MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is to review ideas of socialism and communism in their contemporary form starting with Gracchus Babeuf during French revolution, their implementation in various forms during XX century, their massive crash by the end of this century, and finally their partial resurrection in our time. The important and very interesting feature of this book is allocation of lots of space to individuals who created and promoted these ideas, their background, psychology, and behavior, all of which helps understand reasons for these ideas’ genesis and their attractiveness for some people.

DETAILS:

BEGINNINGS
1 Conspiracy of Equals: Babeuf plots a revolution
Author begins the story o socialism by describing celebration in 1911 the 151^th anniversary of the birth of François-Noël Babeuf, who called himself Gracchus – the first murderer and martyr of contemporary socialist idea. Author notes that Babeuf was a natural product of the French revolution, which added to ideas of Enlightenment as they were imbedded in American revolution the idea of use government violence to enforce “equality”. Author retells the story of Babeuf’s conspiracy that included plans for mass terror even more expansive than Jacobins, failure of this conspiracy, and notes a very interesting feature of consequences: despite execution of Babeuf himself, other conspirators were treated with unusual compassion and get away much easier than other, non-ideological and non-socialist murderers. For the next two century this specific treatment of ideological killers was demonstrated great many times in various countries and circumstances. Practically all muss murdering dictators earlier in their careers were caught in treasonous and often murderous acts, tried in courts of law, lightly sentenced and later freed, only to kill huge numbers of people in the name of socialism when they got to power. The names are well known: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, and quite a few of others.

2 New Harmony: Owen conducts an experiment
In this chapter author describes in details the history of attempt to implement socialism on voluntary basis as superior economic system that would provide much better returns on labor and assure prosperity for community founded on socialist principles. This attempt was conducted in America by rich British manufacturer Robert Owen who provided ideological and practical directions supported by generous financing. This experiment demonstrated, and very clearly indeed, that socialism, as economic system and foundation of society, fails miserably and could not be sustained on voluntary basis.

3 Scientific Socialism: Engels interprets the oracle
This chapter is about Marx and Engels, their somewhat host / parasite type of cooperation, and successful attempt to present ideas of socialism as science. Author describes their lives, activities, and the most important works. Author goes in a bit of details into Marx’s anti-Semitism and Engels’ business history, but concentrates mainly on their relationship as leader and sidekick, even if Engels was somewhat more effective writer and capable individual, albeit self-denigrated in relation to Marx.  Author then describes a very interesting phenomenon of Marx work, especially Das Kapital becoming “scientific” foundation of revolutionary movement, even if hardly anybody actually read it, and those who did were unimpressed. Author then reviews history of this movement’s organizational forms from its inception as International in 1860 to transformation into national Social-Democratic parties all over the Europe by the end of XIX century. Unlike typical approach, author stress role of Engels:” But it was Engels who formulated and popularized Marxism and who launched the Marxist movement. He was Moses to Marx’s God, Mohammed to Marx’s Allah. He was the High Priest and Marx the Oracle. “Marx stood higher, saw farther,” said Engels. Perhaps he did. But it was Engels who told the world what Marx saw, spreading the message that shaped the history of the dawning century.”

4 What Is to Be Done? Bernstein develops doubts
In this chapter author completes history of  socialism as at least somewhat legitimate scientific theory by reviewing history of early XX century when it became quite obvious that no socialist revolution in in the most developed countries is forthcoming, mainly because instead of pauperization of working class, predicted by Marx,  that would lead to social explosion something quite opposite happened: formation of middle class that included most of high and middle qualified workers that enjoyed increasing prosperity consumption levels more and more comparable with consumption levels of business owners. This led to ideological crisis of socialism expressed in work of Bernstein. It divided socialist movement into 3 different ways: evolutionary socialism of social democrats that become dominant in democracies of Western Europe seeking political power via election in order move society to socialism by slowly shifting production to government-controlled hierarchies that would demonstrate socialism’s superiority over capitalism, unionist movement that become dominant in America seeking higher levels of redistribution of wealth generated within capitalist economy, and communist movement, which later become dominant in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, seeking power by all means necessary in order to use this power without any ethical, moral, or humane considerations to impose socialism on people, in process physically eliminating everybody who happens to be on the way.

TRIUMPHS

In this part author reviews four cases of real-life implementation of socialist ideas during XX century all of them failing after causing tens of millions of deaths and unaccountable amount of pain and suffering.
5 Real Existing Socialism: Lenin seizes power
This chapter is about the most cruel and bloody form of socialism implemented by Lenin and Communist party on territory of Russian Empire that featured mass executions, concentration camps, mass starvation, and elimination of all and any individual freedoms developed during Enlightenment period of European history. It was probably the most consistent and logical implementation of ideas of public property on means of production when “public” meant the hierarchy of communist party functionaries, while “means of production” included just about everything, including bodies of individuals.

6 Fascism: Mussolini becomes a heretic

This chapter describes another and generally more humane form of socialism – fascism as it was implemented in Italy by Mussolini. The “taking overall control over means of production” in fascistic system is pretty much limited to subordination of businesses to direction from government without expropriation of private property. Fascism was generally satisfied with unchallenged political power via mass indoctrination and violent suppression of dissent, control over direction of country development usually meaning military development and aggression, and generally not interfered with day-to-day business activities, while promoting extensive welfare state. Author also briefly discusses another more virulent form of fascism – Nazis in Germany whose contribution was extreme form of racism and especially murderous anti-Semitism, but other than that it was not very different from Italian fascism in organization of society and its productive activities.  

7 Social Democracy: Attlee takes the slow road
This chapter presents history of partial implementation of socialism in highly developed democratic state – UK. Unlike communism and fascism this form of socialism retained individual freedoms and democratic elections of leadership, limited by governmental interferes into great many areas of life. The key leader of this implementation was Clement Attlee and author allocates quite a bit of space to this personality. Author also discusses philosophical underpinning of this form of socialism that came from works of Sidney and Beatrice Webb and their movement: Fabians.  Unlike fascism and communism, this form of socialism deprived of ability to use mass violence to stay in power, was very vulnerable to public opinion and consequently subject to defeat in democratic elections, which duly happened just five years after socialists took power.   

8 Ujamaa: Nyerere forges a synthesis
The final example of implementation of socialism reviewed in this book is Ujamaa – authoritarian socialism implemented in Tanzania in 1960-70s by unusually uncorrupt African product of western educational system – Nyerere. As usual economically this form socialism as any other before it led to disaster, even if it received unusually high level of financial support from all sides of Cold War: Western government bureaucracies, Soviet, and Chinese communists. Here how author characterizes this support: “Never before had all the varieties of socialists—Swedish, Israeli, Chinese, East German, American, Cuban, British, Indian—converged so hopefully around a single national experiment. Yet such were the vicissitudes of the Cold War that the capitalist world did not turn its back on Tanzania either. Not only did the World Bank single out Tanzania for special generosity, but the flow of aid from the major Western powers—the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany—resumed sooner or later after each rupture in relations. In all, Tanzania emerged from its declaration of self-reliance as Africa’s largest per capita recipient of foreign assistance.”

It is hard to imagine more beneficial opportunities for development, but socialism did what it does best: destroyed economy and made people poor and miserable.

COLLAPSE
9 Union Card: Gompers and Meany hear a different drummer
In this chapter author retells the story of American union movement, its leaders such as Samuel Gompers and George Meany, and their successful struggle against communism. These people correctly understood that communism means enslavement of working class rather than liberation. Author also looks at one of the most effective union fighters against communism – former socialist Jay Lovestone. Not all of American Union leaders were against communism and, with help of CIO leader John Lewis, communists did play a significant role in unions, but they had never been able to take unions completely over. At the end, even if by 1970s most of humanity lived under some form of socialism, it never took hold in America and as consequence eventually failed in most other countries.

10 Perestroika and Modernization: Deng and Gorbachev repeal communism
This chapter is about fall of communism in Soviet Union and its survival in greatly modified form in China. The key difference was in leadership, which in the Soviet Union consistent of men who grow up within communist system and somehow managed to believe its own propaganda about this system economic superiority and inherently humane character. Gorbachev and his team saw system saturated with lies and corruption, but believed that it was deviation from the true nature of the socialism and impediment to its effective working, so if one removes suppression and propaganda, the socialism’s advantages would become evident and their country hugely prosperous. Dan Xiaoping had no such illusions. He understood the true character of communism as corrupted system based on violence and had no hesitation in using massive violence to sustain this system. Dan also understood that economically socialism is complete failure, so political socialism needed economic capitalism to survive. Consequently, Dan masterly used the same policy as Lenin’s NEP on the international level and huge scale, assuring continuation of the system for another 50 years.

11 The Party of Business: Blair redefines social democracy
In this chapter author reviews the same period of “end of history” when socialism, as economic system, was discredited and pretty much abandoned, based on developments in Western Europe where old democratic socialist parties pretty much moved on to the welfare system, away from their old objective of government taking over means of production to objective of government taking bigger part of wealth produced by capitalist economy and partially controlling this economy via massive regulatory interference.

12 The Kibbutz Goes to Market
In this chapter author reviews the story of one and only known temporary successful socialist experiment – Israeli kibbutz. There are some very unique features that made it possible: strong socialist ideology of founders, external deadly thread, and urgent need for survival. Even so, this lasted at most for two generations after which economic inefficiency of socialism and its inhumanity expressed in constant subjugation of individual to collective made kibbutz economically uncompetitive and psychologically unacceptable for children and grandchildren of founders.

AFTERLIFE
13 Epilogue: Rising from the Ashes

The epilogue discusses current resurrection of socialism partially based on success of Chinese communist party in exploiting Western capitalist economies by providing cheap and politically suppressed labor combined with ecological neglect in exchange for technology and investment. It was hugely supported by ideological fervor developed within educational and intellectual areas of Western world when new generation deprived of knowledge of history became victims of government supported, highly credentialled, and parasitic elite promoting socialism.  

MY TAKE ON IT:

This book is one of the most complete and detailed works on history of socialism as ideology and as expression of ideology of great many intellectuals of the last 200 years who developed this ideology as counterweight to capitalist system that they considered inhumane and exploratory. From my point of view, it is the natural development of humanity similar to development of other religious movement and based mainly on achievement of level of productivity when significant number of people could obtain resources from others without doing anything productive themselves. The wealth redistribution away from these others could be based only on combination of violence and propaganda that would support such organization of society that would suppress any resistance to redistribution.

The way it is done features convincing people that it is the most efficient way to proceed economically and eliminating or at least suppressing those who are not convincible enough. It is obviously quite effective ideology and its previous success proves this. However, the downside of this system’s being unworkable is unsurmountable barrier, which was demonstrated many times over. I think current resurrection is temporary and will go down crashing with failure of Chinese socialism that is going to happen as soon as western elite recognize that continuation of their support for China’s parasitic success could lead to their subordination to Chinese elite – the future they will definitely find unacceptable. The coming cutting off China from western investment, technology, and markets would probably cause elimination of communist rule and, with it the final nail in the coffin of “public ownership of means of production”. However, it would not eliminate idea of massive redistribution of wealth because with increase automatization fewer and fewer humans needed to produce all goods and services required so intellectuals who do not produce anything really required by anybody would continue coming up with variety of ideas justifying such redistribution.  

MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is that there are two different mindsets that people use in their lives that author calls Fixed and Growth. The fixed mindset means acceptance of one’s ability and options as given, unchangeable parameters, so one could achieve something only by using these abilities to maximum extent and even exaggerate them as needed to obtain something of value. The growth mindset means perceiving one’s abilities and options as work in process so one would take on the problems and challenges not only to resolve them, but to learn new staff, obtain new experiences and, consequently, expand both abilities and options. The idea is also includes convincing people that it is quite possible to change one’s mindset and use it to get better results in live.

DETAILS:

Chapter 1: The Mindset

Author starts with example of two different approaches to challenge: one is to work hard on it and learn, even if failed to overcome this challenge and another one is to look for confirmation of one’s ability to overcome or at least pretend overcoming challenge, with learning not even being included into consideration. She refers this difference to different attitudes to abilities, especially intellectual. The first one is result of believe that abilities are flexible enough to be developed via challenges and another one result of believe that it is rigidly given, could not be changed, and so challenge is just test of static abilities. Author then discusses nature/nurture and currently established understanding that it is both and any ability could be expanded continuously through lifetime. She then refers to 30 years of her research to define growth mindset:” growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others. Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow through application and experience.” Author then compares it with fixed mindset, which causes people direct efforts to defend their perceived ability rather than expand the real one.  

Chapter 2: Inside the Mindsets

Here author defines mindset as individual’s approach to his/her ability with one of:” two meanings to ability, not one: a fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.”  Author then describes a number of experiments demonstrating different mindsets in action:” People with both mindsets came into our brain-wave lab at Columbia. As they answered hard questions and got feedback, we were curious about when their brain waves would show them to be interested and attentive. People with a fixed mindset were only interested when the feedback reflected on their ability. Their brain waves showed them paying close attention when they were told whether their answers were right or wrong. But when they were presented with information that could help them learn, there was no sign of interest. Even when they’d gotten an answer wrong, they were not interested in learning what the right answer was. Only people with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their knowledge. Only for them was learning a priority. What’s Your Priority?” Author then provides a number of anecdotes illustrating her points. She also uses them to demonstrate that mindset itself is flexible and could be changed. She then discusses how mindset changes meaning of effort, and link to depression. At the end of chapter author summarizes it all in specific advice.    

Chapter 3: The Truth About Ability and Accomplishment

In this chapter author links mindset to success in education, overall achievement and provides this summary:” The fixed mindset limits achievement. It fills people’s minds with interfering thoughts, it makes effort disagreeable, and it leads to inferior learning strategies. What’s more, it makes other people into judges instead of allies. Whether we’re talking about Darwin or college students, important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus, allies in learning. This is what the growth mindset gives people, and that’s why it helps their abilities grow and bear fruit.” Author also discusses danger of undeserved praise and talent recognition instead of effort recognition. One interesting finding is about extent to which people with fixed mindset would go to defend their status:” almost 40 percent of the ability-praised students lied about their scores? And always in one direction. In the fixed mindset, imperfections are shameful—especially if you’re talented—so they lied them away.”

Chapter 4: Sports: The Mindset of a Champion

Here author applies her ideas about mindset to sports. Unsurprisingly she concludes that ideas of “natural” could not stand scrutiny. She also discusses idea of character, that she believes mainly related to mindset, the same as everything else. She presents a number of stories about sport and then defines her sport related findings:”

Finding #1: Those with the growth mindset found success in doing their best, in learning and improving. And this is exactly what we find in the champions.

Finding #2: Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up call.

Finding #3: People with the growth mindset in sports (as in pre-med chemistry) took charge of the processes that bring success—and that maintain it.

 Chapter 5: Business: Mindset and Leadership

Here author applies the same approach to business revieing Enron, successful companies per book “Good to Great”, and a bunch of other cases and studies with final inference that one should applies point of view of growth mindset to be successful.

Chapter 6: Relationships: Mindsets in Love (or Not)

This is similar application of mindset approach to area of personal relationships and love with similar call to use growth mindset in order to be happy.

Chapter 7: Parents, Teachers, and Coaches: Where Do Mindsets Come From?

This chapter a bit different from the previous three, it not that much promotes growth mindset as discusses how to get it either individually or transfer it to children. The outcome depends on key message and that’s how author defines it:” It can be a fixed-mindset message that says: You have permanent traits and I’m judging them. Or it can be a growth-mindset message that says: You are a developing person and I am committed to your development.” Author goes into great many specifics and also provides an interesting point about potential misunderstandings:

Misunderstanding #1. Many people take what they like about themselves and call it a “growth mindset.”

Misunderstanding #2. Many people believe that a growth mindset is only about effort, especially praising effort.

Misunderstanding #3. A growth mindset equals telling kids they can do anything.

She then explains in details why it is so and at the end provides recommendations on how to handle this. 

Chapter 8: Changing Mindsets

The final chapter provides recommendations on how to change one’s own mindset. It starts with discussion on difficulty of change. Author specifically mentions the cognitive therapy as tool that could be used to achieve change in mindset and then suggests other approaches: lectures and workshops. She also discusses various barriers to change, both internal and external. Finally, author provides graphic representation of mindsets:

MY TAKE ON IT:

This is an interesting combination of psychological observations, research, and self-help that nevertheless demonstrates an interesting point – high level of dependency of life’s outcomes on internal condition of individual’s mind – mindset. I pretty much agree that it makes lots of sense to have “growth” approach, embrace challenges and learn from failures. Actually, it is the only way if one wants to get out of some situation and improve one’s lot. However, it is not that simple to act this way in real world. In this world people are highly dependent on external estimates of their abilities rather than on real abilities, leave alone potential level of these abilities, so lots of effort has to be directed at improvement of presentation, rather that improvement of intrinsic qualities. I think that in reality growth mindset is only possible when external pressures are minimized and whatever actions one applies are driven by internal motivation. In this case the failure becomes impossibility because as long as one progresses the success is guaranteed. It is not the case when there are external pressures and competition that shift motivation from progressing to winning. In this case the fixed mindset could work better because it would help avoid overreach resulting in failure. In competition one should only be better than competitors, not the best one can be. Similarly for external evaluation one should only meet evaluation criteria, however meaningless it could be, rather than strive for real achievement.

MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is to give voice to real specialists and scientists working in ecology, archeology, and history to respond to popular, but often unfounded and speculative narratives that twist history so to scare people out of their wits by future ecological, climate, population, and other disasters that will be inevitable if people not immediately change their ways. The title of this book refers to Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” – a very popular representation of genre: “you and your children are going to die tomorrow from hunger / overpopulation / global cooling / global warming / climate change… if you would not agree to live in misery without energy and transportation right now because such catastrophes happened before.” These real scientists and specialists explain what they know about events in the past used currently to scare people and generally present much more reasonable and realistic picture that demonstrate human ability to handle successfully all kinds of potential dangers either ecological, or climatic, or societal.   

DETAILS:

1 Why We Question Collapse and Study Human Resilience, Ecological

Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire
This is very nice explanation of reasons for this book and here is authors’ summary:” When closely examined, the overriding human story is one of survival and regeneration. Certainly, crises existed, political forms changed, and landscapes were altered, but rarely did societies collapse in an absolute and apocalyptic sense. Even the examples of societal collapse often touted in the media – Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Norse Greenland, Puebloan U.S. Southwest, and the Maya Lowlands – are also cases of societal resilience when examined carefully, as authors do in the chapters in this book. Popular writers’ tendency to approach the past in terms of a series of societal failures or collapses – while understandable in terms of providing drama and mystery – falls apart in light of the information and fresh perspectives presented in this book.” … “The notion of resilience, instead of collapse, is relevant to the chapters of this book because, on close inspection of archaeological evidence, documentary records, or both, it becomes clear that human resilience is the rule rather than the exception.

They also provide map of areas under discussion in this book:”

Part I. Human Resilience and Ecological Vulnerability
2 Ecological Catastrophe, Collapse, and the Myth of “Ecocide” on Rapa Nui

(Easter Island)
This chapter is about “Collapse” of generally isolated society supposedly due to stupidity of its people who used all trees to manufacture and transport idols leading to ecological disaster. Here is how author characterize what really happened:” It is essential to disentangle environmental changes in Rapa Nui from a population collapse that resulted from European contact. Such contact brought Old World diseases and slave trading. Contrary to today’s popular narratives, ancient deforestation was not the cause of population collapse. If we are to apply a modern term to the tragedy of Rapa Nui, it is not ecocide, but genocide.”

Authors proceed to discuss real ecology of the island, types of trees that exists, reasons for deforestation that in reality linked not to the human stupidity, but rather to rat’s population that arrived around 1200 and changed ecology by feeding on palm seeds. The deforestation led to expansion of grasslands and humans successfully adjusted and seems to be doing well. They could not however adjust to conquest by other humans, which did cause humanitarian disaster.  Here is quite explanatory population graph:

3 Did the Medieval Norse Society in Greenland Really Fail?
This chapter is about small society on the island with very unfriendly climate that nevertheless lasted from 982 c.e. until the end of fifteen century. Author of this chapter points out very obvious, but somehow missed point that society that endured for more than 500 years could not be called failed. Author discusses in details relations between Norse and Inuit, which sometimes were hostile and sometimes cooperative. Author then describes evidence of successful adjustment to environment, but notes that eventual cooling was a factor, but not exclusive for Norse moving away. Since Norse maintained active connection with Europe, the emigration was a viable solution for increasing difficulties. Therefore, it was not collapse, but rather relocation to better pastures away from cold Island.

4 Calamities without Collapse: Environment, Economy, and Society in

China, ca. 1800-1949
This chapter is about China’s 100 years of humiliation, but it could not be called collapse by any means. It was rather lack of advancement that put China into position far behind European countries in XIX and XX centuries. The chapter reviews both geographical and institutional situation and finds that part of the problem was fast growth of population that was not handled well because none of 4 measures that could help handle this were successfully applied. These measures are:

1. Deliberate population control
2. Increased rural nonagricultural employment
3. Urbanization
4. Increasing cultivated area, either through conquest or by reclaiming unfarmed land within current borders.

The biggest civil war in history – Taiping Rebellion that killed around 20 million people did not help to solve these problems, but rather delayed return to normalcy. Similarly foreign invasion of WWII and following on communist takeover were not helpful either. China obviously did not collapse and it is not going to, but, despite rapid development over the last 30 years based on some limited openness to capitalism, massive Western wealth and knowledge transfer resulting in China’s economic growth the disastrous problems could reoccur as long as communists are in power and therefore country’s economy and overall life is still subject to catastrophic top-down decisions by functionaries isolated from consequences of their decisions.  Specifically, author concentrates on environmental impact of massive industrial development.

Part II. Surviving Collapse: Studies of Societal Regeneration
5 Marketing Conquest and the Vanishing Indian: An Indigenous Response

to Jared Diamond’s Archaeology of the American Southwest
This chapter is presented by writer of Amerindian descent who quite convincingly demonstrates that local population had been successful in managing ecology of its environment and, contrary to opinion of “collapse” promoters, it did not fail until conquest by Europeans who had no clue about local environment, but had plenty of power to impose unworkable solutions. Here is the main point of argument:” My criticisms are not simply of Jared Diamond himself, but of those who explain global inequalities and poverty among the have-nots – who have no cargo – as inevitable and portray have-nots as powerless victims of impersonal forces. As a reader, I cannot be held responsible for military encounters 500 years ago. But as an archaeologist I am responsible for understanding how the work I create can take on a life of its own and be interpreted as a collective explanation for Indigenous “failures” – failures that seem to justify colonization and the replacement and removal of Indian Peoples.”

6 Bellicose Rulers and Climatological Peril? Retrofitting Twenty-First-Century Woes on Eighth-Century Maya Society
Authors of this chapter systematically reviewed all scenarios that supposedly led to “collapse” of Maya society:

1. Escalating warfare
2. Out-of-control population growth
3. Environmental degradation
4. Drought
5. Effectiveness of divine rulership
6. Changes in spheres of trade and influence.

They pretty much conclude that none of this was something extraordinary and anywhere beyond similar events in European or Asian history. They make important point that there is no evidence of sudden collapse and plenty of evidence of slow history change not that different from changes that occurred elsewhere and that Maya people still around in their millions. They also warn that:” The past can inform us and often guide us toward a better future, but the mirror of ancient Maya society should not be refracted in hopes of inducing change in the contemporary world, no matter how badly change might be needed.”

7 Collapse in Ancient Mesopotamia: What Happened, What Didn’t
This chapter is direct response to Jared Diamond three claims about Mesopotamia:

1. Collapse due to the drought cycles
2. Salinization
3. Soil nutrient exhaustion

As others in this book author of this chapter states:” Let me anticipate my conclusion: if collapse, in Diamond’s words, is “a dramatic decrease in human population and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time,” we can’t find any such collapse in Mesopotamia or, indeed, anywhere else among ancient states!” Author then proceeds to describe Assyrian history, which does not show any sudden collapse, and notes that this people, as great many other ancient people are still around.

Part III. Societies in the Aftermath of Empire
8 Advanced Andeans and Backward Europeans: Structure and Agency in

the Collapse of the Inca Empire
This chapter is about Spanish conquest of Inca Empire. As usual the legend of a few hundred conquistadors overcoming an Empire with millions of people is greatly inaccurate. In reality there was an ongoing civil war and Spaniards just benefited from it by aligning with some groups against others. Moreover, conquest was not a momentous event, but the process lasting for decades when areas under control of different powers changed hands. A very interesting fact is that during this process the mixing of people occurred, so by the time of complete establishment of Spanish rule lots of people were descendants of both: Incas and Spaniards. Author goes into great many details of what Diamond got wrong with one of them being highly representative: believe that Incas were illiterate. By now it is well established fact that they had knotted cord recording of information, meaning they just had different technology, which does not mean it was inferior.  Even germs were not as devastating as usually perceived:” Germs also cut a swathe through highland populations, though demographic recovery there came sooner. Be that as it may, indigenous population numbers did not recover until the eighteenth century, in contrast to Mexico, where indigenous populations had recovered by the early sixteenth century despite epidemic-driven demographic decline having been even more devastating than in the Andes. In both Mexico and the Andes, the invasion of germs had run its course by 1600, or at least swept aside European and native Andean alike.” The final and very important point author makes in his verdict, which provides much more realistic picture than usually presented:” colonial hegemony depends on collaborating elites in order to control and exploit indigenous underclasses. During the three centuries after Cajamarca, an Inca nobility in the old capital of Cuzco provided unconditional support for the Crown of Castile.”

9 Rwandan Genocide: Toward an Explanation in Which History and

Culture Matter
This chapter is about contemporary event of genocide, which Diamond presented as consequence of Malthusian fight for arable land. Author of this chapter spent decades in Rwanda and presents somewhat different picture of cultural, ethnic, and political struggle for dominance. True it had roots in colonial politics when Tutsi were elite collaborating with colonial powers and then after being overthrown by Hutu revolution in 1962 become persecuted minority. The genocide in Rwanda was result of these complex politico-cultural developments not that different from developments in Germany in 1930s or Russia in 1920s that produced similar mass murder, but in none of these cases it was result of Malthusian food fight. 

10 “Failed” States, Societal “Collapse,” and Ecological “Disaster”: A Haitian

Lesson on Grand Theory
This chapter is provided by specialist in Haiti and once again demonstrates inapplicability of environmental determinism to real live developments. Similarly to Diamond author uses comparison of Haiti and Dominican Republic to “illustrate the pitfalls of privileging grand theory as “the” way to encompass social scientific knowledge about and understanding of some facet of the human spectacle. Doing so denies anthropologists, as well as policymakers and the general public, an opportunity to explore connections among culture, history, and ecology.” Here is framework for comparison:

Author then goes through each point demonstrating that:” Diamond’s comparison deploys questionable descriptive and analytical maneuvers. Factual errors about historical events, cultural attributes, or socioeconomic and political processes, although numerous and alarming to specialists, need not detain us. More important is Diamond’s penchant for reporting decontextualized facts and extrapolating their significance.”

At the end of article author concludes:” “Failed” state, societal “collapse,” and ecological “disaster” may be serviceable concepts for grand theory as well as catchy terms for media coverage. Are they useful for understanding Haiti’s compound crisis, its many and many-sided problems? No, if one considers failure, collapse, and disaster fixed and incontrovertible end points. No, if one contends that Haitians, leaders and followers, “chose” crisis and problems. No, if the concepts and terms are deemed self-explanatory and treated as rationales for inaction or for humanitarian assistance as the only form that action may take. But yes, if the concepts and terms prompt careful, methodologically sound investigation of Haitian realities, present and past. In Haiti, as elsewhere, these realities include how the facts about one nation-state are forged in the crucible of struggles, within that nation-state and in its relations with other nation-states, over the proper uses of power to achieve and sustain prosperity.”

11 The Power of the Past: Environment, Aborigines, Archaeology, and a

Sustainable Australian Society
This chapter about Australia mostly corroborate criticism of previous chapters. Probably the most interesting part is about Tasmania where according to Diamond’s narrative based on colonial records isolated people lost knowledge and skills they possessed before and where on the brink of extinction. Author claims that:” Fortunately our stock of both archaeological and historical evidence about the first forty-five years of European occupation of Tasmania further strengthens the argument against regression, which was a provocative idea about the consequences of isolation that had flowed from early research in the 1970s. These ideas have now been comprehensively refuted or at the very least seriously questioned.”

12 Excusing the Haves and Blaming the Have-Nots in the Telling of

History

Authors of this chapter also reject Diamond’s approach and stress that:” Anthropology urges us – and helps us – to examine our own taken-for-granted ideas about why and how people act: our ideas about human nature, about the causes and objectives of human action, about the ways people intend one thing to follow from another, about how and why people engage in collective action. We must recognize that not everyone in the world has the same objectives as (many) contemporary Americans, wanting and seeking the same sorts of things as we do. This is to say, we must be aware of historical and cultural context.”  They dig a bit into history of Papua New Guinea and specifically people who prompted Diamond’s book and stress difference in values and approaches to the problems of people with different cultural background, which makes great many of assumptions invalid.

Part IV. Reflections on Sustainability
13 Sustainable Survival
The final chapter kind of summarizes Jared Diamond’s thesis of projecting variety of historical “collapses” into our current situation in search of support for alarmist movements whether they are “climate change”, “population bomb” or whatever else people come up with to get money and power by scaring others out of their wits. Author also very briefly summarizes responses to this thesis from real scientists, which studied history and in some cases actually observed referred “collapses”, demonstrating quite clearly that in reality it was quite different and in most cases “collapses” where just “changes” with which humans normally quite capable of handling.  Here is conclusion, stated around fossil fuels, that I think very appropriate:” Fossil fuels function as an Ethiopian highland for the modern world: they represent an enormous subsidy, not from a distant place, but from a distant time, the carboniferous era. They make it possible for 6.5 billion people to eat. Fossil fuels are the fertilizer of modern agriculture. They pump up groundwater and power tractors. They serve as the feedstocks for pesticides and herbicides. They make nitrogenous fertilizers practical. And they power the vehicles that move crops to kitchens. They sustain us. ..

Our ways are radically unsustainable. Diamond is right to be concerned by that. He is right to prefer hope to despair, and admirable in that he has used his fame to draw attention to issues of sustainability. But he is, as often as not, wrong in his judgments about successes and failures among societies of the past.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

I am really glad that a number of real scientists and historians found courage to publish this book convincingly demonstrating something that I strongly believe in: humans are quite capable to handle infinite variety of challenges by accommodating to changing environment using their big brains. They do it not by creating religions and making sacrifices but rather finding technological solutions and sometimes making accommodations such as relocation from places with deteriorating ecology to places better fit for human life. There is huge number of such changes in human history from invention of clothing and use of fire to creating sewer systems that allow huge number of people to live in very limited city spaces and inventing elevators that allow situate people on the top of each other on hundreds of floors. The change is inevitable and will probably never stop, but it should be done calmly with effective cost/benefit analysis, and without panic, hysterical pronunciations, and massive use of government power.  One should always be aware that there are con people and politicians who try to create panic and fear in order to increase their wealth and power to extent that would be absolutely impossible to achieve without scaring people. 

MAIN IDEA:

Author defines the main idea of this book as to look at and find answers for the following questions:” Why do smart people act stupidly? What skills and dispositions are they missing that can explain these mistakes? And how can we cultivate those qualities to protect us from those errors? “

DETAILS:

Introduction
Author begins his introduction with the story of Kary Mullis Nobel prized scientist who promotes all kind of crazy staff on internet. From here author goes to his discovery that:” Intelligent and educated people are less likely to learn from their mistakes, for instance, or take advice from others. And when they do err, they are better able to build elaborate arguments to justify their reasoning, meaning that they become more and more dogmatic in their views. Worse still, they appear to have a bigger “bias blind spot,” meaning they are less able to recognize the holes in their logic.”  Author believe that it is result of what he calls “Intelligence Trap” – tendency of highly intelligent people to overestimate their knowledge and understanding.

Part I-The downsides of intelligence: How a high IQ. education. and expertise can fuel stupidity
This Part “defines the problem. It explores the flaws in our understanding of intelligence and the ways that even the brightest minds can backfire—from Arthur Conan Doyle’s dogged beliefs in fairies to the FBI’s flawed investigation into the Madrid bombings of 2004—and the reasons that knowledge and expertise only exaggerate those errors.”

1: The rise and fall of the Termites: What intelligence is—and what it is not
Author begins this chapter with the story of Termites – the group of children selected for observation and study because of their exceptionally high IQ by Lewis Terman.  Author then discusses IQ tests, types of questions used, theory of general intelligence and multitude of its use. After that author refer to high IQ study results that demonstrated relatively high, but not especially outstanding life achievements of extremely high IQ individuals. Author also discusses Flynn Effect that demonstrated changes in average population IQ over the time. Author also discusses here “Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence, which examines three particular types of intelligence—practical, analytical, and creative—that can together influence decision making in a diverse range of cultures and situations.”. Author then provides an interesting definition of intelligence by Sternberg: “the ability to achieve success in life, according to one’s personal standards, within one’s sociocultural context.” Author describes results of Steinberg’s research, some of which demonstrated ability to predict outcome of business projects based on tests of participants. Author also discusses later addition of Cultural Intelligence that allow people with different backgrounds to cooperate.  

2: Entangled arguments: The dangers of “dysrationalia”
Author begins this chapter with another story of highly intelligent person falling into irrational exuberance: Artur Conan Doyle and spiritualism. Author also refers to sceptic Harry Houdini who: “intuitively understood the vulnerability of the intelligent mind. “As a rule, I have found that the greater brain a man has, and the better he is educated, the easier it has been to mystify him”. Author then proceeds to discuss work of Kahneman and Tversky on cognition and then defines term “dysrationalia” – mix of biases and heuristics that causes people make illogical decisions. This follows by discussion of some statistical notions and formal logic tools.  Author presents some very interesting examples of lower practical abilities of high IQ individuals such as:” Around 14 percent of people with an IQ of 140 had reached their credit limit, compared to 8.3 percent of people with an average IQ of 100. Nor were they any more likely to put money away in long-term investments or savings; their accumulated wealth each year was just a tiny fraction greater.” Another very interesting point author makes about biases is that higher level of knowledge and education actually increases bias because it provides more ammunition to defend them. Here is nice illustration:

Author concludes this chapter by sumarizing: “We have now seen three broad reasons why an intelligent person may act stupidly. They may lack elements of creative or practical intelligence that are essential for dealing with life’s challenges; they may suffer from “dysrationalia,” using biased intuitive judgments to make decisions; and they may use their intelligence to dismiss any evidence that contradicts their views thanks to motivated reasoning.”

3: The curse of knowledge: The beauty and fragility of the expert mind
Here author retells the story of false identification individual as terrorist based on poorly analyzed partial fingerprint. Based on this story author presents his list of potential intelligence trap forms:

Part 2 – Escaping the intelligence trap: A toolkit for reasoning and decision making
This Part “presents solutions to these problems by introducing the new discipline of “evidence-based wisdom,” which outlines those other thinking dispositions and cognitive abilities that are crucial for good reasoning, while also offering some practical techniques to cultivate them. Along the way, we will discover why our intuitions often fail and the ways we can correct those errors to fine-tune our instincts. We will also explore strategies to avoid misinformation and fake news, so that we can be sure that our choices are based on solid evidence rather than wishful thinking.”

4: Moral algebra: Toward the science of evidence-based wisdom
In this chapter author refers to Ben Franklin to demonstrate workings of specific type of mindset that author calls “evidence-based wisdom”. He provides as example this idea:” The idea that “I am wise because I know that I know nothing” may have become something of a cliché, but it is still rather remarkable that qualities such as your intellectual humility and capacity to understand other people’s points of view may predict your well-being better than your actual intelligence.” After that author makes point that this mindset is not given, but rather could be developed and describes results of supporting experiments. Author also refer to works of Tetlock and his “Good Judgement project”. At the end of chapter author discusses cultural differences between West and East – one tending overestimate and another underestimate own ability and even height.

5: Your emotional compass: The power of self-reflection

Here author looks at another specific problem:” The problem is that most people—including those with high general intelligence, education, and professional expertise—lack the adequate self-reflection to interpret the valuable signals correctly and identify the cues that are going to lead them astray. According to the research, bias doesn’t come from intuitions and emotions per se, but from an inability to recognize those feelings for what they really are and override them when necessary; we then use our intelligence and knowledge to justify erroneous judgments made on the basis of them”.

Author then refers to work of Damasio and Barrett on unity of intellectual and emotional processing that demonstrate how much more complex is human behavior and achievement that could be expected from IQ driven approach. At the end of chapter author provides a very interesting graph of expertise levels:

6: A bullshit detection kit: How to recognize lies and misinformation
Here author presents quite a few examples of BS and then provides a nice compilation of BS indicators:

Part 3—The art of successful learning: How evidence-based wisdom can improve your memory
This Part:” turns to the science of learning and memory. Despite their brainpower, intelligent people sometimes struggle to learn well, reaching a kind of plateau in their abilities that fails to reflect their potential. Evidence-based wisdom can help to break that vicious cycle, offering three rules for deep learning. Besides helping us to meet our own personal goals, this cutting-edge research also explains why East Asian education systems are already so successful at applying these principles, and the lessons that Western schooling can learn from them to produce better learners and wiser thinkers.

7: Tortoises and hares: Why smart people fail to learn
In this chapter author returns to super high IQ Termites and compares them with Richard Feynman who had decent but not outstanding IQ of 120, but achieved a lot more that Termites with IQ 190 and discusses reasons for such occurrence. He then presents rules of behavior that lead to scientific success:

• I actively seek as much new information as I can in new situations.
• Everywhere I go, I am out looking for new things or experiences.
• I am the kind of person who embraces unfamiliar people, events and places.

He also provides a list of believes that impede success:

• A failure to perform well at the task at hand will reflect your overall self-worth?
• Learning a new, unfamiliar task puts you at risk of embarrassment?
• Effort is only for the incompetent?
• You are too smart to try hard?

8: The benefits of eating bitter: East Asian education and the three principles of deep learning
Author begins this chapter by contrasting Western and Eastern approach to education as demonstrated by teacher’s choice of the student for interaction before class. Former approach calls for choosing the best student in order to demonstrate how easy it is, while latter would choose the one who is falling behind in order to demonstrate that with hard work result the positive result is achievable. Author then presents three stages of good teaching as defined by research into the process:

Author also present similarly developed effective approaches to learning:

Part 4—The folly and wisdom of the crowd: How teams and organizations can avoid the intelligence trap
“Finally, Part 4 expands our focus beyond the individual, to explore the reasons that talented groups act stupidly—from the failings of the England football team to the crises of huge organizations like BP, Nokia, and NASA.”

9: The makings of a “dream team”: How to build a supergroup
This chapter begins with a few stories of failure of seemingly superior sports teams and then expanded to political and business teams. From there author moves to describing the latest research on group dynamics. This research concentrated on 4 tasks:” generating new ideas; choosing a solution based on sound judgment; negotiating to reach compromise; and finally, general ability at task execution (such as coordinating movements and activities).” The interesting findings were that quality of thinking was correlated across the tasks, and not that much correlated with IQ of group members. The most important was member’s social sensitivity and most destructive intragroup competition. Author expands on it and concludes that the team of stars oftentimes fail. Here is the graph based on sports example:

10: Stupidity spreading like wildfire: Why disasters occur—and how to stop them
In the last chapter author analyses large scale disasters, which in reality do not really happen without warning. The typical sequence is: large number of near disaster accidents that were ignored until some unlucky circumstances made it happen. After that author looks at internal dynamics and refer to “functional stupidity” ideas when group dynamics make it beneficial for highly intelligent people behave stupidly. Author retells some stories of real disasters and then provides the list of characteristics of high-reliability organizations:

Epilogue

At the end author returns to Flynn and his discovery of consistent IQ increase and stresses that it is not really that important. Much more important is wisdom and author refer to work of Chicago Center for Practical Wisdom which is doing research to find out how it really works.

MY TAKE ON IT:

It is quite interesting compilation of research descriptions and real-life cases demonstrating how much IQ and other similar testing procedures are overestimated as tools for predicting future performance of individuals and groups. I very much agree with this conclusion, but I always wonder why people so often forget reasons for existence of all this staff. It is not a coincidence that it was developed at the end of XIX century when traditional believes in God directed birthright selection of leaders and rulers became painfully obvious as being ineffective and increasingly pushed aside by pressure from raising middle and upper classes of capitalist society’s members self-selected for top positions via talent, hard work, and luck. This self-selection worked wonderfully at the business level, but was deemed inappropriate and cumbersome for government and big corporation. IQ, other testing, and credentialing was the response to demand to find methods quickly and cheaply identify who is good for what.  I think it is time to outgrow this primitive approach for two important reasons: first it does not really work, and the second it is not really needed because AI driven computers would beat any human being hands down in this game similarly to century ago when the earliest steam engine would beat hands down any human runner. It would probably not be possible to remove until humanity still continue to be organized mainly in hierarchical order of big government and big corporation, but if humanity eventually moves away from hierarchy to different forms of organization of society, for instance as conglomeration of free agents in possession of clearly defined and sufficient resources (ownership society) voluntary coordinating their efforts in achieving some objectives, then testing and credentialing would become obsolete and takes its place in museum somewhere between Zeus worshipping paraphernalia and socialist/communist tractates on future society organization.   

The last thing I want to note is author’s hilarious demonstration of the same high IQ stupidity when using global warming QA:

Here are problems with this picture that author seems to be missing:

1. Global warming is controversial issue, which means that correct answer could not be possibly known. Science normally does not provide true/false answers to anything without also providing detailed description of area of application. Trivial example: Newton’s mechanics vs. Einstein relativity vs Quantum mechanics.
2. Over concentration on human activities and neglect of other factors such as solar activity and about a dozen others that identified by real climatologist.
3.  Huge politization of the issue and complete control of government and universities by climate alarmists. If instead of democrats and republicans author used “career dependent” vs “career independent”, the result would be the same. I guess it a bit better than in Giordano Bruno times so nobody will be burned alive, but any contradiction to global warming would mean the end of scientific career. That’s probably why only retired climatologists and other STEM scientists dare to express skepticism about validity of alarm.
4. It would be interesting to know what percentage of responders actually listened to congressional hearing when alarmists debated sceptics with sceptics presenting logic and factual data, while alarmists mainly emotional demonstrations.

In short, the high IQ stupidity is so prevalent that even the book about this phenomenon demonstrates high levels of high IQ stupidity of global warming / cooling / change alarmism.