The Age of Em
Book review: The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth, by Robin Hanson. This book analyzes a possible future era when software emulations of humans (ems) dominate the world...
View ArticleThe Life You Can Save
Book review: The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer. This book presents some unimpressive moral claims, and some more pragmatic social advocacy that is rather impressive. The Problem It is all too...
View ArticleUBI via Cryptocurrency?
Most Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposals look a bit implausible, because they want to solve poverty overnight, and rely on questionable hopes for how much taxpayers can be persuaded to support[1]....
View ArticlePiketty
Book review: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty. Capital in the Twenty-First Century is decent at history, mediocre at economics, unimpressive at forecasting, and gives policy...
View ArticleThe Precipice
Book review: The Precipice, by Toby Ord. No, this isn’t about elections. This is about risks of much bigger disasters. It includes the risks of pandemics, but not the kind that are as survivable as...
View ArticleThe Cult of Smart
Book review: The Cult of Smart, by Fredrik deBoer. The Cult of Smart is a sporadically thoughtful book about education politics, sometimes rising above tribal politics, and sometimes repeating tired...
View ArticleGeography of Thought
Book review: The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently… and Why, by Richard E. Nisbett. It is often said that travel is a good way to improve one’s understanding of other...
View ArticleThe Dawn of Everything
Book review: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. This book is about narratives of human progress. I.e. the natural progression from egalitarian bands...
View ArticleThe Amish
Book review: The Amish, by Donald B. Kraybill. It feels appropriate to review this book right after The Dawn of Everything (TDOE). There are strange contrasts between the cultural views of the two...
View ArticleHow the World Became Rich
Book review: How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth, by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin. This is a well-written review of why different countries have different wealth, i.e....
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