance of 212 mechanical models 242–4, 243 in one person 48 cause and effect dependable 203–4 patterns of 23, 25–6, 26 supposed 248 unreliable 204 causes and causal influences 90, 94 competing 248 criminals 29 interaction 193–6 and luck 178 secret life of 8–11 simple 184–5 cells, biographical stories 47–8 certainty, desire for 235 Chadwick, Edwin 146–7 chance 14, 37–8, 247, 281n1 chaos theory 56–7, 276n10 Chater, Nick 59, 60, 63, 64–5, 66–7 Chernobyl disaster 185 child and adolescent development 23–6, 41–2 child mental health 206–7 childhood influences 23–5 delinquent boys 26–34 China, rise of 218–23, 279n19 choice, situated 31–3, 34 choice blindness 62 choices 60 Cialdini, Robert 154–5 Cifu, Adam 131–2 circumstances 70 power of 196–9 claims inflation 130 climate change 238–9 Clinton, Hillary 222 Cochrane Collaboration, the 189–90 cognition 64 cognitive biases 14 cognitive limitations 14, 214 Comaroff, John 107–8 common sense 69–70 comparative cost analysis 173 competence 236–7 complacency 237 complexity adding 244 big events 185–7 facing 15 hidden 184–201 of reality 245 complexity theory 276n10 complexity-avoidance 187 complications, hidden 187 Conan Doyle, Arthur 108 confidence 72 consistency 68–75, 202–4, 260n6, 260n8 constructive realism 17 consumer behaviour 77 context 41–2, 72, 101 context-specific behaviour 72 context-specific learning 42–3 control alternative to 248–9 elusiveness of 85–6 powers of 195 conviction 104 coping strategies 16–7, 225–46 adapting 230–3 betting 236–7 communicate uncertainty 237–9 embracing uncertainty 234–6 exceptions 244–5 experiment 230–3 governing for uncertainty 239–41 managing for uncertainty 241–2 metaphors 242–4 negative capability 234 relax 246 triangulation 233–4 use of probability 242 Corbyn, Jeremy 20 corporate power 241 cost/benefit analysis, cows 117–22 cows, cost/benefit analysis 117–22 Coyle, Diane 216, 262n12 Crabbe, John 85–7 credibility 238–9 credibility crisis 18 crime causes of 142–4 heroes and villains view 142 opportunist 144–5 reduced opportunity 144–5 theory of 142–6, 143 victims and survivors view 142–3 criminals causal influences 29 childhood influences 26–34 desisters 30 high rate chronics 30 life-course persistent offenders 28–9 life-courses 28, 236 variables 31 critical factors 83–5 crowds, wisdom of 149 cultural difference 79–82, 79–85 Daniels, Denise 43–4, 57 Darwin, Charles 50–1 data granularity 216–7 interpretation 98–100 Dawid, Philip 276–7n12 De Rond, Mark 198, 201 de Vries, Ymkje Anna 114 deadweight cost 205–6 debate 98 decision making 58–60 influences 32–3 situated choice 31–3 deep preferences 65 deeper rationale, construction of 60 Deepwater Horizon 211 defining characteristics 43 degrees of freedom 122–9 delinquent boys 26–34 dementia 176–7, 274n16 democracy 20 Deng Xiaoping 219 Denrell, Jerker 199, 201 desires 59 details importance of 49–54 neglecting 151–2 problem of 229 selective 26 determinism 28 development economics 150–3 developmental difference, sources of variation 9–11 developmental noise 10 difference 15 pockets of 214–24 Dilnot, Andrew 237, 275n3 disciplined pluralism 231 disorder 45 forces of 11–3 doubt 238 Down’s syndrome 166 drugs comparative cost analysis 173 impact 171–2 medical effect 167–9, 169, 170–4 non-responders 172 Numbers-Needed-to-Treat (NNTs) 168, 169, 170, 173–4 predictive weakness 170–3 duelling certainties 235 Duflo, Esther 83, 84, 141, 150–3, 157–8, 158–9, 230–1 ecological validity 263n18 economic development, aid 141 economic forecasting 92, 102–7 economic recovery 217–8 economics 233 economy, the 87–100, 91, 93, 94, 95 education 151–2, 206–7, 275– 6n7 Einstein, Albert 140–1 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 68 enigmatic variation 13–6, 48 environment context 72 non-shared 37 shared 35 environmental influences 43–4 epidemiology 181 epigenetics 6–7 erratic influences 60 essential you, the 59–60 estimates 89–91, 96 European Central Bank 103 evidence 21 balance of 114 conclusive 186, 187 the Janus effect 121, 122–9 limitations of 117–22 statistical significance 137 strength of 137 evidence-based medicine 133–4 exceptions 214–24, 244–5 expectations 35 big 196 frustration of 15 of regularity 47, 202–4 unrealistic 182 experience, influence of 33, 34, 55–7 experiment 230–3 expertise, crisis of 18–9 experts, credibility crisis 18–9 external validity 101, 158, 263n18, 264n19 extreme performance 199 failure 204–11 fairness 66–7 false negatives 113–4 false positives 113–4, 122 falsification 245 family, changes of 41 farmer and a chicken, the 202–4 fate 30 fears, exaggerated 46 Financial Times 77 First World War 108 Fitzroy, Robert 50 flat mind, the 60, 60–8 Flaubert, Gustave 139 forecasting 109 former Yugoslavia 108 foxes 199 France 186–7 Freedman, Sir Lawrence 108, 109 freedom 236 Fukushima nuclear power station meltdown 185–7 fundamentals 141 identifying 153 further education 208–9 Galbraith, John Kenneth 110 Gartner, Klaus 87 Gash, Tom 142–3 Gates, Bill 199 GDP data 262n12 growth estimation 88–100, 91, 93, 94, 95, 262–3n14 local 214–5, 216, 218 Gelman, Andrew 124–5, 244 gene–environment interaction 6–7 general principles 140 generalities 174 generalization 76–8, 146, 152, 263n18 genes and genetics influence of 34–7, 39–41, 44, 45–7 overclaiming 134–5 power of 33, 45 genetic risk 45–7 genius, dangerous 212–4 genotype 8 Germany 185, 186, 188 Gillam, John 77 global financial crisis, 2008–9 104, 106, 210, 235 globalization 213 Gove, Michael 18–9 granularity 216–7 ground truth 217 groupthink 149 guarantees, lack of 160 Guardian 207 Gupta, Rajeev 117, 118 Haldane, Andy 216–7, 218 Harford, Tim 156–7, 237 Harris, Judith Rich 40–2, 72 Hayek, Friedrich 105–6 health screening 177 heart disease 163–6 hedgehogs 199 Henry (ex-delinquent) 32 Hensall, Abigail 39–40, 41 Hensall, Brittany 39–40, 41 herd mentality 154–5 hidden causes 35–8 hidden half, the coping strategies 225–46 ignoring 202–24 mystery of 35 power of 44–5 hidden trivia 8–9 hindsight 78 hindsight bias 83 history 107–8 lessons of 109 Homebase 76–7 Honda, US motorcycle market penetration 196–9 hubris 77 human sameness irregularity 45–9 limits of 34–45 human understanding, fundamentals 213 Human Zoo, The (radio programme) 60–6 humility 224, 248–9 IBM 199 ibuprofen 163–5 ideological divide 240 ideologies 9–10 idiosyncratic influence 53–4 ignorance 21, 107 disguising 242 the shock of 7 imagination 138 impulsive judgement, value of 149 incarceration rates, United States of America 222, 240, 280n10 incidentals, effect of 51–2 incoherency problem, the 149 inconsistency beliefs 60–6 justifiable 70–1 incredible certitude 209 Indian Express 117 individual differences 56 individuality conjoined twins 39–42 neurological foundation of 56 industrial policy 208 inflation 102–7 influences background 23–34 childhood 26–34 criminals 26–34 decision making 32–3 environmental 43–4 erratic 60 hidden 204 microenvironmental 8–9, 253–4n12 information power of 66–8 selective 66–7 Institute for Fiscal Studies 205–6 Institute for Government 208–9 intangible differences 253n11 intangible variation 10, 229 interaction, problems of 193–6 internal validity 101–2, 158 International Journal of Epidemiology 43 intuition 54, 204 Ioannidis, John 121, 133–6 irrationality, human 14 irregularity 94 disruptive power of 224 frustration of 15 human 45–9 influence 12 problem of 229 underestimating 214–24 Islamic State 108 it’s-all-because problem 91, 96 James, Henry 29, 56 James, William 141 Janus effect, the 121, 122–9 Johansen, Petter 62 Johnson, Samuel 214 Johnson, Wendy 71–2 Jones, Susannah Mushatt 162–3, 165 journalism 237–8 Juno (film) 193 Kaelin, William 130 Kawashima, Kihachiro 197 Kay, John 16, 68, 197, 231, 232 Keats, John 138–9, 234 Kempermann, Gerd 56, 57 Keynes, John Maynard 107, 271n9 Keynesianism 103 King, Mervyn 103, 104, 106, 110 Kinnell, Galway 28 Knausgaard, Karl Ove 86–7 Knight, Frank 107 Knightian uncertainty 107 knowledge 12–3, 170 advance of 20–1 average 173 betting on 236–7 credibility crisis 18 critical factors 83–5 failures of 19, 76–8, 79–82 fallibility of 248 generalizable 234 generalization 76–8 illusion of 136, 138 lessons of the past 102–7, 107–10 in medicine 182 negative capability 138–9 as obstacle to progress 17 obvious 82 paths to 136–9 plausibility mistaken for 132 practical 30–1 pretence of 105–6 probabilistic 160, 161, 163–4, 172–3 and probability 180 problem of scale 177–80 provenance 116 relevant 82–5 replication crisis 111–7 subverting 76–110 and time variations 87–100, 91, 93, 94, 95 transfer 37, 76–8, 83, 101–2 unknowns 85–7 validity 100–2 validity across time 107–10 weakest-link principle 79–82 Krugman, Paul 210 Lancet 225–6 Langley, Winnie 51, 165, 178 Laub, John 26–34, 42 law-like effects, claims about 21 learning styles 207 Leicester City Football Club 199–201 Leon (ex-delinquent) 31–2 Leyser, Ottoline 114 life, mechanics of 51 life-course persistent offenders 28–9 limits and limitations 16–7, 44, 75 base-rate neglect 176–7 of cleverness 278n14 individual level 174–6, 178–9, 181–3 lack of guarantees 160 marginal probabilistic outcomes 176–7 medical effect 167–9, 169, 170–4 on prediction 165–6 on probability 160–83 problem of scale 161–6, 174– 6, 177–80, 181–3 Liskov Substitution Principle 261n3 Little Britain (TV comedy) 192 Liu, Chengwei 198, 201 lives, understanding 29 location shift 264n20 Loken, Erik 124–5 long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCS) 190 luck 37–8, 48, 178, 198 lung cancer 174–5 Lyko, Frank 1, 2 machine mode thinking 151–2 Macron, Emmanuel 20 Manski, Charles 209, 235 Mao Zedong 218 marginal probabilistic outcomes 176–7 marmorkrebs 1–9, 4, 10, 12, 12–3, 22, 35, 81, 182, 252n2 Marteau, Theresa 65 Martin, George 52 May, Theresa 208 Mayne, Stephen 77 measurement 99–100 mechanical relationships 212, 242, 244 mechanical thinking 242–4, 243 media stigma 192–3 medical effect, drugs 167–9, 169, 170–4 medical reversal 131–3 medicine comparative cost analysis 173 knowledge in 182 non-responders 172 Numbers-Needed-to-Treat (NNTs) 168, 169, 170, 173–4 personalized 181–3 predictive weakness 170–3 probability and 167–9, 169, 170–4 memory 56, 102–7 Mendelian randomization 233 Menon, Anand 214–5 mental shortcuts 14–5 mere facts 202–3 meta-science 19, 20 methodological revisions 97–8, 120 mice 55 microenvironmental influences 8–9, 253–4n12 micro-irregularity 35–7 micro-particulars 128 Microsoft 147–50, 199 Miller, Helen 66–7, 67 mind, the flat 59–60, 60–8 shape 59 models and modelling 140, 242–4, 243, 269–70n3 moment when, the 52 morality, changing 108 More or Less (radio programme) 237 Munafò, Marcus 234 Nadella, Satya 147–8 National Survey of Family Growth 192 National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles 191–2 nationalism 108 Nature 2, 112, 136, 168, 174 nature/nurture debate 3, 5–6, 9–10 negative capability 138–9, 234 neurology 58 New England Journal of Medicine 131–2 Newcastle upon Tyne 214 Newton, Isaac 140–1 noise 14 definition 10 developmental 10 as intellectual dross 11 re-appraisal of 11–3 non-shared environment 37 Nosek, Brian 129 noses 49–51 Nottingham 217 Numbers-Needed-to-Treat (NNTs) 168, 169 nurture, influence of 44 O’Connor, Sarah 217–8 Office for National Statistics 89, 92, 98, 99–100, 216 O’Neill, Onora 238 opinions 21, 59 order 11–2, 13 organ donation campaign 155–6 outside influence 44 overclaiming 134–5 overconfidence 21 overseas business expansion 76–8 Oxfam, sexual abuse scandal 210 Paphides, Pete 52–3 parental behaviour 41 parents, impact of 41 Parris, Matthew 63 parthenogenesis 1–2 particularism 271–2n15 particularity problem, the 93 past, the, lessons of 102–7, 107–10 pattern-making instinct 21 patterns 13 pendulums 57 perceptual systems 64 performance 72–5 personalized medicine 181–3 Peto, Richard 47–8 phenotypes 8 physiognomy, and character 50 plausibility 132 Plomin, Robert 43–4, 49, 57 pluralism 231–2 polarization 235 policy making 231–2 appraisal 277n4 chances of success 208 failures 204–9 governing for uncertainty 239–41 and probability 178–9 secret of 209 seminar 207–8 sequential changes 208 political assumptions, fall of 20 political beliefs 60–6 population validity 263n18 populism, rise of 20 poverty 240–1 Prasad, Vinayak 131–2 precision 183 predictability 28 predictive weakness 165–6, 170–3 preferences 59, 62 deep 65 priming 126–8 probabilistic knowledge 160, 161, 163–4, 170, 172–3 probability 54, 70, 107, 258n25, 272n2 advantages 177–80 base-rate neglect 176–7 difference in 30 fear of low probabilities 166 individual level 174–6, 178–9, 181–3 limits and limitations 160–83 marginal 176–7 medical effect 167–9, 169, 170–4 paradox 170 and policy making 178–9 predictive weakness 165–6 problem of scale 161–6, 174– 6, 177–80, 181–3 recognizing significance 161 risk evaluation 161–6 suggestion of knowledge 180 use of 242 usefulness 161 problems, conceptualizing 17 productivity growth 209–10 progress, knowledge as obstacle to 17 psychoanalysis 58 psychology 58 Pullinger, John 278n14 Pullman, Philip 37 quantification, risk and risk-taking 162–5 racism 125–6 radical uncertainty 106, 107 Radio, Andrew 102 rage to conclude, the 139 randomized controlled trials, value of 280n6 randomness, pure 9 Ranieri, Claudio 200–1 rationality 68, 260n6, 260n8 reality 230, 245, 254n14 reciprocity 155 reflection 65–6 regularity 73, 160 assumption of 212–4 expectations of 47, 202–4 search for 212, 230 statistical 240–1 replication crisis 18, 111–7, 117– 22, 129, 136, 138 Replication Project 129 research 111–39 balance of evidence 114 breadth 130 claims inflation 130 confidence in 115–6 credibility crisis 18 decision rules 136–9 depth 130 evidence-based medicine 133–4 false negatives 113–4 false positives 113–4, 122 fragility 128–9 freedom 122–9 half wrong 113, 115–6 the Janus effect 121, 122–9 limitations of 117–22 micro-particulars 128 multiple analyses 125–6 multiple conclusions 117–22 overclaiming 134–5 priming 126–8 redemption 20 replication crisis 111–7, 117– 22, 129, 136, 138 rigour 19 scepticism 115–6 standards 129–36 statistical significance 122 triangulation 138 validity 101–2 research-credibility crisis 18 rigour 19, 246 risk and risk-taking 70–1, 107, 186 alcohol consumption 180 cancer 162–3, 166, 174–5 communication of 133 evaluation 161–6 heart disease 163–6 quantification 162–5, 166 quantified 187 risk-perception 71 Rockhill, Beverly 181 Rolling Stone magazine 23 Rose, Geoffrey 175–6 Rowntree Joseph 146–7 Royal Bank of Scotland 211 Russell, Bertrand 202, 202–3 samples, validity 100–2 Sampson, Robert 26–34, 42, 236 sanitation 225–9 Santayana, George 109 scale, problem of 161–6, 174–6, 177–80, 181–3 scepticism 105, 115–6, 128, 206 schizophrenia 34–6, 256n10 Science 56 Scientific American 55 Scotland, Triple-P parenting programme 206 screening 132–3, 177 searing memory, doctrine of the 102–7 selection bias 244 self-understanding 67 Sense about 115 serendipitous events 43, 52–3 sex education, role of 189–90 short-term gene–environment interaction 7 significance, recognizing 161 Silberzahn, Raphael 125–6 Simmons, Joseph 122–3 situated choice 31–3, 34, 42 situations, appraisal of 72 sliding-doors moments 50 small differences, power of 56–7 small effects, influence of 49–54 small experiences, influence of 35–7 smartphones 97, 191 Smith, George Davey 50, 51, 234, 281n1 social contexts 31, 195 social media 191 social mobility 240–1 social policy 195 social proof 154–6 social reformers 146–7 social science, utility of 146–50 special theory of relativity 140–1 Spiegelhalter, David 180, 244–5 spontaneous interaction 9 stagflation 103 statins 171 statistical regularities 240–1 statistical significance 122, 137 stents, use of 131 stories and storytelling 25–6, 53–4, 244–5, 247, 248, 258n25, 258n27 structural forces 54 Sun, the 51 support factors 194 Surfers Against Sewage 70–1 surgeons, skills 73–4 system 1 thinking 149 systematic forces 54 systems-level thinking 153 Tamil Nadu 79–82, 101–2 Tangiers, Morocco 84 technology, changing 108 Teen Mom (TV show) 193 teenage pregnancy rate decline in 184, 188–96 estimates 275n3 terrible simplifiers 255n20 Tesco 77, 211 Thaler, Richard 157 theories 140–59 analytic validity 158 arguments about 150–4 of crime 142–6, 143 development economics 150–3 fitness 157 implementation 152 limitations 157 and practice 141 refining 156–7 relevance 157–8 social science 146–50 tension in 154–9 using 156–7 ‘thick’ description 86 time, validity across 107–10 Time magazine 193 time variations, and knowledge 87–100, 91, 93, 94, 95 The Times 63 toilets 225–9 Toshiba 211 trade-offs 190–1 trends 54 trials 156 triangulation 138, 233–4 Triple-P parenting programme 206–7 trivia, importance of 84–5 true uncertainty 107 Trump, Donald 20, 218, 222, 223–4 trust 238 trust deficit 218 trustworthiness 238 Tufte, Edward 139 turning points, variety 49–54 TV crime shows 143, 143 twins and twin studies conjoined 39–42 identical 34–7, 39, 256n10 Tyson, Mike 23, 23–6 Tyson, Rodney 24–5, 255n3 Uhlmann, Eric 125–6 uncertainty 89–90, 100, 209– 12, 254n14 admitting 238 communicating 237–9 data 89–91 embracing 234–6 erratic 93 governing for 239–41 Knightian 107 language of 238 managing for 241–2 in medicine 167–9, 169, 170–4 perpetual 230 radical 106, 107 true 107 uncertainty laundering 268n33 understanding hidden half of 13 limiting effects on 14 limits of 54 unemployment 221–2, 263n17 unintended consequences 105, 229 United States of America China trade 220–3 incarceration rates 222, 240, 280n10 labour market 221 minimum wage 266–7n10 unemployment 221–2 universal gravitational attraction, theory of 140–1 unknowns 85–7, 206 unusual, the 195 upbringing 23–5 Uyeno, Lori 47 validity across time 107–10 analytic 158, 263n18 ecological 263n18 external 101, 158, 263n18, 264n19 internal 101–2, 158 knowledge 100–2, 107–10 population 263n18 research 101–2 samples 100–2 values 59, 232 variation, sources of 5–8 Volkswagen, diesel emissions scandal 211 Wall Street Journal 219 Wallace, Alfred Russel 259n33 Walmart 77 Watts, Duncan 68, 69, 147–50 weakest-link principle 79–82 Wedgwood, Josiah 50–1 Wellington, Duke of 51 Wesfarmers 76–7 West Germany, motorcycle thefts 142–4 Western, Bruce 54 Wilson, Harold 99 World Bank Independent Evaluation Group 79 World Health Organization 162 world picture 63–4 Wright, Sewall 253n11


pages: 791 words: 85,159

Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid

Alvin Toffler, business process, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, cross-subsidies, disintermediation, double entry bookkeeping, Frank Gehry, frictionless, frictionless market, future of work, George Gilder, George Santayana, global village, Goodhart's law, Howard Rheingold, informal economy, information retrieval, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, junk bonds, Just-in-time delivery, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, lateral thinking, loose coupling, Marshall McLuhan, medical malpractice, Michael Milken, moral hazard, Network effects, new economy, Productivity paradox, Robert Metcalfe, rolodex, Ronald Coase, scientific management, shareholder value, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Superbowl ad, tacit knowledge, Ted Nelson, telepresence, the medium is the message, The Nature of the Firm, the strength of weak ties, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, Turing test, Vannevar Bush, Y2K

Then as now, much of the fast-breaking news was little more than gossip and scandal dressed as public interest and surrounded by ads. Thomas Jefferson once stated, "A man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them."41 But the content, the information, was not key to the way these documents helped to make and maintain a sense of community across the nation. As the philosopher George Santayana summed it up: "It doesn't matter what, so long as they all read the same thing."42 And the endless cutting, pasting, forwarding, reading aloud, and discussing meant that, to a surprising degree, Americans wereor felt they werereading much the same thing. The blizzard of newspapers, pamphlets, journals, and tracts allowed each reader to feel that what he or she was doing, thousands and possibly tens of thousands of others with the same interests were doing at the same time.

See Credentialing Delegation, bots and, 53 54 Demassification, 23 of production, 26 27 Page 309 Desktop publishing, 79 80 Dibbell, Julian, 190 Dickens, Charles, 135, 195 196 DigiCash, 60 Digitized libraries, 179 181 Disaggregation, 23 information revolution and, 65 66 Disintermediation, 6 effects of, 28 31 Displacement, 81, 105 Distance combating, 167 170, 226 227 and education, 211 212, 223 227, 229 241 geographic, 224 recomputing, 229 social, 224 Divisions communities of practice, 141, 142 143 implications of, 143 146 networks of practice, 141 142 d-lib research, 180 Documents versus database, 186 fixity of, 197 198 nature of, 183 185 validation through, 187 188 Downes, Larry, 23, 84 Downsizing, downside of, 122 Dretske, Fred, 138 Drucker, Peter, 118 Dylan, Bob, 199 E eBay, 44 acquisitions activities of, 25 Education centralized, 227 228 decentralization of, 231 241 of disadvantaged groups, 224 distance, 223 224 distance, history of, 211 212 enculturation in, 219 220 external degree programs and, 229 facilities for, 236 240 faculty responsibilities, 235 for-profit, 209 210 future of, 233 241 graduate, 221 in information age, 207 209, 212 213 massification in, 25 26, 209 misrepresentation in, 216 219 on-line and off-line activities in, 226 227 peer support in, 221 223 reorganization of, 230 231 research and, 235 236 student needs, 233 234 U.S. structure, 213 215 undergraduate, 220 Electronic books, 178, 179 181 Electronic newspapers, 177 179 e-lib research, 180 Eliza, computer program, 35 36 Encryption, 59 60 Enculturation, 219 220 Englebart, Douglas, 84 Epistemology, 118 Page 310 Ethernet, development of, 176 177 Eureka project, 112 113, 125, 142 e-zines, 193 F Faraday, Michael, 86 FedEx, 29 Fidler, Roger, 189 Field Communications, 178 Fish, Stanley, 223 Fixity, 197 198 of newspapers, 199 value of, 201 202 Flat organizations, information technology and, 28 29 Ford, 122 reengineering of, 92 Ford, Henry, 27 Froomkin, Michael, 46, 52 Fukuyama, Francis, 28, 29 Futurology, limitations of, 31 32 G Gates, Bill, 11, 20, 39, 248 Gateway (Times Mirror), 178 Geer, Dan, 60 61 Gehry, Frank, 71 Gibbons, Jim, 221 222 Giddens, Anthony, 62 Gildea, Patricia, 130 GM, 23 Saturn project of, 154 Granovetter, Mark, 113 Gray, Jim, 11 Greeley, Horace, 195 Guardian, Web presence of, 178 GUI (Graphical User Interface), development of, 150 151, 156 157, 158 161 H Hammer, Michael, 91, 92, 93, 98, 107, 111, 144 Hayek, Friedrich, 139 Heckman, James, 223 Hewlett-Packard and best practice, 123 reengineering of, 92 Home office concentration of effort at, 79 80 costs of, 81 82 drawbacks to, 69 70 trends regarding, 67 68 Hooke, Robert, 191 Hot desking, 69, 70 lack of success of, 70 74 Hughes, Robert, 228 Huizinga, Johan, 197 Humphrys, Mark, 54 I IBM, 87, 157, 159 PC division of, 154 reengineering of, 92 rhetoric of, 20, 207 208, 213 Illinois, University of, 211 212 Improvisation, 108 109 in business practice, 109 111 Indiana University, 207, 213 Information checking reliability of, Page 311 187 189 compared to knowledge, 119 120 connotations of term, 118 controlling flow of, 12 documents and, 183 185 fluidity of, 197 200 overload of, 15 17 overreliance on, 21 22 peer-group sharing of, 102 103, 106 108, 125 126 social context of, 8 9 traditional institutions redefined in context of, 20 21, 23 31, 210 211 Information age, 1 limits to, 6 8 origin myths about, 17 19 selective constituency of, 5 6 tunnel design and, 2 4 Information brokering, 41 44 Information Rules, 171 Information technology concerns about, 39 41 displacement and concentration provided by, 81 disruption caused by, 83 86 effects on organizations, 145 146 expectations of, 19 20 and flatness of organizations, 28 29 future of, 38 41 hidden costs of, 77 78 instability caused by, 75 76 and intellectual property law, 248 250 supplanting of traditional institutions by, 16 17 ubiquity of, 13 17 Innis, Harold, 30, 200 Innovation and complementarity, 160 versus invention, 155 and organization, 160, 171 172 Institutions evolution of, 246 252 future of, 250 252 Intel, 59 Intellectual property rights, 246, 248 250 Internet community-forming aspect of, 189 190 e-zines on, 193 194 free information on, 56 57 retailers on, 37 Internet Service Providers, 28 J Jaspers, Karl, 219 Java, 87 Jefferson, Thomas, 196 Jobs, Steve, 151, 158 Johnson, Samuel, 243 K Kenney, Martin, 166 Keyfax (Field Communications), 178 Knight-Ridder, 178 Page 312 Knobot, 42 44 Knowledge clustering and, 161 167 compared to information, 119 120 connotation of term, 118 119 decoupling organizational links and, 154 ecological view of, 164 167 and learning, 124 125 organizational structure and, 171 172 and personalization, 120 122 philosophical musings on, 133 135 problems of moving, 149 150, 151 154 Knowledge economy, 121 Knowledge management, 93, 18 problems of, 122 124 Kodak, 157 Krugman, Paul, 26 L Laser printer, development of, 176 177 Latour, Bruno, 198 Lave, Jean, 50, 126, 138, 141, 142 Law of Diminishing Returns, 23 Law of Disruption, 84 Learning, 124 125 on demand, 136 137 divisions of, 140 143 experience and, 130 131 and identity, 138 139 mentoring and, 131 133 practice and, 129 135 social, 137, 139 140 types of, 128 129 See also Education Leonard-Barton, Dorothy, 122, 123 Lessig, Larry, 249 Libraries, digitized, 179 181 London, University of, external degrees, 229, 231 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 196 Lotus Notes, 124 Lusk, Wyoming, 66, 77 M Macintosh computers, bot use on, 37 38 Madcap project, 244 246 Maes, Pattie, 41, 44, 46, 48 Malthus, Thomas, 171 Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, 152 March, James, 95 Markets, self-organizing character of, 170 Marshall, Alfred, 164, 165 Marx, Karl, 139 Massification, 24 25 of markets and consumption, 27 McLuhan, Marshall, 185, 200 Media, massification of, 24 25 Mediamorphosis, 189 Mega-universities, 25 26, 209 Memex system, 179 180 Mercantilism, 246, 247 Merchant brokering, 46 48 Page 313 Mergers, 24 25 Merrill Lynch, 148 Metcalfe, Bob, 176 177 Microsoft, 23, 26, 28, 87, 157 acquisitions activities of, 25 antitrust suit against, 24, 189 presence in Silicon Valley, 169 170 relations with AT&T, 25, 28 rhetoric of, 20, 66 technology costs at, 82 Microsoft Research, 210 Miller, George, 130 Milken, Michael, 209 Minitel, 189 190 Mokyr, Joel, 86 Monarchism, 246, 247 Moore, Gordon, 14, 157 Moore's Law, 14 15, 59 Moore's Law solutions, 14, 59 Morse, Samuel, 18, 19 Mui, Chunka, 23, 84 Mundie, Craig, 79 N Narration, importance of, 106 108 NASA, infomatics division of, 38 Negotiating agent, 48 50, 51 52 human approach to, 50 51 Negroponte, Nicholas, 15 Nelson, Horatio, 30 Netscape, 26, 28 Networks of practice, 141 142, 162 Neuromedia, 36 New York Herald, 196 New York Times, Web presence of, 178 New York Tribune, 195 Newspapers characteristics of, 185 186 electronic, 177 179 fixity of, 199 history and influence of, 194 197 as portals, 179 Newton, Isaac, 191 NIP (new imaging processes), 155 157 Nunberg, Geoffrey, 31, 248 NYNEX, reengineering of, 92 O Oakeshott, Michael, 54 O'Brien, Flann, 187 O'Connor, Eileen, 152 Odlyzko, Andrew, 81 Office design of, 75 help systems in, 76 77 home, 67 70, 79 82 importance of, 72 74 Open Learning Australia, 224 Open University (Britain), 25, 209, 224 Organization and innovation, 160, 171 172 versus self organization, 170 171 Orr, Julian, 99, 100 105, 107 108, 111, 113, 125, 126 Page 314 P Pacific Gas & Electric, technology costs at, 82 Paine, Thomas, 195 Paper in history, 191 194 immutability of, 200 201 persistence of, 18 19, 174 175, 181 183 transformation of use of, 175 177 Paperless office, 18 19, 176 Papows, Jeff, 124 Penn State, World Campus of, 211, 212 Personal assistants, 41 Personality theft, 58 Phillips, Tom, 11 Phoenix, University of, 209, 236 Photocopier development of, 161 patents for, 159 PLATO, 211 212 Platt, Lew, 123 Polanyi, Michael, 134 Portals, 37, 179 Post-it notes, 181 182 Press history and importance of, 194 197 See also Newspapers Printing, history of, 191 192 Privacy, U.S. versus European approaches to, 251 Process meaning, 95 97 perfecting, 94 95 representing, 99 100 views regarding, 97 99 Processing defined, 109 effects of, 110 111 Product brokering, 44 45 Productivity current trends in, 83 84 historical trends in, 83 Project Gutenberg, 180 Prusak, Larry, 122, 198 R Railroads, history of, 32 Reddy, Michael, 184 Reengineering, 92 93, 247 difficulties of, 97 99 process and, 94 95 top-down nature of, 97 98 Reengineering the Corporation, 144 Representation, bots and, 54 56 Resources, complex nature of, 243 244 Rheingold, Howard, 188, 190 Rosenberg, Nathan, 160 161 Route 128, 164 culture of, 166 167 Royal Society, 191 192 Ryle, Gilbert, 128 129, 134 S SAABRE system, 45 Sabel, Charles, 94 Salinger, Pierre, 188 San Francisco Chronicle, Web presence of, 178 Page 315 San Jose Mercury, Web presence of, 178 Santayana, George, 196 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 140 Sassen, Saskia, 27 Saxenian, Anna Lee, 165, 166 Scientific community, printing press and, 191 192 Scientific Management, 113 Seagram, reengineering of, 92 Self-organization, 170 171 Shallow Red, computer program, 36 Shapiro, Carl, 171 Sherlock, computer program, 37 38, 41 Shulsky, Abram, 28, 29 Silicon Valley clustering in, 164, 166, 169 culture of, 161, 166 and death of distance, 167 168 resources available to, 168 169 Sitkin, Sim, 145 6-D vision, 21 23, 201 dimensions of, 23 31 limitations of, 31 33 Slate, Web presence of, 178 Smith, Adam, 52, 92, 145, 153 Smith, Stevie, 12 Social distance, combating, 224, 226 227 Social issues, artificial intelligence and, 40 Social learning, 137, 139 140 Social periphery, defined, 5 Software, legal issues regarding, 249 250 South Pacific, University of, 224 Southern California, University of, distance education and, 212 Space binding, 200 Spender, J-C., 172 Sterne, Laurence, 24 Stewart, Thomas, 122 Stock, Brian, 192, 197 Storytelling, 106 108 Strassmann, Paul, 77, 79, 81 Strauss, Anselm, 190, 197 Suchman, Lucy, 119 Sun Microsystems, 87 Symantec, 59 T Tagore, Rabindrath, 136 Taylor, Frederick, 113 Technology integration into society, 86 81 taming of, 86 Telecommunications history of, 30, 87 89 modern trends in, 89 Tenner, Edward, 3 ThirdVoice.com, 182 3Com, 168 Time binding, 200 Times Mirror Newspapers, 178 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 196, 197 Toffler, Alvin, 18, 67, 69, 79 Total Quality Management, 145 Toulmin, Stephen, 107 Transaction costs, 23 24 Page 316 Trow, Martin, 217 Tunnel design, 2 4 TV University System (China), 25 TVI (tutored video instruction), 222 U USWeb/CKS, technology costs at, 82 V Varian, Hal, 171 Viewtron (Knight-Ridder), 178 Virtual Community, 190 Virtual University (California), 211, 212 W Wall Street Journal, Web presence of, 178 Wal-Mart, 29 Warrants documents as, 187 188 unreliability of, 188 189 Weizenbaum, Joseph, 35 WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), 190 Wells, H.G., 84 Wellsprings of Knowledge, 122 Wenger, Etienne, 96, 126, 138, 141, 142 Western Union, 88 Whalen, Jack, 131, 133 Whyte, William, 152 Wilensky, Robert, 40, 41, 62 Williams, Raymond, 246 Wired, Web presence of, 178 Work practice cautions regarding, 114 115 collaborative, 104 106, 125 126 improvisation in, 108 109, 110 investigation of, 99 100, 102 109 lateral aspects of, 111 113 social aspects of, 102 103, 106 108 understanding of, 100 102 World Wide Web access and, 226 business plans on, 247 248 characteristics of, 201 economic importance of, 147 149 education on, 212, 225 227 mutability of, 198, 200 news on, 178 179 origins of, 147 services on, 37 structure and terminology of, 182 183 structure of page on, 202 205 Wren, Christopher, 191 X Xerox, 110, 142, 154 management of managers at, 78 79 and personal computers, 150 151, 157 160 Xerox PARC, 76, 150 151, 154, 155 157, 158 159, 190, 200, 244 and Apple Computer, 151, 157, 163, 166 Page 317 and paperless office, 176 177 reengineering of, 92 Z Zero-Knowledge Systems, 59 Zilog, 166 'zines, 193 Zuboff, Shoshona, 30 Page 319 About the Authors JOHN SEELEY BROWN is the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the Director of its famous Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).


pages: 410 words: 101,260

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Maslow, Albert Einstein, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, availability heuristic, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Bluma Zeigarnik, business process, business process outsourcing, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, cognitive dissonance, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Dean Kamen, double helix, Elon Musk, emotional labour, fear of failure, Firefox, George Santayana, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, information security, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Hawkins, job satisfaction, job-hopping, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, Lean Startup, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, minimum viable product, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, off-the-grid, PalmPilot, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, risk tolerance, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, The Wisdom of Crowds, women in the workforce

Stone was the “first who really stirred the nation’s heart on the subject of women’s wrongs,” and their disagreement many years earlier was because Stone “felt the slaves’ wrongs more deeply than her own—my philosophy was more egotistical.” “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” philosopher George Santayana wrote. That would prove to hold true for the American women’s suffrage movement, on at least two occasions. In 1890, two members of Anthony’s organization, furious at her scheming to create a national organization and the move toward tempered radicalism, split off to form a rival group that attacked the efforts to unify.

, 219, 223, 226–28, 232, 235–36, 241, 242 overconfidence, 33–34, 54, 186, 195 Overstreet, Bonaro, 146 Overstreet, Harry, 146 Ozcelik, Hakan, 225 Page, Larry, 17–18, 83 Palestine-Israel conflict, 142, 143n Palm Computing, 90, 186 parents, parenting, 159–70, 252–54 discipline and, 163–65, 169n as role models, 170–71 values and, 167–71 Park, Joseph, 105 Parker, Sarah Jessica, 114 Parks, Rosa, 12, 93, 153, 238 passion, 32, 55–57, 180 Pasteur, Louis, 107 Patel, Priya, 221n Paul, Alice, 145 pen design, 136–37 Pennebaker, James, 240n Perry, Meredith, 122–24, 140–41, 248 persistence, 79, 80, 89, 249 pessimism, defensive, 212–14, 217 Peters, Tom, 236 Peterson, Bill, 171 Phillips, Damon, 83 photography: digital, 183, 184, 186, 187 Polaroid and, 175–76, 179, 181–87, 199, 203, 209 Picasso, Pablo, 35, 36 Pink, Daniel, 113 Pinker, Steven, 156 Pinochet, Augusto, 226 pioneers, 103–8 Planck, Max, 107–8 PlayStation, 186 Poitier, Sidney, 93 Poland, 227 Polaroid, 175–76, 179, 181–87, 199, 203, 209 police officers, 130 politicians, 151, 154 Pontikes, Elizabeth, 106 Popovic, Srdja, 126, 218–20, 223, 226–31, 235–36, 238, 241, 242 Porter, Roger, 193n positive features, listing, 73–74 power, 65, 66, 68, 86, 88 praise, 168–70, 252–53 presidents, 23–24 inaugural addresses of, 214n Presley, Elvis, 230n problems and solutions, 197, 251 procrastination, x, 26, 93–102, 108, 246 improvisation and, 100 planning and, 102 professional blueprint, 180–82, 181n professors, 33, 67 prototypes, 41, 42 public speaking, 215 Pugh, Lewis, 210–12, 214, 217–18, 237–38 quantity, 35–38 quality and, 37 Queen, 18 Quiet (Cain), 216 Quillen, Robert, 148 radicalism, tempered, 124–26, 128, 140, 145, 248 Raffiee, Joseph, 17 Raines, Tim, 149 Rakove, Jack, 11 Rebele, Reb, 60 rebels, 152, 153, 155, 157, 161n, 162 Reebok, 186 Reingen, Peter, 128, 143 Reinventing the Wheel (Kemper), 106 Reiser, Paul, 42 relationships, 128–31 ambivalent, 129–31 Republicans, 6 reputation, 186 respect, 66, 67, 88 revolutions and resistance movements, 219–20, 223, 225–27 Rickey, Branch, 19, 172 Ride, Sally, 14 Ries, Eric, 39n risk, 14, 16–23, 26, 40, 43, 83, 106, 209, 234 birth order and, 150, 153–56 comedians and, 158 parenting and, 160, 162 portfolios of, 18–20, 25, 66–67, 246–47 reputational, 186 Rivera, Lauren, 190n Rivers, Joan, 158 Robinson, Jackie, 19, 93, 146–48, 150, 153–54, 157, 159–60, 162, 167, 171–72 Robinson, Mack, 157 Robinson, Mallie, 160, 167, 171 Robinson, Willa Mae, 160 Rock, Chris, 158 Rockefeller, Nelson, 99 Rogers, Howard, 182 role models, 170–74, 252 roller blading, 136, 137 Roman Catholic Church, 191, 207 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 253–54 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 234–35 Rosenberg, Jonathan, 55 Rosette, Ashleigh, 86, 87 Rottenberg, Linda, 20 Rowling, J. K., 40–41, 174 Rustin, Bayard, 238 Safari, 4–6 Saffo, Paul, 195 Sahlman, Bill, 52, 56, 106n Salovey, Peter, 233 Sandberg, Sheryl, ix–xii, 85, 114, 172 Santayana, George, 144 Sarick, Leslie, 69, 77 Sarick Effect, 69–75, 77 Saturday Night Live, 46, 190 Schmidt, Eric, 55 Schneider, Benjamin, 182 Schulz-Hardt, Stefan, 199n Schumpeter, Joseph, 13 Schwartz, Shalom, 205 Schwarz, Norbert, 74 science, 207 Science Talent Search, 97–98 scientists, 151–52, 154 Scully, Maureen, 124, 236–37 Segway, 29–32, 38, 39, 50–56, 60, 106n Seinfeld, 31, 39–42, 42n, 44–46, 49–50, 57 Seinfeld, Jerry, 45, 57, 158, 215 self-confidence, 212, 213 overconfidence, 33–34, 54, 186, 195 self-doubt, 212–14, 235 Selma, 18 Semmelweis, Ignaz, 107 September 11 terrorist attacks, 64, 107, 240n Serbia, 218–20, 223, 226, 227, 231–32, 235–36, 242 Serial, 37 settlers, 103–7 sexual harassment, 85n Shakespeare, William, 35–36, 135 shapers, 208–9 sharing, 120–21 Shaw, George Bernard, 1 Shin, Jihae, 94–95 siblings: birth order of, 148–59, 162, 174 niche picking and, 156–59, 174, 253 parenting and, 159–70 Silicon Valley, 125, 180–82, 187n Silverman, Josh, 220–21, 222 Simonton, Dean, 34–37, 48, 155, 173 sincerity, 193 Sinek, Simon, 124 singing, 120, 216 Sistine Chapel, 11, 12 Sivers, Derek, 225 Sixtus V, Pope, 191 Skype, 220–22 smartphones, 7, 90 iPhone, 7, 90, 91 Smiley, Glenn, 238–39 Smith, Rick, 20 Snoop Dogg, 123 social approval, 23 solutions, focus on, 197, 251 Sonenshein, Scott, 212 songs: singing, 120, 216 tapping rhythm to, 75–76 Sony, 183, 186 Sørensen, Jesper, 183 Soske, Trina, 201–3, 205, 207 Soule, Sarah, 120–21, 122n Spanx, 20, 114 speaking up, 62–91, 196n, 201–2, 205 women and, 84–88 See also dissenting opinions Sperry, Roger, 109, 111 Stanislavski, Constantin, 237 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 115–16, 118–19, 121, 126–31, 142, 144 star blueprint, 180–82, 181n Star Trek, 173 status, 65–68, 82–83, 86, 88, 202 movements and, 121n–22n Stearney, Scott, 125 Steinman, Josh, 125 Sternberg, Robert, 11 Stewart, Abigail, 171 Stewart, Jon, 158 “Still I Rise” (Angelou), 36 stock market, 83, 181, 182 Stone, Lucy, 114–16, 118–19, 121, 127–31, 133–34, 141–45 stop system, 216–17, 229, 240 strategic flexibility, 101 strategic optimism, 212–13 Streisand, Barbra, 161n Subotnik, Rena, 97–98 Sulloway, Frank, 150–52, 156n, 157, 162 support, 225–27 surface acting, 237, 238 surgeons, 229 Sutton, Robert, 37, 229 Syria, 227–29 Tadic, Boris, 231, 242 Tartikoff, Brandon, 34, 41 teachers, 9–10 Tellis, Gerard, 103–4 tempered radicalism, 124–26, 128, 140, 145, 248 Thiel, Peter, 106, 123, 172 Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman), 55 This American Life, 36–37 Thoreau, Henry David, 93 three-ring binder, 135–36 Time, 30 time of day, 97n timing, 26, 92–113 age and, 108–13 first movers and, 93, 103–8 procrastination and.


pages: 336 words: 97,204

The Mystery of Charles Dickens by A. N. Wilson

British Empire, Columbine, Corn Laws, Etonian, Fellow of the Royal Society, George Santayana, Honoré de Balzac, James Watt: steam engine, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sexual politics, spinning jenny, Thomas Malthus

Having passed into a more pretentious phase of readership, in which I supposed that Dickens’s way of depicting human character was too crude to be able to arrive at the truth, I discovered, as already mentioned, the judgement of Elizabeth Bowen/Iseult in Eva Trout and came to my senses again. Had I known it, I would have echoed George Santayana: ‘When people say that Dickens exaggerates, it seems to me that they can have no eyes and no ears. They probably only have notions of what things and people are; they accept them conventionally at their diplomatic value.’11 My adolescence took place twenty and more years after the ending of the Second World War, but the BBC in those days still occasionally broadcast on British radio extracts from the programmes that had been popular years before we were born.

Maria Beadnell and, 107 Nelly Ternan and, 248 prison in, 84–5, 174–5, 180–81 sex in, 257 Shorne in, 292 siblings and, 79 Swinburne on, 195 three-gabled house in, 273 Grimaldi, Joseph, 29, 35, 239, 319 Hager, Kelly, 137 Hall, William, 116, 120 Hall’s bookshop, Strand, 116 Hamblin, 221 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 23, 36, 237 Hanley, Staffordshire, 209 Hard Times (Dickens), 39, 146, 162, 171–2, 173, 175, 200, 201, 312 Hardwick, Philip, 227 Hardy, Thomas, 137, 307 Harley Street, London, 313 Harness, William, 234 Harrow School, Middlesex, 234, 303 Harte, Bret, 220 Hartley, Jenny, 150–51, 155, 156–7 Haunted House, The (Dickens), 81 Hawksley, Lucinda, 159 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 124 Hayter, Alethea, 244 Headland, Thomas, 212 Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland, 136 Henty, George Alfred, 302 Hereford Times, 159 Heroin, 246 Hesse, Hermann, 308 Higham, Kent, 13 Hitchcock, Alfred, 233 Hitler, Adolf, 238 Hobbes, Thomas, 49 Hogarth, Catherine, see Dickens, Catherine Hogarth, George, 114, 205 Hogarth, Georgina, 105, 114, 122, 125, 133–4, 310 Birmingham Christmas reading (1853), 205 death of Charles (1870), 11, 13–14, 15, 73, 99, 255, 296–7 household management, 11, 105, 125, 134 Naples trip (1845), 128 Nelly, relationship with, 21–2, 134, 315 public reading tours and, 213, 215 Violated Letter (1858), 132, 133–4 Will of Charles Dickens (1870), 134 Hogarth, Helen, 132, 133 Hogarth, Mary, 114, 121, 122 Hogarth, Robert, 114 Holly Lodge, Highgate, 147 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 220 Homer, 72 homosexuality, 265 Horsemonger Lane Gaol, Southwark, 176 Hotel Meloni, Rome, 269–70 Houghton Place, Ampthill Square, 12, 21 House, Humphry, 67, 146, 171 House, Madeline, 17 Household Words, 9, 25, 40, 105, 115, 124, 129, 146 Charley’s editing, 296 ‘Curious Dance Round a Curious Tree, A’ (1852), 28 ‘Great Baby, The’ (1855), 166, 167–70 ‘Lying Awake’ (1852), 176 Millais, criticism of (1850), 159 ‘Nightly Scene in London, A’ (1856), 189–90 ‘Pet Prisoners’ (1850), 179 ‘Red Tape’ (1851), 170 Urania Cottage article (1853), 147 ‘Violated Letter’ (1858), 133 Wellington Street offices, 215, 229, 296 Wills’ editing, 124, 129, 214 Huffam, Christopher, 177 Hughes, Thomas, 299 Hull, Yorkshire, 230 Human Physiology (Elliotson), 261 Hundred Days (1815), 61 Independent Labour Party, 188 Industrial Revolution, 64–5 Inns of Court, London, 23, 111, 113, 248, 273 Inquiries Concerning the Intellectual Powers (Abercrombie), 260–61 International Monetary Fund, 65 Invisible Woman, The (Tomalin), 297 Ireland, 23, 210, 310 Isle of Wight, 297 Italy, 21, 40, 128, 217, 219, 268–9, 293 ITMA (It’s That Man Again), 304 Jamaica, 182–3, 312 James, Henry, 47, 48 Jarman, Frances ‘Fanny’, 23 Jerrold, Douglas, 125, 176 Jobber Skald (Powys), 239 Johann Peter Eckermann, 121 Johns, William Earl, 302 Johnson, Andrew, 222–4 Johnson, Edgar, 133 Johnson, Samuel, 93, 121 Jonson, Ben, 37, 199 Joy, George William, 300 Kafka, Franz, 312 Kant, Immanuel, 22 Kapital, Das (Marx), 86, 87, 162, 163 Kaplan, Fred, 260 Katherine of Aragon, 136 Kean, Edmund, 9, 23, 35 Keats, John, 74, 267 Kelly, Frances, 37 Kemble, Charles, 23, 101 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 300 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, 25, 40 King Lear (Shakespeare), 29, 218, 237 King’s Cross, London, 228, 229 Kingdom of Naples (1282–1816), 128 Kingsley Amis, 308 Kingsmill, Hugh, 94 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 262 Lamb, William, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, 137–8 Lamert, George, 82 Lamert, James, 70, 82–3 Lamert, Matthew, 70 Lamplighter, The (Dickens), 36 Lancet, The, 263 Larkin, Philip, 306–10 Latter-Day Pamphlet (Carlyle), 178–9 laudanum, 4, 244, 247 Lavoisier, Antoine, 261 Lawrence, David Herbert, 43, 307 Leavis, Queenie Dorothy, 118, 162–3, 168 Lee, Robert Edward, 223 Leeds City Art Gallery, 300 Lemon, Mark, 8, 37, 133 Leno, Dan, 29 de Leon, Thomas Cooper, 173–4 Letters of Charles Dickens, The, 145 Lewes, George, 16, 37, 140 Liberal Party, 82, 187, 214, 246 Library Edition, 215 Library of Fiction, The, 116 Life of Charles Dickens, The (Forster), 20, 74, 121, 234 Life of Mr Richard Savage (Johnson), 93 Life of Our Lord (Dickens), 55, 160 Lillie, Benjamin, 131 Limehouse, London, 148, 244 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, 234 Literary and Mechanics’ Institutes, Birmingham, 209 Little Dorrit (Dickens), 8, 9, 39–41, 54–5, 146, 286 Civil Service in, 164, 171 Elizabeth Dickens and, 30–33, 54–5, 90 John Dickens and, 40, 54–5, 75–6, 89–90 Kate Dickens and, 140 lesbianism in, 44 Maria Beadnell and, 106, 109–10 Nelly Ternan and, 30, 32, 33, 140 prison in, 85–7 sex in, 258 Shaw on, 86, 162 Sunday in, 167 Tattycoram, 157 voice in, 200 Liverpool, Merseyside, 113, 216, 220, 226–7 Lloyd George, David, 187, 190 Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 294 London Recreations’ (Dickens), 167 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 220 Lord’s Day Observance Society, 170 Lord’s Day, 166–70 Lowell, James Russell, 220 Lucas, John, 22 Luddites, 262 ‘Lying Awake’ (Dickens), 176 Lytton, Lord, see Bulwer-Lytton, Robert Lytton, Robert, 209 ‘Mabel’ (Locker-Lampson), 294 Mabel’s Progress (Trollope), 219 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 237, 281 Macready, William, 36, 37, 237–8, 266, 267 Malthus, Thomas, 187 Malvern, Worcestershire, 25, 125, 302 Manchester, England, 7, 8, 32, 38 Manners, John, 136 Manning, Frederick and Maria, 176–7, 178 Mansfield Park (Austen), 272 Margate, Kent, 21, 314–16, 318–19 Marriage Act (1753), 137 Marshalsea, Southwark, 30, 40, 76, 86, 87, 109, 115, 214, 271, 297 Martin Chuzzlewit (Dickens), 34, 198–200, 206, 211, 214, 311 Martineau, Harriet, 130 Marx, Karl, 32, 65, 81, 86, 87, 162, 163 Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, 148 Mary of Teck, Queen consort of the United Kingdom, 148 Mary, Queen of Scots, 319 Marylebone, London, 62, 64 Massachusetts, United States justice system, 182 Mesmerism in, 266 Parkman–Webster murder case (1849), 250–53, 279 public reading tours, 123, 220–21, 224–6, 229, 250 Mathews, Charles, 35, 101 Matrimonial Causes Act (1857), 136, 138 Maurice, Frederick Denison, 314 Mayor of Casterbridge, The (Hardy), 137 ‘Maze, The’ (Auden), 249 Medusa, 31 Medway river, 27, 55–8, 284 Méjan, Maurice, 137 Melancholy Man, The (Lucas), 22 Melbourne, Lord, see Lamb, William Meredith, George, 140 Meredith, Hannah, 147 Merry Wives of Windsor, The (Shakespeare), 37, 206, 293 Mesmer, Franz Anton, 255, 260, 261, 262 mesmerism, 4, 100, 105, 141, 195, 238–9, 255, 260–70 Metropolitan Sanitary Association, 165 Middlemarch (Eliot), 43 Middlesex Hospital, London, 68 Middlesex House of Correction, 151 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A (Shakespeare), 9, 45 Mill, John Stuart, 81, 155, 162, 172, 179, 183 Millais, John Everett, 159, 291–2 Misnar, the Sultan of India (Dickens), 96 modernism, 6, 39, 81, 208, 278 Monthly Magazine, 111, 116 Moonrise Kingdom, 197 Moonstone, The (Collins), 253, 283–4 Moore, Thomas, 147 Morant Bay Rebellion (1865), 182, 312 More, Hannah, 319 Morning Chronicle, 107, 111, 114, 137 Mornington Crescent, Camden Town, 12 Morris, William, 292 Mortimer Street, London, 62 Mount Vesuvius, 128 Murray, Lindley, 319 Mussolini, Benito, 238 Mystery of Edwin Drood, The (Dickens), 4, 6, 11, 44, 67, 141, 166, 229, 243–87, 292 animal magnetism and, 253, 255, 260–70 atmospherics, 282–4 as autobiographical, 248–9 Cloisterham, models for, 5, 273–5 graveyard humour, 292–5 modernism, 278 Nelly Ternan and, 254–6, 260, 270–71, 275, 277, 285 opium in, 4, 243–7, 253, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 284 Parkman–Webster murder case and, 250–53, 279 Stony Durdles, 269, 281, 292–5 Nabokov, Vladimir, 196, 198, 200, 203, 278, 308 Naples, Kingdom of (1282–1816), 128 Napoleon I, emperor of the French, 61, 64 Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), 48, 61, 64, 186 National Sunday League, 167 Navy Lark, The, 304 Navy Pay Office, 61, 63, 92 Nelson, Horatio, 61 New Bedford, Massachusetts, 225 New Bond Street, London, 212, 226 New Haven, Connecticut, 222 New Magdalen, The (Collins), 314 New York Herald, 174 New York, United States, 199, 216, 221–2 Newcastle upon Tyne, 24 Newman brothers, 155 Niagara, New York, 225 Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens), 8, 21, 23, 59–60, 89, 286, 301–2 ‘Nightly Scene in London, A’ (Dickens), 189–90 nitrate of silver, 145, 150 Nonconformism, 163 Norfolk Street, London, 62 North-West Passage, 7 Norton, Caroline, 138–9 Norton, George, 137–8 Not So Bad As We Seem (Bulwer-Lytton), 25, 38, 125 ‘Nurse’s Stories’ (Dickens), 126 O’Connor, Patrick, 176 O’key, Elizabeth and Jane, 263–4, 267 ‘Old Cumberland Beggar, The’ (Wordsworth), 184–7 Old Curiosity Shop, The (Dickens), 3–4, 21, 23, 39, 90, 200, 265, 316–19 Quilp, 3, 128–9, 131, 178, 180, 195, 254, 257, 316 Oliver Twist (Dickens), 35, 44, 66–7, 120, 171, 188, 195, 283, 301–2 marriage in, 127 Nancy, 44, 150, 172, 195, 198, 207, 232–6, 238, 257, 258, 283 paedophilia in, 60 prison in, 84 ‘On an Amateur Beat’ (Dickens), 154 ‘On the Circuit’ (Auden), 225 Opium and the Romantic Imagination (Hayter), 244 opium, 4, 243–7, 253, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 284 Orange Blossoms (Wooler), 315 Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, The (Waugh), 34, 70 Othello (Shakespeare), 23, 237 Our Mutual Friend (Dickens), 15, 141, 185, 208, 212, 280, 283 Seven Dials and, 231 sex in, 44, 258 Staplehurst railway crash and, 19–20, 212 Swinburne on, 313 workhouses in, 67 voice in, 200 Ouvry, Frederic, 11, 297 Oxford, Oxfordshire, 20, 207–8 Oxford Movement, 160–61 Paget, Henry, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, 263 Painter, Michael, 271 Palmerston, Lord, see Temple, Henry John pantomime, 5, 6, 7, 33, 39, 42, 44, 46–8, 72, 81, 162, 170, 312 clowns, 27–30, 35, 239 in David Copperfield, 46 in Great Expectations, 44 in Little Dorrit, 164 in Old Curiosity Shop, 254 in Oliver Twist, 46 in Pickwick Papers, 46, 164 Parkman, George, 250–53, 279 Patmore, Coventry, 136 Peckham, London, 12, 13–14, 21, 216, 219, 229, 255, 256, 259 Pendennis (Thackeray), 113, 115 Percy, Thomas, 53, 58 Persia, 22, 316 Personae (Pound), 208 Perugini, Catherine ‘Katey’, 17, 38, 42, 44, 99, 101–5, 122, 132, 296, 250, 286, 296 ‘Pet Prisoners’ (Dickens), 179 Petworth, West Sussex, 156 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 227 Pharmacy Act (1868), 246 Philadelphia Public Ledger, The, 243 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 214, 222, 224, 243 ‘Phiz’, see Browne, Hablot Knight Picasso, Pablo, 31 Pickwick Papers, The (Dickens), 7, 23, 27, 35, 77, 112, 117–18, 199, 239, 283, 303 class in, 69 illustrations, 45, 117–18 Doctors’ Commons in, 112, 119 marriages in, 137 politicians in, 164 prison in, 84, 85 Rochester Bridge in, 56, 57 sales, 120 ‘Stroller’s Tale, The’ 117, 137 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 266 place, sense of, 272–5 Plato, 71–2 Police Act (1839), 153–4 Pollard, Rhena, 156–7 Poor Laws, 68, 185, 187 Pope, Norris, 168 population growth, 203 Portland, Maine, 225 Portsmouth, Hampshire, 63 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 304 Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, The see Pickwick Papers, The Pound, Ezra, 208 Powys, John Cowper, 239 Pre-Raphaelites, 101 Preston, Lancashire, 179 Price, Charles, 182 Priestley, Joseph, 261 Priestley, William Overend, 234 Prisons Act (1898), 179 prisons, 84–7, 175, 178–82 prostitution, 150 Proust, Marcel, 73, 271 psychology; psychoanalysis, 6, 74, 95 public readings, 9, 33, 34, 84, 132, 133, 134, 156, 173, 174, 193–239 Punch, 8, 37, 133 Pusey, Edward Bouverie, 164 Pushkin, Alexander, 40 Queen’s College, Harley Street, 313 de Quincey, Thomas, 247 Radicals, 82, 214 railways, 216–17 Ratcliffe Highway, London, 243, 244, 247, 285 ‘Red Tape’ (Dickens), 170 Regent’s Park, London, 25, 103, 125, 153 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Percy), 53, 58 Resurrection narratives, 230 Reynolds, Russell, 286–7 Rhode Island, United States, 225 Richardson, Ruth, 39, 64 Richmond, Duke of, see Gordon-Lennox, Charles Robb, Graham, 87 Roberts, Frederick Sleigh, 1st Earl Roberts, 300 Robinson, Ellen ‘Nelly’ (born Ternan), 5, 8–25, 33, 41, 102, 106, 126, 146, 207, 216–20, 229, 314–19 age, concealment of, 314, 317 Ampthill Square house, 12, 21, 317 children, illegitimate, 17, 217 death of Charles (1870), 15, 20, 49, 255, 256, 259, 297 France trip (1865), 16–17 George, marriage to, 21–2, 314–19 Georgina, relationship with, 21–2, 134, 315 Great Expectations and, 248 Kate Dickens and, 100, 124, 130, 131, 132 Little Dorrit and, 30, 32, 33, 140 parents, relationship with, 23–4, 25 and public reading tours, 207, 213, 215, 220, 221, 229 Staplehurst railway crash (1865), 18–19, 212, 285–6 Will of Charles Dickens and, 297 Windsor Lodge, life at, 13–14, 21, 219, 229, 255, 256, 259, 296 youthfulness, 8, 140, 254–5, 260, 270–71, 275 Robinson, Geoffrey, 21, 22, 314, 316–17 Robinson, George Wharton, 21, 22, 314, 317 Robinson, Gladys, 21, 314, 317 Rochester, Kent, 4, 5, 7, 23, 55–7, 120, 141, 273–5, 284–5, 293–6 Rochester, Massachusetts, 225 Rochester, New York, 222 Roe, Fred, 230 Rogers, Samuel, 147 Romanticism, 247 Rome, Italy, 268, 269–70 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 231, 314 Rookwood (Ainsworth), 113 Rose and the Ring, The (Thackeray), 118 Rossetti family, 155 Round the Horne, 304 Royal Academy of Music, 78, 93 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (1850), 159 Royal Academy, 291, 292 Royal Command Performance, 125 Royal Navy, 61, 63, 64, 92 ‘Ruffian, The’ (Dickens), 154, 177–8, 180 Rugby School, Warwickshire, 237, 299 Ruskin, John, 155, 292 Russell, William Howard, 209 Russia, 226 Russian Empire, 223 Salvation Army, 157 Santayana, George, 303–4 science, 261 Scott, Henry, 213, 229 Scott, Walter, 6, 65, 113, 114 Second World War (1939–45), 304 Self-Help (Smiles), 24, 87, 172 Self, Will, 244 Seven Dials, London, 177, 230–31 Seward, William, 222–3 sex, 43–4, 60, 145, 149–50, 256–60, 267 Seymour, Jane, 136 Seymour, Robert, 116–17, 118, 120 Shaftesbury, Lord see Cooper, Anthony Shakespeare, William, 36, 237 Hamlet, 23, 36, 237 Macbeth, 237, 281 Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 37, 293 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A, 9, 45 Othello, 23, 237 King Lear, 29, 218, 237 Romeo and Juliet, 231, 314 Winter’s Tale, The, 9, 24 Shaw, George Bernard, 86, 87, 162 Shaw, Lemuel, 252 Sheerness, Kent, 64, 69 Sheffield, Yorkshire, 205 Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 138 Sherlock Holmes series (Doyle), 272 Shorne, Kent, 292 Shrewsbury, Shropshire, 210 silver nitrate, 145, 150 Simpson, John Palgrave, 207 Sketches by Boz (Dickens), 78, 99, 110–11, 115, 116, 254, 297 ‘Christmas Dinner, A’, 157–8 ‘Great Winglebury Duel, The’, 36 ‘London Recreations’, 167 ‘Private Theatres’, 50 Slate, Edwin, 223 slavery, 165 Slough, Berkshire, 12, 13, 17, 216–17, 219, 316 Smiles, Samuel, 24, 87, 172 Smith-Stanley, Edward, 14th Earl of Derby, 106–7, 188, 295 Smith, Arthur, 133, 210, 211–12 socialism, 162, 190, 191, 311 Soho Theatre, London, 88 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 80, 88 Somerset House, London, 62, 63, 74–6, 84 Songs of Innocence and Experience (Blake), 118 Sorrows of Rosalie, The (Norton), 138 Soviet Union, 80, 88 Sowray, Woodford, 273 Spencer, Herbert, 183 St Hugh’s College, Oxford, 20 St James’s Hall, London, 233 St James’s Hotel, London, 243 St James’s Theatre, London, 36 St Luke’s, Chelsea, 119 St Martin’s Hall, Camden Town, 207, 209 St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, 21 St Mary-le-Strand, London, 63, 69 St Pancras, London, 228 St Paul’s, Covent Garden, 68 St Stephen’s, Rochester Row, 148 Stalin, Joseph, 88 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 294, 295, 297–9 Stanley, Augusta, 295 Staplehurst railway crash (1865), 18–19, 212, 285–6 Stevens, Wallace, 308 Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, 209 Stone, Lawrence, 136 Storey, Gladys, 17, 102, 105, 292 Strange Gentleman, The (Dickens), 36 Stratton Street, Mayfair, 147 stroke (1869), 238, 243 Stroller’s Tale, The (Dickens), 117 Sullivan, Arthur, 312 Sunday, 166–70 Sutherland, John, 103 Sweeney Agonistes (Eliot), 232 Sweet, Henry, 20 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 195, 259, 297, 313 Swinburne, Jane Henrietta, 297 Swiss chalet, Gad’s Hill, 102, 256, 276, 282 Switzerland, 149 Syracuse, New York, 222 Taine, Hippolyte, 81 Tale of Two Cities, A (Dickens), 21, 84, 127, 141, 145, 207, 283, 286, 312, 313 Tavistock House, Camden, 109, 130, 132, 134 taxation, 226, 292 Taylor, Samuel, 209 Temple, Henry John, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, 214 Tennyson, Alfred, 37, 155, 183 Ternan, Ellen ‘Nelly’, see Robinson, Ellen Ternan, Frances ‘Fanny’, see Trollope, Frances Ternan, Maria, 8, 24 Ternan, Thomas, 23–4 Terry, Ellen, 9 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 6, 16, 43, 113, 115, 118, 132, 204, 239 Thakewell Union, Petworth, 156 Thames river, 55, 200 Theatre Royal, Chatham, 35 Theatrical Fund, 36 Thomas, Dylan, 272 Three Detective Anecdotes (Dickens), 13 Three Voices of Poetry, The (Eliot), 208 Tide of Time, The (Bernard), 207 Tiger Bay, London, 243 Times, The, 105, 133, 159, 176–7, 209, 293 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 81 Tolstoy, Leo, 34, 81, 202, 307 Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Hughes), 299 Tomalin, Claire, 17, 18, 217, 297 Townshend, Chauncy Hare, 265 Tracy, Robert, 278 Trade Union Movement, 162 Trinity College, Cambridge, 54 Trollope, Anthony, 6, 9, 43, 155, 217, 239, 307, 308 Trollope, Frances ‘Fanny’, 9, 24, 217–19, 317 Trollope, Thomas, 217, 218 Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 230 Uncommercial Traveller, The (Dickens), 212 Under Milk Wood (Thomas), 272 Unitarian Church, 265 United States, 4, 57, 140 evangelicalism in, 164–5 Parkman–Webster murder case (1849), 250–53, 279 prisons in, 179, 182 reading tours, 123, 173–4, 195, 198, 199, 203, 213–26, 250 Revolution (1765–83), 262 University College, London, 263–4 Urania Cottage, Shepherd’s Bush, 146, 148, 150–57, 182 Vanity Fair (Thackeray), 43 venereal disease, 145–6, 150, 286 Vicar of Wakefield, The (Goldsmith), 111 Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, 25, 37–8, 40, 78, 137, 139, 148, 161, 167 Violated Letter (1858), 132–3 Violent Effigy, The (Carey), 299, 305 Wakley, Thomas, 263, 267 Walham Green, London, 297 Wallis, Henry, 140 Wapping, London, 244 War and Peace (Tolstoy), 34 Warren, Jonathan, 82 Warren’s Blacking Factory, Strand, 53–5, 59, 72–5, 78, 82–4, 90, 92, 99, 102, 105, 188, 228, 297 Christmas game and, 53–4, 60, 73, 74, 99, 206 Dilke and, 74–5 Elizabeth Dickens and, 104–5 Kate Dickens and, 72, 95, 121 Washington, DC, United States, 222 Waste Land, The (Eliot), 208 Watkins, Gwen, 299–300, 305 Watt, James, 64 Waugh, Evelyn, 34, 70 Webster, John, 250–53, 279 Wedgwood, Josiah, 64 welfare, 188 Weller, Anna, 112 Weller, Christiana, 113 Weller, Mary, 112, 126 Wellington House Academy, Camden Town, 155, 206, 228 Wellington Street, London, 215, 229, 296 Wesley, John, 4 Wesleyan Methodism, 157 Westminster Abbey, London, 196, 293–9, 309 Weymouth Sands (Powys), 239 Whitefriargate, Hull, 230 Wilde, Oscar, 3 Will of Charles Dickens, 20–21, 134, 297 William IV, King of the United Kingdom, 139 Wills, William Henry, 124, 129, 213–14, 217, 219, 220, 236, 278 Wilson-Patten Sunday Beer Act (1854), 168 Wilson, Edmund, 203 Window Tax, 170 Windsor Lodge, Peckham, 13–14, 21, 219, 229, 255, 256, 259, 296 Winnicott, Donald, 95–6, 100 Winter, Maria, 106–10, 114, 134 Winter’s Tale, The (Shakespeare), 9, 24 With Kitchener in the Sudan (Henty), 302 Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville, 308 Woman in White, The (Collins), 137 Woolner, Thomas, 293 Wordsworth, William, 184–7, 188 workhouses, 49, 54, 64–8, 73, 75–6, 82, 171, 188–90 Chatham, Kent, 70 Cleveland Street, Marylebone, 39, 64, 66, 68, 188 Thakewell Union, Petworth, 156 World and the Stage, The (Simpson), 207 World Bank, 65 Yeats, William Butler, 206 Young, Edward, 230 Young, George Malcolm, 175 Zola, Emile, 6, 119 A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR A.N.


pages: 607 words: 168,497

Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Asperger Syndrome, British Empire, Columbine, delayed gratification, double helix, experimental subject, Flynn Effect, George Santayana, Great Leap Forward, invention of writing, Lao Tzu, Marshall McLuhan, open borders, out of africa, sexual politics, social intelligence, Steven Pinker, the medium is the message

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. New York: Touchstone. Sagan, Carl, and Ann Druyan. 1992. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are. New York: Random House. Sahlins, Marshall D. 1960. “The Origin of Society,” Scientific American 203 (no. 3): 76–87. Santayana, George. 1988. The Works of George Santayana, Vol. II, The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory. Ed. William Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Sapolsky, Robert M. 1997. The Trouble with Testosterone, and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament. New York: Simon & Schuster.

-nurture debate, xiv, 232 Navajo Indians, 94 Neanderthals, 7n, 290 neocortex, 19, 144 neomammalian brain, 144 Newton, Isaac, 244 Nicholson, Paula, 65 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 73, 244, 304, 339 Nightingale, Florence, 254 Nin, Anaïs, 254 nirvana, 361 Nolan, Steve, 369 Noonan, Katherine, 48 NPR, 363n nutrition, see diet “obstetrical dilemma,” 8n Odyssey (Homer), 304 Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), 255 Oefner, Peter, 371n Ojibwa Indians, 112 On Human Nature (Wilson), 235 orgasm, 16, 69–82 bipedalism and, 71–72 breast-feeding and, 82 in childbirth, 75, 80–82 circumcision and, 92–93 Coolidge Effect and, 75 Cuddles Theory of, 71, 73 frustration and, 74–75 G spot and, 79–80 man-woman relationship and, 73, 75 mate selection and, 76–77 men’s sexual goals and, 76–78 mistiming of, 73–75, 92–93 multiple, 74 in nonhuman females, 69–70 Pole Ax Theory of, 71–72 romance and, 77 timing of, 92–93 uneven distribution of, among women, 70–71 Upsuck Theory of, 71, 72–73 Origins Reconsidered (Leakey and Lewin), 265–66 Ortega y Gasset, José, 279 Ortner, Sherry, 342 Osler, William, 342n–43n ovaries, 85–86, 154 ovulation, 15–16, 20, 153, 154, 157n, 327 hidden, see cryptic ovulation own-kill taboo, 111 oxygen, viii, 25–26, 41, 43, 123, 195n, 336 iron’s affinity for, ix oxytocin, 82 paleomammalian brain, 144 Pan paniscus, see bonobos Pan troglodytes, see chimpanzees paramenstrum, 153–54, 158 Pascal, Blaise, 277 paternity, 289–99, 309, 316 awareness of, 290–95, 308–9, 338 bride-barter and, 314–19 fatherhood and, 296 in indigenous peoples, 301–2 manhood and, 296 partible, 302 personal responsibility and, 297 and power to name, 293 recognition of mortality and, 289–91, 295, 297 relationship between sexes and, 297–299, 302–3 wisdom, knowledge and, 293–94 women’s knowledge of, 322–23, 330 patriarchy, 345 definition of, 339 persistence of, 359–60 resentment of women and, 348–49 testosterone and, 343 see also misogyny Patton, George, 272 Paul, Saint, 181n, 339, 374n Pauling, Linus, 131, 131n Pavlov, Ivan, 173–74 pelvis, bipedal, 4–5, 8n penis, 228 vulnerability of, 220–21, 221n Perry, John, 78 Pert, Candace, 156–57 Peterson, Dale, 102n Pfeiffer, John, 269 pharynx, 192–93, 195–96 pheromones, 53, 218, 353 photosynthesis, 120–21 Piaget, Jean, 268, 270, 270n, 301 pica syndrome, 151 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 340 Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Wilde), 97 Pinker, Steven, 190, 206 placenta, 27–28, 29, 29n Plains Indians, 142 Plato, 224, 244, 339 pleiotropism, 24 Pliny, 64, 339 Plutarch, 165 Pole Ax Theory, 71 polyps, 32, 33 pornography, 351–52, 359 Potts, Malcolm, 227 Power, Camilla, 65, 190 pregnancy: amino acids and, 124 birth control and, 363 fatty acids and, 126 hemorrhoids and, 34–35 in hunter-gatherer societies, 30–31 iron and, x, 26–27 length of, 179–80 lunar cycles and, 164, 179–80 meat hunger in, 152 prolonged childhood and, 5 serial, 31 sex determination in, 228 Prehistory of the Mind, The (Mithin), 269 premature ejaculation, 74, 92–93 primates, xi, 105n, 111n, 123n, 316n, 353 color vision in, 245 estrus in, 15–16 hominid, 3–4 hunting by, 101 infanticide by, 49–50 masturbation in, 158n menopause in, 87 menstruation in, 17, 53 monogamy in, 213–14 sexual dimorphism in, 54 social arrangements of, 316 stereoscopic vision in, 176 see also bonobos; chimpanzees; gorillas Profet, Margie, 47, 57, 66–67 progesterone, 33, 62, 86, 95, 124, 126–127, 154, 155, 157 Prometheus, myth of, 121 prostitution, 237–38, 359 proteins, 123–24 “prudent mother hypothesis,” 87–88 psychic hermaphroditism, 227–28, 258 puberty, 137–45, 343 group play and, 344–46 initiation rites in, 142–43 masturbation in, 158–60 misogyny and, 343–46 myelination of brain and, 143–46 postpubescent males and, 138–39, 145, 235 sexual dimorphism and, 140–41 sexual identity and, 235 testosterone and, 139–40, 143, 145 see also menarche Pueblo Indians, 256 punctuated equilibrium, 6 Purifications (Empedocles), 270 Quest for the Holy Grail, myth of, xxv rape, 24–25, 25n, 73, 139 as rare sexual strategy, 220–22 reason, 262, 276, 280 red blood cells, viii, ix, xi, 26, 28n, 40, 43 life span of, 42 Redgrove, Peter, 153, 182 Red Queen, The (Ridley), xivn reductionism, 263 relationships: anima-animus duality and, 217–19, 222–225 asymmetry of, 14–15 commitment and, 328–29 and control of women’s sexuality, 338–339, 349 cooperation and, 323–24 courtship and, 324–25, 327 cryptic ovulation and, 48–49 division of labor in, 8n, 339, 341–42 evolutionary bottleneck and, 5–8, 14 family and, 330–31 fatherhood and, 323–24, 328 Homo sapiens’ metamorphosis as a species and, 360–61 incest taboo and, 311–12 language and, 191–92 love and, 324–27, 329 male aggression and, 24–25 and male’s qualifications as mate, 327–30 marriage and, 311, 325–26, 329 menopause and, 96 orgasm and, 73, 75 paternity and, 297–99, 302–3 small talk and, 222–23 technology and, 339, 363–64 see also anima-animus duality; men; misogyny; women religion: circumcision and, 374n–76n homosexuality and, 231–32 see also superstition Rich, Adrienne, 187 Ridley, Matt, xivn, 149 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 261, 351 Rodwell-Wilton, Sue, 124 romance, 77, 351, 351n Rosenberg, Karen, 8n Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 286 Rubinstein, Boris, 153 runaway selection, 46n language development and, 192 Russell, Bertrand, 280 Sahtouris, Elizabet, 167n Sanger, Margaret, 335 Santayana, George, 3 Sappho, 254 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 188 satori, 361 Savanna Theory, 104–5 schizophrenia, 233–34 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 339 Schreiner, Olive, 101 science, 263 self, concept of, 268 self-awareness, 168–69, 169n, 275–76 self-delusion, 275–76 death and, 278, 279–81 humor and, 281–82 Selfish Gene, The (Dawkins), 349n Selye, Hans, 157 semantics, 262 semiessential amino acids, 123 sentience, 167–68, 167n Sentinel Behavior, Theory of, 251–52 sequential hermaphroditism, 228–29 Seven Tables of Creation, The, 379n sexual dimorphism, 53–54 during puberty, 140–41 synchronized menstruation and, 53–54 sexual selection, xiv–xv, 46n, 129 baldness and, 249 development of language and, 189, 192, 205–6 fitness and, 14 see also natural selection Shakespeare, William, 178n, 203, 283 Shaler, Nathaniel, 277 Sharanhua tribe, 113 Shekina, concept of, 257 Sherfey, Mary Jane, 94n Short, Roger, 227 Show-Off Theory, 112 Shuttle, Penelope, 153, 182 Sibley, Charles, 371n siblingcide, 212 simultaneous hermaphroditism, 227–28 Siriono tribe, 302 Siskind, Janet, 113 Sisyphus, myth of, 282–83 Small, Meredith, 149, 237 Smuts, Barbara, 356 Socrates, 244, 340 Sophocles, 25, 255 soul, 278 species, 5–6, 227 speech, see language Spock, Benjamin, 85 Stanford, Craig, 165 Stein, Gertrude, 254 Strassman, Beverly, 30, 31, 66 stress, 138, 150, 160 subincision, 142n–43n suicide, 272, 282–83 Sung Ping Law, 178n superstition: afterlife and, 277–80 ancestor worship and, 279 anxiety and, 276–77 death and, 276–77 mortuary rites and, 278–79, 278n self-deception and, 275–76, 278–81 Susu tribe, 180 Suzuki, D.


pages: 395 words: 116,675

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, adjacent possible, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, AltaVista, altcoin, An Inconvenient Truth, anthropic principle, anti-communist, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, bitcoin, blockchain, Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Broken windows theory, carbon tax, Columbian Exchange, computer age, Corn Laws, cosmological constant, cotton gin, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of DNA, Donald Davies, double helix, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Eben Moglen, Edward Glaeser, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Edward Snowden, endogenous growth, epigenetics, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, facts on the ground, fail fast, falling living standards, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Gilder, George Santayana, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, Greenspan put, Gregor Mendel, Gunnar Myrdal, Henri Poincaré, Higgs boson, hydraulic fracturing, imperial preference, income per capita, indoor plumbing, information security, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Japanese asset price bubble, Jeff Bezos, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, knowledge economy, land reform, Lao Tzu, long peace, low interest rates, Lyft, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, mobile money, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Necker cube, obamacare, out of africa, packet switching, peer-to-peer, phenotype, Pierre-Simon Laplace, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit motive, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Feynman, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Satoshi Nakamoto, scientific management, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, smart contracts, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stuart Kauffman, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, twin studies, uber lyft, women in the workforce

How could they have made me waste all those years at school plodding through the tedious platitudes and pedestrian prose of Jesus Christ or Julius Caesar, when they could have been telling me about Lucretius instead, or as well? Even Virgil was writing partly in reaction to Lucretius, keen to re-establish respect for gods, rulers and top–down ideas in general. Lucretius’s notion of the ceaseless mutation of forms composed of indestructible substances – which the Spanish-born philosopher George Santayana called the greatest thought that mankind has ever hit upon – has been one of the persistent themes of my own writing. It is the central idea behind not just physics and chemistry, but evolution, ecology and economics too. Had the Christians not suppressed Lucretius, we would surely have discovered Darwinism centuries before we did.

(with Paul Paddock) 207 Page, Larry 188 Pagel, Mark 80, 81–2 Pakistan 32, 206 Paley, William 38–9, 41–2, 51 Panama 286 Paris 102, 121, 254 Park, Walter 139 Parris, Matthew 303 Parys Mine Company, Anglesey 278 Pascal, Blaise 273 Paul, Senator Rand 241 Paul, Ron 114, 285, 292, 295 Paul, St (Saul of Tarsus) 8, 258, 264 Pauling, Linus 121 Pax Romana 239 Peace High School, Hyderabad (India) 181 Peel, Robert 246, 283–4 Peer-to-Peer Foundation 308 Peninsular War 280 People’s Printing Press 288 personality: and the blank slate 156–7, 158–9; and genes 159, 160–2; and homicide 169–71; innateness of behaviour 157–8; intelligence from within 165–7; non-genetic differences 162–5; and parenting 159–60, 161–2; and sexual attraction 172–3; and sexuality 167–9 Peterloo massacre (1819) 245 Pfister, Christian 276 Philippe, duc d’Orléans 286 Philippines 190 Philips, Emo 140 Philostratus 258 Phoenicia 101 Pinker, Steven 28, 30, 31–3, 172–3; The Better Angels of Our Nature 28–9 Pinnacle Technologies 136 Pitt-Rivers, Augustus 127 Pixar 124 Planned Parenthood Foundation 204 Plath, Robert 126 Plato 7, 11 Plomin, Robert 165, 167 Poincaré, Henri 18, 121 Polanyi, Karl 133 Polanyi, Michael 253 politics 314–16 Poor Law (1834) 195 Pope, Alexander 15 Popper, Karl 253; ‘Conjectures and Refutations’ 269 Population: American eugenics 200–3; control and sterilisation 205–8; and eugenics 197–9; impact of Green Revolution 208–10; Irish application of Malthusian doctrines 195–7; Malthusian theory 193, 194–5; and one-child policy 210–14; post-war eugenics 203–5 Population Crisis Committee 206 Portugal, Portuguese 134 Pottinger, Sir Harry 233 ‘Primer for Development’ (UN, 1951) 232 Prince, Thomas 242 Pritchett, Lant 179–80; The Rebirth of Education 176 Procter & Gamble 130 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 194–5 Prussia 176 Psychological Review 159 Putin, Vladimir 305 ‘The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage’ (Henrich, Boyd & Richerson) 89 Pythagoras 85 Pythagorism 259 Qian XingZhong 213 Quesnay, François 98 Raines, Franklin 292 Ramsay, John 25 RAND Corporation 206, 300 Ravenholt, Reimert 206 Ray Smith, Alvy 124 Reagan, Ronald 254, 290 Red Sea 82 Reed, Leonard 43 Reformation 216, 220 religion: and climate change/global warming 271–6; and cult of cereology (crop circles) 264–6; existence of God 14–15; heretics and heresies 141–2; as human impulse 256–8; predictability of gods 259–60; and the prophet 260–3; temptations of superstition 266–8; variety of beliefs 257–8; vital delusions 268–71 Renaissance 220 Ricardo, David 104–5, 106, 246 Richardson, Samuel 88 Richerson, Pete 78, 89 Ridley, Matt, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves 110–11, 126–7 Rio de Janeiro 92 Roberts, Russ 4 Robinson, James 97–8 Rockefeller Foundation 229, 230–1 Rodriguez, Joã 47–8 Rodrik, Dani 228 Rome 257, 259, 260 Romer, Paul 109 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 251 Roosevelt, Theodore 197 Rothbard, Murray 243 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 165, 216 Rowling, J.K. 122 Royal Bank 281 Royal Mint 278, 279 Royal Navy 297 Royal United Services Institution 198 Rudin, Ernst 202 Rufer, Chris 226 Runciman, Garry, Very Different, But Much the Same 94 Rusk, Dean 206–7 Russell, Lord John 195 Russia 119, 204, 227–8, 250, 303 Russian Revolution 318 Sadow, Bernard 126 Safaricom 296 St Louis (ship) 202–3 St Maaz School, Hyderabad (India) 181 Salk Institute, California 67 San Marco, Venice 53 Sandia National Laboratory 136 Sanger, Margaret 201, 204 Santa Fe Institute 93, 126 Santayana, George 10 Sapienza, Carmen 67 Satoshi Nakamoto 307–8, 309–10, 312 Schiller, Friedrich 248 Schmidt, Albrecht 222 Schumpeter, Joseph 106, 128, 251; Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy 106–7; Theory of Economic Development 106 science: as driver of innovation 133–7; as private good 137–9; pseudo-science 269 Science (journal) 70 Scientology 263 Scopes, John 49 Scotland 17, 280–2, 286 Scott, Sir Peter 211 Scott, Sir Walter (‘Malachi Malagrowther’) 283 Second International Congress of Eugenics 200 Second World War 105, 138, 203, 231, 252, 254, 318 Self-Management Institute 226 Selgin, George 297; Good Money 279, 280 Shade, John 188 Shakespeare, William 15, 131, 216, 224 Shanker, Albert 180 Shaw, George Bernard 197 Shaw, Marilyn 155–6 Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein 16 Shelley, Percy 16 Shockley, William 119 Shogun Japanese 130 Sierra Club 204 Silk Road 311–12 Silvester, David 274 Simon, Julian 209 Singapore 190 Sistine Chapel, Rome 256 Skarbek, David, The Social Order of the Underworld 237–8 Skinner, B.F. 156, 267–8 Skirving, William 244 skyhooks 7, 13, 14, 18, 65, 67, 71, 150, 267 Slumdog Millionaire (film, 2008) 185 Smith, Adam 3, 20, 21, 22–7, 28, 33, 110, 112, 117, 234, 243, 244, 246, 249; The Theory of Moral Sentiments 23–4, 27, 28, 37–8, 98; The Wealth of Nations 24, 38, 98–100, 103–4, 137 Smith, John Maynard 53 Smith, Joseph 263, 264, 266 Smithism 110 Snowden, Edward 303 SOLE (self-organised learning environment) 186 Solow, Robert 108, 137 Somalia 32 Song, Chinese dynasty 101 Song Jian 210–11, 212–13 South America 247 South Korea 125, 190, 229 South Sea Bubble (1720) 285, 294 South Sudan 32 Soviet-Harvard illusion 3 Soviet Union 114, 122 Spain 101, 247 Sparkes, Matthew 313 Sparta 101 Spencer, Herbert 216–17, 249, 253 Spenser, Edmund 15 Spinoza, Baruch 20, 141–2, 148, 268; Ethics 142; l’Esprit des lois 142–3 Sputnik 138 Stalin, Joseph 250, 252, 253 Stalling, A.E. 10 Stanford University 184, 185 Stealth bomber 130 Steiner, George, Nostalgia for the Absolute 266 Steiner, Rudolf 271 Steinsberger, Nick 136 Stephenson, George 119 Stewart, Dugald 38, 244 Stiglitz, Joseph 292 Stockman, David 288, 289–90; The Great Deformation 294 stoicism 259 Stop Online Piracy Act (US, 2011) 304 Strawson, Galen 140 Stuart, Charles Edward ‘The Young Pretender’ 282 Stuart, James Edward ‘The Old Pretender’ 281 Sudan 32 Summers, Larry 110 Sunnis 262 Suomi, Stephen 161 Sveikauskas, Leo 139 Swan, Joseph 119 Sweden 101, 284 Switzerland 32, 190, 247, 254 Sybaris 93 Syria 32 Szabo, Nick 307, 310; ‘Shelling Out: The Origins of Money’ 307 Tabarrok, Alex 132; Launching the Innovation Renaissance 132 Taiwan 190 Tajikistan 305 Taleb, Nassim 3, 92, 107, 135, 285, 312 Tamerlane the Great 87 Taoism 259, 260 Taylor, Winslow 250 Taylorism 250, 251 Tea Act (UK, 1773) 282n Tea Party 246 technology: biological similarities 126–31; boat analogy 128; computers 123–5, 126; copying 132–3; electric light 1–2; and fracking 136; inexorable progress 122–6, 130–1; innovation as emergent phenomenon 139; and the internet 299–316; light bulbs 118–19, 120; many-to-many 300; mass-communication 200; open innovation 130; patents/copyright laws 131–2; and printing 220; and science 133–9; simultaneous discovery 120–2; skunk works 130; software 131 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) lecture 177 Thatcher, Margaret 217 Third International Congress of Eugenics 201–2, 204 Third World 231–2 Thrun, Sebastian 185 Time (magazine) 241 The Times 308 Togo 94 Tokyo 92 Tolstoy, Leo 217 Tooby, John 43 Tooley, James 181–4 Toy Story (film, 1995) 124 Trevelyan, Charles 195 Tuchman, Barbara, A Distant Mirror 29 Tucker, William 90; Marriage and Civilization 89 Tullock, Gordon 35 Turner, Ted 213 Twister (messaging system) 313 Twitter 310, 313 U-2 reconnaissance plane 130 Uber 109 UK Meteorological Office 275 UN Codex Alimentarius 254 UN Family Planning Agency 213 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 254–5 UN General Assembly 305 UNESCO 205 Union Bank of Scotland 281 United Nations 131, 213, 232, 305 United States 34, 122, 125, 138, 139, 176, 200–2, 232, 235–8, 245, 247, 250, 254, 284–5, 286, 302 United States Supreme Court 50 universe: anthropic principle 18–20; designed and planned 7–10; deterministic view 17–18; Lucretian heresy 10–12; Newton’s nudge 12–13; swerve 14–15 University of Czernowitz 106 University of Houston 71 University of Pennsylvania 133 UNIX 302 Urbain Le Verrier 120–1 US Bureau of Land Management 240 US Department of Education 240 US Department of Homeland Security 240, 241 US Federal Reserve 285, 286, 288, 293, 297, 309 US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission 294 US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 240 US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration 240 US Office of Management and Budget 290 Utah 89 Uzbekistan 305 Vancouver 92 Vanuatu 81 Vardanes, King 258 Veblen, Thorstein 249 Verdi, Giuseppe: Aida 248; Rigoletto 248 Veronica (search engine) 120 Versailles Treaty (1919) 318 Victoria, Queen 89 Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) 10, 23 vitalism 270–1 Vodafone 296 Vogt, William 205, 209; Road to Survival 204 Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet 14, 15, 20, 22, 25, 41, 143, 243, 268; Candide 15 Volvo 101 Wagner, Andreas 47 Wall Street Journal 125, 132 Wallace, Alfred Russell 20, 54–5, 196 Wallison, Peter 294 Walras, Léon 106 Waltham, David, Lucky Planet 19 Walwyn, Thomas 242 Wang Mang, Emperor 267 Wang Zhen 212 Wannsee conference 198 Wapinski, Norm 136 Washington, George 220, 222, 240 Washington Post 241 Watson, James 121, 145 Webb, Beatrice 197 Webb, Richard 5, 319 Webb, Sidney 197 Webcrawler 120 Wedgwood family 38 Wedgwood, Josiah 199 Weismann, August 55 Wells, H.G. 197, 251 West, Edwin 178; Education and the State 177 West, Geoffrey 93 West Indies 134, 286 Whitney, Eli 128 Whittle, Frank 119 Whole Foods 227 Wikipedia 188, 304–5 Wilby, Peter 315 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 198, 247 Wilkins, Maurice 121 Wilkinson, John 278–9 Willeys 278–9, 280 Williams, Thomas 278 Williamson, Kevin 33; The End is Near and it’s Going to be Awesome 238–9 Wilson, Catherine 12 Wilson, Margo 171 Wolf, Alison, Does Education Matter?


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When Einstein Walked With Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought by Jim Holt

Ada Lovelace, Albert Einstein, Andrew Wiles, anthropic principle, anti-communist, Arthur Eddington, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bletchley Park, Brownian motion, cellular automata, Charles Babbage, classic study, computer age, CRISPR, dark matter, David Brooks, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Eddington experiment, Edmond Halley, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Fellow of the Royal Society, four colour theorem, Georg Cantor, George Santayana, Gregor Mendel, haute couture, heat death of the universe, Henri Poincaré, Higgs boson, inventory management, Isaac Newton, Jacquard loom, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Large Hadron Collider, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Bachelier, luminiferous ether, Mahatma Gandhi, mandelbrot fractal, Monty Hall problem, Murray Gell-Mann, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Norbert Wiener, Norman Macrae, Paradox of Choice, Paul Erdős, Peter Singer: altruism, Plato's cave, power law, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, quantum entanglement, random walk, Richard Feynman, Robert Solow, Schrödinger's Cat, scientific worldview, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, selection bias, Skype, stakhanovite, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Thorstein Veblen, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, union organizing, Vilfredo Pareto, Von Neumann architecture, wage slave

Cultivating indifference to death is not only philosophically unsound. It can be morally dangerous. If my own death is nothing, then why get worked up over the deaths of others? The barrenness of the Epicurean attitude—enjoy life from moment to moment and don’t worry about death—is epitomized by George Santayana, one of Critchley’s exemplary dead philosophers. After resigning from Harvard, Santayana lived in Rome, where he was discovered by American soldiers after the liberation of Italy in 1944. Asked his opinion of the war by a journalist from Life magazine, Santayana fatuously replied, “I know nothing; I live in the Eternal.”

Rampal, Jean-Pierre Raphael rationalism Rawls, John Reagan, Ronald reference: new theory of; self– regression Reign of Terror Reimann surfaces relativism relativity; experiments confirming; Gödel on; publication of papers on; quantum physics and; space-time in; thought experiment on Renaissance Revue du Mois Rhodes, Colossus of Richard, Mark Riemann, Bernhard Riemann zeta conjecture rigid designation Rimbaud, Arthur Rites of Love and Math (film) Robertson, Pat Robinson, Abraham Rockefeller University Roko’s basilisk Roman Catholic Church Rorty, Richard Rosen, Nathan Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Royal Geographical Society Royal Society Rucker, Rudy Ruse, Michael Russell, Bertrand; atheism of; autobiography of; on the infinitesimal; proper-names theory of Russian Academy of Sciences Russian Revolution Rutgers University Saddam Hussein Sagan, Carl Santayana, George Savant, Marilyn vos Scepticism, Rules, and Language (Hacker and Gordon) Schindler, Oskar Schopenhauer, Arthur Schrödinger, Erwin Schwartz, Stephen Schweitzer, Albert Scientific American scientific revolution Searle, John Secrist, Horace self-similarity set theory Seurat, Georges Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Shakespeare, William Shallows, The (Carr) Shapin, Steven Shaw, George Bernard Shelley, Mary Shevardnadze, Eduard Shirky, Clay shock waves, mathematics of Shultz, George simultaneity/simultaneous actions Singer, Peter Skewes number Slade, Henry Small, Gary Smith, Adam Smith, Quentin Smith, Sydney Smolin, Lee Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (film) Soames, Scott Sociological Society Social Text Socrates Sokal, Alan Solomon, Robert Solow, Robert Solti, Georg Somerville, Mary Sophia Charlotte, Queen of Prussia Sorbonne space-time spatial relations, theory of Spanish Civil War Spinoza, Baruch spiritualism spirituality “spooky action” SS Stalin, Joseph Stanford University Star Trek (television and movie series) statistics; eugenics and Statistics on the Table (Stigler) Stein, Dorothy Stein, Gertrude Stevenson, Adlai Stewart, Ian Stigler, Stephen M.


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Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World by Timothy Garton Ash

"World Economic Forum" Davos, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Aaron Swartz, activist lawyer, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Andrew Keen, Apple II, Ayatollah Khomeini, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, British Empire, Cass Sunstein, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Citizen Lab, Clapham omnibus, colonial rule, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, digital divide, digital rights, don't be evil, Donald Davies, Douglas Engelbart, dual-use technology, Edward Snowden, Etonian, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, Filter Bubble, financial independence, Firefox, Galaxy Zoo, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, index card, Internet Archive, invention of movable type, invention of writing, Jaron Lanier, jimmy wales, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Julian Assange, Laura Poitras, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Mary Meeker, mass immigration, megacity, mutually assured destruction, national security letter, Nelson Mandela, Netflix Prize, Nicholas Carr, obamacare, Open Library, Parler "social media", Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, power law, pre–internet, profit motive, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, semantic web, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Simon Singh, Snapchat, social graph, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Streisand effect, technological determinism, TED Talk, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tipper Gore, trolley problem, Turing test, We are Anonymous. We are Legion, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey, Yochai Benkler, Yom Kippur War, yottabyte

There is something odd about the fact that it was the institutions of post-1945 European integration, such as the European Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice, which were in the forefront of demanding a ‘right to be forgotten’. For the leitmotif of post-1945 Europe was ‘never forget!’ Never forget the horrors of the Holocaust, Gulag, multiple wars, occupations and dictatorships. I have lost count of the times I have heard European and especially German politicians repeat George Santayana’s line that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.89 This ‘never forget!’ was itself a departure from a centuries-old European tradition of dealing with a difficult past by consigning it to oblivion. Just two days after the murder of Caesar, Cicero declared in the Roman Senate that all memory of the murderous discord should be consigned to eternal oblivion: oblivione sempiterna delendam.

Sajó, András, ed. 2007: Censorial Sensitivities: Free Speech and Religion in a Fundamentalist World. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Eleven International. Sambrook, Richard. 2012: Delivering Trust: Impartiality and Objectivity in the Digital Age. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Santayana, George. 1980 [1905]: Reason in Common Sense. New York: Dover. Sassen, Saskia. 2001: The Global City. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Saviano, Roberto. 2007: Gomorrah. Translated by Virginia Jewiss. London: Pan. Scammell, Michael. 1981: ‘How Index on Censorship Started’. Index on Censorship, vol. 10, no. 6, 6–71. doi: 10.1080/03064228108533275.

See also Soviet Union Russian language, 76, 210 Rwanda, 94, 135, 136–37, 149, 233 Saatchi, Charles, 298–99 Sacks, Jonathan, 210 Sacranie, Iqbal, 226 Saddam Hussein, 285, 326, 328–29, 344 Sadek, Morris, 64, 66 Sagar, Rahul, 341 Said, Khaled, 315 samizdat, 56, 183–84 Sanger, Larry, 170–71 Santayana, George, 304 Sarrazin, Thilo, 213, 217, 231 satirical journals/programmes, 188, 204 Saudi Arabia, 27, 67, 87, 276, 278–80, 362, 374 Saviano, Roberto, 141–42 Say, Fazil, 278 Scanlon, Thomas, 74–75, 209, 282 Schauer, Frederick, 88 Schiller, Friedrich, 251 Schlink, Bernhard, 213 Schmidt, Eric, 47, 284, 307 Schmitt, Carl, 323 Schneier, Bruce, 284 schools: open debate in, 231–33; religious education in, 271 Schrems, Max, 310, 312 Schudson, Michael, 181, 202 Scientology, Church of, 228, 260 Scott, A.


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The Unpersuadables: Adventures With the Enemies of Science by Will Storr

Albert Einstein, Atul Gawande, battle of ideas, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bread and circuses, British Empire, call centre, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, Credit Default Swap, David Attenborough, David Brooks, death of newspapers, full employment, George Santayana, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jon Ronson, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, placebo effect, randomized controlled trial, Simon Singh, Stanford prison experiment, Steven Pinker, sugar pill, the scientific method, theory of mind, twin studies

The education was very much that you are going to be the rulers of the world and the masters of the universe and, therefore, you need to know how to do it. But in order to do it, you had to understand the people who were going to be in your care. That’s how it was – they weren’t your servants. I mean, if you go back to the philosopher George Santayana, he said, “The world never had sweeter masters,” and that’s probably true, because we weren’t really conscious of being masters. We weren’t there to grind folk under our heel.’ Sadly, for the millions of recipients of Britain’s gentle colonial care, not everyone had the discernments that were bred into the schoolboy rulers of Harrow.

Holman Foundation 118 chemotherapy 35, 93 Chibnall, Albert 256, 257 chick-sexers 186–87 childhood abuse 165–72, 173–75, 176–78, 179 sexual 145, 146, 156–57, 162, 180 children 75 China 83 Christ Church, Oxford 200, 201 Christians 4, 6, 7, 133, 134 condemnation of homosexuality 14–15, 18 morality 15–16, 122 see also creationists Churchill, Winston 208, 235, 249, 250 Clancy, Susan 50 climate-change sceptics 200, 203–204, 216 Clinic for Dissociative Studies 171 Clinton, Hilary 118 Coan, Chris 166–67 Coan, Jim 166–67 cochlear implants 78 cognitive bias 85, 87–88, 90–91, 103–104, 111, 183, 186, 244, 272 see also confirmation bias cognitive dissonance 84–87, 96, 102, 181 coin toss tests 262 Colapinto, John 312 cold war 149, 212, 215 Coleman, Ron 136–37, 141, 146, 148, 157, 162, 186, 306 colour, perception of 80 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) 275 Communists 212, 222, 249–50 con artists 107 concentration camps 220–21, 224, 230, 245 confabulation 189–90, 192–96, 203, 207, 218, 253, 307, 315 confirmation bias 85, 87, 96, 181, 182, 188, 221, 243, 246, 312 consciousness 267–68 as Hero-Maker 306 conviction, unconscious 33 Conway, Martin 201 Cooper, Alice 275 Copenhagen Climate Conference 204 Copenhagen Treaty 2009 216 core beliefs 183 cows, sacred 40 Creation Research 5 Creation Science Foundation 12 creationists 2–10, 13–19, 20, 26, 30, 100, 162, 261, 308, 310 Crick, Francis 258, 268 CSICOP see Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal culture, power of 211, 302 ‘culture heroes’ 311 ‘culture wars’ 30, 309 Daily Mail (newspaper) 225, 228, 232 Daily Telegraph (newspaper) 243–44, 263 Dali, Salvador 275 Darwin, Charles 2, 10, 11, 94 Davenas, Elisabeth 110–11 Dawkins, Richard 2, 6, 10, 19, 94, 142, 259, 261, 271, 272, 287, 290, 308 DDT 211 de-individuation 69 deafness 78, 82 decision-making 181, 267 and emotion 184–85, 189 dehumanization 69–70 delusions 103–104, 130, 178–79, 182, 272 finding evidence for 135 and Morgellons 120 of parasitosis (DOP) 120, 122, 124, 125, 129, 162 democracy, end of 216 Demon-Marker function 308–309 depression 33, 43, 45, 128, 141, 148 Dermatologic Therapy (journal) 128 development factors 183 Devil, Australia see Gympie Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 143, 144 dialogue-ing 149, 151–52 Diana, Princess of Wales 286 diazepam (Valium) 42 dinosaurs 13, 19 Dog World (magazine) 293–94 dogma 106–107, 258 domestic abusers 89 DOP (delusions of parasitosis) 120, 122, 124, 125, 129, 162 dopamine 155, 196 doubt 133, 257 sensitivity to 261 dragons 13 dreaming 193, 195 lucid 76 drunkenness, cultural determinants of 83–84 DSM see Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Eagleman, David 74, 79, 80, 185, 186, 192, 193, 268–69 eccentricity 310 Economist, The (weekly publications) 312 Eden 14 Eden, Anthony 208 Edward V111 208 ‘effectance motive’ 184 ego 224 dream 195 ego-bolstering, unconscious 96, 103, 181 egoists 88, 196 Eichmann, Adolf 245 Einstein, Albert 201, 285 Eliade, Mircea 302 emotions 183, 184–85, 187, 194, 305 and beliefs 188, 189, 196–97 culturally unique 83 and decision-making 184, 185, 187 see also anger; happiness energy clean 25 Enfield Gazette (newspaper) 280 Enfield Poltergeist case 280 Enlightenment 255 envy 218 epinephrine 189–90 Epley, Nicholas 88 escapology 273–74 ESP see extrasensory perception Ethics Committee of the Federal Australian Medical Association 39 European Union (EU) 212 European Union Parliament House 234 Evans, Dylan 83 Evans, Richard 224 Eve 5, 12 Eve, Mitochondrial 73 Everett, Daniel 312 evidence, denial of 221, 261 evil psychology of 69–70, 307–308 ‘supremely good’ motivations for 89 evolution 73 arguments against 2–7, 10–13 arguments for 19–20, 100–101 experimental psychology 88, 101, 142, 316 extrasensory perception (ESP) 255, 266, 274, 294 alien 24 sense of ‘being stared at’ 254–55, 258, 262 facts and belief 183 inefficiency 26 fairies 83 faith, as journey 21, 134 false memories 156, 165–70, 173–74, 178, 194 familiar, the, attraction to 183 ‘fan death’ 83 Fate magazine 281 fear 203, 205, 206 Feinberg, Todd E. 82 Felstead, Anthony 160, 164 Felstead, David 159–60, 164, 171, 175, 176 Felstead, Joan 164 Felstead, Joseph 160, 161, 164, 165 Felstead, Kevin 160, 161, 164 Felstead, Richard 159–160, 164, 176–77 Felstead family 163, 165, 166, 168, 170, 176 Festinger, Leon 85, 188 Financial Service Act 214 First World War 231 Fisher, Fleur 161, 163, 165, 166, 176, 307 Flim Flam (Randi, 1982) 271, 279, 288, 295 Flood, biblical 14 fMRI see Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging foetal development 74 fossil record 10, 13–14, 19, 101 Fourth Annual Morgellons Conference 121–28 Fox, Kate 84 Franklin, Wilbur 282, 293 free will 193, 217, 307 as confabulation 193 French Assembly 204 French, Chris 50, 104, 108, 169, 173, 288, 315 French Revolution 204 Freud, Sigmund 171, 302 Frith, Chris 70, 77, 206, 315 Fromyhr, Liam 13 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) 71 fundamentalists 261 Garvey, James 203, 218 Gates, Bill 212 Gazzaniga, Michael 184, 190–92 Geertz, Clifford 75 Geller, Uri 99, 275, 280, 281, 287, 288, 290, 293 genes 221 genetic factors 205 and beliefs 221 and political attitude 205 and schizophrenia 145, 154 genome 205, 206 Genus Epidemicus 115 George, St, and the dragon 13 ghost-hunters 21 ghosts 104 Gilovich, Thomas 86 Gindis, Alec 277, 278 global financial crisis 213 global governance 216–217 global warming 203 gnomes 83 God 17, 202, 305 Catholic interpretations of 21 and creation 3, 4, 5–6, 10 creation of 26 Darwin’s arguments against the existence of 11 deference to 18 existence of as scientifically testable 11 knowableness of 11, 22 and morality 15 see also anti-God rhetoric Goebbels, Joseph 230, 232, 239, 245 Goenka, S.N. 57, 60, 61–63, 306 Goldacre, Ben 97 Göring, Hermann 232 Gottschall, Martin 25–26 Gottschall, Sheryl 26 governance, models of 217 Gray, Honourable Mr Justice 221, 223 Gray, John 81 Great Rift Valley 74 ‘greys’ (aliens) 23, 33 group psychology 69, 88, 197 conformity to group pressure 70, 72 and the production of evil 70 Guardian (newspaper) 6 Gururumba tribe 83 Gympie, Australia 2–7, 10, 14, 16, 22, 33–53 gympie-gympie tree 2, 19 Hahnemann, Samuel 96, 115 Haidt, Honathan 83, 184, 193, 194–95, 205, 216–17, 315 Hale, Rob 172 hallucinations 82 auditory 137, 139, 141, 144, 145 see also voice-hearing visual 152 halo effect 84 Ham, Ken 12 happiness, and religious belief 197 ‘hard problem, the’ 267 Harrow 209 Harvard University 28–29, 30, 50, 285 Hawthorne Effect 107 hearing, sense of 262 Hearing Voices Network (HVN) 137, 140–41, 154, 162 Hebard, Arthur 279, 280, 295 Hebb, Donald 266 herbal remedies 36 Hercules 302 hero, the, how your memory rebuilds you as 194, 231 hero narratives 302–303, 306–309, 311–13 parasite 307, 312 Hero-Maker 306–307, 310–311, 312, 314 Heydrich, Reinhard 245 Himmler, Heinrich 235 Himmler bunker 236, 245 Hitler, Adolf 228, 231, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244, 246, 247, 248, 151–52 Hitler Youth 204 Hitler’s bunker 238 HIV 207 see also AIDS HMS Edinburgh (ship) 231 Hoefkens, Gemma 92–95, 96–97, 115–16, 141, 142, 181, 310 Holocaust denial 155, 221, 226, 229–30, 243, 244 Homeopathic Research Institute 109 homeopathy 94–102, 105–107, 109–121, 134, 181, 269, 277, 278 evidence for 106–114, 121, 134, 269 ‘overdose’ protest against 96, 99, 105, 108–109 ‘radionic’ method 115 Homerton Hospital 132 hominins 74 Homo sapiens 73 homophobia 188 homosexuality 137 Christian condemnation of 14–15, 18 Horsey, Richard 186 Horst Wessel Song (Nazi Party anthem) 239 House of Commons Science and Technology Committee 94 Hrab, George 108 Hume, David 203 Humphrey, Nicholas 43 Huntington’s disease testing 197 HVN see Hearing Voices Network hypnotherapy and false memory generation 166 and past-life regression 44–45, 47 hypnotism 189 ‘I’, sense of 194, 196, 258 IBS seeirritable bowel syndrome Iceland 83 identity 203 ideology 272 Illuminati 286–87, 288, 304 imitation 206 immigration 206, 223 Mexican 223 in-groups 84, 133 incest 168 information field 257, 266 INSERM 200 110 intelligence, and cognitive bias 224 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 216 International Academy of Classical Homeopathy 277 Internet 112 intuition 187, 216, 238 irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) 43 Irving, David 269, 307, 308, 209, 333–335, 344, 345 Irving, John 219, 221, 238, 244 Irving, Nicholas 243 itch disorders 117–119 see also Morgellons Jackson, Peter 312 James, William 106 James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) 99, 260, 275, 276, 290, 294 jealousy, sexual 64, 66, 104 Jesus 142 knowableness of 11 Jewish Chronicle (newspaper) 230 Jews 221, 230, 231, 244–51, 253, 309 see also Holocaust denial Josefstadt Prison, Vienna 220 Journal of the American Medical Association 41 Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 113–114 Journal of Philosophical Studies 182 JREF see James Randi Educational Foundation Jutland, Battle of 231 Kahneman, Daniel 184, 303 Kaku, Michio 27 Kaptchuk, Ted 43 Keegan, Sir John 243–44 Keen, Montague 284 Keen, Veronica 283–88, 304 Kerry, John 87 KGB 212, 215 Kilstein, Vered 44–51, 53, 168, 305–306 King’s Cross station 136 ‘koro’ 83 Krepel, Scott 78 Krippner, Stanley 288–89, 295 Krupp 233 Kuhn, Deanna 86 Los Angeles LA Times (newspaper) 118 LaBerge, Stephen 76, 195 Labour Party 210 Lancet (journal) 109, 113 Langham, Chris 171 Lawrence, Stephen 236 Lebanese people 223 left, political 204–207, 211, 215 Leitao, Mary 118 Leitao’s Morgellons Research Foundation 118 Lemoine, Patrick 42 Lennon, John 49 Letwin, Oliver 214 Leuchter, Fred 229 Leviticus 14 Lewis, Andy 109, 114 Lipstadt, Deborah 221, 224, 243, 246, 309 Literary and Scientific Institutions Act 1854 210 Lo, Nathan 19–20, 22, 30, 100, 308 Loftus, Elizabeth 166, 173 love 44, 59 memories of 63, 133 Lucifer 4 see also Satan McCain, John 118 McCullock, Kay 23–25 McDonald’s 67–68, 84 Mack, John E. 28–30, 51, 102–103, 142, 145, 272, 284–85 Mackay, Glennys 22–23, 30, 33 Mackay, John 1, 4–6, 1–11, 15–20, 30, 33, 53, 91, 100, 109, 182, 305, 306, 308 MacLeish, Eric 29 Maddox, Sir John 271, 287 magic-makers 7 magnetometers 279 Majdanek concentration camp 224, 230 Mameli, Matteo 182 manic depression 141 Mann, Nick 130–31, 134, 162 Marianna, Dame of Malta 208 Marshall, Michael ‘Marsh’ 105–109 Marxists 210 ‘matchbox sign’ 124 materialism 256, 257–58, 259, 260–1, 266, 268–69 May, Rufus 148–49, 156, 182, 196, 304 meditation, Buddhist 52–53, 62, 182, 196 Meffert, Jeffrey 120 Mein Kampf (Hitler) 232, 233, 242 memory autobiographical 194 fallibility of 201 see also false memories; recovered- memory therapy mental illness 137, 141, 146, 147, 165 as continuum 147 depression 33, 42–43, 45, 89, 100, 120, 148, 197 manic depression 141 multiple personality disorder 165, 171, 173–74 obsessive compulsive disorder 128 sectioning 137, 140, 161 see also psychosis; schizophrenia mental models 76, 85, 87, 90, 102, 133, 142, 147, 183, 302, 303, 316 meta-analysis 112, 146, 157, 262, 267 Metzinger, Thomas 195 Mexican immigration 223 micro-stories 206 Milgram, Stanley 70–71 mind and the brain 255, 257–58, 266–67 as ‘out there’ 267 theory of 303 miners’ strike (mid-1980s) 212, 214–15 Mitchell, Joni 118 mites, tropical rat 132, 135 ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ 73 Moll, Albert 189 Monckton, Christopher Walter, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley 200, 203–205, 207–16, 218, 304, 305, 309, 310 Monckton, Major General Gilbert, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley 208 morality 193, 202 Christian 15 Morgellons 118–35, 162, 307 see also Fourth Annual Morgellons Conference, Austin, Texas morphine 41 Mosley, Sir Oswald 232 Mragowo 233 multiple personality disorder 165, 171, 173–74 murder, past-life 44, 48 murderers 89 Murray, Robin 183 Myers (formerly Felstead), Carole 159–61, 163–66, 168, 171–73, 176–80, 307 myoclonic jerk 195 myth 302, 304, 312–313 narratives hero 302–303, 306–14 master 206 nation state, end of 216 National Front 234, 305 National Health Service (NHS) 94, 148, 171 National Secular Society 5 National Union of Teachers 5 Native Americal tradition 186 Natural History Museum 132 natural selection 10 Nature (journal) 110–11, 257, 271, 287, 304 Nazi Party (German) 220, 239 Nazis 48, 89, 231, 239 Neanderthals 26 necrophilia 12, 18 neurological studies 87 neurons 74–75, 220, 253, 267 neuroscience 142 New Guinea 83 New Science of Life, A (Sheldrake) 256–57 New Scientist (journal) 257–266 New York Times (newspaper) 72, 120, 271, 272 New Yorker (magazine) 268, 312 Nix, Walte, Jr. 68 Noah 3, 5, 13, 14 Novella, Steven 107, 112, 120, 135, 272, 287, 309 Oaklander, Anne Louise 129–130 Oatley, Keith 303 Obama, Barack 118, 286 obedience studies 84 Observer (newspaper) 222, 257 obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) 128, 147 Oedipus 302 Offer, Daniel 194 Ogborn, Louise 67–68, 70, 84 Olsen, Clarence W. 82 openness 205 Origin of Species, The (Darwin) 2, 4 original sin 3 Orkney 166 ‘other people’, judgement of 67 out-groups 69, 105 Oxford Union 203, 207, 218 paedophilia 15 pain perception of 41 and the placebo effect 41, 42–43 palm reading 105 paranoia 30, 64, 150, 154, 178, 180 parapsychology 261–62, 265–67, 269, 279, 280, 287 past-life regression (PLR) 44–45, 47, 53, 168, 170 Patanjali Yog Peeth Trust 31 Paul McKenna Show, The (TV show) 263 Pearson, Michele 119 penis ‘koro’ effect 83 phantom 82 Penn and Teller 271, 290 perception and the brain 72, 76 of pain 41 and the placebo effect 41, 42, 43 of reality 27, 72, 76–77, 80, 81 see also extra-sensory perception peripeteia 303 Perkins, David 244 personality disorder 165 see also multiple personality disorder pesticides 211 Peter March’s Traveling Circus 274 Peters, Maarten 50 ‘phantom limbs’ 82 ‘Pagasus’ awards 260, 276, 288 Pirahã tribe 312 placebo effect 41–43, 45–46, 50–51, 53, 72, 107, 113, 134 and homeopathy 107, 113, 134 Playfair, Guy Lyon 280–82, 287, 293 political affiliation 205 political beliefs, and self-interest 217 political left 204, 206, 210, 211 political right 204, 205 Polonia Palace Hotel, Warsaw 219 poltergeists 280 Popoff, Peter 288 power, leftwing 211–12 Power, Joe 105, 106 ‘Pranayama’ (breath control) 32–36, 38, 40, 41, 45, 56, 134, 196 prefrontal cortex 73 prejudice 29, 53, 84, 86, 90, 100, 181, 248, 305 Pressman, Zev 280–82, 286, 288, 295 prophets 307 Prozac 42 psi phenomena 265–66 see also parapsychology psychiatry 28–29, 42, 71, 120, 130, 136, 137, 140–41, 142–43, 145–46, 150, 152, 162, 183, 189 psychic powers 253 animals with 258, 260, 261, 265, 266 testing 253, 258, 260, 263, 274, 279–80 psychics 98, 104 psychology of evil 69–70, 105, 243, 307 experimental 88, 101, 142, 316 parapsychology 261–62, 265, 266, 267, 269, 280, 287 situational 69 see also schizophrenia 157, 180, 310 Puthoff, Harold 279, 280 racism 104, 221, 223, 229, 305 radiotherapy 35, 401 Ramachandran, V.S. 75, 81, 82 Ramdev, Swami 31–41, 43, 134, 182, 306 Randi, Angela 291 Randi, James 98–99, 107, 108, 109–110, 112, 260–61, 269, 270, 271–98, 306, 309, 310, 312, 313 blindness to his own cognitive biases 272 childhood 273 death threats 275, 306 early adult life 274 emotional problems 292 homosexuality 292 interview with the author 291–98 psychic challenge prize 99, 260, 272, 276, 277, 278, 289 social Darwinism 296, 297 views on drug users 296–97 see also James Randi Educational Foundation Rank, Otto 302 Rasputin study 88, 103 rationalists, radicalised 9 reality, perceptions of 27, 72, 76–77, 80, 81, 91 ‘reality monitoring’, errors in 50 reason 26 inefficacy of 26–27 as not enough 309 recovered-memory therapy (RMT) 166, 170, 173, 176 Rees, Laurence 311 ‘regression to the mean’ 45 religious belief, and happiness 197 religious conversion mechanisms of 8 repression 169 right, political 204–207 Robertson, Shorty Jangala 300 robots, alien 23, 33 Rogo, Scott 279 Romme, Marius 137, 140, 143–45, 148, 154, 155 Rosenbaum, Ron 245 Royal College of Psychiatry 154 Royal Free Hospital, Camden 136, 139 Royal Institute of Philosophy 203 Royal Society 5 saccades 79 sacredness, irrationality surrounding 217 Sagan, Carl 266 Santayana, George 209 Satan 18 see also Lucifer santanic abuse 165–66, 168–70, 174–75, 177, 180 Saucer Smear magazine 281 Savely, Ginger 126, 127, 130 Schizophrenia 51, 136–37, 140, 141, 143, 145, 148, 150, 154, 162, 169, 178, 183, 309 as salience disorder 183 Schlitz, Marilyn 262 Schmidt, Stefan 262, 265 Schwartz, Gary 287, 188–89 science 8–9, 95–96, 255–59, 268, 273, 310 scientific method 305 Scientologists 155 sectioning 137, 140 Secular Student Alliance 290 Seeman, Mary 120 Segal, Stanley S. 172 self ideal 148, 313 multiple selves model 147 senses 77–91, 190, 196, 258 sensory deprivation 78 sexism, unconscious 86 sexual abuse 145, 146, 156–57, 162, 180 sexual assault 145–46 sexual jeaoulsy 64, 66, 104, 212 Shang, Aijing 112, 113–14 Sheldrake, Rupert 255–61, 262–70, 272–73, 276–77, 287, 289, 293–94, 307 Shermer, Michael 102 Silent Spring, The (Carson) 211 sin 17–18, 61, 66, 189 original 2 Sinason, David 171, 175, 179 Sinason, Valerie 170, 171, 178, 180, 304 Singer, Peter 304 situational psychology 69 Skeptic, The (magazine) 104, 108, 169, 271, 288 Skeptics 9, 95–112, 115, 120–21, 134, 142, 162, 260, 265, 271–73, 276–79, 290–91, 298, 309–310, 313–14 and Morgellons 134 and psi phenomenon 265–66, 279 and Sheldrake 260 ‘The Amazing Meeting’ of 290 see also Randi, James sleep 195 smell, sense of 184 Smith, Greg 122, 124, 130, 131 social Darwinism 296, 297 social roles, and the production of evil 69–70, 105 socialism 212 Sorel, George 304 ‘source-monitoring error’ 50 South Koreans 83 Soviet Union 212 sprinal tumours 129 spirituality 26 ‘split-brain’ patients 190–92 spoon-benders 98 spotlight effect 89 Stalin, Joseph 234 Stanford Prison Experiment 69–70 Stern Review 310 Stipe, Catherine 6 storytelling 183, 188, 189, 192, 194, 302, 206, 207, 312 see also confabulation; narratives ‘strip-search scams’ 68–69, 84 stroke patients 82 suicidal ideation 147 suicide 144 and voice-hearing 151, 154 Summers, Donna 67 survival of the fittest 3, 296–97 taboo violation scenarios, harmless 194 Targ, Russel 279, 280 Tavris, Carol 84, 88, 194, 243 Tea Party movement 204204 telepathy 257–59, 266, 269, 280 terrorism 9 Thatcher, Margaret 174, 204, 208, 212, 215 theft 66, 104 theory of mind 303 therapy 45, 169 group 133 placebo effect 45 This American Life (US radio show) 78 Thyssen 233 Time magazine 102 Times, The (newspaper) 263 ‘tjukurpas’ (Aboriginal stories) 275 Toronto Evening Telegram (newspaper) 274 Toronto Star (newspaper) 293 totalitarianism 216 Tournier, Alexander 109, 112, 113 traumatic experience repression 166 and voice-hearing 137, 139–41, 143–45, 148–49, 150–58 tribalism 84–85, 133, 171, 196, 217 truth 218 coherence theory of 218 and group pressure 44–45 and storytelling 312–13 Turing, Alan 266 Turner, Trevor 154–57, 162, 169, 178 twin studies 205 UFOs 22–27, 29–30, 272, 308 UK Independence Party (UKIP) 204 Ullman, Dana 107, 112, 309 Ultimate Psychic Challenges, The (TV Show) 284 unconscious 33, 44, 58–59, 60, 41–42, 183–88, 194, 269–70, 304 United Nations (UN) 216, 304 US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology 119 Vipassana Meditation Centre 52–53, 55, 57, 70 vision 79–80, 92–93, 96 Vithoulkas, George 99, 277–79, 295–96 voice-hearing 136–45, 148–59, 162, 169, 180 Wade, Kimberly 168–69 Warren, Jeff 76 Washington Post (newspaper) 120, 328, 344 water dreaming 300 Watson, Rebecca 107 ‘we mode’ 70 Wegner, Daniel 193, 331 welfare state 209–10 Western, Drew 87, 204, 206–7 Western medicine, disillusionment with 36, 39–40, 182, 306 Wexler, Bruce E. 75, 183, 185, 303 ‘wild pig, being a’ 83 Wilson, David Sloan 304 Wilson, Timothy D. 81 Wired (magazine) 271 Wiseman, Richard 259–66, 271–72, 287, 290, 335–37 Wolpert, Lewis 183–84, 189, 259, 313 Wootton, David 42 wormholes 27 Wymore, Randy 121–22, 124, 126, 128 yoga 31–39 Yuendumu 299–300 Zimbardo, Philip 68–70, 72, 104 WILL STORR is a novelist and longform journalist.


pages: 643 words: 131,673

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Anton Chekhov, Brownian motion, butterfly effect, Douglas Hofstadter, Easter island, George Santayana, germ theory of disease, GPS: selective availability, Great Leap Forward, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, income inequality, invention of radio, invention of the telegraph, invention of writing, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, Mahatma Gandhi, megastructure, minimum viable product, moveable type in China, placebo effect, safety bicycle, sugar pill, the scientific method, time dilation, trade route, wikimedia commons, zoonotic diseases

I’m thrilled to share, for the first time, a complete and unabridged copy of what was originally titled The Time Traveler’s Handbook: How to Repair Your FC3000™ Time Machine, and Then How to Reinvent Civilization from Scratch When That Doesn’t Work. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana, philosopher, essayist, and poet 1905 CE Those who cannot remember the past are cordially invited to revisit it. —Jessica Bennett, CEO of Chronotix Solutions, proud manufacturers of the FC3000™ 2043 CE INTRODUCTION Congratulations on your rental of the FC3000™! The FC3000™ is a state-of-the-art personal time machine that allows you to experience the entire range of human endeavor, from the earliest chimpanzee-human divergence (in 12,100,000 BCE, the backward limit of this rental unless you have purchased the Protoprimate Encounter Pak) to the latest mass-market portable music players (present day).

See also aspirin salt chemical structure of, 309 iodized, 150 -N-Pepa, 340, 344 for preserving foods, 136–37 production of, 146–50 in soap, 218 salt bridge, 196n salted meats, 136–37 salt lick, 148 saltpeter. See potassium nitrate saltwater, 124, 124n, 148–49 sand, 172 sandpaper, 173, 173n Santayana, George, ix saponification, 216–17 School of Athens, The, 317, 318f scientific method, 11t, 30–34, 32f screw press, 254–55, 255n screws, 254n scythe, 131 Sebald, W. G., 116 seed drill, 134 selective breeding of animals, 83 of fruits and vegetables, 55, 55f process of, 46–47, 46t–47t of yeast, 141–42, 142n semiconductors, 279 semi-domesticated, 88 Semmelweis, Ignaz, 219n Serenade No 13, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” 353–54 sexually transmitted infections, 232 shaft, 177 sharps (music), 348, 350 sheep, 99–100 ships, timekeeping on, 273 Sikorsky, Igor, 288 silica, 172 silk, 77–78, 225n silkworms, 100, 225n silphium, 230–31 silver in batteries, 194–95, 196n mining, 158n sine, 396, 396n, 397t–98t single-screw propeller, 287, 288f skins, tanning, 222–25 sky lanterns, 291 slag, 243n slaked lime.


pages: 669 words: 226,737

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics by Christopher Lasch

affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Alvin Toffler, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, British Empire, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, company town, complexity theory, delayed gratification, desegregation, disinformation, equal pay for equal work, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Future Shock, gentrification, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, informal economy, invisible hand, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, mass immigration, means of production, military-industrial complex, Norman Mailer, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, planned obsolescence, post-industrial society, Post-Keynesian economics, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, school vouchers, scientific management, scientific worldview, sexual politics, the market place, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, urban renewal, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, War on Poverty, work culture , young professional

His example made it possible for Americans to begin to re-create some of the "happy excitement of European thought" simply by overcoming their obsession with its superiority. This analysis of the derivative and "colonial" character of American literature no doubt had salutary effects, but the concerns behind it distorted Brooks's view of cultural history. His preoccupation with the "genteel tradition," as George Santayana called it, made it impossible for him to see any value in the tradition of radical Protestantism exemplified by Edwards, Emerson, and William James or to recognize the kinship between his predecessors' concerns and some of his own. They were just as impatient as he was with a metaphysical approach to moral questions that made no contact with practical experience.

How little progressivism resembled republicanism can easily be seen by reading Walter Weyl's manifesto, The New Democracy (1912). A whole book could be written about the debates concerning the democratization of culture that took place during the progressive era. My account draws mainly on Douglas L. Wilson, ed., The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays by George Santayana (1967), which includes the 1911 essay "The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy," on which Van Wyck Brooks drew so heavily in America's Coming-of-Age (1915); on Brooks's earlier book, The Wine of the Puritans (1909), and his well-known essay, "On Creating a Usable Past," Dial 64 (II April 1918): 337-41; on Randolph Bourne's Gary Schools (1916) and the collections of his essays edited by Olaf Hansen, The Radical Will (1977), Lillian Schlissel, The World ofRandolph Bourne (1965), and Carl Resek, War and the Intellectuals (1964); on various works by Lewis Mumford, notably The Golden Day (1926), Findings and Keepings (1975), and Interpretations and Forecasts (1973); and on Waldo Frank's Our America (1919).

.; on myth of general strike, 322 Russian revolution, 363, see also Bolshevism Rustin, Bayard: on poor people's coalition, 407; on Southern Negro church, 394 Ryder, Kenneth: on school reform in Boston, 499 Sabel, Charles: on large-scale production, I63; on "necessitarian habits of thought," I55 Sacco-Vanzetti affair, 362 "Sahara of the Bozart, The" (Mencken), 4I7-18 Saint-Simon, Claude Henri, 138, 140, 186, 509 Sampson, Thomas A., 499 n. Samson Agonistes (Milton), 234 Sandburg, Carl, 114, 429, 430 Sandel, Michael: on conservatism, 171 -72; on liberalism, 171 ; on loss of control over social processes, 170 Sanford, R. Nevitt, 445 sansculottes, 227 Santayana, George, 350, 351, 362 Sartor Resartus (Carlyle), 186 n., 227 -32, 242, 243 -587- Sartre, Jean Paul, 312 Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia), 469 Saturday Review (New York), 116 Schachtman, Max, 510 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, 231 Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., 116, 382 ; on JFK, 469; on Kennedy assassination, 470 ; on Nixon, 468 -69 Schmidt, Benno C.: on civic humanism, I72 "Scholar Gypsy, The" (Arnold), 87 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 288 science, 370, 386, 427 n., 453, 527 -28; and "free society," 467 ; and religion, 370 -71, 372 "Science as a Vocation" (Weber), 148 scientific management, 341 Scopes trial, 362 Scott, Joan: on artisanal radicalism, 211, 212 Scribner's (New York), 108 sectarianism, 313 -16 Secular City, The (Cox), 384 n., 385 segregation: racial, 393, 402, 405 n., 408 n.


pages: 530 words: 147,851

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism by Ed West

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, assortative mating, battle of ideas, Beeching cuts, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Broken windows theory, Bullingdon Club, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, Corn Laws, David Attenborough, David Brooks, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, desegregation, different worldview, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, future of work, gender pay gap, George Santayana, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, Jeremy Corbyn, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, lump of labour, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, moral hazard, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, pattern recognition, Ralph Nader, replication crisis, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, Social Justice Warrior, Stephen Fry, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing test, twin studies, urban decay, War on Poverty, Winter of Discontent, zero-sum game

And so, with the best will in the world, a generation has been bred with almost total confidence in the purity of their ideals and the malignance of their opponents. 27 THE GREAT AWOKENING Progressivism is in many ways Christianity 2.0 and like the parent faith it’s a proselytising religion. As the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana observed: ‘If you refuse to move in the prescribed direction, you are not simply different, you are arrested and perverse.’ The existence of non-believers is almost a provocation, and so the faith must be spread, a development also pushed by activists who by their very existence encourage the creation of fresh causes, like landless knights whose restless energy drove medieval wars.

K. 183 royalists 37, 50, 64 ruling class 13 see also bourgeoisie Ruskin, John 75, 76 Russell, Bertrand 81, 129, 226 Russia 94, 303 see also Soviet Union Russian Revolution 126 Rylance, Mark 24 Sacheverell, Henry 293 Sacks, Jonathan 240 Sailer, Steve 247–8 Saintsbury, George 265 Salisbury, Lord 257 Salisbury Review (magazine) 16 same-sex marriage 222–3, 228–9, 272–3, 292, 328 Samoa 134 Sandalistas 15 Sandhurst 8–9 Sandinistas 14, 15 Sandys, Edwin 305 Santayana, George 328 Sarandon, Susan 24 Sargent, John Singer 94 Sartre, Jean-Paul 121, 132 Satan 224 Saunders, Jennifer 331 Savio, Mario 324 Sayers, Dorothy 162 schools 18–19 independent 10, 13 Schultz, Debra 148 Schwarzenegger, Arnold 114 sciencocrats 215 Scott, Walter 181 Scottish Enlightenment 50 Scottish National Party (SNP) 357 Scruton, Sir Roger 16–17, 68, 132, 230, 239, 272, 281 Second World War 98, 100, 145–6, 196 Section 28 16 secularisation 220 secularism, procedural 292 segregation 295–6 Sen, Hopi 236 Seneca 187 September 11th attacks 115, 236 serfdom 93 Sesame Street (TV show) 259 Seventh Day Adventists 116 sex, before marriage 127–8 Sex and the City (TV show) 252 Sex Education Forum 241 sex scandals 83–4, 86, 166, 308, 358 sexism 28, 183, 247, 280, 291, 341, 343 sexual deviance 107 sexual freedom 165–71 Shaftesbury, Lord 51–2 Shakespeare, William 187, 291 Henry V 102, 103 Shapiro, Ben 365 Shaw, George Bernard 274 Sheen, Martin 24 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 181–2, 224 Short, Clare 170 Sicily 158 Sidney, Algernon 52 Siedentop, Larry 222 Simpson, Homer 282 Simpsons (TV series) 307 Sinn Féin 357 Sixties, The 125–32 Sky Television 283 Skywalker, Anakin 273, 365 Slate (magazine) 333 Slavs 117 Smith, Adam 280 Smith, Iain Duncan 236 Snoop Dogg 122 SNP see Scottish National Party social anthropology 133–5 social constructivism 133–40 Social Democracy 9, 236 social homophily 137 social justice 326 social liberalism 8, 270, 272 social media 296–9 socialism 1, 9, 15, 21–3, 91–100, 129, 153, 182, 262–3, 274 Society of Friends (Quakers) 57, 92 Sokal, Alan 136 Soprano, Tony 161, 163 Sorens, Jason 248 Soros, George 259 South Africa 16, 89, 189 Southern Baptists 115–16 Southey, Robert 46, 91–2 Soviet Union 21, 31, 80, 81, 86, 98, 100, 143–6, 153, 167, 168, 178–9, 182, 211, 218, 263, 314 see also Russia Soviet–American conflict 31 Sowell, Thomas 130, 239 Spain 52, 211, 303 Spanish Armada 36 Spanish Civil War 14, 103, 178–9 Sparta 31, 246 Spectator (magazine) 89, 162–3, 202, 259, 308 Spencer, Richard 346 Spengler, Oswald 90, 119 Spielberg, Steven 228 Spitting Image (TV series) 142 Sporanos, The (TV series) 163 Springsteen, Bruce 24 Stalin, Joseph 80, 81, 99, 126, 167, 182, 244 Stamford Bridge 47 Starbucks 4–5 state 271 state spending 266–7 state-worship 95–6 statist ideology 271 status quo 68, 112, 187, 338 Stein, Harry 28 STEM subjects 7 Stenner, Karen 337–8 Stephen, James Fitzjames 71 Steptoe, Albert 192 ‘stereotype threat’ 350 Sternhell, Zeev 95 Stewart, James 123 Stewart, Jon 329 Steyn, Mark 162 Stone, Oliver 178 Strachey, John 47 Straub, Peter 242 Streep, Meryl 24 strikes 19 Strummer, Joe 24 Stuart dynasty 50, 51 Stubbes, Philip 33–4, 48 Stubbings, Mr 122 Stuff White People Like (SWPL) (blog) 243–5, 317 Styron, William 121 subversion myths 300 suffrage female 176 universal 175 suffragettes 176 Sullivan, Arthur 101 Sumner, William Graham 223 Sun (newspaper), Page 3 170 Sunday Times (newspaper) 23 Sweden 351 Sweden Democrats 347 Switzerland 38, 61 Syria 14–15 tabloids 11 Tacitus 131 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas 341 Tarantino, Quentin 123 Tatchell, Peter 219 tax avoidance 165 taxpayers’ money 200 Tebbit, Norman 307–8, 365 tech giants 4 TED Talks 350 television 190 Terror, the 59, 60 terrorism 367–8 Islamic 115, 136, 367–8 see also War on Terror Test Act 1672 289, 290 That Mitchell and Webb Look (TV series) 88 Thatcher, Margaret 77, 79, 82, 83, 126–7, 129, 133, 194, 203, 252, 268, 280, 282, 364, 365 Thatcher, Mark 280 Thatcher era 16, 85, 194, 280 Thatcherism 77, 153, 215, 270, 282 theatre 60, 151, 187–90 censorship 148, 166, 188–9 Third Reich 26, 88, 99, 258, 358 Thompson, Damian 307 Thompson, Hunter S. 186 threat perception 116–17 ‘Thrive/Survive’ theory 118 Time magazine 362 Times (newspaper) 3, 83, 355 Times Higher Education supplement 322 Tinker Bell 259 Titanic (1997) 184–5 Tito 15 To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) 183, 189 Today programme 195, 269, 371 tolerance/intolerance 295–6, 326–7 Tolkien, J.


pages: 687 words: 165,457

Exercised: The Science of Physical Activity, Rest and Health by Daniel Lieberman

A. Roger Ekirch, active measures, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, classic study, clean water, clockwatching, Coronary heart disease and physical activity of work, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, death from overwork, Donald Trump, epigenetics, Exxon Valdez, George Santayana, hygiene hypothesis, impulse control, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, libertarian paternalism, longitudinal study, meta-analysis, microbiome, mouse model, phenotype, placebo effect, publication bias, randomized controlled trial, Ronald Reagan, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), social distancing, Steven Pinker, twin studies, two and twenty, working poor

Because hunter-gatherers are generally only moderately physically active without being either couch potatoes or ultramarathoners, we are probably adapted for moderate rather than extreme exercise. While few of us think it sensible to run across the United States or swim the Atlantic, plenty of people were comforted to read the Copenhagen City Heart Study’s conclusion that staying on the couch is just as healthy as running marathons. As the philosopher George Santayana once quipped, “Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.” When it comes to health news, a dose of incredulity is especially necessary because science and journalism are no less susceptible to humanity’s flaws than other endeavors. Unfortunately for those who wanted to hear they were better off not exercising than running, the Copenhagen City Heart Study offered more truthiness than truth.

See exercise/physical activity physical activity level (PAL) metric, 18–20, 43–4, 347n21, 384n47 physician consultation before starting exercise program, 301 pig running on treadmill study, 201–2 plantar fasciitis, 213 plaques (Alzheimer’s), 329, 331, 413–14nn107–108 plaques (cardiovascular disease), 289, 309–10, 311, 312–13 play, 21 pleiotropy, 394n39 plyometric drills, 118, 367–8n50 Pontzer, Herman, 32, 180–1, 191, 347n20 power: aging and capabilities for, 127 definition of, 126 trade-off between strength and, 126–7 pregnancy: gestational diabetes, 305, 406n18 physical activity during, 185 walking and balance during, 185–7, 186 Prescott, Arizona, 200–1, 203 Price, Asher, 116 primal fitness movement, 122–4 proactive aggression, 146–7 psychological studies, Western bias of, 14, 344n8 Quiet Hour, Björn Borg sportswear company, 257, 259 Quimare, Arnulfo, 8–10, 9, 12 Rafters, Steve, 200 Raichlen, David, 180–1 Raiders of the Lost Ark, 157, 378n51 rarájipari footrace, 7–10, 9, 12, 213, 344n2 Ravussin, Eric, 68 reactive aggression, 146–7 reactive oxygen species, 235, 236, 237, 239–41, 243 repetitive stress injuries, 216–17, 219 reproduction: avoidance of fighting and, 142, 374n3 body size, male-male competition, and, 150–1, 375n25 evolution for reproductive success, 44–6 post-reproductive life, 229–34, 250–1, 392nn16–17 reproduction strategy and energy budget, 44–6, 229–30 sports and reproductive success, 165–6, 379n72 starvation effects on, 36–7 trade-offs and energy allocation for, 38–41, 40 reproductive hormones, 327 resistance training, 122, 133–5, 296–7, 323–4, 328, 371–2n39 respiratory tract infections (RTIs): COVID-19, 314–15, 316, 319, 338 evolutionary mismatch of, 315–16 exercise recommendation, 320 measures to impede transmission of, 315 physical activity effects on, 317–20 symptoms of and deaths from, 314–15 treatment for, 315 resting metabolic rate (RMR), 30–1, 32, 34–7, 191–2, 239, 240 Ristow, Michael, 242 Ritchie, Donald, 226–7, 228 Roach, Neil, 158, 160 road rage, 146 Rome and Romans, xiii, 22, 331, 415n122 Roosevelt, Teddy, 291 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 11, 22, 145, 146, 148, 150, 166 Rowntree, Victoria, 180 Runner’s World, 289 running: author’s mother’s role in running movement, 197–8 bias about, 198–9 bipedal compared to quadrupedal running, 203–9, 204 compression of morbidity related to, 247–50, 248 conflicting advice about, xvi death rate associated with, 285–6 distance running, 11, 204–9 distinction between jogging and, 198–9 endurance and, 196, 198, 204–9, 204, 207 evolution and human adaptations for, 202–3, 205–9 form/style and injury reduction, 217–20, 218, 390n50 head bounce and stabilization during, 104, 202, 209, 364n12, 387n23 humans running against horses, 200–3, 204–9, 204, 207 injuries and injury prevention during, 213–21, 390n46, 390n50 injury prevalence from, 215–16, 389n40 jumping from one leg to another as running mechanism, 203, 204, 224 lack of training for, 7, 11, 14, 220–1 as lifelong pursuit, 224 mileage increases in graded training program, 217, 390n46 mood-altering effects of, 223–4, 268–9 myths about, xviii, 216–17 popularity of, 199 sacred and secular reasons for distance running, 213, 388–9n37 sitting patterns of runners, 65 speed, distance running, and sprinting, 105–10 speed and, 204–6, 204, 207, 386n7 stability for and adaptations for prevention of falling, 209, 387nn22–23 stride length, stride rate, and, 206, 207 surfaces for running, 220 training for races, 7, 11, 13, 14 why run just for the sake of running, 7, 12 runophobes and runophiles, 199 Sabbath laws, 27–8, 47 Saltin, Bengt, 238 Samson, David, 83 San hunter-gatherers: altered state while dancing or hunting, 223–4 banning of from hunting, 212 blood pressure of, 310 dancing by, 221–3, 222 fighting by, 154–5 giraffe hunting by, 294, 296 Kalahari home of, 17 observation and documentation of by Marshalls, 221–3, 294, 296 persistence hunting by Nisa, 388–9n37 physical activity for daily life of, 17–18, 294 power scavenging and persistence hunting by, 210, 211, 212, 388–9n37 sleep duration and patterns of, 81–2 sleeping practices of, 87 strength of, 124, 125 study of health of, 124 Santayana, George, 286 sarcopenia, 135–8, 139, 320, 321–2, 324 Sargent, Dudley Allen, 23 savage state of nature and athletic savage myth, 10–14 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 122 seat belts, 272 Selkirk, Alexander, 212 senators, fighting during deliberations, 376–7n42 senescence, 234–8, 393n31, 394nn35–36, 394n39 serotonin, 153, 154, 268–9, 334, 376n36 sex-for-food hypothesis, 150 shadow of natural selection, 229, 234, 237, 394n39 Shapiro, Liza, 186–7 Shave, Rob, 208–9, 310–11, 314 Sheehan, George, 256 shin soreness and shin splints, 216–17 shoes: conflicting advice about, xvi frequency of changing running shoes, 213 running without, 6, 122–3, 199, 213–15, 219–20, 390n50 specialized running shoes, 23–4 types of and injuries, 220 walking without, 172, 174, 179, 279 Shorter, Frank, 113 Shostak, Marjorie, 388–9n37 shoves and nudges, 273–4, 277 Siciliano, Angelo.


pages: 1,239 words: 163,625

The Joys of Compounding: The Passionate Pursuit of Lifelong Learning, Revised and Updated by Gautam Baid

Abraham Maslow, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Andrei Shleifer, asset allocation, Atul Gawande, availability heuristic, backtesting, barriers to entry, beat the dealer, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, Black Swan, book value, business process, buy and hold, Cal Newport, Cass Sunstein, Checklist Manifesto, Clayton Christensen, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, commoditize, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, deep learning, delayed gratification, deliberate practice, discounted cash flows, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, diversification, diversified portfolio, dividend-yielding stocks, do what you love, Dunning–Kruger effect, Edward Thorp, Elon Musk, equity risk premium, Everything should be made as simple as possible, fear index, financial independence, financial innovation, fixed income, follow your passion, framing effect, George Santayana, Hans Rosling, hedonic treadmill, Henry Singleton, hindsight bias, Hyman Minsky, index fund, intangible asset, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, Jeff Bezos, John Bogle, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, Lao Tzu, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, mandelbrot fractal, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager, Masayoshi Son, mental accounting, Milgram experiment, moral hazard, Nate Silver, Network effects, Nicholas Carr, offshore financial centre, oil shock, passive income, passive investing, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, power law, price anchoring, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ray Kurzweil, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, reserve currency, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, Savings and loan crisis, search costs, shareholder value, six sigma, software as a service, software is eating the world, South Sea Bubble, special economic zone, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, stocks for the long run, subscription business, sunk-cost fallacy, systems thinking, tail risk, Teledyne, the market place, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Wisdom of Crowds, time value of money, transaction costs, tulip mania, Upton Sinclair, Walter Mischel, wealth creators, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

During the usual periodic sharp corrections and the occasional recessions, keep Paul Harvey’s words in mind: “In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” Be a Keen Student of Financial History There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know. —Harry Truman Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana A study of past manias and crashes should be part of every investor’s body of historical knowledge. It informs and educates us, as almost no other subject can, about the psychology of people, governments, and nations. More important, it is yet another demonstration that hardly any events in the markets are unprecedented.

., 277–278 Roosevelt, Theodore, 277–278 Ross, Andrew, 15 Roth IRA, 363–364 Rothschild, Michael, 286 Ruane, Bill, 90 Rubin, Robert, 332 rule of law, 278 Russell, Bertrand, 30, 102, 346 Russo, Thomas, 100 safety, margin of, 175–179 SageOne Investment Advisors, 275 sales growth, 130 Santayana, George, 281 Sapiens (Harari), 110 satisficing, 73 savings, 80; accounts, Buffett on, 214 savings and loan (S&L) crisis, 92 say-something syndrome, 137 SBI Capital, 200 scaling, 218, 224 scams, 133 scarcity premium, 212 Schloss, Walter, 299 Schroeder, Alice, 35–36, 129 Science of Hitting, The (Williams), 56–57 scientists, 20 S-curves, 287 second-level thinking, Marks on, 306 sector tailwind: Buffett on, 315; investing with, 315–317 securities, statistically cheap, 219 Securities and Exchange Commission, 133; Greenblatt on, 203–204 Security Analysis (Graham), 166–168, 261 Seeking Wisdom (Bevelin), 108 See’s Candies, 211, 308, 368 self-actualization, 64; Maslow on, 35 self-awareness, writing and, 143–144 self-deception, 134 self-education, 4 self-improvement, 2, 5; role models in, 45 self-narration, 325–326 self-realization, 35 self-reinforcing loops, 238 self-serving bias, 134 self-transcendence, 64 Seneca, 38, 85–86, 95 senior bonds, 240 sense making, 136 Sensex, 200, 275 Sequoia, 54, 90 share buybacks, 226 share capital, 133 shareholders, 123, 272–273; Buffett on, 229 share of mind, 211 Shaw, D.


Arabs: A 3,000 Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

Ayatollah Khomeini, British Empire, colonial rule, disinformation, domestication of the camel, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Santayana, invention of movable type, Kickstarter, lateral thinking, liberation theology, Malacca Straits, mass immigration, New Urbanism, out of africa, Pax Mongolica, plutocrats, post-truth, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route

Looking at an early account like al-Mas’udi’s, you sometimes wonder if you are reading history or current events. Sunnis fight Shi’is over the same ground, literal and metaphorical, as they do today. Opposing sides, beneath banners black or white, green or striped, claim the same monopolies on authenticity, on truth. Ordinary people suffer and die. George Santayana’s famous maxim has it that ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Sometimes, however, the problem is not forgetting history; or fixating on its least edifying chapters. It is a problem not just in Mesopotamia but also in Ulster and Kosovo; the banners can be orange or can bear white eagles as well as black script.

Between the two world wars, uncontrollable Jewish immigration and land purchase in Palestine ignited inter-communal violence; predictably, the Palestinians revolted against the British mandatory power, which in return inflicted brutal collective punishments. What had happened to the ‘sweet, just, boyish master’ of the world, as George Santayana had described imperial Britain only a decade earlier? Later came the turn of the Jews to revolt, when the British tried to stem the influx of immigrants. Most violent were the extremist Zionist groups, the Irgun and the Stern Gang: By using terror tactics to achieve political objectives they . . . set a dangerous precedent in Middle Eastern history – one that plagues the region down to the present day.

Abd al-Aziz, King (i) Salman al-Farisi (i) Sam (Shem) (i), (ii), (iii) Samarqand (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Samarra’ (i) Sam’ay (i) Samudra-Pasai (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) San’a (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) Great Mosque of (i) Sanhajah (Berber tribe) (i) Sanskrit (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii) Santayana, George (i), (ii) São Paulo (i) ‘Saqalibah’ (European slaves in al-Andalus) (i), (ii) al-Saqqaf family (i) Saracens (i) Sarah (i) al-Sarah (mountain range) (i) Sasanian empire (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x), (xi), (xii), (xiii), (xiv); see also Persia and Persians conflict with Arabs (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Satih (i), (ii) Sa’ud, Al (clan) (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) Sa’ud b.


pages: 251 words: 44,888

The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart: 1200 Essential Words Every Sophisticated Person Should Be Able to Use by Bobbi Bly

Albert Einstein, Alistair Cooke, Anton Chekhov, British Empire, Columbine, Donald Trump, George Santayana, haute couture, Honoré de Balzac, Joan Didion, John Nash: game theory, Network effects, placebo effect, Ralph Waldo Emerson, school vouchers, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, three-masted sailing ship

“Boarding school manners and attitudes—stoic denial, FACETIOUS irony—are still deeply entrenched in the character of the country.” – Jonathan Raban, British travel writer and novelist facile (FASS-ill), adjective Accomplished easily and with little effort. “The hunger for FACILE wisdom is the root of all false philosophy.” - George Santayana, Spanish-born American author and philosopher faction (FAK-shin), noun A small dissenting group within a larger one. “I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the FACTION of fools.” – William Shakespeare factitious (fack-TISH-uss), adjective Contrived; fabricated. At first, we thought the rumor FACTITIOUS, but then we learned that couture-producer Hermes does, in fact, plan to design and market a helicopter.

With the LIBATIONS flowing freely, each member of the winning team felt compelled to make a drunken speech. libertine (LIB-er-teen), noun, adjective Licentious and free of moral restraint; or, a person so characterized. “It is easier to make a saint out of a LIBERTINE than out of a prig.” – George Santayana, author and philosopher libration (ly-BRAY-shun), noun The oscillation of Earth’s moon around its axis. LIBRATIONS are caused by changes in the intensity of Earth’s gravitational pull on the moon. licentious (ly-SEN-shus), adjective Promiscuous; slutty; someone who is sexually uninhibited and free.


pages: 698 words: 198,203

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

airport security, Albert Einstein, Bob Geldof, classic study, colonial rule, conceptual framework, correlation does not imply causation, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Brooks, Douglas Hofstadter, en.wikipedia.org, experimental subject, Ford Model T, fudge factor, George Santayana, language acquisition, Laplace demon, loss aversion, luminiferous ether, Norman Mailer, Philippa Foot, Plato's cave, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, science of happiness, social contagion, social intelligence, speech recognition, stem cell, Steven Pinker, Thomas Bayes, Thorstein Veblen, traffic fines, trolley problem, urban renewal, Yogi Berra

But the audience could infer that he was really saying that Bush was out of his depth as president and Cheney was running the show. There is almost always a butt to a joke, someone you are laughing at rather than laughing with. The butt is depicted as inept or foolish or undignified and thus loses authority in the eyes of onlookers. As George Santayana said, “To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.” By hiding the insult in an implicature the challenger makes it all the more compelling, because any listener who can retrace the implicature successfully—who “gets the joke”—realizes that she knew about the target’s infirmity all along, and that others who are laughing with her knew about it, too.

relativism relativity religion: religious profanity taboo words drawn from domain of Remembrance of Things Past (Proust) reminding response cries responsibility: criminal moral right hemisphere (brain) rigid designators Robotman roots, formation of new Rosen, Larry Ross, Haj Rostand, Jean Roth, Philip Rozin, Paul Rush Hour Russell, Bertrand Russian language Sacks, Oliver Santayana, George Santos, Laurie Sapir, Edward sarcasm Sassoon, Siegfried Satran, Pamela Saussure, Ferdinand de Schank, Roger Schelling, Thomas Schön, Donald science: analogies in avoiding dogmatism in communality in definitions in English as lingua franca of fashion in metaphors in rational ignorance in see also evolution; philosophy of science; physics Scott, Sir Walter second-person pronouns segregation Seinfeld semantics: defined “mere” semantics see also meaning; reference semantic satiation sense see also philosophy of meaning; reference sex differences: all-or-none conception of in implicature and indirect speech and names in swearing in subjects of verbs for sex sexual come-ons sexual harassment sexuality: aggressive use of words for as communal relationship emotional coloring of words related to English terms for euphemism treadmill in terms for exchange element in polite transitive verb for sex prosecution of terms for results of suppressing in seven words you can’t say on television syntax of taboo words drawn from domain of talking about Shakespeare, William Shakespeare in Love shall shape, representation of Sheidlower, Jesse Shepard, Roger shit Shona language Silence of the Lambs, The Silverstein, Larry simile Simon, Herbert simple present tense Simpson, O.


pages: 235 words: 62,862

Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek by Rutger Bregman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Bartolomé de las Casas, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Branko Milanovic, cognitive dissonance, computer age, conceptual framework, credit crunch, David Graeber, Diane Coyle, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, George Gilder, George Santayana, happiness index / gross national happiness, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, income inequality, invention of gunpowder, James Watt: steam engine, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, low skilled workers, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, microcredit, minimum wage unemployment, Mont Pelerin Society, Nathan Meyer Rothschild: antibiotics, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, post-industrial society, precariat, public intellectual, radical decentralization, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, stem cell, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, telemarketer, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, wage slave, War on Poverty, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, wikimedia commons, women in the workforce, working poor, World Values Survey

Because whether you’re talking about Dutch drifters, Indian sugarcane farmers, or Cherokee children, fighting poverty is good not only for our conscience, but for our wallets, too. As Professor Costello dryly notes, “That’s a very valuable lesson for society to learn.”37 Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863–1952) 6 The Bizarre Tale of President Nixon and His Basic Income Bill History is not a science that serves ups handy, bite-size lessons for daily life. Sure, reflecting on the past can help to put our trials and tribulations into perspective, from leaky faucets to national debts.

In the end, Speenhamland resulted in “the pauperization of the masses,” who, according to Polanyi, “almost lost their human shape.” A basic income introduced not a floor, he contended, but a ceiling. At the top of the briefing presented to Nixon was a quotation by the Spanish-American writer George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”2 The president was stunned. He called on his key advisors and ordered them to get to the bottom of what had transpired in England a century and a half earlier. They showed him the initial findings of the pilot programs in Seattle and Denver, where people clearly had not started working less.


pages: 232 words: 67,934

The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death by John Gray

Alfred Russel Wallace, anthropic principle, anti-communist, death from overwork, dematerialisation, disinformation, George Santayana, laissez-faire capitalism, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, Nikolai Kondratiev, public intellectual, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, scientific worldview, the scientific method

Just as rationalists have misunderstood myths as proto-versions of scientific theories, they have made the mistake of believing that scientific theories can be literally true. Both are systems of symbols, metaphors for a reality that cannot be rendered in literal terms. Every spiritual quest concludes in silence, and science also comes to a stop, if by another route. As George Santayana has written, ‘a really naked spirit cannot assume that the world is thoroughly intelligible. There may be surds, there may be hard facts, there may be dark abysses before which intelligence must be silent for fear of going mad.’ Science is like religion, an effort at transcendence that ends by accepting a world that is beyond understanding.

p. 224 tools we use to tinker with the world: I owe my use of the term ‘tinkering’ to Nassim Nicholas Taleb. See Taleb’s Tinkering: How to Live in a World We Don’t Understand, forthcoming. p. 227 a really naked spirit cannot assume that the world is thoroughly intelligible …for fear of going mad: George Santayana, ‘Ultimate Religion’, in The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009, 343. p. 227 When at last I had disabused my mind of the enormous imposture of a design …limitless hope and possibilities: Richard Jefferies, ‘Absence of Design in Nature’, in Landscape with Figures: An Anthology of Richard Jefferies’s Prose, London: Penguin, 1983, 244.


pages: 299 words: 98,943

Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization by Stephen Cave

Albert Einstein, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, back-to-the-land, clean water, double helix, George Santayana, Hans Moravec, heat death of the universe, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, Lao Tzu, life extension, planetary scale, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, stem cell, technoutopianism, the scientific method

Both these ideas, as we have seen, have found their champions among the poets, thinkers and myth makers: half suggest that we must live with the awareness of inevitable extinction, while the other half argue that we can never doubt that life is eternal. A few, of course, have also recognized the underlying paradox that both these ideas seem true. The Spanish-American philosopher and writer George Santayana, for example, captured it perfectly when he wrote of our clumsy struggle to reconcile “the observed fact of mortality and the native inconceivability of death.” The paradox stems from two different ways of viewing ourselves—on the one hand, objectively, or from the outside, as it were, and on the other hand, subjectively, or from the inside.

The Edward Young quote is from his poem “Night Thoughts” (1742–1745). Jessie Bering reports his research into the cognitive mechanisms underpinning belief in immortality in his book The God Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life (Nicholas Brealey, 2010). The quote by the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana is from Reason in Religion (first published 1905, reissued by Bibliobazaar in 2009 and available online). Also see the chapter “Death” in the philosopher Thomas Nagel’s The View from Nowhere (Oxford University Press, 1986) for a discussion of the distinction between first-person and third-person perspectives on one’s own death.


pages: 113 words: 36,039

The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction by Mark Lilla

Berlin Wall, Charlie Hebdo massacre, classic study, coherent worldview, creative destruction, George Santayana, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, Isaac Newton, liberation theology, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, urban planning, women in the workforce

Voegelin’s detachment from his Austrian homeland prepared him to take an unusual step for a young European academic. In 1924 he traveled to the United States on a fellowship and spent two years studying in American universities, attending the courses of John Dewey at Columbia and discovering the works of George Santayana. This experience inspired his first book, On the Form of the American Mind (1928), which owes more to German thinkers like Max Scheler and Wilhelm Dilthey than to American pragmatists like Dewey. Still, Voegelin’s American experience had large effects. When he returned to Vienna to accept a university appointment, he brought with him an abiding hatred of racism and the shameful intellectual justifications of it.


pages: 389 words: 112,319

Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life by Ozan Varol

Abraham Maslow, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, Amazon Web Services, Andrew Wiles, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, Arthur Eddington, autonomous vehicles, Ben Horowitz, Boeing 747, Cal Newport, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, dark matter, delayed gratification, different worldview, discovery of DNA, double helix, Elon Musk, fail fast, fake news, fear of failure, functional fixedness, Gary Taubes, Gene Kranz, George Santayana, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, Inbox Zero, index fund, Isaac Newton, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, James Dyson, Jeff Bezos, job satisfaction, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Large Hadron Collider, late fees, lateral thinking, lone genius, longitudinal study, Louis Pasteur, low earth orbit, Marc Andreessen, Mars Rover, meta-analysis, move fast and break things, multiplanetary species, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, obamacare, Occam's razor, out of africa, Peter Pan Syndrome, Peter Thiel, Pluto: dwarf planet, private spaceflight, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reality distortion field, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, Schrödinger's Cat, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Simon Singh, Skinner box, SpaceShipOne, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, subprime mortgage crisis, sunk-cost fallacy, TED Talk, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Tyler Cowen, Upton Sinclair, Vilfredo Pareto, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, Yogi Berra

Eliminating cartels won’t solve the demand side of the drug problem, and eradicating terrorists won’t prevent new ones from cropping up. Killing the Bad One often gives rise to the Worse One. In attacking the most visible causes, we unleash a Darwinian process of creating a more insidious pest. When the pest returns, we apply the same pesticide, up the dosage, and express shock when nothing changes. A quote by George Santayana seems to appear in every museum depicting historical horrors: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”74 But remembering isn’t enough. History is an exercise in self-deception if we get the wrong messages from it. Only through the hard work of looking beyond the first-order causes—particularly when we’re afraid of what we might see—do we begin to learn from history.

Charlan Jeanne Nemeth, “Differential Contributions of Majority and Minority Influence,” Psychological Review 93, no. 1 (January 1986): 23–32, www.researchgate.net/publication/232513627_The_Differential_Contributions_of_Majority_and_Minority_Influence. 71. Vaughan, testimony. 72. Roberto, Bohmer, and Edmondson, “Facing Ambiguous Threats.” 73. Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision, 386. 74. George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense (New York, C. Scribner’s Sons, 1905). 75. Gerald J. S. Wilde, “Risk Homeostasis: A Theory About Risk Taking Behaviour,” http://riskhomeostasis.org/home; Malcolm Gladwell, “Blowup,” New Yorker, January 14, 1996. 76. M. Aschenbrenner and B. Biehl, “Improved Safety Through Improved Technical Measures?


pages: 168 words: 47,972

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts

dematerialisation, Dennis Tito, Exxon Valdez, financial independence, follow your passion, George Santayana, Lao Tzu, large denomination, personalized medicine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the map is not the territory

In Return Passages, critic Larzer Ziff describes a special quality of social tolerance and endurance in Ledyard — a trait that all vagabonders might do well to emulate: “He seemed the perfect democrat, at ease with those who were regarded as his betters, yet free of presumption, self-assured and not self-important; possessed of an urbanity acquired more from contact with the gentlemen of the primitive world than those of the city, and, most importantly, able to accept rebuffs — to undergo in order to go.” CHAPTER 7 We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment no matter what. — GEORGE SANTAYANA, “THE PHILOSOPHY OF TRAVEL” Get into Adventures A few hundred years ago, “adventure travel” involved brave expeditions into the terra incognita — the mysterious lands at the edge of the known world, thought to be populated by monsters and mermaids. The more these unknown areas were explored, the smaller the terra incognita became, and gradually the physical limits of the world ceased to be such a mythical secret.


pages: 172 words: 48,747

The View From Flyover Country: Dispatches From the Forgotten America by Sarah Kendzior

Aaron Swartz, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American ideology, barriers to entry, clean water, corporate personhood, crowdsourcing, David Brooks, David Graeber, disinformation, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, gentrification, George Santayana, glass ceiling, income inequality, independent contractor, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, Mohammed Bouazizi, new economy, obamacare, Occupy movement, Oklahoma City bombing, payday loans, pink-collar, post-work, public intellectual, publish or perish, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sheryl Sandberg, side hustle, Silicon Valley, the medium is the message, trickle-down economics, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unpaid internship, Upton Sinclair, urban decay, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce

Yet similar rhetoric portraying dead children as complicit or inconvenient emerges—rhetoric not unique to the Middle East, but used all over the world, all throughout history, to mitigate or justify the slaughter of innocents. One would hope that those who so vividly documented the killing of children would protest it being practiced. That hope seems in vain. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana famously said. Those who can, repeat it, too. Who Is Human? Social media has been described as “humanizing” the Palestinian victims. Television may be decried by politicians and pundits, but the Internet is where Gaza’s story is told firsthand by its residents, where graphic images of the grieved are shared.


pages: 184 words: 12,922

Pragmatic Version Control Using Git by Travis Swicegood

AGPL, continuous integration, David Heinemeier Hansson, en.wikipedia.org, Firefox, George Santayana, revision control

So far, we’ve covered how to use Git moving forward, but a key part of any VCS is how we can use it to see where we’ve been. The next chapter Chapter 6, Working with Git’s History, on the next page deals with that. Report erratum Prepared exclusively for Trieu Nguyen this copy is (P2.0 printing, March 2009) 79 Download at Boykma.Com Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana Chapter 6 Working with Git’s History A key aspect of any version control system is its history. Every new file you add and every change you add creates one more commit in its history. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to do the following: • Inspect the history of your repository using git log • Specify ranges of commits to help searching • View differences between commits • Annotate files with a line-by-line history • Follow content as you move it around • Undo changes you’ve made • Rewrite the history of your repository Inspecting that history can provide invaluable information.


pages: 225 words: 55,458

Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education by Mike Rose

blue-collar work, centre right, confounding variable, creative destruction, delayed gratification, digital divide, George Santayana, income inequality, MITM: man-in-the-middle, moral panic, new economy, Ronald Reagan, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the built environment, urban renewal, War on Poverty

A sign of a vibrant institution is an openness at the top to ideas emerging from those closest to the students themselves. This frontline to mid-level domain is also roiling with protection of turf, with entrenched political conflict, with interpersonal rivalries and animosities. I think it was the American philosopher George Santayana who observed that academic politics are so nasty because the stakes are so small. In addition to local politics, traditions and ossified routines also form barriers to the realization of good ideas. I’ve heard so many stories of department chairs or deans quashing innovative curricula, cooperation between departments, or fresh ways to deliver services.


pages: 1,261 words: 294,715

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky

autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, biofilm, blood diamond, British Empire, Broken windows theory, Brownian motion, car-free, classic study, clean water, cognitive dissonance, cognitive load, corporate personhood, corporate social responsibility, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, delayed gratification, desegregation, different worldview, domesticated silver fox, double helix, Drosophila, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Flynn Effect, framing effect, fudge factor, George Santayana, global pandemic, Golden arches theory, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, impulse control, income inequality, intentional community, John von Neumann, Loma Prieta earthquake, long peace, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, microaggression, mirror neurons, Mohammed Bouazizi, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, mouse model, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, nocebo, out of africa, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, Philippa Foot, placebo effect, publication bias, RAND corporation, risk tolerance, Rosa Parks, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skinner box, social contagion, social distancing, social intelligence, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Stanford prison experiment, stem cell, Steven Pinker, strikebreaker, theory of mind, Tragedy of the Commons, transatlantic slave trade, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, trolley problem, twin studies, ultimatum game, Walter Mischel, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

Would the same happen to hatred, if you knew that with time it would fade and the similarities between Us and Them would outweigh the differences? And that a hundred years ago, in a place that was hell on earth, those with the most temptation to hate often didn’t even need the passage of time for that to happen? The philosopher George Santayana provided us with an aphorism so wise that it has suffered the fate of becoming a cliché—“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In the context of this final chapter, we must turn Santayana on his head—those who do not remember the extraordinary truces of the World War I trenches, or who do not learn of Thompson, Colburn, and Andreotta, or of the reconciliative distances traveled by Abe and Fiske, Mandela and Viljoen, Hussein and Rabin, or of the stumbling, familiar moral frailties that Newton vanquished, or who do not recognize that science can teach us how to make events like these more likely—those who do not remember these are condemned to be less likely to repeat these reasons to hope.

Simmons, 170–71, 589, 590, 592 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, 396 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 305, 309, 325, 616 Rozin, Paul, 399, 562 Rudolph, Wilma, 596 runaway trolley problem (killing one person to save five), 55, 56, 58–59, 117, 482, 488–91, 505–7 self-driving cars and, 612n Russell, Jeffrey, 606 Rwanda, 570 genocide in, 571–72, 573, 619 Hutu and Tutsi tribes in, 372, 469, 570–73 Sabah, Nayirah al-, and supposed atrocities during the Gulf War, 632–33 sacred values, in conflict resolution, 575–79, 643–44 Sahlins, Marshall, 318 Saleh, Ali Abdullah, 653 Samoans, 122 Sandusky, Jerry, 597 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, 561 San Francisco earthquake (1989), 301 Santayana, George, 669–70 Saud, King, 367 Saypol, Irving, 396 Scalia, Antonin, 590 scapegoating, 531 schadenfreude, 15, 413 Schiller, Friedrich, 443 schizophrenia, 234, 235, 239, 582, 586, 593, 607 Schultz, Wolfram, 68, 71 Science, 133, 246–47, 251, 266, 278, 300n, 313, 322, 495, 524, 546, 549, 574–75, 636 Scientific American, 298 selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, 694 self-confidence, 102–3, 237 Semai, 313, 502n Semang, 317, 318 sensorimotor contagion, 86, 395, 522 sensory stimuli, 6–7, 15, 81–98 amygdala and, 40–41 in animals, 83–84 auditory, 6, 83–84, 89 cultural differences in processing, 276 haptic (touch), 565–66 hormones and, see hormones interoceptive information, 90–92, 528, 529, 566 real vs. metaphorical sensation, 565–68 and sensitivity of sensory organs, 96–97 subliminal and unconscious, 84–90, 93–96 language, 92–93 temperature, 566 visual, 6, 84 Sepoy Mutiny, 391n September 11 attacks, 619 Seromba, Athanase, 572 serotonin, 134, 692 aggression and, 76–77, 250–55 genes and, 227, 246, 250–55, 264 psilocybin and, 693 selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, 694 SES, see socioeconomic status sex, 11, 39, 43, 65–66, 95 oxytocin and, 110 sex differences, 266 cultural, 272 dimorphic, 366 and hormones in prenatal environment, 211–19 math skills and, 266–67, 267, 406 obedience and, 474 in monkey behaviors, 213–14, 214 transgender individuals and, 215n sexual selection, 330–31 Seyfarth, Robert, 337–38 shame, 502–3 Shariff, Azim, 623 Shepher, Joseph, 371 Sherman, Marshall, 554 Shermer, Michael, 495 Shweder, Richard, 271, 494 Sigmund, Karl, 350 Silkwood, Karen, 652 Simpson, O.


pages: 931 words: 79,142

Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van-Roy, Seif Haridi

computer age, Debian, discrete time, Donald Knuth, Eratosthenes, fault tolerance, functional programming, G4S, general-purpose programming language, George Santayana, John von Neumann, Lao Tzu, Menlo Park, natural language processing, NP-complete, Paul Graham, premature optimization, sorting algorithm, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, Therac-25, Turing complete, Turing machine, type inference

. % Recalculate and redisplay as before end end end If we leave out the final call to P, then the original Redraw procedure has a declarative implementation and the new Redraw procedure has a stateful implementation. Yet, both have identical behavior when viewed from the outside. The state is used just to memorize the previous calendar calculation so that the procedure can avoid doing the same calculation twice. Paraphrasing philosopher George Santayana, we can say this is remembering the past to avoid repeating it. This technique is called memoization. It is a common use of state. It is particularly nice because it is modular: the use of state is hidden inside the procedure (see section 6.7.2). 10.4 Case studies 695 Original data ViewPresentation EditPresentation UI Read−only view UI Editable view Placeholder widget (QTk) Figure 10.12: From the original data to the user interface. 10.4.3 Dynamic generation of a user interface Using records to specify the user interface makes it possible to calculate the user interface directly from the data.

., 338 RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) microprocessor, 621 RMI (remote method invocation), 354, 709, 724, 725 root variable, 763 Round operation, 822 RPC (remote procedure call), 354, 709 rubber band, 251 runic inscription, 779 Runnable interface (in Java), 616 s-expression, 650 Sacks, Oliver, 405 safety, 602 Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 111 Santayana, George, 694 Saraswat, Vijay A., 338, 662, 808 scalability compilation, 458 multiprocessor, 710 program development, 105 weighted reference counting, 737 scalar product (constraint), 775 scheduler Delay operation, 304 deterministic, 253 lift control system, 366 nondeterministic, 253 randomness, 473 resource allocation, 672 round-robin, 252, 256 thread, 239, 252 transaction, 603 Schulte, Christian, xxvi science, xv, xviii scientific method, xvii scope, 56, 507 attribute, 510 dynamic, 59 lexical, 57, 59, 64, 508, 539 absence in Prolog, 661 distributed, 722 hiding, 221, 411, 423, 442, 483, 495, 549 substitution, 803 private, 507, 508 protected, 508 public, 507 static, see lexical user-defined, 508 search aggregate, 670 all-solutions, 626 binary, 151 branch-and-bound, 772 breadth-first, 644 communication from inside encapsulated search, 673 constraint programming, 274 contribution of AKL, 809 danger, 639 Index 893 database query, 657 depth-first, 622, 644 deterministic, 621 encapsulated, 625 generate-and-test, 629, 758 iterative deepening, 644 linear, 197 logic programming, 661 n-queens problem, 629 one-solution, 626 overuse, xxi propagate-and-search, 629, 750 pruning, 662 relational computation model, 623 relational programming, 621 saturation, 772 search space, 622 search strategy, 761 search tree, 624 security abstract data type, 201–210 application, 744 atom vs. name, 508 capability, 208 data abstraction, 419–435 distributed resources, 731 distributed system, 743 engineering, 744 hardware, 744 human society, 208 implementation, 744 kernel language concepts, 847 language, 208, 744 linguistic abstraction, 39 mechanism, 208 open distribution, 711 policy, 208 right, 791, 847 static typing, 106 threat model, 744 self clone, 517 delegation, 511 dynamic binding, 505 forwarding, 511 Java, 553 this notation, 551 self (in Erlang), 390 semantic stack, 62 runnable, 62 suspended, 62 terminated, 62 semantics, 31 abstract machine, 56–78, 92–94, 239–241, 282–283, 348–349, 416–417 axiomatic, 38, 440–450, 632 by-need trigger, 282 cell, 416 common abstractions, 808 denotational, 38 exceptions, 92 interleaving, 780 kernel language, see abstract machine kernel language approach, 38 logical, 38, 631–641 monitor (in Java), 592 operational, 38, 60, 635, 779–811 port, 348, 383 secure types, 203 semantic statement, 61 SOS (structural operational semantics), 779 thread, 239 Send operation, 349 slot-reserving semantics, 384 send asynchronous, 332 latency, 263 nonblocking, 333 synchronous, 332 Send-More-Money problem, 755, 776 separation of concerns, 567 sequential logic, 269 serializability, 600 serialization, 709 894 Index serializer, 325 set comprehension, 301 setof/3 operation (in Prolog), 626, 666, 670 Shakespeare, William, 815 shared-state concurrency, see atomic action, see lock, see monitor, see transaction sharing, 418 Browser tool, 102, 829 distributed state, 720 distributed value, 716 thread, 378 short-circuit concurrent composition, 277 Flavius Josephus problem, 559 transitive closure, 464 Show operation, 340 side effect, 411 declarative, 288 signal operation (in monitor), 592 signature (of procedure), 129 simulation components, 412 digital logic, 266–272 inadequacy of declarative model, 173 Internet, 412 multi-agent, 412 slow network, 578 small world, 486 word-of-mouth, 476 Simurgh, 707 single-assignment store, 42–49, 60, 781 importance, 43 singularity, 176 sink (consumer), 259 64-bit address, 78 64-bit word, 74, 175, 820 skip statement, 62, 785 SLDNF resolution, 662 small world graph, 461 simulation, 486 Smolka, Gert, xxvi snapshot (of state), 437, 718 software design, see design methodology, see language design software development, 218, 450 bottom-up, 451 compositional, 453 concurrent components, 362 distributed programming, 745 evolutionary, 451 extreme programming, 452 framework, 492 IID (Iterative and Incremental), 451 importance of names, 508 in the large, 450 in the small, 218 incremental, 451 interactive interface, 87 iterative, 451 middle-out, 451 stepwise refinement, 465, 604 test-driven, 452 top-down, 8, 451 software engineering, 450 component as unit of deployment, 221 concurrency, 233 distributed lexical scoping, 722 further reading, 462 informatics curriculum, xxii lexical scoping, 59 software rot, 459 Solaris operating system, xxvi, xxix Solve operation, 626, 773 SolveAll operation, 626 SolveOne operation, 626 Sort operation, 670, 829 SOS (structural operational semantics), 779 source (producer), 259 source code, 221 interactive, 815 Index 895 million line, xvi, 36, 387, 457, 458 nonexistent, 492 preprocessor input, 318 reengineering, 522 set of functors, 285 textual scope, 64 variable name, 44 space, see computation space, see memory space leak, see memory leak specification, 410 component, 461 specification language, 116 speculative execution (in nonstrict language), 331 stack declarative object, 423 depth-first traversal, 156 memory management, 74 open declarative, 195, 421 proving it correct, 442 secure declarative bundled, 423 secure declarative unbundled, 205, 422 secure stateful bundled, 424 secure stateful unbundled, 424 semantic, 61 stateful concurrent, 578 standalone application, 222 declare not allowed, 87 Java, 555 uncaught exception, 93 starvation, 275 wait set implementation, 597 state cell (mutable variable), 414 declarative, 408 explicit, 16, 409 implicit, 408 interaction with call by name, 485 lazy execution, 481 lazy language, 331 memory management, 77 modularity property, 315 nonstrict language, 331 port (communication channel), 347 reasoning with, 38, 440 revocable capability, 434 threading, 139 transformation, 133 state transition diagram, 353, 368 component design, 364 floor component, 369 lift component, 371 lift controller component, 369 transaction, 607 stateless (declarative programming), 111 statement case, 67, 790 catch (clause in try), 94 choice, 623, 772 conc, 278 declare, 2, 87 fail, 623 finally (clause in try), 94 for, 188 fun, 84 functor, 223 gate, 272 if, 66, 790 local, 56, 63, 786 lock, 22, 583 proc, 65, 792 raise, 93, 801 skip, 62, 785 thread, 241, 785 try, 92, 799 break, 486 compound, 117 compound (in Java), 552 declarative kernel language, 49 interactive, 87 procedure application, 66 sequential composition, 63, 785 suspendable, 65 896 Index value creation, 63 variable-variable binding, 63 static binding, 506 linking, 222 scope, see scope, lexical typing, 51, 104–106 stdin (standard input), 229, 553 stdout (standard output), 553 Steiner, Jennifer G., 334 Stirling’s formula for factorial, 618 storage manager, 325 store, 781 equivalence, 785 mutable (for cells), 416 mutable (for ports), 348 need, 780, 795 predicate, 781 read-only, 206, 798 single-assignment, 42–49, 60, 99, 235, 781 trigger, 282, 795 value, 43 stream, 795 deterministic, 257 Java, 553 merger, 395 producer/consumer, 257 usage trade-offs, 439 strict . . . , see eager . . . strict two-phase locking, 604 strictness analysis, 289, 310, 342 string, 53, 830 virtual, 211, 831 StringToAtom operation, 824 structure compiler, 162 compositional, 461 difference, 141 distribution, 255 effect of concurrency, 252 grammar, 32 hierarchical, 453 interpreter, 653 noncompositional, 461 program, 219, 220 structure equality, 103, 418, 723 substitution, 126, 803 substitution property, 518, 521, 523 subtype basic types, 52 class hierarchy, 518 Sun Microsystems, xxvi, 462 superclass, 503, 513, 556 supercomputer, 175 supply-driven execution, see eager execution suspension Delay operation, 305 due to program error, 48, 89 thread, 239, 276 Sussman, Gerald Jay, 42 Sussman, Julie, 42 Symbian Ltd., 378 symbolic link, 459 synchronization, 333–337 clock, 308 dataflow, 790 synchronized keyword, 593, 616 synchronous communication, 332 active object variant, 562 component interaction, 456 CSP, 619 dependency, 387 error reporting, 360 failure detection, 400, 739 fault confinement, 745 receive, 332 send, 332 synchronous programming, 266 syntactic sugar, 40, 79–84 dynamic record creation, 165 local statement, 40 state transition diagram, 369 syntax, 31 convention for examples, xxix language, 31 nestable constructs (in Oz), 833 Index 897 nestable declarations (in Oz), 833 Oz language, 833 Oz lexical, 839 Prolog, 663 term (in Oz), 833 synthesized argument, 161 system exception, 96 Szyperski, Clemens, 462 tail call optimization, 72 Tanenbaum, Andrew S., 334 task (in concurrency), 780 tautology, 632 TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), 712, 740 technology, xv dangers of concurrency, 21 history of computing, 176 magic, 314 molecular computing, 176 Prolog implementation, 661 reengineering, 522 singularity, 176 software component, 462 synchronous digital, 267 transition to 64-bit, 78 Tel, Gerard, 353 tell operation, 782, 787 temporal logic, 603 temporary failure, 739 term Erlang, 391 Oz, 833 Prolog, 664 termination detection, 276, 382 ping-pong example, 305 failure in declarative program, 245 partial, 243, 338, 804 proof, 449 total, 804 test-driven development, 452 testing declarative programs, 111, 407 dynamic typing, 105 programming in the small, 219 stateful programs, 407 text file, 210 Thalys high-speed train, 382 theorem binomial, 4 Church-Rosser, 331 Gödel’s completeness, 634 Gödel’s incompleteness, 634 halting problem, 681 theorem prover, 117, 634, 662 Therac-25 scandal, 21 thinking machine, 621 third-party independence, 335 32-bit address, 78 32-bit word, 74, 174 this, see self Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth, 405 thread, 846 declarative model, 233 hanging, 399 interactive interface, 89 introduction, 15 Java, 615 monotonicity property, 239, 781, 782 priority, 253 ready, 239 runnable, 239 suspended, 239 synchronization, 333 thread statement, 241, 785 Thread class (in Java), 616 throughput, 263 thunk, 432 ticket, 480, 714 Connection module, 715 ticking, 307 time complexity, 11 time slice, 252–254 duration, 254 898 Index time-lease mechanism, 480, 734, 738 time-out, 740 Erlang, 391–394 system design, 460 timer protocol, 368 timestamp, 207, 602 timing measurement active object, 379 memory consumption, 173 palindrome product (constraint version), 758 palindrome product (naive version), 629 transitive closure, 471 word frequency, 201 token equality, 418, 714, 723 token passing, 579, 588, 591, 721 token syntax (of Oz), 833 tokenizer, 32, 162 top-down software development, 8, 451 total termination, 804 trade-off asynchronous communication vs. fault confinement, 745 compilation time vs. execution efficiency, 457 compositional vs. noncompositional design, 461 dynamic vs. static scoping, 58 dynamic vs. static typing, 104 explicit state vs. implicit state, 315, 409 expressiveness vs. execution efficiency, 116 expressiveness vs. manipulability, 681 functional decomposition vs. type decomposition, 542 helper procedure placement, 120 indexed collections, 435 inheritance vs. component composition, 462, 492 kernel language design, 844 language design, 811 lazy vs. eager execution, 329 memory use vs. execution speed, 177 names vs. atoms, 510 nonstrictness vs. explicit state, 331, 344 objects vs.


pages: 245 words: 64,288

Robots Will Steal Your Job, But That's OK: How to Survive the Economic Collapse and Be Happy by Pistono, Federico

3D printing, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, bioinformatics, Buckminster Fuller, cloud computing, computer vision, correlation does not imply causation, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, Firefox, future of work, gamification, George Santayana, global village, Google Chrome, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, illegal immigration, income inequality, information retrieval, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, Jeff Hawkins, jimmy wales, job automation, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, Lao Tzu, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, Loebner Prize, longitudinal study, means of production, Narrative Science, natural language processing, new economy, Occupy movement, patent troll, pattern recognition, peak oil, post scarcity, QR code, quantum entanglement, race to the bottom, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, RFID, Rodney Brooks, selection bias, self-driving car, seminal paper, slashdot, smart cities, software as a service, software is eating the world, speech recognition, Steven Pinker, strong AI, synthetic biology, technological singularity, TED Talk, Turing test, Vernor Vinge, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, women in the workforce

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN\%20GILBERT\%20&\%20WILSON\%20(2011).pdf 231 Waking Life is an American animated film (rotoscoped based on live action), directed by Richard Linklater and released in 2001. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines and colors over each frame. The film focuses on the nature of dreams, consciousness, and existentialism. The title is a reference to philosopher George Santayana’s maxim: “Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled”. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_Life 232 Consumer Reports says the average life expectancy of a new vehicle these days is around 8 years or 150,000 miles. http://www.consumerreports.org 233 Galactic-Scale Energy, Prof. of Physics Tom Murphy, 2011.


pages: 227 words: 67,264

The Breakup Monologues: The Unexpected Joy of Heartbreak by Rosie Wilby

Airbnb, Brexit referendum, Burning Man, coronavirus, COVID-19, David Attenborough, Donald Trump, fear of failure, George Santayana, Jeremy Corbyn, Kintsugi, lateral thinking, lockdown, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), social contagion, social distancing, zero-sum game

So if we do ever get to a point where we can simply delete negative memories, we might avoid identifying unhealthy patterns and we could end up repeating cycles of bad relationships. There’s an idea that ‘what isn’t processed is repeated’. Perhaps that is why Joel and Clementine get back together at the end of the film. After all, Madrid-born philosopher George Santayana once said, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Brian says, ‘One of the main concerns people have about memory-altering interventions is that there isn’t a universal line we can draw in the sands of human suffering. Perhaps it will be down to the judgements of the individual.


pages: 281 words: 78,317

But What if We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, British Empire, citizen journalism, cosmological constant, dark matter, data science, Easter island, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Gehry, George Santayana, Gerolamo Cardano, ghettoisation, Golden age of television, Hans Moravec, Higgs boson, Howard Zinn, Isaac Newton, Joan Didion, Large Hadron Collider, Nick Bostrom, non-fiction novel, obamacare, pre–internet, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, Stephen Hawking, TED Talk, the medium is the message, the scientific method, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, too big to fail, Y2K

But I don’t believe subjective distinctions about quality transcend to anything close to objective truth—and every time somebody tries to prove otherwise, the results are inevitably galvanized by whatever it is they get wrong.30 In 1936, a quarterly magazine called The Colophon polled its subscribers (of whom there were roughly two thousand, although who knows how many actually voted) about what contemporary writers they believed would be viewed as canonical at the turn of the twenty-first century. The winner was Sinclair Lewis, who had won the Nobel Prize for literature just five years earlier. Others on the list include Willa Cather, Eugene O’Neill, George Santayana, and Robert Frost. It’s a decent overview of the period. Of course, what’s more fascinating is who was left off: James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway (although the editors of The Colophon did include Hemingway on their own curated list). Now, the predictive time frame we’re dealing with—sixty-four years—is not that extreme.


pages: 225 words: 11,355

Financial Market Meltdown: Everything You Need to Know to Understand and Survive the Global Credit Crisis by Kevin Mellyn

Alan Greenspan, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Bernie Madoff, bond market vigilante , bonus culture, Bretton Woods, business cycle, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cuban missile crisis, deal flow, disintermediation, diversification, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Santayana, global reserve currency, Greenspan put, Home mortgage interest deduction, inverted yield curve, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, junk bonds, Kickstarter, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, long peace, low interest rates, margin call, market clearing, mass immigration, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage tax deduction, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, pattern recognition, pension reform, pets.com, Phillips curve, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, profit maximization, proprietary trading, pushing on a string, reserve currency, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, statistical model, Suez canal 1869, systems thinking, tail risk, The Great Moderation, the long tail, the new new thing, the payments system, too big to fail, value at risk, very high income, War on Poverty, We are all Keynesians now, Y2K, yield curve

It kept money too tight, failed to bail out the banks, and in the process dried up money and credit in the real economy. Businesses closed, employment collapsed, more businesses closed, and so forth in a downward spiral. Until 2009, it seemed impossible that the world would be capable of repeating the tragedy of the 1930s. The philosopher George Santayana famously said that ‘‘Those who forget history The Fed Demystified are destined to repeat it,’’ but he failed to warn us that you can remember history and still end up repeating it. HELICOPTER BEN Ben Strong, to be fair, had no guidance about how to be a central banker aside from what his friend Montagu told him.


pages: 290 words: 76,216

What's Wrong With Economics: A Primer for the Perplexed by Robert Skidelsky

additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, behavioural economics, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, business cycle, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, cognitive bias, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, degrowth, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, full employment, George Akerlof, George Santayana, global supply chain, global village, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, hindsight bias, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index fund, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, loss aversion, Mahbub ul Haq, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, market friction, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, precariat, price anchoring, principal–agent problem, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, sunk-cost fallacy, survivorship bias, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

It’s not surprising that there has been a revival of Keynesian economics, as we ask ourselves whether the lessons we learned from the Great Depression of the 1930s can be fruitfully applied to the Great Recession of 2008 and after. To argue, as many economists have recently done, that the path to recovery lies in cutting government spending, seems a signal case of historical amnesia. As George Santayana famously wrote, ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. 12 ETHICS AND ECONOMICS The fundamental problem . . . is to find a social system which is efficient economically and morally. John Maynard Keynes ‘There are no economic ends, only economical and uneconomical means for achieving given ends . . .


pages: 219 words: 15,438

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham

book value, business logic, buy and hold, compensation consultant, compound rate of return, corporate governance, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, diversified portfolio, dividend-yielding stocks, fixed income, George Santayana, Henry Singleton, index fund, intangible asset, invisible hand, junk bonds, large denomination, low cost airline, Michael Milken, oil shock, passive investing, price stability, Ronald Reagan, stock buybacks, Tax Reform Act of 1986, Teledyne, the market place, transaction costs, Yogi Berra, zero-coupon bond

Gutfreund, John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Hazen, Paul 97 Heider, Charlie.... . . . 136 Heineman, Ben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Henderson, William Thomas 122 115, 150 Hoskins, Ed Ivester, Doug. . . 90 Johnson, Samuel 47 Jordan, Michael.................. 90 Kelleher, Herb. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Keough, Don .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Keynes, John Maynard. .. 14, 81, 171, 185 Kiewit, Peter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Li'l Abner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Lincoln, Abraham................ 198 Lowenstein, Lou. .. . . 149 Lynch, Peter 74,77 Maguire, Jim " 17, 122, 123, 131 Marx, Karl 45 Mason, Jackie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Medlin, John. .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. . . 146 Methuselah " 26, 211 Milken, Michael. . . . . . . . . . .. 17, 102, 103 Mockler, Colman, Jr. ... . . . . . . . . . . 110 Morrison, Garry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 44, 45 Murphy, Tom 83,87,88,97,139 Nicklaus, Jack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Noah............................ 139 O'Hara, Scarlett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Ogilvy, David 42, 66 Okun, Arthur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Palmer, Arnold.................. 42 Pritzker, Jay 67, 71 Reagan, Ronald. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Reichardt, Carl 97, 98 Russell, Bertrand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Sagan, Carl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 53, 207 Santayana, George 137 Schey, Ralph 59,60 Schofield, Seth. . . . . . . .. 42, 112, 113, 115 Scott, F.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Scott, Walter, Jr. 121 Sellers, Peter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Sigler, Andy..................... 110 Simmons, Dick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Simpson, Lou . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Singleton, Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Smith, Adam 45, 130 Snyder, Bill. . .. . .. . .. . . .. . .. . .. . . 83 St.


pages: 263 words: 81,542

Drinking in America: Our Secret History by Susan Cheever

British Empire, classic study, George Santayana, Howard Zinn, nuclear winter, off-the-grid, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Suez canal 1869, trade route, white picket fence

These days, our surplus of corn, subsidized by government help, is made into another liquid that is cheap and easy to transport—high fructose corn syrup. Pollan concludes that “corn sweetener is to the republic of fat what corn whiskey was to the alcoholic republic.” We used to be the drunkest nation in the world; now we are the fattest nation in the world. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote George Santayana. In the twenty-first century, as we swing back toward regulation and laws against drinking, we are repeating our own history. At the same time, because we often ignore the effects of alcohol in current events and in our own experiences, we are in the midst of a public education crisis. According to the New York Times, fewer than 10 percent of people needing treatment for alcohol and drug abuse get that treatment.


The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World by John Michael Greer

back-to-the-land, Black Swan, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, David Strachan, deindustrialization, Easter island, European colonialism, Extropian, failed state, feminist movement, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Santayana, hydrogen economy, hygiene hypothesis, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, Jevons paradox, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, McMansion, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, post-industrial society, Project for a New American Century, Ray Kurzweil, Stewart Brand, the scientific method, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, upwardly mobile, Whole Earth Catalog, Y2K

., 156 N Naess, Arne, 221 nation-state(s), 46–47 Native American(s), 23 Nazi Germany, 161–162 neoconservative(s), 65–66, 226 New Alchemy Institute, 124 nomadic herding ecologies, 7, 61 nonrenewable resources, 7 NPK fertilizer, 110 nuclear energy, 12–13, 163–164 O organic agriculture, 24, 28, 103 Orwell, George, 58 overshoot, 5, 19, 22 ozone layer, 15 P paradox of production, 165–169 peak oil, 9–10, 159, 181 permaculture, 103–104 Polybius, 231 Popper, Karl, 227 production costs, 169–171 267 268 T he E cotechnic F u t u re Project for a New American Century, 65 projecting the shadow, 83 R R-selected species, 22–25, 30, 102, 110 Ray, Paul H., 200 reenactment societies, 158 Reich, Charles, 201 relocalization, 178 renewable energy, 12 resource nationalism, 64 retrofitting, 126–127, 150 revitalization movements, 62–63 Reynolds, Mike, 124 S Sagan, Carl, 207 salvage societies, 34–35, 70–74, 145 salvage trades, 148 Santayana, George, 194 scarcity industrialism, 34–35, 66–70, 106, 141, 145, 243 scientific method, 213–214 scientism, 207–8, 214, 217, 220–222 seral stage, 21, 70 sere, 21–22 Seymour, John, 103 socialism, 80 solar energy, 124, 127, 173 solvitur ambulando, 94 Spencer, Herbert, 58 Spengler, Oswald, 232–235, 238–240 Star Trek, 31 steel as salvage resource, 72–73 Steiner, Rudolf, 103 straw bale building, 123–124 succession, 20–36, 75–76, 241–242 survivalism, 80 Sutton Hoo, 135–136 system costs, 169–171 Index T Tainter, Joseph, 233 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, 37 technic society, 30–32, 76, 243–244 Texas Railway Commission, xii Thomas Edison Technical School, 146 Thornburg, Newton, 177 Tikal, 71 Tolkien, J.


words: 49,604

The Weightless World: Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy by Diane Coyle

Alan Greenspan, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business cycle, clean water, company town, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cross-subsidies, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, dematerialisation, Diane Coyle, Edward Glaeser, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, financial deregulation, flying shuttle, full employment, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, Howard Rheingold, income inequality, informal economy, invention of the sewing machine, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, laissez-faire capitalism, lump of labour, Mahbub ul Haq, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, McJob, Meghnad Desai, microcredit, moral panic, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, Nick Leeson, night-watchman state, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, pension reform, pension time bomb, pensions crisis, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Snow Crash, spinning jenny, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tobin tax, Tragedy of the Commons, two tier labour market, very high income, War on Poverty, winner-take-all economy, working-age population

There is now a strand in political philosophy that detests economic progress, linking it to the fundamental modern liberal agenda. For example, John Gray has criticised the ‘elite of opinion formers’ who have paternalistically imposed conformity on the world. It is a political tendency ‘for which progress is more important than liberty’. He quotes George Santayana approvingly: ‘We all feel at this time the moral ambiguity of mechanical progress. It seems to multiply opportunity, but it destroys the possibility of simple, rural or independent life.’4 Everybody feels the appeal of the simple life. I have desired to go where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow.


pages: 327 words: 88,121

The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community by Marc J. Dunkelman

Abraham Maslow, adjacent possible, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, assortative mating, Berlin Wall, big-box store, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, Broken windows theory, business cycle, call centre, clean water, company town, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, David Brooks, delayed gratification, different worldview, double helix, Downton Abbey, Dunbar number, Edward Jenner, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, global supply chain, global village, helicopter parent, if you build it, they will come, impulse control, income inequality, invention of movable type, Jane Jacobs, Khyber Pass, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, Marshall McLuhan, McMansion, Nate Silver, obamacare, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, Peter Thiel, post-industrial society, Richard Florida, rolodex, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, social intelligence, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, telemarketer, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, the strength of weak ties, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, urban decay, urban planning, Walter Mischel, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

., 19, 84, 128, 176, 230 Chinatown in, 33–35 Diamond District in, 98–99, 135 Jacobs’s views on, 85–86, 166, 167–68 New York Times, xiv, 27, 38, 46, 54–55, 59, 182, 229 New York Times Book Review, 5–6 New York Times Magazine, 64 niches, 36, 40, 41, 44–45, 73–74 affirmation and, 107–8, 110–11 Nichols, Mike, 4, 248n Nie, Norman, 125 1950s, 3–6, 32, 50, 52, 60, 114, 115, 127, 138, 139, 248n conformity in, 4–5, 65, 73, 74 family routines in, 58 fantasy view of, 3, 51 membership associations in, 130–31 1960s, 70–71, 248n social trust in, 135 upheavals of, 6, 68, 87, 108–9, 128 Nisbet, Robert, 194 North American Free Trade Agreement, 197–98 nostalgia, ix–x, 51, 72, 146, 182–83 nuclear war, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 60 nursing homes, 197, 200, 202, 206–7 Obama, Barack, 24, 37–38, 42, 59, 146, 186, 205, 210 Occupy movement, 109–10 Office, The (TV show), 131 Ogle, Richard, 162 Olds, Jacqueline, 130 Olympic Games (2014), 178 online buying, 41, 69–70 online communities, 114–15, 116, 145, 250n opportunity, 12–13, 26, 27, 32, 43, 49, 62, 69, 73, 74, 75, 98, 212, 213 affirmation and, 103, 108 optimism, 51, 82, 114, 236 Organization Man, The (Whyte), 5, 6, 138 organizations: new breed of, 116–18 voluntary, 80, 116, 118, 130–31, 187, 201, 228, 239 Osteen, Joel, 72, 238 other-directedness, 5–7 Our Best Life (Osteen), 72 outer-ring relationships, 96–97, 114–19, 137, 138–39, 143, 145, 147–48, 169, 173, 190, 204, 237, 238 affirmation and, 107–12, 115 online, 114–15, 121–22 Oxycodone epidemic, 147–48 Packer, George, 235, 236 Palin, Sarah, 206 Pariser, Eli, 37, 48, 176, 194–95 Park Forest, 4–5 Pasteur, Louis, 158–59, 174 Pauling, Linus, 161 PBS, 182, 192 pensions, 20, 205, 235–36 Perot, Ross, 197–98 Perry Preschool Project, 224 Pew Center for American Life, 250n Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 71 Pew Internet & American Life Project, 125 Pew Research Center, 106–7, 237 Pixar studio, 164–65 Planet Money (radio show), 180–81 Platinum Mile, 176 polio, 51, 52, 59 political science, 66–69, 141 politics, xiv–xvii, xix, 11, 15, 82, 101, 148, 181–95, 210, 229, 232 affirmation and, 108–10 Chinatown Bus effect and, 44, 47–48 culture wars and, 114 globalization and, 18 taste and, 37–38 polls, polling, 7, 29, 182, 226 deliberative, 192–93, 195 World Values Survey, 67–68, 73 Poole, Keith, 184 Porter, Eduardo, 255n potlikker, 136–37 poverty, 11, 22, 41, 43, 54, 62, 75, 146, 194, 201, 226, 255n in Brazil, 178, 267n urbanism and, 83, 216 prejudice, 88, 146, 148, 231 against homosexuals, 42, 43, 51 racial, 24, 39, 146 productivity, 19, 53, 167 progress, 24, 31, 35, 68, 75, 174, 238 progressives (the left), 11, 15, 23, 26, 31, 47, 148, 235 crime and, 56 Washington dysfunction and, 182, 184, 189, 190 property, 82, 179, 229 prosperity, 52–55, 57, 62, 67, 68–69, 72, 178, 230 psychology, Maslow’s influence in, 61–62 public policy, failure of, 22–23 Pulitzer, Joseph, 188 purchasing power, 53–54 Putnam, Robert, 7, 97, 99–100, 113–16, 119, 120, 141, 151–52, 170, 192 on social trust, 134–35 quality of life, 21, 50–62 affluence and, 52–55, 62, 72 health and, 31, 51, 52, 57–60 hierarchy of needs and, 61–62, 72 security and safety and, 52, 55–62, 72 Quest for Community, The (Nisbet), 194 race, 11, 32, 68, 79, 147, 148, 237 prejudice and, 24, 39, 146 see also African Americans racism, 4, 51 Radicalism of the American Revolution, The (Wood), xii, 81, 194 radio, 36, 37, 71, 133, 148, 152, 180–81 Rainie, Lee, 237 Rauch, Jonathan, 199 Raytheon, 165 Reagan, Ronald, 22 Real World, The (TV show), 63 rebels, 102–3, 127 religion, 29, 39, 48, 71–72, 74, 114, 147, 148, 231, 238 Republicans, 15, 37–38, 148, 182–85 retirement, 55, 60, 104–5, 197, 198, 204–5, 235–36 Riesman, David, 5–8, 12, 65, 73, 74, 213 Rock, Chris, 40 romance, 70, 71, 74 Romney, Mitt, 37–38 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 203 Rose, Charlie, 182 Rosenthal, Howard, 184 Rotary Clubs, 44, 45, 116 Rumspringa, 28–29, 30 Sachar, Abram L., 4 Saddleback Church, 72 Safford, Sean, xi, 97, 169–72 Sampson, Robert, 149–50 San Francisco, Calif., 129, 189 Santayana, George, 51 Saturn model, 95–98 see also intimate relationships; middle-ring relationships; outer-ring relationships Schmidt, Eric, 18 Schwartz, Richard, 130 Second Wave society, 16–17, 20, 23, 31–32, 48 mass market and, 40 membership organizations and, 44 townships in, 88, 89, 233 security and safety, 52, 55–62, 67, 68, 72, 133, 150 segregation, 40–41, 79, 237–38 self-actualization, 61, 72 self-control, 214–25 self-expression, 69, 71–72 self-fulfillment, 104, 261n self-interest, 183, 195 Senate, U.S., xvi, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191 service jobs, 18–19, 53, 132, 138, 236 settled horticultural societies, 92, 95 shopping, 25, 38–42, 49 shopping malls, 40, 41 Silicon Valley, 174, 175, 227, 237 Silver, Nate, 7 Skocpol, Theda, 44, 45, 116–18, 130, 201 smallpox, 157–58 social architecture, 232–34 in Barbados vs.


pages: 509 words: 92,141

The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt, Dave Thomas

A Pattern Language, Broken windows theory, business logic, business process, buy low sell high, c2.com, combinatorial explosion, continuous integration, database schema, domain-specific language, don't repeat yourself, Donald Knuth, Ford Model T, Free Software Foundation, general-purpose programming language, George Santayana, Grace Hopper, higher-order functions, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, index card, Kaizen: continuous improvement, lateral thinking, loose coupling, Menlo Park, MVC pattern, off-by-one error, premature optimization, Ralph Waldo Emerson, revision control, Schrödinger's Cat, slashdot, sorting algorithm, speech recognition, systems thinking, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, traveling salesman, urban decay, Y2K

Try to stump your colleagues who use the same editor. Try to accomplish any given editing task in as few keystrokes as possible. 17. Source Code Control Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. • George Santayana, Life of Reason One of the important things we look for in a user interface is the key—a single button that forgives us our mistakes. It's even better if the environment supports multiple levels of undo and redo, so you can go back and recover from something that happened a couple of minutes ago.


pages: 673 words: 88,905

Ignition by John D. Clark

George Santayana, RAND corporation, uranium enrichment

Navy photo Figure 3. And this is what it may look like if something goes wrong. The same test cell, or its remains, is shown. U.S. Navy photo Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John D. Clark Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden, New Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Clark, John D. (John Drury), 1907–1988, author. Title: Ignition! : an informal history of liquid rocket propellants / by John D. Clark. Description: New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2017] | Orignally published: New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1972. | Includes index.


pages: 469 words: 97,582

QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance by Lloyd, John, Mitchinson, John

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, Ada Lovelace, Apple Newton, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, disinformation, double helix, Etonian, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Great Leap Forward, Isaac Newton, Lao Tzu, Louis Pasteur, Mikhail Gorbachev, Murano, Venice glass, Neil Armstrong, out of africa, Stephen Fry, the built environment, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, traveling salesman, US Airways Flight 1549

A life-form in which each individual has the potential to found colony upon colony of fellow immortals … THE USES OF INTERESTINGNESS There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader’s hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books. GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863–1952) We think all books, even the ones that are handsomely bound and come with an index, are still works in progress. If the pursuit of interestingness has taught us anything it is that there is no final word on any subject. For this reason we encourage you to scrawl furiously in the margins of this book or, better still, visit our website and pick up the conversation with us there.


pages: 328 words: 96,678

MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them by Nouriel Roubini

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, 3D printing, 9 dash line, AI winter, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, asset allocation, assortative mating, autonomous vehicles, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, cashless society, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, Dogecoin, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, family office, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, future of work, game design, geopolitical risk, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, GPS: selective availability, green transition, Greensill Capital, Greenspan put, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, initial coin offering, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge worker, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, M-Pesa, margin call, market bubble, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meme stock, Michael Milken, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Minsky moment, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Mustafa Suleyman, Nash equilibrium, natural language processing, negative equity, Nick Bostrom, non-fungible token, non-tariff barriers, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, paradox of thrift, pets.com, Phillips curve, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, precariat, price mechanism, price stability, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, reshoring, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, Savings and loan crisis, Second Machine Age, short selling, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, TED Talk, The Great Moderation, the payments system, Thomas L Friedman, TikTok, too big to fail, Turing test, universal basic income, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working-age population, Yogi Berra, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

People looked at me as if I’d lost my senses when I spoke about the risks of stagflation, as I did starting in 2021 in a series of articles,3 just like after my presentation in 2006 at the IMF. Heads nod but nothing changes. Instead of connecting the dots right in front of them, audiences say, we need a stiff drink. What they need is the philosopher George Santayana. “Those who cannot remember the past,” he famously warned, “are condemned to repeat it.” We have reached the tipping point of a debt supercycle. Loose monetary and fiscal policies now court disaster. Recession and high interest rates will hobble all but the sturdiest institutions, banks, global corporations, and countries.


pages: 353 words: 110,919

The Road to Character by David Brooks

Cass Sunstein, coherent worldview, David Brooks, desegregation, digital rights, Donald Trump, follow your passion, George Santayana, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, New Journalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, Snapchat, Steve Jobs, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, you are the product

He would tackle you and then get up and recite a poem.”16 As a freshman he became the first black student in forty years to win his high school’s oratory prize. By senior year he made the all-county football team, and he was a class valedictorian. He developed a passion for opera, Mozart, Bach, and Palestrina, and George Santayana’s novel The Last Puritan was one of his favorite books. On his own he also read Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization, which, he testified, was like “taking a whiff of something that simply opens your nostrils except that it happened in my brain.”17 Rustin went off to college at Wilberforce University in Ohio and then Cheney State in Pennsylvania.


The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch

Abraham Maslow, classic study, cuban missile crisis, delayed gratification, desegregation, feminist movement, full employment, Future Shock, George Santayana, Herman Kahn, impulse control, Induced demand, invisible hand, Kitchen Debate, Marshall McLuhan, Maslow's hierarchy, mass immigration, means of production, Norman Mailer, planned obsolescence, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, road to serfdom, scientific management, Scientific racism, Stewart Brand, technoutopianism, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, theory of mind, Thorstein Veblen, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, yellow journalism

. , pseudo-mutuality, 172-3, 176 psychiatric justice, 229-30; see also thetapeutic model of authority psychiatiy. self criticism of, 163-5; see also helping professions psychoanalysis: 162, 172; growing concem with narcissism, 42 3, and social theory, 34-6; and sociology, 94; suspension of secondary process in therapy, 97-8; theory of narcissism, 35-6 psychological man, xvi, 13, 202-3 psychosocial development: normative schedule of, 48-9,212; see also I ife cycle Sade. Donatien A. F.. Marquis de; on war of all againsl all, 69-70 Sage, Russell: on compulsive industty , 57 Salk, Lee, 167 n. Salk Institute, 215 San Francisco£wm/ntfr 106 , Santayana, George, 9 Sarason, Seymour B.: on fear of entrapment, 45 n. Saturday Evening Post, 58 Schaffner, Bertram: on human relations 165 n. , schizophrenia, 24, 41 , 177; family background of, 188-9; and narcissism, 171-2; and pseudo- mutuality, 172 Scholastic Aptitude Tests. 128 Schur. Edwin, 30; on awareness movement, 25-7 scientific management, 183, 223; and sports, 120 Scoring (Grecnberg), 19 Scott, Jack, 104, 114; on competition. 117-8 Seattle 7, 23 secondary process: suspension of, 231 Stem, Susan: on Weathermen, 7-8,23 Selective Service Act(l95I), 139 self actualization, 183 self-culture, 56-7 Studies in Classic American Literature (Lawrence), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 23, 82 55 n.


pages: 1,351 words: 385,579

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker

1960s counterculture, affirmative action, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Albert Einstein, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, bread and circuses, British Empire, Broken windows theory, business cycle, California gold rush, Cass Sunstein, citation needed, classic study, clean water, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, Columbine, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, confounding variable, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, crack epidemic, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Brooks, delayed gratification, demographic transition, desegregation, Doomsday Clock, Douglas Hofstadter, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, experimental subject, facts on the ground, failed state, first-past-the-post, Flynn Effect, food miles, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, fudge factor, full employment, Garrett Hardin, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Gini coefficient, global village, Golden arches theory, Great Leap Forward, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, high-speed rail, Hobbesian trap, humanitarian revolution, impulse control, income inequality, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, lake wobegon effect, libertarian paternalism, long peace, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Marshall McLuhan, mass incarceration, McMansion, means of production, mental accounting, meta-analysis, Mikhail Gorbachev, mirror neurons, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, nuclear taboo, Oklahoma City bombing, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Singer: altruism, power law, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, Republic of Letters, Richard Thaler, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, security theater, Skinner box, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Stanford prison experiment, statistical model, stem cell, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, sunk-cost fallacy, technological determinism, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the long tail, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Timothy McVeigh, Tragedy of the Commons, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, Turing machine, twin studies, ultimatum game, uranium enrichment, Vilfredo Pareto, Walter Mischel, WarGames: Global Thermonuclear War, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

And what can we conclude about the prospects for war and peace in the present one? The competing predictions of Toynbee the historian and Richardson the physicist represent complementary ways of understanding the flow of events in time. Traditional history is a narrative of the past. But if we are to heed George Santayana’s advisory to remember the past so as not to repeat it, we need to discern patterns in the past, so we can know what to generalize to the predicaments of the present. Inducing generalizable patterns from a finite set of observations is the stock in trade of the scientist, and some of the lessons of pattern extraction in science may be applied to the data of history.

Rumsfeld, Donald Rush, Benjamin Rushdie, Salman Rusk, Dean Ruskin, John Russell, Bertrand Russett, Bruce Russia: capital punishment in civil war in and Cold War, see USSR compulsory military service in crime in peasant uprisings in retaliation in terrorism in Time of Troubles and World War I Russian Revolution Rwanda Ryder, Norman Saakashvili, Mikheil sacred values Sadat, Anwar Sade, Marquis de sadism introduction of concept psychology of by serial killers and torture Sagan, Carl Sagan, Scott Sageman, Marc Sailer, Steven Saint Pierre, Abbé de Salehyan, Idean Salem witch trials Salmon, Catherine Sampson, Robert Samuel Sand Creek Massacre Santayana, George Sassoon, Siegfried SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) satire Saudi Arabia Saul, King Saunders, J. J. savage, use of term Saxe, Rebecca Sayers, Dorothy L. Scandinavia homicides in Scarpa, Angela schadenfreude; see also sadism Schama, Simon Schechter, Harold Schell, Jonathan Schelling, Friedrich Schelling, Thomas schools: corporal punishment in education in weapons in see also education Schwager, Raymund Schweitzer, Albert Schwerner, Michael science, value system of scientific reasoning; see also modernity Scientific Revolution Scotland Scott, Sir Walter Scully, Diana Seabrook, John security dilemma; see also Hobbesian trap Seeking system Seinfeld, Jerry self-control and Civilizing Process and counterculture and crime and ego depletion and etiquette and experience fatigue of heritability of and human brain and intelligence introduction of concept language of measures of and reason sexual strategies of self-deception self-determination self-domestication self-esteem self-help justice self-organized criticality self-serving biases Seligman, Martin Semai people sensation seeking; see also attention deficit hyperactivity disorder September 11 attacks Serbia serial killers serotonin Servetus, Michael Sesame Street (TV) Seven Years’ War sexism; see also women, attitudes toward; women, male control of; women, as property; women, rights of sex ratio sexual abuse sexual jealousy sexual revolution sexual sadism sexual selection, theory of sexual self-control Shaka (Zulu) Shakespeare, William Falstaff Henry IV, Part I, Henry V, King Lear Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice Portia Shylock Titus Andronicus Shasta County, California, ranchers Shaw, George Bernard Sheehan, James Shen, Francis X.


Trading Risk: Enhanced Profitability Through Risk Control by Kenneth L. Grant

backtesting, business cycle, buy and hold, commodity trading advisor, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, delta neutral, diversification, diversified portfolio, financial engineering, fixed income, frictionless, frictionless market, George Santayana, global macro, implied volatility, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, John Meriwether, Long Term Capital Management, managed futures, market design, Myron Scholes, performance metric, price mechanism, price stability, proprietary trading, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, Sharpe ratio, short selling, South Sea Bubble, Stephen Hawking, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transaction costs, two-sided market, uptick rule, value at risk, volatility arbitrage, yield curve, zero-coupon bond

For these reasons, while implied volatility offers a unique and critical insight into the likely price dispersion characteristics of a given financial instrument, it must be viewed, as with other elements of our tool kit, with a critical eye and a healthy degree of skepticism (which, like Chastity, to paraphrase that righteous man of letters George Santayana, should not be relinquished too readily). I believe that it makes sense to utilize both the implied volatility statistic and historical volatility figures, with both statistics calculated over multiple time spans. Line these up side by side, and examine the extent to which they deviate from one another.


pages: 424 words: 114,905

Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again by Eric Topol

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, AI winter, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Apollo 11, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, Big Tech, bioinformatics, blockchain, Cambridge Analytica, cloud computing, cognitive bias, Colonization of Mars, computer age, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, dark matter, data science, David Brooks, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, digital twin, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, fault tolerance, gamification, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, George Santayana, Google Glasses, ImageNet competition, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, Joi Ito, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, medical residency, meta-analysis, microbiome, move 37, natural language processing, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, nudge unit, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pattern recognition, performance metric, personalized medicine, phenotype, placebo effect, post-truth, randomized controlled trial, recommendation engine, Rubik’s Cube, Sam Altman, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skinner box, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, techlash, TED Talk, text mining, the scientific method, Tim Cook: Apple, traumatic brain injury, trolley problem, War on Poverty, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working-age population

But we also do it as a form of scholarship, looking back at ourselves as a species, as if we were the Creator, poring through recorded history, charting the milestones of progress, from the harnessing of fire to the microchip. Then we try to make sense of it. Kierkegaard’s thesis that we live life forward but understand it backward might mean nothing more than we remember the past, and at best we have an (inaccurate) record of it. But with apologies to him and to George Santayana, understanding history does not provide immunity to repeating it. A cursory scan of the news shows this to be true. In short, even as a guide to what to avoid, the past is unreliable. Only the future is certain because it is still ours to make. Which brings us to futurists, like the author of this wonderful book.


pages: 394 words: 118,929

Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software by Scott Rosenberg

A Pattern Language, AOL-Time Warner, Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL), Berlin Wall, Bill Atkinson, c2.com, call centre, collaborative editing, Computer Lib, conceptual framework, continuous integration, Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life?, Donald Knuth, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Hofstadter, Dynabook, en.wikipedia.org, Firefox, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Free Software Foundation, functional programming, General Magic , George Santayana, Grace Hopper, Guido van Rossum, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Howard Rheingold, HyperCard, index card, intentional community, Internet Archive, inventory management, Ivan Sutherland, Jaron Lanier, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, knowledge worker, L Peter Deutsch, Larry Wall, life extension, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Menlo Park, Merlin Mann, Mitch Kapor, Neal Stephenson, new economy, Nicholas Carr, no silver bullet, Norbert Wiener, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, Potemkin village, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Stallman, Ronald Reagan, Ruby on Rails, scientific management, semantic web, side project, Silicon Valley, Singularitarianism, slashdot, software studies, source of truth, South of Market, San Francisco, speech recognition, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Strategic Defense Initiative, Ted Nelson, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, Therac-25, thinkpad, Turing test, VA Linux, Vannevar Bush, Vernor Vinge, Wayback Machine, web application, Whole Earth Catalog, Y2K

The participants recorded their frustration with the lumbering pace and uncertain results of large-scale software development and advocated many of the remedies that have flowed in and out of fashion in the years since: Small teams. “Feedback from users early in the design process.” “Do something small, useful, now.” “Use the criterion: It should be easy to explain.” George Santayana’s dictum that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” applies here. It’s tempting to recommend that these NATO reports be required reading for all programmers and their managers. But, as Joel Spolsky says, most programmers don’t read much about their own discipline. That leaves them trapped in infinite loops of self-ignorance.


pages: 482 words: 121,672

A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Eleventh Edition) by Burton G. Malkiel

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, asset allocation, asset-backed security, beat the dealer, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, book value, butter production in bangladesh, buttonwood tree, buy and hold, capital asset pricing model, compound rate of return, correlation coefficient, Credit Default Swap, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Detroit bankruptcy, diversification, diversified portfolio, dogs of the Dow, Edward Thorp, Elliott wave, equity risk premium, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental subject, feminist movement, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, framing effect, George Santayana, hindsight bias, Home mortgage interest deduction, index fund, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Japanese asset price bubble, John Bogle, junk bonds, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, low interest rates, margin call, market bubble, Mary Meeker, money market fund, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, Own Your Own Home, PalmPilot, passive investing, Paul Samuelson, pets.com, Ponzi scheme, price stability, profit maximization, publish or perish, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, random walk, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, risk/return, Robert Shiller, Salesforce, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, sugar pill, survivorship bias, Teledyne, the rule of 72, The Wisdom of Crowds, transaction costs, Vanguard fund, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game

., 314 representative heuristic, 237–38 required minimum distributions (RMDs), 375, 378 Research Affiliates, 271, 278–79 Research Affliates Fundamental Index (RAFI), 271, 272, 277, 278–80 resistance area, 116, 117, 142 resistance level, 113, 116 retirement plans, 246–48, 292, 293, 296, 300–304, 316, 320, 367, 370–78, 390 revisionists, 40, 54 risk, 39, 229, 256, 264, 350, 351, 354, 408 arbitrage pricing theory and, 223–25 assumption of, 190 attitude toward, 311, 349, 350, 361–63, 364 beta as measurement of, see beta of bonds, 306–7, 318 capacity for, 349, 350, 361–63, 364 of common stocks, 195–96, 307, 309, 313, 341, 342 defined, 191 as dispersion of returns, 191–96 Fama-French three-factor model for, 225–26, 270–71, 272, 274, 280 financial survival as factor in, 311, 361–63 of gold, 309 of growth stocks, 130 in housing bubbles, 100 international scene and, 201–8 loss aversion and, 243–45 measurement of, 123–25, 191–96, 209–28, 408 modeling of, see capital-asset pricing model of mutual funds, 310 in new investment technology, 190 portfolio diversification and, 198–200 premiums, 341n psychological makeup as factor in, 311 of real estate investment, 310 rebalancing and, 359–61 reduction of, 196–200, 210–19, 380 of savings accounts, 308 of six-month certificates, 308 sleeping scale on, 308–9 “smart beta” funds and, 260–61, 272, 279, 280, 283 staying power and, 352–55 systematic (market), see beta; systematic risk total, 210–13 of Treasury securities, 308, 319–20 unsystematic, 210–15 Roll, Richard, 222, 285 Ross, Stephen, 223 Roth IRAs, 303, 378 Rothschild, Nathan, 183 round lots, 149 Royal Dutch Petroleum, 251 rule of 72, 120 Russell Index, 266, 276, 278–79, 280, 281, 282, 385, 386 St. Louis Rams, 148 salaries, in high finance, 109 Salomon Smith Barney, 88, 172 Samuelson, Paul, 183, 354n, 384 Sandretto, Michael, 163 Santayana, George, 35 Sarbanes-Oxley, 172–73 Savannah and St. Paul Steamboat Line, 121 “Save More Tomorrow” plans, 247 savingforcollege.com, 305n savings, 364–66 home ownership and, 314 savings accounts, risk of, 308 savings bonds, U.S., 315 Schwed, Fred, Jr., 118 securities: collateralized, 99 fixed-interest, 126 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 59, 65, 89, 167, 173, 185, 259 beta approved by, 218 Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure) of, 183 Security Analysis (Graham and Dodd), 32, 105 security analysts, 159–85 advice and, 172 conflict of interest with investment banking, 164, 170–73 equity research stars and, 159 fads and, 75 forecasting difficulties of, 164–74 forecasting future earnings as raison d’être of, 160–63 Internet bubble fostered by, 88–89 loss of best of, 164, 170 metamorphosis of, 159 occasional incompetence of, 162–63, 164, 168–70, 173 selection penalty, 243, 254 self-employment, 304 sell vs. buy recommendations, ratio of, 171–72 Seybun, H.


pages: 457 words: 126,996

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Story of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman

1960s counterculture, 4chan, Aaron Swartz, Amazon Web Services, Bay Area Rapid Transit, bitcoin, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, cloud computing, collective bargaining, corporate governance, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, David Graeber, Debian, digital rights, disinformation, do-ocracy, East Village, Eben Moglen, Edward Snowden, false flag, feminist movement, Free Software Foundation, Gabriella Coleman, gentrification, George Santayana, Hacker News, hive mind, impulse control, information security, Jacob Appelbaum, jimmy wales, John Perry Barlow, Julian Assange, Laura Poitras, lolcat, low cost airline, mandatory minimum, Mohammed Bouazizi, Network effects, Occupy movement, Oklahoma City bombing, operational security, pirate software, power law, Richard Stallman, SETI@home, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, SQL injection, Steven Levy, Streisand effect, TED Talk, Twitter Arab Spring, WikiLeaks, zero day

This order, nevertheless, is delicate and precarious—on the edge of disorder. However, like so many trickster scenarios of disorder, these moments of chaos don’t necessarily lead to breakdown and stasis. Instead, they often function as beginnings—necessary for the vitality and even regeneration of the broader community. Juxtaposing two quotes by Spanish philosopher George Santayana puts this lesson into relief: Chaos is name for any order that produces confusion in our minds but it won’t be chaos once we see it for what it is. Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. In the somewhat tangled story I am about to tell, it will be clear how Anonymous, like most social movements, remains open to chance, even chaos.


pages: 624 words: 127,987

The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume by Josh Kaufman

Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Atul Gawande, Black Swan, Blue Ocean Strategy, business cycle, business process, buy low sell high, capital asset pricing model, Checklist Manifesto, cognitive bias, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Heinemeier Hansson, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Dean Kamen, delayed gratification, discounted cash flows, Donald Knuth, double entry bookkeeping, Douglas Hofstadter, Dunning–Kruger effect, en.wikipedia.org, Frederick Winslow Taylor, George Santayana, Gödel, Escher, Bach, high net worth, hindsight bias, index card, inventory management, iterative process, job satisfaction, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Lao Tzu, lateral thinking, loose coupling, loss aversion, Marc Andreessen, market bubble, Network effects, Parkinson's law, Paul Buchheit, Paul Graham, place-making, premature optimization, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, scientific management, side project, statistical model, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, subscription business, systems thinking, telemarketer, the scientific method, time value of money, Toyota Production System, tulip mania, Upton Sinclair, Vilfredo Pareto, Walter Mischel, Y Combinator, Yogi Berra

The more you can isolate the change you made in the system from other factors, the more confidence you can have that the change you made intentionally actually caused the results you see. SHARE THIS CONCEPT: http://book.personalmba.com/correlation-causation/ Norms Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. —GEORGE SANTAYANA, PHILOSOPHER, ESSAYIST, AND APHORIST If you want to compare the effectiveness of something in the present, it’s often useful to learn from the past. Norms are measures that use historical data as a tool to provide Context for current Measurements. For example, by looking at past data you may discover trends in your sales data directly related to the date the sale was made, which is called seasonality.


pages: 505 words: 142,118

A Man for All Markets by Edward O. Thorp

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 3Com Palm IPO, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, asset allocation, Bear Stearns, beat the dealer, Bernie Madoff, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Black-Scholes formula, book value, Brownian motion, buy and hold, buy low sell high, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, carried interest, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Claude Shannon: information theory, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, diversification, Edward Thorp, Erdős number, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial engineering, financial innovation, Garrett Hardin, George Santayana, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, Henri Poincaré, high net worth, High speed trading, index arbitrage, index fund, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jeff Bezos, John Bogle, John Meriwether, John Nash: game theory, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Livingstone, I presume, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Bachelier, low interest rates, margin call, Mason jar, merger arbitrage, Michael Milken, Murray Gell-Mann, Myron Scholes, NetJets, Norbert Wiener, PalmPilot, passive investing, Paul Erdős, Paul Samuelson, Pluto: dwarf planet, Ponzi scheme, power law, price anchoring, publish or perish, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, random walk, Renaissance Technologies, RFID, Richard Feynman, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, rolodex, Sharpe ratio, short selling, Silicon Valley, Stanford marshmallow experiment, statistical arbitrage, stem cell, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, survivorship bias, tail risk, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Predators' Ball, the rule of 72, The Wisdom of Crowds, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, uptick rule, Upton Sinclair, value at risk, Vanguard fund, Vilfredo Pareto, Works Progress Administration

These two measures—democratic elections and shareholder rights to put issues to a vote—would allow the owners of the company, namely, the shareholders, to exert control over the compensation of top executives, their so-called agents, and would, in my opinion, be far more effective and accurate than direct government regulation. Our economy slowly recovered in the years following the 2008–09 crisis. However, little has been done to add safeguards to prevent a recurrence. As the philosopher George Santayana famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Though the institutions of society have difficulty learning from history, individuals can do so. Next, I share some of what I’ve learned. Chapter 30 * * * THOUGHTS To end this story of my odyssey through science, mathematics, gambling, hedge funds, finance, and investing, I would like to share some of what I learned along the way.


pages: 537 words: 144,318

The Invisible Hands: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Bubbles, Crashes, and Real Money by Steven Drobny

Albert Einstein, AOL-Time Warner, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, backtesting, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Black Swan, bond market vigilante , book value, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, buy and hold, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, commodity super cycle, commodity trading advisor, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency peg, debt deflation, diversification, diversified portfolio, equity premium, equity risk premium, family office, fiat currency, fixed income, follow your passion, full employment, George Santayana, global macro, Greenspan put, Hyman Minsky, implied volatility, index fund, inflation targeting, interest rate swap, inventory management, inverted yield curve, invisible hand, junk bonds, Kickstarter, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, market microstructure, Minsky moment, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, North Sea oil, open economy, peak oil, pension reform, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, price discovery process, price stability, private sector deleveraging, profit motive, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, random walk, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, reserve currency, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, risk/return, savings glut, selection bias, Sharpe ratio, short selling, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, statistical arbitrage, stochastic volatility, stocks for the long run, stocks for the long term, survivorship bias, tail risk, The Great Moderation, Thomas Bayes, time value of money, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, two and twenty, unbiased observer, value at risk, Vanguard fund, yield curve, zero-sum game

The goal is to provide an understanding of how successful global macro hedge fund managers navigated the most significant financial crisis of our lifetimes and to offer suggestions for how real money managers and all investors can incorporate certain elements of the macro approach into their own investment process. For all of our benefit, I hope this book makes progress toward that end. Steven Drobny Manhattan Beach, California December 2009 Part One REAL MONEY AND THE CRASH OF ‘08 Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. —George Santayana Chapter 1 Rethinking Real Money I. Why Real Money? Real money is a commonly used term in the financial markets to denote a fully funded, long-only traditional asset manager. Real money managers are often referred to as institutional investors. The term real money means the money is managed on an unlevered basis.


pages: 450 words: 134,152

The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T by Steve Coll

Alvin Toffler, Ayatollah Khomeini, cross-subsidies, George Santayana, Marshall McLuhan, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, union organizing, vertical integration

Connell, perhaps borrowing your analogy and figure of speech, characterized the Bell System as an elephant and suggested that once in a while it reaches out and crushes someone. VADIC is not anyone who has been crushed, or they … Mr. Maxwell, in your ten years at Stanford University, did you have occasion to make the acquaintance of the writings of George Santayana?” “Not that I remember. I did read some of it.” “Are you familiar with his criticism of historians who write history as though they are standing in front of the crowd, waving their hands?” “Sir, there is a crowd here.” “Your version of the story is very selective, isn’t it?…” And on Saunders went.


pages: 444 words: 139,784

How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles van Doren

Albert Einstein, George Santayana, Henri Poincaré, Honoré de Balzac, invention of the telescope, Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, land tenure, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) Time and Free Will Matter and Memory Creative Evolution The Two Sources of Morality and Religion 124. * *John Dewey (1859-1952) How We Think Democracy and Education Experience and Nature Logic, the Theory of Inquiry 125. * *Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) An Introduction to Mathematics Science and the Modern World The Aims of Education and Other Essays Adventures of Ideas 126. * *George Santayana (1863-1952) The Life of Reason Skepticism and Animal Faith Persons and Places 127. Nikolai Lenin (1870-1924) The State and Revolution 128. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) Remembrance of Things Past 129. * * Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) The Problems of Philosophy The Analysis of Mind An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth Human Knowledge; Its Scope and Limits 130. * *Thomas Mann (1875-1955) The Magic Mountain Joseph and His Brothers 131. * *Albert Einstein (1879-1955) The Meaning of Relativity On the Method of Theoretical Physics The Evolution of Physics (with L.


pages: 549 words: 160,930

The Book of Not Knowing: Exploring the True Nature of Self, Mind, and Consciousness by Peter Ralston

Albert Einstein, conceptual framework, different worldview, George Santayana, Isaac Newton, Lao Tzu, Ralph Waldo Emerson

But your job is not to make sense of it all and commit it to memory. When you read about not-knowing, or assumptions, or consequences, or whatever, don’t take my word for it. Your job is to use this work to honestly encounter what’s true within your own experience. The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. —George Santayana 4:15 Any information that you read here is like a one-way ladder. I want you to climb up the ladder and get off. You may have to climb the ladder many times, but the goal is to be able to throw the ladder away. If I asked you to use the ladder, climb up on the roof, and describe the view to me, you’d have to get off the ladder, right?


pages: 719 words: 181,090

Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems by Betsy Beyer, Chris Jones, Jennifer Petoff, Niall Richard Murphy

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, Abraham Maslow, Air France Flight 447, anti-pattern, barriers to entry, business intelligence, business logic, business process, Checklist Manifesto, cloud computing, cognitive load, combinatorial explosion, continuous integration, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, database schema, defense in depth, DevOps, en.wikipedia.org, exponential backoff, fail fast, fault tolerance, Flash crash, George Santayana, Google Chrome, Google Earth, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, information asymmetry, job automation, job satisfaction, Kubernetes, linear programming, load shedding, loose coupling, machine readable, meta-analysis, microservices, minimum viable product, MVC pattern, no silver bullet, OSI model, performance metric, platform as a service, proprietary trading, reproducible builds, revision control, risk tolerance, side project, six sigma, the long tail, the scientific method, Toyota Production System, trickle-down economics, warehouse automation, web application, zero day

Someone who is capable of responsibly taking on-call is someone who understands the system that they work on to a reasonable depth and breadth. So we’ll use “able to take on-call” as a useful proxy for “knows enough and can figure out the rest.” A Hunger for Failure: Reading and Sharing Postmortems “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, philosopher and essayist Postmortems (see Chapter 15) are an important part of continuous improvement. They are a blame-free way of getting at the many root causes of a significant or visible outage. When writing a postmortem, keep in mind that its most appreciative audience might be an engineer who hasn’t yet been hired.


pages: 692 words: 189,065

The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall by Mark W. Moffett

affirmative action, Anthropocene, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, California gold rush, classic study, cognitive load, delayed gratification, demographic transition, Easter island, eurozone crisis, George Santayana, glass ceiling, Howard Rheingold, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, Kevin Kelly, labour mobility, land tenure, long peace, Milgram experiment, mirror neurons, Oklahoma City bombing, out of africa, phenotype, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, shared worldview, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, the strength of weak ties, Timothy McVeigh, World Values Survey

While the necessities of daily living, such as how to make a fire, were conveyed as assiduously as possible, forgetfulness was absolute when it came to bygone days. For preliterate societies the past was seldom an unfolding saga worth memorizing. Rather, they saw time as at once endless and twisted into cycles similar to the phases of the moon, virtually ensuring that history, as the philosopher George Santayana predicted, would repeat itself.36 This makes for an intriguing contrast with our current fascination with history. By all accounts band societies lived and breathed in the present tense. One of the few instances I’ve read of hunter-gatherers telling stories of long ago were Aborigines recounting the arrival of Indonesian fishermen three centuries earlier.37 When I asked about this lack of interest in former times, anthropologist Polly Wiessner proposed that the past gained significance—and I imagine, too, a set chronology associated with themselves and their land—only after people created political systems that had to be justified and conveyed through the generations, such as that set out in the US Constitution.


pages: 651 words: 180,162

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Air France Flight 447, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, anti-fragile, banking crisis, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Black Swan, business cycle, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, commoditize, creative destruction, credit crunch, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, discrete time, double entry bookkeeping, Emanuel Derman, epigenetics, fail fast, financial engineering, financial independence, Flash crash, flying shuttle, Gary Taubes, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, Helicobacter pylori, Henri Poincaré, Higgs boson, high net worth, hygiene hypothesis, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, informal economy, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, Jane Jacobs, Jim Simons, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, language acquisition, Lao Tzu, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, mandelbrot fractal, Marc Andreessen, Mark Spitznagel, meta-analysis, microbiome, money market fund, moral hazard, mouse model, Myron Scholes, Norbert Wiener, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, placebo effect, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, power law, principal–agent problem, purchasing power parity, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ralph Nader, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Rupert Read, selection bias, Silicon Valley, six sigma, spinning jenny, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, stochastic process, stochastic volatility, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, tail risk, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Great Moderation, the new new thing, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, transaction costs, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, Yogi Berra, Zipf's Law

I did not need any luck, it turned out; I was antifragile to all manner of attacks: the more attacks I got from the Central Fragilista Delegation, the more my message spread as it drove people to examine my arguments. I am now ashamed of not having gone further in calling a spade a spade. Compromising is condoning. The only modern dictum I follow is one by George Santayana: A man is morally free when … he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity. This is not just an aim but an obligation. Defossilizing Things Second ethical point. I am obligated to submit myself to the scientific process simply because I require it from others, but no more than that.


pages: 612 words: 187,431

The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond

A Pattern Language, Albert Einstein, Apple Newton, barriers to entry, bioinformatics, Boeing 747, Clayton Christensen, combinatorial explosion, commoditize, Compatible Time-Sharing System, correlation coefficient, David Brooks, Debian, Dennis Ritchie, domain-specific language, don't repeat yourself, Donald Knuth, end-to-end encryption, Everything should be made as simple as possible, facts on the ground, finite state, Free Software Foundation, general-purpose programming language, George Santayana, history of Unix, Innovator's Dilemma, job automation, Ken Thompson, Larry Wall, level 1 cache, machine readable, macro virus, Multics, MVC pattern, Neal Stephenson, no silver bullet, OSI model, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer, premature optimization, pre–internet, publish or perish, revision control, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Stallman, Robert Metcalfe, Steven Levy, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, transaction costs, Turing complete, Valgrind, wage slave, web application

You need to play. You need to be willing to explore. We hope you'll bring this attitude to the rest of this book. Or, at least, that this book will help you rediscover it. History Chapter 2. History A Tale of Two Cultures Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- George Santayana The Life of Reason (1905) The past informs practice. Unix has a long and colorful history, much of which is still live as folklore, assumptions, and (too often) battle scars in the collective memory of Unix programmers. In this chapter we'll survey the history of Unix, with an eye to explaining why, in 2003, today's Unix culture looks the way it does.


pages: 717 words: 196,908

The Idea of Decline in Western History by Arthur Herman

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, anti-communist, bread and circuses, British Empire, David Attenborough, Dr. Strangelove, European colonialism, Future Shock, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, Herbert Marcuse, hiring and firing, Joan Didion, laissez-faire capitalism, late capitalism, lateral thinking, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Murray Bookchin, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, nuclear winter, plutocrats, post scarcity, profit motive, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois

A recurring image in his later writings is the humiliation of the segregated railway car, in which well-to-do blacks (such as himself) are forced to ride in filth and squalor while the lowest white farmhand travels in comfort. The black person in America, as he summed it up later, “is the person who travels third class.” Du Bois managed to retain this elitist self-image when he entered Harvard on a scholarship. Prim and proper, he presented himself as a cultivated gentleman of what his teacher George Santayana called the genteel tradition. He was conservative in his politics—he had applauded the harsh reprisals following the Haymarket bombing three years earlier, which men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and William Dean Howells had publicly protested—but sensitive and passionate on issues of race. The automatic association between antiracism and leftist politics did not yet exist.


pages: 670 words: 194,502

The Intelligent Investor (Collins Business Essentials) by Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig

3Com Palm IPO, accounting loophole / creative accounting, air freight, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, AOL-Time Warner, asset allocation, book value, business cycle, buy and hold, buy low sell high, capital asset pricing model, corporate governance, corporate raider, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, diversified portfolio, dogs of the Dow, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, Everybody Ought to Be Rich, George Santayana, hiring and firing, index fund, intangible asset, Isaac Newton, John Bogle, junk bonds, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, merger arbitrage, Michael Milken, money market fund, new economy, passive investing, price stability, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, sharing economy, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, stocks for the long run, survivorship bias, the market place, the rule of 72, transaction costs, tulip mania, VA Linux, Vanguard fund, Y2K, Yogi Berra

DEL Roth, John Rothschild, Nathan Mayer Rothschild family roulette Rouse Corp. Rowan Companies Royce, Charles Ruane, Bill Ruettgers, Michael “Rule of 72,” “rule of opposites,” “safety of principle,” safety tests: for bonds San Francisco Real Estate Investors Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Santa Fe Industries Santayana, George savings accounts savings and loan associations savings banks savings bonds Saxon Industries Saylor, Michael SBC Communications Schilit, Howard Schloss, Walter J. Schow, Howard Schultz, Paul Schwab (Charles A.) Corp. Schweber, Mark Schwert, William Scientific-Atlanta Scudder, Stevens & Clark Sears Roebuck Co.


pages: 653 words: 205,718

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman, Robert K. Massie

British Empire, George Santayana, trade route

MüHLON, WILHELM (a director of Krupp’s), L’Europe devastée: notes prises dans les premiers mois de la guerre, tr., Paris, Payot, 1918. RITTER, GERARD, The Schlieffen Plan, Critique of a Myth, tr. (contains first published text of many of Schlieffen’s papers), London, Oswald Wolff, 1958. RUPPRECHT, CROWN PRINCE OF BAVARIA, Mein Kriegstagebuch, Vol. I, Munich, Deutscher National Verlag, 1929. SANTAYANA, GEORGE, Egotism in German Philosophy, 2nd ed., New York, Scribner’s, 1940. SCHINDLER, OBERLEUTNANT D., Eine 42 cm. Mörser-Batterie im Weltkrieg, Breslau, Hoffmann, 1934. The author served as artillery officer with the 420s at Liège and afterward. His book is the only firsthand account of the operation of the siege guns.


pages: 1,150 words: 338,839

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made by Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, Charles Lindbergh, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cuban missile crisis, George Santayana, guns versus butter model, kremlinology, land reform, liberal world order, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, old-boy network, Ronald Reagan, Steve Jobs, Suez crisis 1956, Ted Sorensen, uranium enrichment, éminence grise

Yet much to the envy of the other young members of his firm, who resented his talent for self-aggrandizement and impressing his powerful elders, Acheson’s reputation as a brilliant legal conceptualizer tended to rise with each loss. Even senior partner George Rublee took to describing the younger Grotonian, in words William James applied to George Santayana, as “the shiniest fish that ever came out of the sea.” “He always maintained a cool detachment,” one associate later remembered. “Some lawyers get so steamed up they think their client is the Lord God Almighty fifteen minutes after he has stepped into the office. Acheson always saw the client as representing a soluble problem, and nothing more.”


pages: 1,402 words: 369,528

A History of Western Philosophy by Aaron Finkel

British Empire, Eratosthenes, Georg Cantor, George Santayana, invention of agriculture, liberation theology, Mahatma Gandhi, Plato's cave, plutocrats, source of truth, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, the market place, William of Occam

Augustine, 351, 363, 365, 366 and Christianity, 308, 346 and St. Paul, 326 and Rousseau, 687, 693 Salzburg, 394 Samarcand; 218 Samaria, 316 Samos, 29–30, 131, 222, 241 Samson, 356 Samuel, Hebrew judge and prophet, 302, 429, 440 Books of, 340* Sandford and Merton, 793 Sanskrit writings, 423 Santa Claus, 818 Santayana, George, Spanish-born philosopher, poet and author (b. 1863), 203, 811–812 quoted, 827 Saracens, 375, 395, 397, 399, 407 Sardes, 30 Sardinia, 383 Sargon I, King of Babylon (2637?–2582 B.C.), 227 Sarmatians, 343 Sarpi, Paolo, Italian philosopher and historian (1552–1623), 496 Sartor Resartus (Carlyle), 751 † Satan, 135, 360, 376, 358, 365, 379, 380, 469, 480, 758 and Ahriman, 476 Satanism, 747, 749, 752 Satyric drama, 90 Saul, King of Israel (fl. ca. 1025 B.C.), 302, 429 savage (s), 15, 112, 687, 688, 693, 694 Savonarola, Girolamo, Italian Dominican friar and reformer (1452–1498), 487, 498, 502, 503, 504 Savoy, 685 Savoyard Vicar.


Frommer's England 2011: With Wales by Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince

airport security, Ascot racecourse, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Babbage, Columbine, congestion charging, country house hotel, double helix, Edmond Halley, gentrification, George Santayana, haute couture, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Murano, Venice glass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Sloane Ranger, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, sustainable-tourism, the market place, tontine, University of East Anglia, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

—Norman Douglas, Old Calabria, 1915 “England is one of the weird mysteries of God’s afterthought.” —Henry Adams, letter to John Hay, 1900 “For ’tis a low, newspaper, humdrum, law-suit country.” —Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1824 “England is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies and humours.” —George Santayana, “The British Character,”Soliloquies in England, 1892 remembered by many with pride, and with nostalgia for the era when Britain was still a great world power. The years following World War II brought many changes to England. Britain began to lose its grip on an empire (India became independent in 1947), and the Labour government, which came into power in 1945, established the welfare state and brought profound social change to Britain.