Bauman is fun as always and has the knack for picking the right pirate analogy for the right skirmish. Bauman, however, skips most of the traditional Bauman is fun as always and has the knack for picking the right pirate analogy for the right skirmish. Bauman, however, skips most of the traditional basics from most microeconomics textbooks, and instead gives a lot of space to game theory and strategic interactions, things normally reserved for the later chapters of an introductory textbook, or for an intermediate text.
The structure of the book overall is interesting, for an introductory work: Economics is about interactions, Bauman establishes first and then takes us through the progression: first one to one, then one to some and finally one to many, with Part two being taken up with detailed discussion of Game Theory, Pareto Efficiency, Auctions, etc., laying the ground work for larger scale interactions like Tragedy of the Commons in the final section, but surprisingly not much discussions about Nash Equilibriums and stuff. But there is one area where the book stays conventional: just like most introductory books these days, this one also teaches skepticism of the species Homo Economicus, and, of course, ends with Kahneman. [image] Overall, it is an unconventional book and I am not sure students turning to this to seek an introduction would be helped much, instead it might be the seasoned student seeking to get some fresh energy late into a final semester who might find this sort of a treatment invigorating.
A simple algorithm to conceive of literary plots could be to slot them as belonging to one of these categories: Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Self, Man vs. A simple algorithm to conceive of literary plots could be to slot them as belonging to one of these categories: Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Self, Man vs. Man & Man vs. Society.
Brian & Tom enlists findings from computer science to guide us through these. Algorithms here are the shortcuts or even the intuitions that guide us through problems that are intractable at first glance. We, apparently, use them everyday. Brian & Tom are here to document this and to show how exactly we can make them more efficient, by exploring the idea of human algorithm design—searching for better solutions to the challenges people encounter every day. The central thesis is that it’s best to use shortcuts to improve your probability of success and remember that “perfection is the enemy of the good.” The book’s algorithms are intended to reduce time spent puzzling, conserve energy for the things that matter.
When it comes to the first two categories, computer science is shown to be a good guide to problems created by the fundamental structure of the world, and by our limited capacities for processing information. As with all the sciences before it, computer science and data science are pretty effective in dealing with these issues. And the computational approach seems to be a remarkably useful improvement in dealing with areas like self-control or complex everyday decisions.
In this part of the book, when we deal with Man vs. Nature & Man vs. Self, we mostly encounter well-defined problems and potential algorithms to deal with them.
We have a nice variety of approaches here: First, we are given a taste of the “Optimal stopping problems” which spring from the irreversibility and irrevocability of time - How do you decide when to stop searching, be it for a the perfect mate, the perfect employee, the perfect job or the perfect weekend movie? The answer seems to be simple: 37% - you stop once 37% of your options have been checked out. Much more useful than it sounds, this number is the output of an algorithm. Whether it’s an apartment, a parking space, or a spouse, the right moment to stop searching and start choosing falls under the umbrella of problems called “optimal stopping.” The general solution to optimal stopping problems reveals that you should spend 37 percent of your time gaining an impression of what’s out there and the rest of the time selecting anything better than the average of what you observed thus far. Need to rent an apartment in three weeks? Simply take one week to observe and two weeks to pounce on the next best thing. This means that you have a good sample of the options you have so you don’t jump to early decision and miss out on the good choices that were just around the corner, and at the same time, you don’t waste all your time only searching!
Then we are introduced to “the explore/exploit dilemma”, springing from time’s limited supply - should we revisit favourite restaurants and places and ensure a good time (exploit) or should we explore bravely out to new experiences and places (explore) in the hope that we might stumble on something incredible? If we don’t explore, we might miss out on a lot of YOLO stuff , but if we only explore and do not exploit the good stuff we have already discovered (a favourite dish, a cared-for home, spouse, close friends, etc.) then we might me missing out on even more. SO how do we figure out an optimal ration between Explore/Exploit? Turns out computer scientists have been working on finding this balance for more than fifty years. They even have a name for it: the explore/exploit tradeoff. The explore/exploit tradeoff tells us how to find the balance between trying new things and enjoying our favourites. The answer is to think about the time you have left - the more time you have the more your strategy should shift. So the young should explore more and the elderly should exploit more and wherever you are in that continuum, you should ration the Es accordingly. YOLO, after all.
There are more: Relaxation and randomization emerge as vital and necessary strategies for dealing with the ineluctable complexity of challenges like trip planning and vaccinations, Sorting theory tells us how (and whether) to arrange our offices, Caching theory tells us how to fill our closets, Scheduling theory tells us how to fill the unforgiving minute well, etc.
Then comes the next two categories: Man vs. Man and Man vs. Society problems - these are, in effect, the problems that we pose and cause each other. Here the authors move away from computer science and enlists mathematics as well, specifically and predictably, game theory, to help us out. And the cross-pollination between game theory and computer science gives us algorithmic game theory for tackling issues like investing, bubble and even plain arguments. The solutions are much less rigorous here, with 1) the advice to “change the game” if the game threatens to go into less than optimal equilibriums and 2) an exhortation to be “computationally kind” to reduce the cognitive load of the participants, emerging as the main “algorithms to live by” when it comes to living in society.
So as always, the book would seem to be teaching us again that no matter how computationally adept we are, dealing with each other is something that just can’t be fitted into any algorithm, formula or thumb-rule. We gotta wing it....more
The audacious first act, Sapiens, ended with a wild and apocalyptic prophesy - that the Sapiens were cooking up the next epochal revolutHomo Obsoletus
The audacious first act, Sapiens, ended with a wild and apocalyptic prophesy - that the Sapiens were cooking up the next epochal revolution that will overshadow the previous three: the cognitive, agricultural and scientific/industrial revolutions. Home Deus, the second act, is the full exploration of that prophesy.
Both Sapiens and Homo Deus are compulsory reading in my book, even though the macro-history presented is plenty vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. But then, it might be better to think of these as works of philosophy and not of history. Just like Sapiens is not a History, Home Deus is not a prophesy, both are explorations.
This line can be taken as the transition line that links the first book with the second one: “Having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.”
The old enemies of mankind— plague, famine and war—are now under control. Except for the potentially restrictive energy constraint, Sapiens has very little standing in our way now. The result is that the Sapiens are becoming more and more God-like, Harari says, and one is forced to pause and reflect: by any previous standards of our history, are we not already Gods? Have we not already exceeded most wild power fantasies? Well yes, but even more God-like attributes are coming: cheating death and creating new life being primary.
And along with this march towards the godlike we are marching towards being machine-like too, as we outsource more and more of our internal algorithms to better data-based external algorithms. And the march is relentless, Homo Deus is taking birth before our eyes. The tomorrow is already upon us, and so forth.
However, just like the previous three revolutions that infused the Sapiens with power, this revolution too will come at a price, the price of a ratcheting up of inequality. The new Gods will be the techno-super-rich. BTW, reading Harari is good motivation to work on getting rich faster: he hints at a possibility that anyone who is rich enough to afford it, some 50 years into the future, should be able to buy proxy-immortality. And it will probably be a window that closes quickly, since the super-rich would soon take over the monopoly on immortality. So if you are rich enough at the right point in time, then you can be part of Olympus too. That might not be a deal many would want to miss out on…
There is one more catch: as technology takes over most of the functions, even the godlike sapiens will find themselves stuck in a universe devoid of real meaning. Bulk of humanity will have no economic, social or cultural purpose since anything we can do our new creations would be able to do even better. “Organisms are algorithms,” and the new algorithms will be so much better than the imperfect ones we are made of. As Bill Gates asked in his article about the book, “What If People Run Out of Things to Do?” We will be stuck in an immortal meaninglessness, our own creations clearly our betters. We will need a new religion to make sense of all this, since the powerful combo of Humanism+Science will not work in world where the sanctity of being Human has lost meaning. Harari feels that “Dataism” will be the religion that will fill the avoid left by Humanism.
The whole of Humanity, the Earth, and maybe the entire Universe will become servants to data - a huge data-processing system, the eternal all-knowing Atman. And serving this goal will be the only meaningful pursuit left for us.
Immortal, All-powerful, Obsolete: this is the future of the Sapiens....more
Andrew Scott was playing Hamlet at the Harold Pinter. Robert Icke's production for The Almeida, now with a West End traHamlet at the Harold Pinter
Andrew Scott was playing Hamlet at the Harold Pinter. Robert Icke's production for The Almeida, now with a West End transfer. Wow! Had to watch it. After 3-4 days of struggle, finally got lucky with tickets and there I was. Blown Away!
After coming back I sat down to write a bit on it, and ended up writing a 12k+ words review. In case you have some time to kill, head over and read it. If not, I will just take the likes, thank you.
[If you have been lucky enough to watch the production, then I hope you will take the time to read and comment.]
Hamlet at the Harold Pinter: A Scene-by-Scene Commentary
I have tried to capture my experience of the play, it is hardly comparable to being there, but I had to write this long commentary so that I don’t forget what it felt like to watch this amazing performance, and so that I preserve for myself the thoughts and feelings that were evoked through it.
A spartan set greets the audience, which in addition to the lack of anything royal about it, also has a few unexpected elements. A large sofa to one corner, two-three steel chairs to either side, and what looks like a steam-punk console of some sorts to one corner.
Act 1 Scene 1
To the immediate surprise of the spectators, the play opens with large flat TV screens switching on all around them with weird footages playing in them.
Instead of a guard platform we get a CCTV observation room. The guards look flustered and soon, of course, Horatio enters (in some style I must say, much more casual in attire compared to the stiff suited guards).
[image]
Marcellus and Barnardo resume their attempts to convince Horatio (one is to assume somehow the CCTVs could not record the supernatural stuff, I guess) of what they have seen when all of a sudden horrific static erupts in the theater and the dead King appears on-screen, ominous and really really spooky. A collective gasp from the audience at this. It was pretty effective - considering the Dane had only come on screen yet - the audience has not been introduced to the real ghost yet. I wondered if all ghost scenes would be thorough CCTVs… that would be a pity even if it went pretty splendidly this time. After all how would the father-son equation, which is the core of the play, play out through CCTVs? In any case, even as Scholar Horatio tries to hail the Ghost (who is in military attire, as a modern parallel to the armor worn by the original), there is a minor explosion at the console and the Ghost had disappeared from the screens as abruptly as it had appeared.
Before the scene concludes Horatio quickly updates the soldiers about what is happening in the kingdom and why security is so tight these days: The old King killed his rival King of Norway, Fortinbras, and conquered his territories. Now his (Norway’s) son, in revenge, is attempting to take back his territories with a small band of rag-tag outlaws he had gathered. Mark that from this it doesn’t feel like Fortinbras had any chance of defeating Denmark, but then an internal revenge drama will facilitate the external revenge drama. Pretty sweet, right? This is something that is often overlooked I guess, but maybe there was a poetic symmetry to this as well.
The Ghost makes another abrupt appearance, throwing the guards and Horatio into another frenzy. More frantic fiddling of the dials, etc. ensue (to be honesty this time it felt a bit comic, the reactions).
Ghost exits. It faded on the crowing of the cock - the guards quickly trying to explain away the unknown with the presumed known, finding some comfort in their astute understanding of how the supernatural world is supposed to function. We have to make everything conform to rules, absurd rules may it be.
They decide that they have to inform Hamlet of what has been happening here.
Scene closes to some stunning music and the stage goes pitch black. Obviously some stage rearrangement was underway in the darkness, though I am unsure how they manage to do so in that darkness. Must take some deft hands.
Act 1, Scene 2
The shady guard-room is transformed now into a stunning Titanic-movie-ball-room like atmosphere with golden draperies, sliding glass doors, elegant women with wine glasses, and fine music in the background. For a moment Denmark doesn’t feel like a place of omens and forebodings, but like a late evening at the Buckingham Palace (sans all the chinese tourists).
Claudius looks stately and kingly dealing with the matter of Fortinbras in very efficient style, and at this point no one could clearly have imagined that Denmark could be under any threat under such efficient management.
This is the moment when it hits you that the play is not going to bowl you over with the visual spectacle of medieval costumes and regalia. It feels more like a very elegant boardroom or a modern Lord’s mansion than the royal court in which you would have imagined these scenes playing out normally. This means that this play has to transport you all on itself, without much help from the visuals - which is quite apart from the normal theater or movie-going experience nowadays. I have a slight pang of regret that I am missing out on the costumes, but it is not as if we have a shortage of medieval costumes on TV these days.
And then, and then… A thin school boyish young man in what looks like a well-worn black tee traipses across the stage, a small ottoman in hand, and plants himself in one corner. The audience leans as one trying to get a glance at this moody, almost “emo” (forgive me) presence. Hamlet had entered he building folks, and it was electric. He had not uttered a word yet but he had captured the stage, he had filled the whole of it just by being in one corner of it. I knew then that this was going to be awesome. There were goosebumps. And just to clarify I was not a fan of Moriarty, or of what I had seen till then of Stewart’s acting. In fact I was skeptical that he can pull off a Hamlet after what I deemed as definite overacting as far as Moriarty was concerned, especially in the later episodes (Miss me? Miss me? Oh, just get the heck off!). But there was something about the entrance that immediately threw all my doubts out of the window.
[image]
Claudius tries to introduce his son with some lame humor, but Andrew with the first quip, about being too-much-in-the-sun gets a too-much-in-the-rain British audience going immediately. It is really easy with the British, when it comes to weather jokes of course. Of course, the original joke about cloud-sun-son-cousin-son is also not lost in this, and the audience cheerfully laugh for both the original and the modern joke. This sort of personalization of dialogues is what Scott pulls off throughout the play - he never fiddles with the dialogues, and not a word is out-of-place (as he has to advice later against ad-libbing, this is only appropriate - this is one play you can never ad-lib!), but just by looking at the audience or half-smiling at the audience he makes them see other meanings in those words and react exactly as he wants. A master conductor of the audience he was throughout, and the way he conducted the audience (including this willing participant) was the true spectacle at the Harold Pinter that night.
[image]
Gertrude’s first foray is to ask Hamlet to cut short his grief and the exchange really rubs in the fact that Hamlet feels his raw grief cannot be so easily cast aside, while Gertrude is insistent in asking him to do exactly that. Scott later says suppressed grief is for him one of the keys to the play, so this takes on special significance for me in hindsight. Claudius also pitches in with some ineffectual self-help wisdom about how all living things die and blah blah blah - as this Hamlet wouldn’t hesitate to characterize it.
In any case, Hamlet is convinced to stay back in court, albeit probably still in Black. A quick royal photo shoot before they disperse.
And then comes the first monologue - I was looking forward to this - Scott had proven he can use humor, especially dark humor, effectively to play the audience and establish himself, but a true Hamlet lives and dies by his monologues - and I was eager to see how this one would go, especially since this monologue is what will introduce the audience to the inner workings of Hamlet’s mind, to the anguish that torments him and again, to the extent of the grief that he is being asked to curtail.
I leaned forward with the rest of the audience as Hamlet moved to the front of the stage and looked up at us to confide in us, to let us overhear his thoughts, to use Bloom’s terminology. The theater descended into silence as if we had entered another theater - the solemn one inside Hamlet’s mind - and after a long pause Scott’s voice gently started essaying. No firm utterances, almost a whisper, as if he was slowly constructing these thoughts, as if they were coming to him then and there. Stuttering, half-audible, the words came, and I felt as if at least a few in audience would surely tip over now, straining to catch the words. The tension was being built up, and I could see that Scott was the master of this too. He was showing us how monologues are nothing but thoughts - Hamlet was not delivering a monologue, he was just alone and thinking just like any of us. An everyday occurrence. The mighty, formidable monologues of Shakespeare had been tamed right in front of us, mysterious no more - they were going to be easy and accessible today in Scott’s hands. It was a relief as well as a mild let down - grandeur was not on stage today, reality was. Mirror to nature, indeed.
Gradually the muttered tirade about sullied flesh and unweeded garden rose to an audible pitch and the worried audience could finally make sense of what was being half-whispered. They leaned back a bit as they entered familiar territory with Hamlet talking about what a man his father was, about how his mother doted on him. And then, and then… within a month of his passing, Hamlet appeals to us, as if to a close friend… and turns away from the thought, breaking our hearts.
Now comes the first famous quote - I was on the lookout for this too - will Scott bombastically stress the famous quotations - because that will always engage the audience since they would recognize it and feel good about themselves… An easy win for a Shakespearean actor. I wanted to see how the famous Shakespearisms (?) would be handled.
Frailty, thy name is woman! Hamlet cries out in frustration. Within a month he says, couldn’t you have mourned longer? Within a month - married my uncle… and here Scott pauses in the midst of this anguished cry of Hamlet, steps out from Hamlet’s skin and becomes himself for a second, just part of the audience. This was a moment of unquestionable genius for me - a moment when Scott brought in a cultural reference, made the play supremely accessible and also eased any worries of his audience by proving that he is completely on their side; just another bloke like them who enjoys the same type of stuff that they do. He effectively told them I am just one of you and we are going to have a ball with Hamlet - which is nothing to be scared of, but is in fact super-duper fun.
How did he do that?
Again, after saying she married my uncle, he paused, stepped out of character and gave a mischievous look to the audience before uttering the next line with a lot of emphasis - My father’s brother.
The audience exploded into laughter as we realized what he meant - uncle, yes, but not My mother’s brother folks, this is not Game of Thrones! - that is what the look conveyed. And Scott waited patiently for the laughter and relief of the audience to die down before picking up on his monologue/thoughts. From that moment onwards Scott had achieved what Shakespeare probably did back in the day - getting the audience thoroughly comfortable in the idea of actually enjoying a masterpiece instead of getting caught up in venerating it.
To me this was genius, especially because of the risk involved - to attempt laughter in the midst of the monologue that basically sets up the Hamlet character… it was a tightrope, but Scott was the perfect maestro again - he got us tense, he got us light and laughing, and from the next moment got us fully back into Hamlet and his grief again, and had us all feeling the foreboding as he concluded that it cannot come to good… I think I forgot to breathe for a few minutes.
Horatio interrupts at the right time, to the relief of everyone including the audience and perhaps Hamlet himself. They embrace and laugh and the audience is made aware that this chap Horatio is a chap they can also trust. We are not going to question Hamlet on these matters, not tonight.
Another moment of mirth for the audience as Hamlet says I think I see my father, and Horatio and Marcello jerks in genuine comic fright. Horatio then begins the painful task of telling Hamlet that he had indeed seen his father… Hamlet seems to take Horatio at his word on this and agrees to come and see for himself at the observatory.
Act 1, Scene 3
Ophelia is introduced to the audience, along with her brother Laertes, as well as her father a bit down the line. Come to think of it, the whole family is pretty much introduced and established in this one scene. And it is my duty to report that the scene and much of the play was henceforth stolen and made his own by Polonius. Peter Wight, as Polonius, was brilliant and held the play together, truly.
Perhaps as an invention, here the scene opens with Hamlet and Ophelia making out before Laertes interrupts them, forcing Hamlet to hide behind the couch - which means that Hamlet is present, hidden away but visible to audience, for the rest of the scene.
[image]
Laertes, packing to go for France, gets on the bad side of the audience very early as he is intent on advising Ophelia to not mess around with Hamlet.
Laertes had earlier asked the King’s permission to go to France, was granted the same, and thus his very small initial role rapidly approaches its end… This is when Polonius, the light of this show, shines brightly and establishes himself as the audience favorite!
Polonius comes in to hurry Laertes on his way, but not before the pithy man has given his share of self-help tips. The spate of avuncular advises are delivered in a masterly way by Wight, and has the audience in splits throughout - though the audience is also, along with Laertes, earnestly hoping for the commonplaces to end. Laertes turns to depart three times, but is pulled back by Polonius to hear more about being neither a lender nor a borrower, a whole rendition of Kipling’s If, etc. (I exaggerate, of course).
Then Polonius, having lost Laertes turns his advising prowess upon Ophelia’s love-life. Trying hard to summarize his own words multiple times, finally he sums it all up by asking Ophelia to not spend her leisure with Hamlet. Ophelia agrees with a wink to the audience and the audience is thrilled in having such a lovable villain in Polonius to troll for the rest of the evening.
[image]
The scene ends very agreeably for the audience. Things are going very nicely and there is a lively energy buzzing across the theater. Nice music too. Clearly, we are in for a lot of Bob Dylan tonight.
Act 1, Scene 4
However, the audience is immediately spooked mightily by the sudden descent of pitch darkness and eerie music. It is the graveyard shift. Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus are visible now; we are back in the guard platform and it is Scooby-Doo time, everyone!
Cue eerie music, static on the speakers, and the CCTV screens start acting up. The royal Dane appears and Hamlet entreats speech. The king in the screen motions to Hamlet to approach. Hamlet goes closer. Marcellus utters the classic lines “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” and follows with Horatio.
[image]
And then…
The stage goes dark again and then starts alternating between light and dark, as if lightning was striking repeatedly. Loud static and spooky sounds fill the theater, the dead King’s face comes closer and closer and fills all the TV screens on stage, and then in one blinding flash the Ghost appears, in the flesh, in front of Hamlet - the effect was scintillating, since until now we had the image and now we had the thing. Hamlet touches the ghost and is able to touch. The father and son in the flesh, together. All the build-up was worth it for this one moment.
The royal Dane preps Hamlet with the backstory and informs him that from now on art thou for revenge. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. Yes, murder! Murder most foul!
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life Now wears his crown.
And most importantly he was killed with no chance to repent for his sins, and hence he now roams as a ghost, plotting revenge. After importuning Hamlet to revenge his Murder, in another glorious spectacle the Dane vanishes.
Hamlet extracts a very strict promise (again and again!) from his friends to never repeat to anyone what happened there (presumably this promise is revoked at the end when Hamlet releases Horatio from the silence). This was an important scene as Scott clearly meant this to be an introduction to the audience to Hamlet’s dawning madness - after all, in one interpretation the madness might even have struck before the ghost appeared… In any case, his manner towards his friends have changed markedly, he is more frantic in speech, with more puns and hidden entendres in everything he says. The notebook also makes its appearance, as he notes down that it is possible to smile, smile and still be a villain.
Horatio utters his cue about how things are wondrous strange and I had my first let down as Hamlet said hurriedly, without any bravado -
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
I was expecting that with the dawning of madness being depicted there was license to give full flourish and bombast to this - as if to say that from here on out Horatio and the rest of the cast are being thrown into a new reality that is beyond ever dreamt by any of them.
However, Scott for some reason decided to downplay this awesome Shakespearism and hurried through it… and hurried on to extracting another sworn oath to secrecy that no matter how much stranger things get Horatio will never utter a word about the night. The ghost also joins in with a “Swear!” and Hamlet hurries his friends out, muttering “The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, That ever I was born to set it right!”
****
Oh well, I am out of space here on GR and we barely finished Act 1 :)
Aptly described as 'a deplorable monument of the extent to which inteligence and erudition can be abused'. The circumcised selection of topics illustrAptly described as 'a deplorable monument of the extent to which inteligence and erudition can be abused'. The circumcised selection of topics illustrate how truly limited Voltaire's supposed erudition was. Pick up only if you want to while away empty hours in trains, plotting definitive revolutions....more
Zeus is never ridiculous. Because his dignity is of no concern to him.
"Non bene convemunt nee in una sede morantur / Maiestas et amor," says Ovid
Any Zeus is never ridiculous. Because his dignity is of no concern to him.
"Non bene convemunt nee in una sede morantur / Maiestas et amor," says Ovid
Any sane reader would find this book ridiculous at least in parts, but that doesn’t concern Calasso, for his subject is Zeus and Zeus is never ridiculous.
The mythographer lives in a permanent state of chronological vertigo, which he pretends to want to resolve. But while on the one table he puts generations and dynasties in order, like some old butler who knows the family history better than his masters, you can be sure that on another table the muddle is getting worse and the threads ever more entangled. No mythographer has ever managed to put his material together in a consistent sequence, yet all set out to impose order. In this, they have been faithful to the myth.
The mythical gesture is a wave which, as it breaks, assumes a shape, the way dice form a number when we toss them. But, as the wave withdraws, the unvanquished complications swell in the undertow, and likewise the muddle and the disorder from which the next mythical gesture will be formed. So myth allows of no system.
The whole book by this modern Ovid is a testament to this. It is fun, but it is labyrinthine and the amount of erudition assumed by the author of the reader is thoroughly intimidating. Through its pages we see a glorious world dawning and then falling away, and our mythographer working furiously to extract meaning from it all, in his exertions confusing both us and himself, and reveling in the confusion.
But if we persist, by the end of it we would have witnessed Cadmus the Phoenician sow the beginning of stories across Greece. And the stories, carefully harvested by Calasso, teach us the same thing that his life taught him: Inviting the gods into our lives ruins our relationship with them but sets history in motion. A life in which the gods are not invited isn't worth living. It will be quieter, but there won't be any stories....more
One can see how this would easily be a fun exercise, trying to explain some complicated “things” using only the limited set of the “ten hundred” or soOne can see how this would easily be a fun exercise, trying to explain some complicated “things” using only the limited set of the “ten hundred” or so most commonly used words in the language. This, along with the xkcd-honed drawing skills, can convert what would otherwise have been quite a nondescript mini-encyclopedia into a quaint and publishable book. Munroe’s cult following, wit, and knack for packaging a book beautifully, makes it a bestseller (?).
But as far as reading it is concerned, the novelty wears off around the 4th or 5th “thing”. There on out, we might find ourselves having to reverse translate the strange gibberish of too-easy words. Can’t really see who this book is meant to help. It is not the words that make a book easy or difficult to read, is one thing Munroe manages to demonstrate. The same book without the gimmick might have been genuinely helpful to some college students at least… ...more
Armitage imagines more petulant heroes - and since the cast of characters is massively curtailed, every character stands out even more. It is fun. EspArmitage imagines more petulant heroes - and since the cast of characters is massively curtailed, every character stands out even more. It is fun. Especially Odysseus and Hector takes on interesting new attitudes towards the war, Odysseus becoming even more scheming + quite blunt, and Hector a bit less noble + war-thirsty. Helen becomes even more ambiguous and is usually in conversation with Andromache about stuff like "So your husband will slay your husband, then you’ll be carried off in your husband’s arms. Tell me, who else but the immortals could have plotted that?" Good fun read. Read only after multiple readings of original though.
ODYSSEUS Look at those ships – they’re so stuffed with gold and silver they’re barely afloat. Do you really think Greece risked its life to haul home an unfaithful wife?
ODYSSEUS The horse wasn’t made out of wood and nails, it was real – made out of flesh and blood. You opened the gates of Troy. My queen.
As for the gods, they are the best part.
The gods had little inkling that by meddling so much and dooming their believers to civilizational death, they were dooming themselves. Over time, the worshipers died out or adopted less interfering gods who let the free market of human abilities operate and determine victors. Gods that did too much top-down control are now paupers peddling wares in their old haunts while the free-market laissez faire gods now rule the roost thereabouts. (No, the book does not take the economic or ideological viewpoints, just some spice added by my imagination during the reading).
Zeus (now a peddler of antique wares) And the rest, as they say, is history. Hera (still a Xanthippe) In fact these days they say it’s mythology....more
`Ultimately,' wrote Jung, `every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of the species.'
This is a readable (almost) introduction to the `Ultimately,' wrote Jung, `every individual life is at the same time the eternal life of the species.'
This is a readable (almost) introduction to the whole of Jung’s cosmology. Partly defensive in its arguments, the book proves useful when it sticks to just presenting Jung’s thoughts and not trying to show how it is still in sync with latest research (esp when it tries to link psychology to modern physics!). Jung and Freud are best read as imaginative writers and it would probably be even more fun to read them while viewing them as collaborators or co-myth-makers. Stein tries his best to hold back from attacking Freud and explaining Jung, but the proverbial slips are a few too many.
The good part is that Stein is a good cartographer. Stein constructs the cosmology slowly with a lot of care and precision. He starts with the Ego and slowly introduces us to its Shadow. Then the Persona and the Animus are introduced. Finally the Self is brought in, the most delicate and easy to misunderstand concept kept for the last. Then we move out of the mind and into the realm of the outer world via Synchronicity and start exploring ESP and such phenomena. In the end, we conclude with the awesome picture of the Collective Unconscious that stretches from inside our psyche to encompass and create/effect the whole universe. It is myth-making at its magnificent best, who wouldn’t be impressed? I was....more
There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Leisure for Sale; Pleasure for Sale
or
The Non-Existent Choice
There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.
Spoiler Alert: (view spoiler)[Though good literature cannot really be spoilt, this review may contain spoilers, especially for the fast, thrill-seeking, plot-loving reader. (hide spoiler)]
An author is reading an old book, while on vacation to the very spot in which that old book is set. He gets an idea of a modern version of the book (or is it merely a review of the book that he is writing? One that morphs into a fan-fiction duplicate of the original?) set in the same quaint chateau, tracing the same enchanted geography of love.
He uses the night to write the initial sketches of his modern version of the old novella of cuckoldery. But the chateau they are spending the vacation in has its own magic. Somehow the loudest events in his nascent novel slips into his wife’s dreams as she lies next to him, as he writes them down, slipping easily from his paper into the void of her sleep, filling it up.
What will happen next?
Of course, the fictional-hero created by the author should know about the source of the inspiration for his comic tale. He should know why he had such a fantastic night of revelry. The two contrasting seekers of pleasure from these vastly different eras have to confront each other. From that confrontation might emerge a truth valuable for the 21st century too.
How to effect that?
Then, just like that, the three realities merge: the historical-fiction, the fiction of the author-reader, and the imitation-fiction — they all blend together, seeping out of the dreams and into the present, with a astonishment so authentic that no fiction would ever have been capable of it. This is a true merging. The 20th century has sped up enough that the concept of memory is gone. Time went with it. No time for dreaming.
In other words: is it possible to live in pleasure and for pleasure and be happy? Can the ideal of hedonism he realized? Does that hope exist? Or at least some feeble gleam of that hope?
The two parallel-lovers have met. One hides his story of a heavenly night of seduction, allowing himself to become the butt of a genial joke but allowing his story to be heroic thus. He savors his life, ambling along. A pedestrian who can reflect on his own life. The other exaggerates the non-night into an orgy, making his story itself a joke. Then he corrects his won story and gets on his fast motorbike to forget himself in a blur of haste. A motorist who has to leave everything behind.
On cue, a song, a poem plays for us:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
The poem ends; the novella ends. Now consider:
Who is the happier of the two? It should be obvious. The author is pretty sure of the conclusion.
But, wait a minute.
Let us not forget our author-observer himself, rollicking along in his own car? Able to slow down to super-sub-human speeds even as that monster-engine starts. Able to imagine his own version of reality, to create stories worth our time and attention. Surely He is the happy one, our dear Epicurean enthusiast. He thinks he detect happiness in the 18th century chevalier, but we can see a glimpse of happiness in him too, in our observer, who had the capacity to “stand and stare”.
I beg you, friend, be happy. I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope.
Of course, in the reality of the author, romanticized in the review above, it is the wife who is cuckolded. The author is in-liaisons-dangereuses with his own imagination. His slowness is contrived, perhaps? So the answer is premature. No easy medicines for the malaise of a fast life. (hide spoiler)]...more
Bostrom is here to imagine a world for us (and he has batshit crazy imagination, have to give him that). TImagine a Danger (You may say I'm a Dreamer)
Bostrom is here to imagine a world for us (and he has batshit crazy imagination, have to give him that). The world he imagines is a post-AI world or at least a very-near-to-AI world or a nascent-AI world. Don’t expect to know how we will get there - only what to do if we get there and how to skew the road to getting there to our advantage. And there are plenty of wild ideas on how things will pan out in that world-in-transition, the ‘routes’ bit - Bostrom discusses the various potential routes, but all of them start at a point where AI is already in play. Given that assumption, the “dangers” bit is automatic since the unknown and powerful has to be assumed to be dangerous. And hence strategies are required. See what he did there?
It is all a lot of fun, to be playing this thought experiment game, but it leaves me a bit confused about what to feel about the book as an intellectual piece of speculation. I was on the fence between a two-star rating or a four-star rating for much of the reading. Plenty of exciting and grand-sounding ideas are thrown at me… but, truth be told, there are too many - and hardly any are developed. The author is so caught up in his own capacity for big BIG BIIG ideas that he forgets to develop them into a realistic future or make any the real focus of ‘dangers’ or ‘strategies’. They are just all out there, hanging. As if their nebulosity and sheer abundance should do the job of scaring me enough.
In the end I was reduced to surfing the book for ideas worth developing on my own. And what do you know, there were a few. So, not too bad a read and I will go with three.
And for future readers, the one big (not-so-new) and central idea of the book is simple enough to be expressed as a fable, here it is:
The Unfinished Fable of the Sparrows
It was the nest-building season, but after days of long hard work, the sparrows sat in the evening glow, relaxing and chirping away.
“We are all so small and weak. Imagine how easy life would be if we had an owl who could help us build our nests!”
“Yes!” said another. “And we could use it to look after our elderly and our young.”
“It could give us advice and keep an eye out for the neighborhood cat,” added a third.
Then Pastus, the elder-bird, spoke: “Let us send out scouts in all directions and try to find an abandoned owlet somewhere, or maybe an egg. A crow chick might also do, or a baby weasel. This could be the best thing that ever happened to us, at least since the opening of the Pavilion of Unlimited Grain in yonder backyard.”
The flock was exhilarated, and sparrows everywhere started chirping at the top of their lungs.
Only Scronkfinkle, a one-eyed sparrow with a fretful temperament, was unconvinced of the wisdom of the endeavor. Quoth he: “This will surely be our undoing. Should we not give some thought to the art of owl-domestication and owl-taming first, before we bring such a creature into our midst?”
Replied Pastus: “Taming an owl sounds like an exceedingly difficult thing to do. It will be difficult enough to find an owl egg. So let us start there. After we have succeeded in raising an owl, then we can think about taking on this other challenge.”
“There is a flaw in that plan!” squeaked Scronkfinkle; but his protests were in vain as the flock had already lifted off to start implementing the directives set out by Pastus.
Just two or three sparrows remained behind. Together they began to try to work out how owls might be tamed or domesticated. They soon realized that Pastus had been right: this was an exceedingly difficult challenge, especially in the absence of an actual owl to practice on. Nevertheless they pressed on as best they could, constantly fearing that the flock might return with an owl egg before a solution to the control problem had been found.
Loading...
