Panashe Fundira

The core of this book is quite good:
- we assume our emotional concepts (happiness, fear, anger) are universal, and even extend to related mammals, when in fact they are socially constructed. I think the author does a good job of demonstrating the social nature of emotion, and tearing down the classical view of emotion
- emotions, feelings, affect originate from within, rather than being events that happen to us. Page 57: “Your river of feelings might feel like it's going over you, but actually you're the river's source”
- we can be misguided about the origin of our affect, and make fundamental attribution errors. This can negatively affect our decision making
- emotions don't have concrete ‘fingerprints', emotions are really statistical clumps with a wide range of variance
- emotions aren't rooted to a single part of the brain. I was quite surprised to learn that you can experience fear, even without an amygdala!

I do think this book could be much shorter than it is without losing it's essential points. Some of the chapters here are quite speculative, and much weaker than the early core. In ‘Mastering Your Emotions', she quotes the emotional intelligence guy saying “For star performance in all jobs, in every field, emotional competence is twice as important as purely cognitive abilities”. What is EI if not a cognitive ability? Assuming that he means IQ, I remain unconvinced that EI can account for any variance in job performance not already caught by IQ, agreeableness, and maybe conscientiousness. Our author then goes on to say we can improve our emotional regulation by learning more words and listening to ‘thought-provoking audio content like National Public Radio'. Ugh, ok? She does at least present a study in favor of the former, but it's not clear from the text whether the effect was due to more granular description of the participants' emotions, or them dissociating more from their affect/emotion (would also like to see replications).

I stopped during the legal system chapter, where a lot of strong claims seemed to be drawn from flimsy evidence (2017 was pre-replication crisis in social psychology, right?), and I figured I wasn't going to learn much more from the last few chapters.

4.5 stars

As noted in other reviews, these short stories are original and very different from each other, and Chiang is pretty good at maintaining scientific consistency in each. Starts strong and ends strong.

Ok, a lot of very clear, actionable advice here about replacing guilt as the basis of your motivational system. I imagine that Yudkowsky's binned Art of Rationality would have been quite similar, this reminds me of [b:Rationality: From AI to Zombies 25131230 Rationality From AI to Zombies Eliezer Yudkowsky https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440562023l/25131230.SX50.jpg 44828040]. I haven't implemented the advice within yet. If I do, and find it personally effective, I'll add the fifth star.

Highly recommend the audiobook version, read by the author

A very balanced take on the political climate surrounding universities

Excellent introduction to the field of forecasting, and what it takes to be a good forecaster. Tetlock is balanced on the strengths and weaknesses of his forecasting paradigm.

Perhaps useful if you're new to attempting to improve your ‘critical thinking' skills, but the advice is very basic, and this reads like a long blog post. I didn't need to pick up a book to tell me not to automatically trust what I read in the news.

An excellent and accessible introduction to the science of intelligence. The subtitle is a little tongue in cheek

There man of steel mysteriously appears in the city of Metropolis. Billionaire magnate and genius Lex Luthor quickly figures out that Superman poses a great existential risk to humanity, and attempts to figure out ways to kill Superman without his plots being detected. Smart and gripping.

4.5 stars. A pretty well researched and sensible book on how to create and execute learning projects. I had my quibbles (I don't think the Polgar sisters' story proves that just anyone can be a grand master with training, and there's no discussion of the failed replications of Growth Mindset) but those were minor.

A merely ok overview of the now trendy Zettelkasten system. Really short book, but I couldn't find it in me to finish it. Author quotes a lot of loosely related science, so I guess he's putting his notes to some use.

4.5 stars. Charles Murray, the controversial author behind The Bell Curve dips his toes into more controversial territory with Human Diversity. The central thesis of this book is that there exist notable psychological differences between groups of human beings, and these differences are due in large part to genetic factors.

Examples of groups differentiated in these ways include males/females, races (or the more academic ‘ancestral populations') and social classes. He argues that these differences are biological in origin (not merely socially constructed) and have proven robust to any social policy interventions we could throw at them. We cannot hope to erase these differences though social policy. Instead, policy makers should acquaint themselves with the nature of these differences, and understand what is or isn't amenable to change.

Considering that Murray is a policy analyst and not a psychologist/anthropologist/geneticist/neuroscientist/some other -ist, his arguments are surprisingly good. It is clear that he has engaged the research, and explores the implications of very recent developments in all of these fields (as of early 2020) to the topic of human diversity. This book is rigorous enough that it can be hard to follow, even for a philomath like myself. Even then, I think he does well to illustrate his basic point, while making sure to expound on the relevant data and references for the interested reader. He never seems to overstate his point, coming to modest conclusions from the evidence.

The weakest chapter is probably the final one, where he leaves the data behind and begins to expound on his personal conservative views, calling for people to rally around family, community, faith, and vocation.

Not an exhilarating read or anything, but does give a lot of insight into the man. As a non-basketball fan, some explanation of the technical terms would have been useful.

Such a simple and powerful method

The method of inquiry discussed in this book is so simple and powerful, I'm surprised that I'd never really come across the Work before reading it. I felt a shift in my mental/emotional world, right from the first exercise. Highly recommended.

This felt like a pretty balanced take on perhaps the most enigmatic industrial titan of our times.

A good, no-woo introduction to mindfulness meditation and its benefits. The latter half of this book feels a bit weaker, as the author tries to stretch the implications of good social connections, creativity, and flow to meditation.

Mostly a translation of Sun Tzu's “Art of War” to the realm of competitive games, with some of the author's own experiences in competitive video games thrown in. Having known absolutely nothing about that scene, I did find this book fascinating. The author is at times almost Machiavellian in his pragmatism.

A good synthesis of the state of knowledge and the author's experience on the topic of distraction. The chapters are refreshingly short, there isn't a lot of wasted exposition like in many books in the genre. I absolutely intend to implement.

A good introduction to the habits of mind required to be a more rational decision-maker.

A fascinating look into the mind of a champion. It was hard to put this down

Straight forward, accurate, no nonsense nutrition guide for performance and aesthetics (not health focused). Been following the Renaissance folks for a while, they know their stuff

A bit too vague for my liking

Mostly a misogynistic diatribe against all things feminine, but with some thought provoking ideas sprinkled in

Excellent primer on neuroplasticity

This book deals with many of the same topics you'll find in modern self-help books, but from the perspective of examining physical and chemical changes in the brain. The lone major criticism I have is the level lack of citations.

A book with an interesting premise - one that makes you wonder “where is this going?” In the end, it doesn't lead to a whole lot, but it is an enjoyable read.