Content tagged with “society”

“ A collection of submitted anecdotes about how small circumstances and decisions completely changed the course of someone’s life. ”

“ A good list full of common sense. You’ll nod your head a lot. ”

“I bailed out on this book at exactly the halfway point (50% on the nose, according to my Kindle). I had such high hopes, but the book was essentially just a recitation of the lives of the people who lived at 740 Park Ave. Chapter after chapter was a dissection of these people’s lives, to the point…”

“An interesting look at the world in 1913, before the Great War. The book doesn’t mention the looming war, and that’s kind of the point. It goes city-by-city, discussing what was happening in each, on the eve of World War 1. The result is…interesting. The book paints the picture of the world as a…”

“A showdown is looming on American Idol which I think is going to be pretty interesting to watch. The top two contenders – the two I firmly believe will fight it out in the last episode – could not be more opposed in terms of lifestyle. We have… Danny Gokey , a widowed church music director from…”

“ A man’s recently-deceased mother had always kept a box in the very back of the freezer and refused to say what was in it. The box had been there as long as he and his sister could remember. He finally opened it. ”

“A thoroughly enjoyable book discussing the five Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark – and their supposedly unassailable credentials as the utopia of the world. The author is an Englishman, married to a Danish woman and living in Denmark. He deconstructs the myth of…”

“ A survey that seems to prove that consuming news primarily via social media causes you to be less engaged and more likely to fall for conspiracy theories. ”

“ It comes from the ancient Greek word ‘nomos,’ which means ‘custom’ or ‘law.’ The prefix ‘a-’ means this is the opposite of that. ”

“ Good overview of the enduring ‘principles’ of a community. Lots of examples from CrossFit, interestingly. ”

“ A short memoir of a lesbian who transitioned, and what he learned about manhood in the process from the men in his life. Equal parts inspiring and heart-breaking. ”

“I have a romantic view of social clubs, especially those in London. I think I get it from James Bond novels. I love the idea of upper class Englishmen having a whisky at ‘the club’ while debating politics or other matters of world importance. This book is a wonderfully readable history of those…”

“wonderful book. presents a wire-ranging looking at the big data phenomenon, specifically on the technological and societal changes that have occurred to bring it about, and what this means to the future. things like: Our sample sizes are increasing. For many applications, we’re able to poll n =…”

“I’m not really a Conservative, but I do a fair amount of conservative reading. With that perspective, this is a well-written and thoughtful book. Its basic premise is this: Liberal policies have hurt people, especially the poor. Disadvantaged Americans are no better off than when LBJ’s ‘War on…”

“I am a Democrat. I like to think of myself as liberal, but sometimes I think I just say this to be contrarian. Sure enough, this book has me thinking I’m much more conservative than I say I am. I read this because I’ve been looking for years for a clear elucidation of conservative values. I have…”

“ Humans need to assign causes to events that make sense to them. And if we’re not happy with the actual cause of something, we’ll invent one. ”

“ An irreverent documentary about the concept of conspiracy theories and why some people need to believe that there are grand, hidden secrets to the world. ”

“This is a weird one. This is both a review of this book, and experiment in reading style and strategy. I decided to try something new with this book: I decided to give it one hour of my time, and see how much I could get out of it. If you search for ‘how to read like a graduate student,’ you’ll…”

“ The Coronavirus might be the thing that tips us into a vastly expanded world of remote work, where physical contact is deemed to be largely unnecessary. The long-term effects on society – both good and bad – might be considerable. ”

“The Cult of the Dead Cow was an early hacker group, formed in the 1980s. This book tells its story over the years and where everyone ended up. It’s…scattered. There are a lot of people, and the scope is large. The book is essentially trying to follow a fractured group of people over 40-some-odd…”

“ For every developer doing amazing, cutting-edge things and writing about it on the web, there are 99 that just get work done every day using boring technology that still works just fine. ”

“This is essentially a long-form rant against the fact that (1) people think they’re experts when they’re clearly not, and (2) they tend to look down on actual expertise and distrust experts. It was both inspiring and infuriating. The author writes well, but he offered no solutions. So, take it for…”

“Classic book (in its fifth edition) about how new ideas spread. I like how Rogers has a set of ‘generalizations’ about his ideas. These are things that might not be proven by statistics but feel generally correct. A lot of network theory, but a very good read. Just the right mixture of density and…”

“ A reflection on why we collect physical things and why the digital equivalents will never be the same. ”

“Absolutely, one of the best books I’ve read in years. Enraging in places, it’s one of those books where you watch the protagonist suffer, and make choices you don’t really understand because you’re not as deep into the situation as they are. But, in the end, you have some appreciation for how they…”

“Almost everybody has heard of ‘The 10,000 Hour Rule,’ which says it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master anything. I actually read the original study (PDF) last year. But I’ve often wondered about the limits of this theory. Does there exist people who simply will never master something, no…”

“This book was recommended by a friend. This friend is a social, religious, and political conservative, with very specific opinions on the separation of genders. I did not want to like this book. But, in the end, I agreed with far more than I disagreed with. The book is very well-written. The first…”

“This is a book about how we don’t like reality anymore. We like the illusion of reality. As a society, we’re addicted to farce. It’s almost hilarious that this was written in 2009. If only the author had seen what was coming. He talks about ‘the illusion of literacy,’ by contrasting it against…”

“This book makes the case that (1) the world is better now on almost every quantifiable dimension than at any other time in its history, and (2) this is because of the decline of religion. Pinker’s main point is that religion is bad and makes the world a worse place, and the improvement in life over…”

“I gave this book every chance, I really did. I didn’t abandon it, but I skipped around a lot. It’s purportedly about postmodernism . Or, perhaps about a history of how we ended up postmodern? I wasn’t sure. Each chapter was basically a history of many things, often pop-culture. I would read a…”

“ This is both an examination of how religion and politics merged in the last generation, and a personal story of the author’s widening gap with his own family over issues of faith. ”

“ There’s a specific font that has become associated with the early stages of neighborhood re-development. ”

“ A beautiful contemplation of the physical book as art object, with pictures of people who collection for no other reason than that books make them happy. ”

“As human beings, we chronically suffer from what I call ‘Gratifying Narrative Syndrome,’ or a desire to confirm narratives that we find emotionally or psychologically gratifying. You see these all the time – stories and paradigms that click with us for some reason, and that we very much want to be…”

“ Ultimately, climate change is a migration problem. Humanity can survive it, but lots of people are going to have to move, and that causes other problems. ”

“ I didn’t write a ‘review’ of this book, but I wrote an article about it for Boing Boing: The long, slow death of our watering holes ”

“ Attractive people generally have easier lives. We all know this intuitively, but we rarely acknowledge it. ”

“ It’s a lot harder than you think to calculate how many marriages end in divorce. ”

“ There is a ‘tourist gaze,’ whereby history and cultural heritage is packaged for what the locals believe tourists want to see, and what tourists believe is ‘authentic.’ Local economies perpetuate this overemphasis and misrepresentation in exchange for tourist dollars. ”

“ In the early 2000s, gaming companies portrayed bullying as a feature of their platforms to be celebrated. ”

“I own 25% of Blend Interactive , which is a significant percentage. This chunk of ownership binds me to this company, in the sense that I see the company as a sort of extension of myself in many ways. I’m not a minor owner – I’m a significant part of the day-to-day operations, and my input goes a…”

“ Fascinating perspective from a bartender who watched several of her regular customers spin into self-destruction. A meditation on the culpability of forced, unwitting enablers. ”

“ A contemplation about the distraction of modern life. It’s long, but that’s kind of the point ”

“ A Black woman appears to be White, and she details her upbringing, life experience, and some of what ‘other’ White people have said to her, thinking she was the same race as them. ”

“This is likely the definitive account of The Panama Papers – the massive data leak from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. It also covers some other sensational data leaks, like SwissLeaks and Offshore Leaks. It’s good, no doubt. But it’s confusing, and there’s no real way around that. There…”

“This is about all the problems faced by women, mostly in the Third World. Unpaid labor, domestic abuse, child marriage, genital cutting, etc. Fundamentally, the book is about women’s equality, and I commend Gates for revealing considerable details about her marriage to Bill. She goes on for many…”

“ Nigerian immigrants to the United States might be the most successful ethnic group in the country. ”

“ A man tells the story of a ‘domestic’ who lived with his family for years and raised him and his siblings. Later in his life, he realized his parents were keeping her as a slave. ”

“ U.S. anthropologists will sometimes refer to ‘America/American’ by another word in order to maintain professional distance and objectivity from it. ”

“Honestly, I didn’t totally get this book. The basic premise is that there are ‘narratives’ that drive economics. There are stories or explanations of things that we believe, and that cause economic things to happen. Some examples, from the book: Sellers can go into panic mode The Gold Standard is…”

“This is a theory that humans are inherently peaceful and are corrupted by modern society and economic systems. It’s mainly attributed to the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality : …nothing is so gentle as man in his primitive state, when…”

“As I write this, America is embroiled in the Ukrainian impeachment crisis. The claim is that Donald Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a political favor – he wanted them to investigate Joe Biden’s son, who is (or was) likely to be Trump’s democratic opponent in the 2020…”

“My daughter bought me this for my birthday. She had read the back of it at the bookstore, and ‘thought I would find it interesting.’ It was riveting. It’s actually a fairly nondescript story of abuse, but it’s intense. The author is currently an attorney in San Francisco. The book begins with her…”

“I read this book for the pure titillation level, because I’m fascinated by high society in general and New York culture in particular. And the book delivered on that level – there are some horrifying anecdotes where of a woman trying to fit into Upper East Side mommies. Women who use Birkin bags as…”

“I didn’t get this book for about the first third of it. Then I figured out what it was all about – It’s about all the hidden things in life that we ignore from day to day. Where our food comes from, where are energy comes from, where our garbage grows, what’s in outer space, etc. We live in a…”

“This was a good book, though not quite what I expected. I guess I didn’t expect anything, but the introduction didn’t quite set the book up for what it was. The intro discusses a radio show replay the author heard. It was an episode of ‘Command Performance’ that happened right after V-J day back in…”

“This book is undoubtedly interesting, but it’s a bit meandering. The basic idea is that…things (anything, apparently), ‘scale’ according to universal laws. Meaning, as something gets bigger, it grows less linearly along different axes, and this is a very predictable phenomenon. For example, an…”

“This book caused quite a stir when it was published in 1994. This is the quote that upset a lot of people: The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there isn’t one. The author was basically saying that evangelical Christians have stopped thinking rationally about anything. Unfortunately, it was…”

“A lovely analysis of why stories matter so much to us. the book dissects the concept of ‘story’ into these areas: Author Audience Journey Character World Detail Voice Platform Immersion The author provides lots of examples of each, from both the creative arts and the business world. I’m having…”

“I like David Brooks. I like how he writes. It flows nicely. And this is good, because this book doesn’t really go in a straight line. It meanders. It wanders around a point, completely unfocused. ‘The First Mountain’ we climb is superficial success – money, job, romance. ‘The Second Mountain’ is a…”

“ Horrifying but ultimately triumphant story of a young girl who fought back and kept the secret for decades. ”

“The basic gist of this book is that the world is made up of (1) hierarchies, like governments and corporations; and (2) networks, like terror networks, the Freemasons, and old college buddies. We tend to think that power resides in hierarchical networks, but often the power is in the networks….”

“Interesting book on resisting the drive for self-improvement. Discusses how trying to improve ourselves can be toxic and lead us into constantly thinking that we’re not worthy. The book encourages people to be happy with what they have, rather than constantly thinking that it’s not enough. It was…”

“I had trouble with this book. It’s an examination of how trends move through cultures and are used to gain status. But, weirdly, it’s almost too basic. The author starts with a long-winded explanation of ‘status’ …which will surprise no one. It’s one of those things we all know, and I’m just not…”

“ Vaguely interesting book about how people spend their money on ‘luxury’ items in order to publicly denote a certain level of social class. Lots of figures, graphs, etc. Not 100% of the point that it was trying to get at, honestly. ”

“Wonderful book that just confirmed what I already knew – political polarization is out of control, and the only way to fix it is from the bottom up. Sasse is a Republican senator from Nebraska. He’s also an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. He wrote this book in 2018, right in the middle of the…”

“This is simply the text of David Foster Wallace’s famed commencement speech given at Kenyon College a few years before he took his own life. What’s interesting is the format – it’s a tiny book (the speech is fairly short), and each sentence is on it’s own page. Seriously – an entire page is each…”

“ Advances in technology haven’t really saved us any time. They’ve just given us more stuff and raised our expectations for how life should work. ”

“ Over-tourism is a new word to describe throngs of people clogging destination sites around the world. The larger trend at work is that more people are economically able to travel, especially the Chinese, which is a significant part of the world population. ”

“ This essay describes the ‘coordination problem,’ where spending money to solve a problem often requires coordination with other people to do the same, or the money is wasted. Conversely, spending money on yourself always leads to a benefit. ”

“Marriage is a bundle. It is, all at once, a contract, a romance, and a spiritual institution. But I don’t think it’s going to stay this way. Marriage is actually three structures, layered on top of one another. As it’s most basic level, marriage is a contract . When you get married, you are…”

“ Wonderful book form of a classic, 80-year-old essay from Harpers. One of my favorite pieces of writing. Not all who wander are lost, and we fail to appreciate the shocking number of innovations discovered by people who were just kinda screwing around… ”

“Here’s an article which has reinforced a paradigm that I think gets ignored too often by the environmentally conscious: when considering an optional you find lacking, always consider the alternative or the default, and weigh the option against that . Because, no matter how much you don’t like…”

“An entertaining and well-researched examination of the ‘club economy’ – a world where ‘club promoters’ worked ‘models and bottles.’ There exists a job where you get models to nightclubs to just…exist. It turns out that rich men spend stupid amounts of money in the presence of attractive women, so…”

“ Humans are not generating enough replacements to maintain the world’s current population. ”

“What can you say about this book that has been said a million times? it’s many things in one: a novel, a history, a philosophy, etc. I enjoyed reading it. It took me 50 days of fairly consistent reading – 30-60 minutes per day. The chapters are quite short, taking maybe five minutes, so I always…”

“Wonderfully complete history of Reddit, from the childhood lives of founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, through the (ultimately tragic) life of Aaron Swartz. The book has short chapters, and is mainly episodic – each chapter covers some moment in the history of Reddit, and they’re all there:…”

“ The middle-aged granddaughter of Roy Disney is surprisingly realistic about all the money she inherited and how that has charted the course of her life. ”

“The title promised a discussion about how the 60s ‘shaped’ the personal computer industry, but I just didn’t see it. The book is a history of technology and how the seminal figures of that period interacted with culture, but it didn’t show me how society ‘shaped’ the industry, as much as the…”

“ Without electricity, the world is a very different place, as recent history in Venezuela has shown. ”

“ A 2013 story about poverty in Appalachia. The author is a conservative, but he concedes that there are no easy solutions to what happens in the back woods. Hauntingly well-written. ”

“This is the story of class in America. Specifically the ‘lower’ class. In contrast to the Utopian image of Colonial America, the early years of the country were marked with extreme poverty. Before the slave trade geared up, most of the people sent to the New World were poor white people,…”

“ A man’s father wanted three golf balls cryptically displayed at his funeral. This Reddit thread investigates the possible reasons why. ”

“An in-depth look at the geopolitics and geo-economics of the world. The author goes around the globe and explains each country’s situation, historically, geographically, politically, and economically. What’s interesting is that a lot of the book is not actually about geography, but that’s the…”

“ Not surprisingly, living in a 240 sq. ft. house works better on a glossy TV show than it does in real life. ”

“I was thinking about marketing this week while I was on a trip, and two things occurred to me that I find distasteful about the discipline. I’m not claiming all marketing is like this, but I’d call it a majority, certainly. Marketing is often about lying. A lot of marketing is simply overstating…”

“ A summary of the work of J.D. Unwin, who found a correlation between the sexual restraint of a culture and its productivity and ultimate survival. ”

“ An examination of why we’re predisposed toward conspiracy theories in general and how this is magnified by religion. ”

“Last year, I had lunch with a friend. She is very much on the Left, politically. I mentioned that I thought Bill Gates was a great humanitarian. She responded in a way that unsettled me (I’m paraphrasing). Sure he gives a way a lot of money, but we really need to examine how the world let someone…”

“ The biggest problem with the American health care system might be, well, Americans. We are terrible at safeguarding our own health and terrible at interacting with health care providers. ”