Some number of diatribes for any century

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Part 1 fleshes out healthy speculation about potentially distant AI-driven changes in workplace and artistic ventures with expected lack of addressing the “How?” in a well-written diatribe meant to spur debate instead of concretly answer questions. It reads like something inbetween a modern Nostradamus prediction and a script for the next Terminator.

Part 2 is a brilliant look at how politics is not global relative to science and religion as a result of nationalist thinking. A main argument here is that religion is a facade of nationalism itself with some compelling examples of such.

Part 3 carries on, almost for too long, looking at ethics and religion in what feels more like an extension of the author’s previous work Sapiens rather than focusing on the 21st century. Part 4 has an interesting review of the movie Inside Out among thoughts of how post-truth has been a human creation not unique to modern times; I am not exactly cherry picking what is covered the presentating is a bit scattered. Part 5 starts with an interesting thought: education up to now has mostly been about imparting information but if that information is likely to be obsolete given how fast tech is growing, what is education to do? Unfortunately the book ends without really addressing this excellent point but instead moves on to a more autobiographical tone.

Overall a book firmly in the “pop-psychology/philosophy” genre characterized by raising thought provoking questions while remaining too broad-stroked to properly address them.

Fun and serious error anecdotes that humanizes math

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Each chapter explores a theme of types of mathematical / programming errors from history that are usually comical but of course sometimes cause real world havoc. Curriculums typically emphasize how correct calculations / methods are supposed to look and never dive into how common errors might come about, something that should and has to be done in a lot of circumstances.

Books read on Audible by their author are almost always enchanced quite a bit by the effort and this one is no exception. Books about math usually are either inaccessible due to difficulty or embrace easiness in an overly enthusiastic and cringey fashion. That is where this book is happily an exception. I also enjoy how Matt had to use “Math” and not “Maths” in his title, take that Brits!