Amazon link Book site This book started as an Atlantic magazine article that was later expanded into a book. Their thesis is that trends on college campus such as a greater awareness of microaggressions and emotional safety serve neither the students nor society at large, as those trends are driven by what Lukianoff and Haidt […]
Category: politics
Play to win, or play to include?
I’ve been thinking about different ways to approach situations in life. One is to play to win – look at the rules the way they are, and figure out how to exploit those rules to your advantage to the maximum extent possible. James Carse calls this playing the finite game. Examples include: Figuring out how […]
Factfulness, by Hans Rosling
Amazon link Official book site I learned of this book through the blog of Bill Gates, where he temporarily offered to give it away to every college graduate this year. Rosling is famous for his TED talks where he uses graphs and data to show things are better than most people think they are…and yet, […]
The Real Wealth of Nations, by Riane Eisler
Amazon link Book site n.b. I read and reviewed this book as part of my coaching program, hence the references to coaching throughout this post. Subtitled “Creating A Caring Economics”, Riane Eisler’s book is a fierce attack on the capitalist economy many of us take for granted. Her thesis is that we think that economics […]
Government, society, and the tax bill
I got into a political debate on the tax bill today on Facebook, which I normally don’t do. But I was able to articulate some of why I’m so outraged by the tax bill and some of the thinking behind it, so I thought I’d share an edited version here. The debate was instigated by […]
The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
Amazon link In honor of MLK Day (a day late), I wrote up my summary of The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, a book that makes the case that King’s dream of racial equality in the United States is still very far away. The thesis of the book is that after Jim Crow laws […]
Ways of responding
My friend and I were talking about how to respond to events like the election or other adverse events in life where you don’t get what you want. She suggested that there were a few categories of responses, which we labeled as follows: Helpless: Shrug your shoulders and say “That’s just the way the world […]
Turning the page
I haven’t posted since the US election, as it didn’t feel right to engage with the abstract self-design questions I’ve been pondering without acknowledging the change in the world that I live in. Trump’s election was a shock to me. I saw the possibility (even 538’s models had him at a 1-in-3 chance on election […]
Scott Adams, bullying and power
Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert, has been a fascinating and disturbing person to read throughout this election cycle. His posts last year where he picked Trump to win the Republican nomination were interesting to me to see what persuasion techniques he observed Trump using. However, his more recent posts where he is […]
Whistling Vivaldi, by Claude M. Steele
Amazon link Subtitled “How stereotypes affect us and what we can do”, this is one of the most powerful books I’ve read in a while. Diversity issues are everywhere these days, and they seem hopeless to overcome – when looking at a problem like why so few women are in technology, people argue about whether […]
