Based on the book Dominion by Tom Holland, this post covers the period of the Enlightenment c 1750 through to the modern Era A Jewish student of Manasseh, Baruch Spinoza, expelled by the Jewish synagogue in Amserdam, in 1656, writes a book, his Theological-Political Treatise in defence of religious liberty. He brought a new philosophy, … Continue reading A brief history of Christianity (part 4 of 4)
If you haven’t watched it, stop now, go and rent it, and watch Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One“ (RPO). The movie is set in “the Stacks”, a high density city of container homes situated in Columbus Ohio in 2045. It is a world where everyone spends most of their time online in Virtual Reality world … Continue reading Ready Player One: a vision of the future
A fascinating read about human evolution from c 12000 bc by a scientist anthropologist with tremendous real world experience. He hypothesises about the key driving forces that have really made the world as we know it today, a world largely dominated by Eurasian societies and provides compelling evidence in support of those hypotheses. This book … Continue reading Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Igor’s rules The UnRule: all theories and all methods have flaws. Nothing can be proved with absolute certainty is, but anything may be disproved, and nothing that can be articulated can be perfect. You only live once. Your time on earth is the only truly irreplaceable resource. If today was my last day, what would … Continue reading The unrules by Igor Tulchinsky, founder and CEO of WorldQuant
As I don’t have time to do full write-ups on everything I get through, here is just a brief few comments on the books I chose to read in 2018 and the key things I want to remember of them. Roughly in the order I would recommend them for general consumption… 1. Man’s search for … Continue reading Books of 2018
The book picks up on several themes that I think are very important for understanding where the world is trending over the coming years. Politics Disillusionment picks up on the rise of anti ellitest autocratic and populist rulers (connections to The Demise of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce). Issues of identity, nationalism clash with global … Continue reading 21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari
This book covers the rise of computers and AI over the period Kasprov’s chess career. But for me the interesting insights are into the rising impact of technology on our lives, and the roles of psychology in decision making. In my comments I have focused more on the takeaways I think are more widely applicable … Continue reading Deep Thinking by Garry Kasparov
There are a lot of reasons I am interested in this question: 1. It’s probably the most complex machine nature has evolved. Yet it runs on the power of a 20watt lightbulb when an equivalent computer would require 24 million watts of power! 2. My dad has dementia. There is a whole lot of research … Continue reading How do our brains work?
Here's something that inspired me... 