**spoiler alert** Imagine if the American revolution for independence occurred on the moon; this is what Robert Heinlein did, and this book is the res**spoiler alert** Imagine if the American revolution for independence occurred on the moon; this is what Robert Heinlein did, and this book is the result.
‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ is far more than a fantastic story - it’s filled with many piercing quips about the problem with government and brilliant illumination of the need for freedom.
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Manny - our one-armed pragmatic protagonist - makes these shrewd insights:
-> In relation to laws:
*’Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws--always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said:
"Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." ‘
-> In relation to North American culture when dealing with race: *’mixed-up place another way; they care about skin color--by making point of how they don't care. First trip I was always too light or too dark, and somehow blamed either way, or was always being expected to take stand on things I have no opinions on. Bog knows I don't know what genes I have.’
-> In relation to problem solving *”when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again."
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Quotes from Prof - one of the leading revolutionaries - are particularly illuminating:
Prof echoes Mannies sentiments in relation to laws when addressing the Luna congress: “Comrade Members, like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. You now have freedom--if you can keep it. But do remember that you can lose this freedom more quickly to yourselves than to any other tyrant. Move slowly, be hesitant, puzzle out the consequences of every word... Distrust the obvious, suspect the traditional... for in the past mankind has not done well when saddling itself with governments.”
“We are not yet free nor will we be as long as anyone--even our ally Mike--controls our news. Someday I hope to own a newspaper independent of any source or channel. I would happily set print by hand, like Benjamin Franklin."
“More than six people cannot agree on anything”
—⿒⿒⿒⿒⿒⿒⿒⿒⿒ Once liberated, Manny ends with complaint that Luna is becoming too developed, and he yearns for more freedom on the frontier:
“Since Boom started quite a few young cobbers have gone out to Asteroids. Hear about some nice places out there, not too crowded.”
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This book contains a lot of wisdom hidden between the lines. The key thing I learnt was the need for humans to continually explore, to find new frontiers.
The simplicity and the need for pragmatism on the frontier of civilisation brings out the best in us. We thrive best when unencumbered by the need others feel to create arbitrary laws ‘for our benefit’.
Will Luna be the next great frontier? Or perhaps Mars?
Only time, concentrated effort, and diligence of human creativity can tell....more
What would our world, our culture, our customs; look like to a complete stranger to it all? Not just any stranger, but a man from Mars? A man who doesWhat would our world, our culture, our customs; look like to a complete stranger to it all? Not just any stranger, but a man from Mars? A man who does not know the difference between good and evil; a man who has not bitten the forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden? A man without original sin.
These are the questions Heinlein tries to answer in Stranger in a Strange Land.
This book is complex and touches many topics. I’m just going to focus on the two most interesting characters; Michael Valentine Smith (the ‘Man from Mars’), and Jubal Harshaw (his Earthly equivalent).
The most interesting thing to me about Mike is that he ‘groks’; which is Martian for ‘truly understands’. Mike knows what it is to truly understand something so deeply that he penetrates every dimension governing its existence. As a result, when first coming to Earth, Mike is inundated with too much new data; he needs to ‘withdraw’ to process and digest all of the new information. When he awakes, he has sorted through all the new information and has ‘grokked’, or atleast filed away information for later ‘grokking’.
Having eventually fully grokked the human condition; having understood our pain; he can laugh for the first time. He becomes a spiritual leader - but not in the way of the prophets prior to him - but more like a Prometheus which stole fire from the gods to give to humans. He is a teacher - he has learned the way - and now aims at teaching others - to convert them to the new, higher state of being he has obtained from grokking both human and Martian cultures.
Mike’s philosophy is thus; ‘Thou Art God’. You are responsible for your life and the universe; all that groks is god; because with true grokking, comes true capacity to manipulate nature.
“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” - Francis bacon
This philosophy makes a great deal of sense to me - because your mind is older than you are - and has been shaped by the blind watchmaker of the universe via differential survival of our ancestors. When you read this, you ‘grok’ the thoughts in my mind, because I am using a common communication (written English) devised by our ancestors to express the mental representations held in the nervous system. This common language allows you to download my thoughts into your nervous system. Both the nervous system and language we inherited from our ancestors.
But- if there was a person on Earth who might have ‘grokked’ before Mike - what would they be like? Enter Jubal Harshaw; licenced doctor and lawyer, currently earning his wages as a reclusive writer. Jubal does not watch the news; Jubal is in a constant state of isolation - with exception of a select few - including some whose sole job it is to note down his writing. He spends most of his day reading, relaxing, and pondering; and when inspiration strikes; “Front!”, and he dictates his latest short story.
Seems clear to me in order to grok, Jubal isolates himself, and limits his input information so he can properly digest the information he does receive. He’s set up conditions similar to how Mike digests information; but due to his Earth-bound knowledge must isolate himself from the rest of the world in order to maintain his higher state of mind - lest it be brought down by the pain, anguish, and hurriedness of uninspired man.
At the end of the book, Jubal is astounded at Mike when he has managed to fully grok humanity - to bear the pain on his shoulders and stand with strength and conviction:
“Look at me, I am son of man.” - Michael Valentine Smith
“What a quaint and gawky puppy his son had been when he first saw him… so eager to please, so naive in his little mistakes - and what a proud power he had become without ever losing his angelic innocence. I grok you at last, son - and would not change a line.” - Jubal Harshaw...more
This book is a must read if you are interested in entrepreneurship, working in a team, creating something new that has value, and overall learning aboThis book is a must read if you are interested in entrepreneurship, working in a team, creating something new that has value, and overall learning about effective market systems.
Key points that I learnt from this book:
-> Competition flattens profits for companies. Avoid competition unless you can create something which is at least 10X better than competitors.
-> You need to have a clear, positive vision of a specific future you want to bring about. It is not enough to be optimistic about the future, you have to have an optimistic vision and a plan on how to get from where you are now to the point you want to be. (On this point, I’ll add a quote from Jeff Bezos that agrees with this: “Be stubborn with your vision; but flexible on the details”).
-> The success from a business is only due to luck if you let it be; do your research about the effective market, and answer these key questions about your business idea:
1. The engineering question; can you create break through technology?
2. The timing question; is the timing right for this particular business? (E.g. the dot-com bubble, and the green energy bubble were good opportunities to get funding)
3. The monopoly question; Are you starting with a big share of a small market? (Plan for this to be YES)
4. The people question; do you have the right team? (Aim for complimentary of skill)
5. The distribution question; do you have a way to deliver your product?
6. The durability question; will you have a defensible position in the market 10-20 years in the future?
7. The secret question; have you identified a unique opportunity others don’t. see?
Good companies aim for monopoly, not competition. They are lead by a creative vision for the future they are trying to create. They have a clear idea about how the different components of their vision are going to work; especially a plan for distribution and a plan to dominate a small market and build up.
Finally, companies will only be dominant as long as they continue to innovate. The moment sales people become the main drivers of business direction, is the moment a business has given up on innovation and will start to stagnate until a more innovative company wipes them out.
In terms of prose, Thiel is a great and inspiring writer. I’ve listed the above very dryly since I aim for these notes to be a quick reference for refreshing the key points of the book later, but the book itself is a pleasant and intellectually engaging read.
I highly recommend this book; it really inspired me to look for opportunities of innovation in my own work. I had never considered entrepreneurship before, but realising many parallels with being in academia, I find it far more appealing now.
I’ll quote verbatim the closing paragraph to illustrate Thiel’s inspiring tone:
“Our task today is to find singular ways to create the new things that will make the future not just different, but better - to go from 0 to 1. The essential first step is to think for yourself. Only by seeing our world anew, as fresh and strange as it was to the ancients who saw it first, can we both re-create it and preserve it for the future”...more
Einstein is the epitome of the scientific archetype. He embodied enlightenment values, and stood fast in his pursuit for truth. Reading this book taugEinstein is the epitome of the scientific archetype. He embodied enlightenment values, and stood fast in his pursuit for truth. Reading this book taught me the true characteristics of a scientist, and how doing good science starts with a profound sense of right and wrong; a non-conformist and rebellious attitude to speak the truth even when others are blinded by emotion; and that the pursuit of science is a deeply personal endeavour to seek answers to one’s curiosity.
Einstein also taught mind-first, experiment second. You should ask this question when approaching science “if I was god, how would I make this work?”.
Aside from this, Einstein also taught me the need to find beauty and joy in the scientific pursuit, to look for elegant and unifying solutions that explain the world we see in the simplest way possible. These solutions should also be fragile and falsifiable, and so can easily be proved wrong with experiment if they are indeed incorrect.
Einstein reminded me that science is not a career. 카지노싸이트 is the pursuit of truth; science is a way of looking at the world with the eye of a curious child and asking, “why is it like that?”.
I have been ‘working’ in science for a short time, and I felt something was wrong. I realise now how far we have strayed from the path of good science that Einstein clearly exemplified.
With the advent of “big data”, “machine learning”, and “publish or perish” culture, it seems to me mindless empiricism and mindless churning out of useless papers is becoming the norm in science. This approach was killing the love and joy I once found in the pursuit of science as a student.
Reading this book reminded me of something I had forgotten in my busy-ness, which I vow never to forget again. 카지노싸이트 is in my bones; science is in my soul; science is my expression for the love and wonder I feel for this world, just like Einstein.
Reading this book made me realise “publish or perish” does not apply to me; because science is not a career. You can take the scientist out of the university, but not the science out of the scientist, as Einstein best exemplified when he continued to work at the patent office. He always worked to satisfy his curiosity and seek the truth, regardless of the circumstances.
Thank you Walter Isaacson for writing this remarkable biography about a remarkable human being; Albert Einstein. ...more
Concerned with themes regarding large societal shifts of power, Foundation #1 explores the long down-fall of a once great galactic empire and the rapiConcerned with themes regarding large societal shifts of power, Foundation #1 explores the long down-fall of a once great galactic empire and the rapid rise of it’s replacement, the Foundation. As opposed to 30 thousands of years of violence and war and gradual societal degradation before the founding of a new galactic governance, the great mathematician and founder of psychohistory Hari Seldon maps out a plan to fast-track the new governance to just a thousand years hence. He sets up the initial conditions by creating two settlements at the far reaches of the universe under the pretense of constructing the ultimate record of scientific achievement, the Encyclopaedia Galactica. Little do the scientists and their families hoarded at the out-skirts of the galaxy know of the series of trials and tribulations which Hari has calculated beforehand will mould them into the new and great governance of the galaxy.
This epic novel describes the first few such tribulations, and the subsequent accelerated societal changes that the generations of Foundationers’ undergo on their trajectory to greatness.
I was amazed at the similarity of large-scale societal themes explored here and those that are explored in The Sovereign Individual, which describes the acceleration of such societal development in our own times due to rapid technological advancement. Perhaps now we are in the middle of our own societal degradation? Heading toward a new system of governance made possible due to remarkable technological changes which has fundamentally changed the human condition, ushering in The Age of Information?...more
**spoiler alert** From my second read A few notes on extra points of interest and thoughts which were sparked on my second read:
The way the**spoiler alert** From my second read A few notes on extra points of interest and thoughts which were sparked on my second read:
The way the mind leans under stress is heavily dependent on training; either toward hypo-consciousness or hyper-consciousness. In the former case, we let our difficulties defeat us; we tell ourselves we cannot surmount them. Hence we do not try to problem solve, but instead turn off our mind and avoid the problem. In the case of hyper-consciousness, we make the opposite decision. We decide we can overcome the difficulties that hinder our progress, if we had more knowledge and experience with the problem. Thus we turn on our mind and set to work; we study, experiment, and try solving the problem from multiple different angles until we solve it (see How to Solve it by George Polya). Hypo-consciousness and hyper-consciousness represent flight or fight of the mind, respectively.
If you always take the path where your predictive capacities allow you to see clearly the outcome - you are headed for stagnation. Adventures and the expansion of one’s capabilities for future prediction relies on stretching our experience and sometimes going down the path with an outcome that may not be clear. If we always take the clear and safe path, we will never grow. Venture into the unknown once and awhile to remind yourself you still have much to learn, and to prick yourself with the joy of adventure and learning something new.
Extreme difficulty expands and opens up one’s mind, consciousness, and capacity to comprehend and perceive. Why should your mind work so hard when you're always in a safe and highly predictable environment? The Fremen literally have rituals that include drinking poisons and learning how to digest them and increasing immunity to expand perception. See the drinking of the ‘Water of Life’ in the Reverend Mother ritual of Jessica on p381-383. See also how the extreme climate of Arrakis and Salusa Secundus leads to the Fremen and the Sardaukar, respectively. Also reminds me of Wim Hoff.
Ecological diversity creates ecological diversity. The existence of one species and niche in an ecological system creates the opportunity for new species; the hawk cannot exist without its prey; the prey cannot exist without the flora; the flora without the dirt, sun, soil, and moisture (see Kynes, p533). After reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, I can see that this is also true of economic diversity. In order to have a stable and highly prosperous economy, the more businesses the better. Diversity of business breeds diversity of business. The paper company cannot exist without magazines, newspapers, and offices. The newspapers cannot exist without the companies that manufacture printing presses. The printing presses cannot exist without the companies that manufacture the necessary electronics and metal, etc.
The key to predicting the future is seeing the patterns and conditions of the past in the now; necessarily leading to a particular future (see p387; Asimov was a master of this, as illustrated in the Foundation series and its historical analogue in the fall of Rome). Of course, we have to be thinking in terms of causal models for this to work (see the Book of Why by Judea Pearl), since the exact same pattern will not play out. We use the historical data to develop a world model in terms of what effects what, and use the conditions of the now in that model to make inference about the likely outcome of the future. This is the only way to do it, since things which have never ever occurred happen all the time (see The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb). But all eventualities necessarily must follow the same causal laws that govern the universe.
I love this book.
From my first read I learned of the existence of this book from a tweet by Elon Musk with a partial quote from the Bene Gesserit ‘litany against fear’: “Fear is the mind-killer”. I think this is not the only thing Elon managed to learn from this book, and i’ll try to articulate this below.
The interesting thing was Paul’s capacity to see the future; to be at two places at once; to manipulate higher dimensions. But this dosn’t come without difficulty, at times Paul appears to lose sight of where he is now, he seems to lose track of what has been versus what could be.
Distinguishing between the two is important, otherwise he can’t manipulate the now in order to bring about his chosen future of the many seen possibilities.
Paul is the Kiwatz Haderach, the super mentat with prescience. But i think archetypically he is the personification of the self which changes the self. A reflection of the fact that each of us as humans has the capacity to imagine alternative futures and choose between them, depending on the future that we want. We have what the great motivational speaker Les Brown calls mindsight - the capacity to see what’s possible through imagination as opposed to the memories of our past.
Paul represents what we could all be - the self that changes the self, a creator of positive change in the world that uses the lense of imagination to see the possible futures, and chooses to bring about the desired future.
I think Elon Musk lives this archetypical existence through his numerous companies which are bent on transforming the world to a better tomorrow (Tesla, SolarCity, SpaceX, OpenAI). It’s clear he looks to the future and imagines the possibilities, and chooses to put in place action that materialise the desired future. He dosn’t let the past determine his vision of the future, he can, like Paul, distinguish the images from what was from what could be.
I think we all have this capacity, and i love how this book exercised this capacity in myself; it exercised my imagination of what’s possible....more
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