Of the many reasons I do not play chess, the main one is that I’m lousy at strategy. I struggle to think more than one or two moves ahead, can’t easily reposition pieces in my mind’s eye, and am hapless when it comes to sniffing out and thwarting my opponent’s battle plan. I’ve had similar […]
A hefty portion of humanity’s uniqueness can be traced back to future projection. We constantly weave narratives that stretch moments and months and millennia ahead, even as we fumble to figure out what to do with today, each day. Everyone needs some kind of intellectual framework to navigate this tricky tension, which is where futurists […]
Deeper into the wordy quagmire that is Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. As with Quicksilver, this volume contains a considerable dose of magical moments dissolved in a nearly impenetrable sea of overdone gibberish. It’s brilliant gibberish, but not brilliant enough to make this book shine the way I typically expect from Stephenson. While enhancing the Baroque […]
This book came to my attention by way of David Brin, who claims it as mandatory reading for anyone interested in saving the world. I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but the assertion that positive sum games play a critical role in biological and cultural evolution is definitely significant, especially insofar as it […]
It is always painful to write a negative review of a beloved author, but less so when the book in question is as desultory and tedious as this one. Neal Stephenson is probably my favorite living author, but making it through the first volume of his Baroque Cycle (which is really three books in one) […]
Mark Johnson was my senior thesis adviser at the University of Oregon. More than that, he changed my life profoundly, starting with his Philosophy 101 lecture course on Philosophical Problems, which caused me to change my major after just one term at UO. Johnson introduced me to the works of John Dewey––my intellectual hero––and also […]