Recent posts – Page 13

Recognize Resistance, and fight it like a pro

Well written plea for taking ownership – and action.

Increasing inequality and lack of immigration are the two big crises facing the US

the set-up in which interesting historical facts serve to make a political argument makes the author prone to the narrative fallacy.

Even at tech companies where intentions are good, women fight an uphill battle

Emily Chang – Brotopia

The book fits neatly in the trend to call out gender inequality, but unfortunately it has limited practical solutions to offer.

Arguing by analogy, one has to conclude that animals have emotions

Frans de Waal – Mama’s last hug

Especially interesting are the behavioral experiments, reminiscent of the line of argument in Moral Tribes

Forget about stopping climate change, but don´t let that stop you fighting it

David Wallace-Wells – The uninhabitable earth

The book clearly illustrates that climate change is the prisoner’s dilemma ‘par excellence’

The combination of vested interests in theoretical physics and experimental energy limits leads to bad science

Sabine Hossenfelder – Lost in math

The author stresses that following negative results of experiments, theories are typically watered-down just to the extent that they are untestable – reminiscent of Bruno Latour’s “social constructionof scientific facts”

To succeed, do something that you like so much that you are willing to put in the required effort

Angela Duckworth – Grit

The book starts as more-or-less scientific research into drivers of success, but ends as motivational self-help literature.

The rise of hard discounters has made grocers and CPG companies adjust their strategies

Jan-Benedict Steenkamp and Laurens Sloot – Retail disruptors

Generally solid overview of retail business economics using hard discounter in grocery as case examples, but the authors could not risist the urge to make overly general assertions.

Cyber crime is a cost-effective way for other nations to retalliate against the US, without risking all-out war

John Carlin – Dawn of the code war

Overly chauvinistic and politically correct story of how intelligence and cyber crime are convering, written boringly – I eagerly await the Michael Lewis version…

The concepts comfort and privacy were first introduced in Western society at the court of Louis XIV and Louis XV of France

Joan DeJean – The age of comfort

Contains fascinating details on the construction of early water closets.

Entropy (and thereby time) emerges out of our limited ability to distinguish different states of the universe

Carlo Rovelli – The order of time

Remarkably intuitive and enlightening expose of a deep and complex subject; in the audio version even more appealing due to the warm yet solemn reading by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Economically speaking, AI makes prediction a commodity – and nothing more

Ajay Argawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb – Prediction machines

The authors see AI as just a new option for the division of labor which, although it can have rather dramatic consequences, does not support apocalyptic GAI fearmongering.

Running a socially responsible business is often just egotism in disguise

Anad Giridharadas – Winners take all

Giridharas key argument is that elites only support change to the point where their privilege is not endangered.

Facebook’s content strategy leads to filter bubbles, thereby destroying the cohesion in society

Roger McNamee – Zucked

When a a big tech investor like McNamee argues for stricter regulation it makes the argument more convincing.

You are the raw material of capitalists trading in futures on human behavior

Shoshana Zuboff – Surveillance capitalism

There is a tendency in critiques of ‘big tech’ to underestimate the long-term resilliance of mankind; although that does not render the argument invalid.

AI outcomes reflect the thinking of the technochauvinists that built it – which may not be desirable for society

Meridith Broussard – Artificial Unintelligence

Great effort to democratize AI and peel off some layers of mistique that harm public debate (althought the case against technochauvinism seems at times a bit too shallow).

As an incumbent, organize disruptive innovation away from your core business

Clayton Christensen – The innovator’s dilemma

The history of disc drives and mechanical excavators showcases how difficult it is for incumbents to come out on top when technological innovation hits your market.