Reviews of the books I've read

This is book one of the Blood on Snow series.

So, I rather liken this book to The Cleaner in the sense that the main character is a killer, and we are, somehow, I do not know how, we are supposed to feel sorry for the guy when things don't work out well. I am not a fan. I rather like Nesbø's Harry Hole series, so I thought I'd give this one a try.

Ehhhhhh...

We have Olav Johansen, who is a fixer. He fixes the problems of, read: murders people for, the local top pimp and heroin kingpin, who is in a turf war with another heroin kingpin, I mean crime boss.

The crime boss Daniel Hoffmann contracts Olav to kill his wife, Corina, whom Hoffmann suspects of adultery. Turns out, Corina's lover does exist, and is more than a bit of an asshole. So, Olav kills the lover instead.

Apparently, fixers aren't supposed to think. Instead, they are supposed to just follow through on orders.

What makes the tale interesting is that the narrator, Olav, is actually thoroughly delusional. The story we read might be the his story, but might not be, we don't know. That not knowing is what makes this book more interesting than seen at first view.

That said, while I like the writing, I'm not a fan of the premise.

If you're a fan of Nesbø, sure, read the book. If not, eh, skip.

The way Maria was in love with her junkie boyfriend. Some women don’t know what’s best for them, they just leak love without demanding anything in return. It’s almost as if the very lack of any reciprocation just makes them worse. I suppose they’re hoping they’ll be rewarded one day, poor things. Hopeful, hopeless infatuation. Someone ought to tell them that isn’t how the world works.
Page: 43

“What do you want to do, Olav?”

I got up from the kitchen chair. “See if I can find you a blanket.”

“I mean, what are we going to do?”

She was okay. You know someone’s okay if they can ignore things they can’t do anything about and move on. Wish I was like that.
Page: 58

“You haven’t asked,” she said in the darkness.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I suppose I’m just not a very inquisitive person.”

“But you must be wondering. Father and son…”

“I assumed you’d tell me whatever you felt like telling me when you felt like it.”

The bed creaked as Corina turned towards me. “What if I never said anything?”

“Then I’d never find out.”
Page: 126

I was walking across the frozen path with short, quick steps, my knees slightly bent. That’s something you learn as a child in Norway.
Page: 167

And Canada.

She helped me off with it, then ran her fingers over the bruises left by the Dane’s bullets. Loving. Fascinated. Kissed them. And as I lay in bed and felt the shakes come, and she wrapped the duvet around me, I felt just like before when I lay in Mum’s bed. It almost didn’t hurt any more. And it felt as if I could escape it all, but it wasn’t up to me; I was a boat on a river, and the river was in charge. My fate, my destination was already determined. Which just left the journey, the time it took and the things you saw and experienced along the way. Life seems simple when you’re sufficiently ill.
Page: 178

I very much enjoyed this book. It was recommended on the XOXO slack, and worth the recommendation.

The premise is that the multidimensional universe exists, which means resources on one universe instance can be harvested for the prime planet, the first planet to develop the technology to traverse between worlds. The catch in this traversing is that only one instance of a person can exist in a universe. If a traverser, a walker between universes, arrives in a universe where their counterpart is still alive, then both die. Which is to say, the most valuable traversers are those who are alive on the prime Earth, and dead in all the other universes.

The story is told from the point of view of Cara, a traverser who doesn't quite belong on the Prime.

Yes, all sorts of spoilers:

The original Cara went to the narrator Cara's world and died, because duplicates can't exist (see above). Cara, being the survivor that she is, assumed Prime Cara's identity, and travelled back to Prime. So, now we have Cara figuring out what is going one, an uncomfortable longing, a world of comparable riches, new social dynamics to learn even as the universes are quite parallel, and a confrontation to power. The ending is not the typical happy ending, but isn't isn't an unhappy ending, more of a "yeah, that's the right ending."

The book, similar to Dread Nation in its character and voice, is engrossing the whole way through. Recommended. Good science fiction and worth the read.

Because no traverser has ever made a report to enforcement or asked questions, they think they’ve pulled this elaborate ruse on lower-level employees. But really, we just don’t care. A job’s a job, and people edging out other people to make money buying and selling something invisible just sounds like rich-people problems.
Location: 152

He leans forward, setting down a steaming cup, and adjusts his glasses to look at my progress screen. “Am I witnessing company theft in my name? My wounded heart.”

“Come now, old man. It can’t really be theft if I’m just reading. You can’t steal something that’s still there when you’ve taken it.”

“You’ll find a large portion of the judicial system here disagrees with you.”
Location: 178

People who don’t believe in taking up more space, air, or attention than strictly necessary are unsurprisingly opposed to claiming whole new worlds. They see it as new colonialism, and they’re not wrong.
Location: 514

I know what I would do if I were her. What I did when I was her. The House tried its best by me, but I failed as a sex provider. Don’t let anyone ever tell you it doesn’t take skill, because it does, and I didn’t have it.
Location: 618

The clothes I have to wear today are monochromatic and androgynous. Subconsciously or deliberately, the people in this section of 238 have rebelled against their government’s surveillance by refusing to stand out.
Location: 713

Why have I survived? Because I am a creature more devious than all the other mes put together. Because I saw myself bleeding out and instead of checking for a pulse, I began collecting her things. I survive the desert like a coyote survives, like all tricksters do.
Location: 738

“Luck, I guess,” I say, because the first thing a monster learns is when to lie.
Location: 740

Maybe there’s something to classism. Maybe eating caviar growing up gives you a bigger brain. Maybe eating dirt poisons your memory. Or maybe it’s just easier to think something is impossible than to try.
Location: 776

She takes it as an insult, which I take as an insult. We can’t ever really talk. I want to take her hands and tell her that, yes, she is better than me but that is because she is better than me. Not because Wileyites are better than Ashtowners, but because she is driven without being manipulative, she is ambitious but only until it edges over into cruelty.
Location: 980

What they don’t tell you about getting everything you ever wanted is the cold-sweat panic when you think about losing it. For someone who’d never had anything to lose, it’s like drowning, all the time.
Location: 1,016

I set about the problem like I set about all problems. I made lists.
Location: 1,018

I don’t know why it feels like I can do this, correct him. It’s never felt possible before. I was never one of the women who believed she could change her abusive partner. I was just one who believed she could survive it.
Location: 1,283

I don’t realize how many years I’ve been alone until I warm under a gift as simple as someone’s undivided attention.
Location: 1,378

Even my Nik Nik knew exactly how, when he wanted, to make me feel special. Just as he knew exactly how to make me feel like dirt. And I reveled in that tainted affection, like a plant settles for drinking dew because it knows it’s never going to get real rain.
Location: 1,379

THERE ARE SLIGHT advantages to being so often treated as prey. For instance, you tend to watch others more than others watch you. You tend, also, to only ever be minimally disoriented by a sudden loss of safety. But the most important benefit to being so often hunted is that you always know when it’s happening.
Location: 1,423

So when the men come into the room somewhere after midnight, I am sitting in a chair facing them. I’d heard the footsteps gathering about half an hour after the pod had beeped to tell me I was as healed as I was going to be, and I thought briefly of escaping. But the boots had gathered at each end of the hall, and I’d rather be dragged out than give them the satisfaction by stepping into a trap. Eventually my patience outlasted theirs, and four runners entered my room.
Location: 1,426

“Sounds like fun,” I say, standing. I can be remarkably compliant when I don’t have a choice.
Location: 1,432

Sometimes, focusing on survival is necessary. Sometimes, it is just an excuse for selfishness.
Location: 1,716

He nods, though he still must not expect to survive this. “May your life be long and easy.” It’s a common blessing out here, but I’ve never dissected it before. Why are we, who are so unhappy, fixated on long lives? What is the point? An easy life isn’t a blessing. Easy doesn’t mean happy. Alive doesn’t mean anything at all. Sometimes the path to an easy life makes you miserable.
Location: 2,316

Esther turns her back to us, and says the second part of the prayer to the dead. “Nelline, I am commending you into the arms of the earth, the preserver of all mercy. I am returning you to everlasting peace, and to the denser reality of the creator of all. Don’t be scared. Don’t regret. Whatever time you had, it was enough. Whatever you accomplished, it was enough. We will remember your good deeds for the rest of our lives. We will forget your wrongdoings forever. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for spending your time in the dirt with us.”
Location: 2,860

“Some things are inevitable.”

“Nothing is inevitable,” I say. Nik Nik is the tide I’ve been kicking against for the better part of a decade, and I have to keep kicking because I’ll drown in him as surely as a tar pit.
Location: 2,968

I should have known to let the powerful man kill whomever he wants, just like I always have.

“When you came to Wiley City, didn’t you want it to be better?”

“Warlord, emperor, CEO…” Jean shrugs. “No difference. You can’t save the people he killed. You can only damn yourself. Unless you think some trial, some murder sentence, will please the dead?”
Location: 3,254

“I can’t use that as a reason to ignore this. It’s your reason, but it can’t be mine.”
Location: 3,706

I’m not even sure if I’m talking, if I’m coherent, but I feel Exlee saying, I know. We all know. We understand. As they stroke my back and gently massage my neck, I realize it is touch I want, touch that is making me feel a little bit whole again, and it is touch from a person who is part castle, someone I cannot destroy and who will always be safe.
Location: 3,867

As I leave Exlee reminds me to say Jean’s name each morning and each night until the burial, because our dead are only weights on our backs when we won’t let them walk beside us, when we try to pretend they are not ours or they are not dead.
Location: 3,878

Blood is the only answer for blood in the desert. Thinking this way is dangerous. Murder has a cycle just like water. In the same way water becomes a cloud, then becomes water again, when blood calls for vengeance the blood from that vengeance calls too. If you plan to give death, it will always return to you.
Location: 3,986

She’s staring at me, her face unreadable in the same way a star chart is unreadable when there are no lines to mark the constellations. It’s not that you can’t make out a shape, it’s that you can make out so many shapes you’ll never know which one is right. If I wanted to, I could read longing in her distance. But if I’m honest, it’s probably just my own reflected back by her indifference.
Location: 4,058

“What?” I ask, because even lovely puzzles get tiring if they’re unsolvable.
Location: 4,061

“Blowing up a thing that wants to blow up? That’s a party."
Location: 4,186

Rob Whiteley recommended this book to me, Ryan Holiday recommended this book to his reading list, and I strongly recommend this book to pretty much anyone who will listen. The Great Influenza was written over ten years ago and tells us ALL ABOUT the (no longer) upcoming pandemic. The parallels between the 1918 Spanish Flu and the 2019 CoVid19 pandemic are disheartening, making this book both a history book and a playbook on how NOT to handle a pandemic.

The Great Influenza tells us the history of The Spanish flu, which probably should have been called the Kansas Flu, which went from February 1918 to around April 1920, infecting about 500 million people (or about a third of the world's population). Somewhere between 20 million and 50 million died during that pandemic, even as people said "it's just the flu." Up to 60000 people die in the US from the flu even today, but hey, "it's just the flu" seems to be the dismissive way we ignored the warnings 100 years ago, and today.

The book is also an exploration of science, broad strokes on how we discover new ideas, hypothesize and test those ideas, and form theories of phenomena and solutions to problems. Discovery is rarely a straight line, yet we see only the end result, often ignoring all the hard work that goes into that end. There are many, many failures for every success, in science and pretty much everywhere. Barry explores some of these failures and shows how they lead to our successes.

Of note, we still don't have a cure for influenza, 100 years later. We have yearly vaccinations to prime our bodies to fight off the influenza viruses, but that's not the same as having rid the world of small pox.

I have to say, I had more than a little laugh at the Arizona "You can't tell me what to do" reaction during the 1918 Influenza. I mean, hello, viruses don't care. They didn't wear masks or isolate 100 years ago, and Arizona doesn't (didn't) wear masks or isolate these days (for the most part), because "you can't tell me what to do" says Arizona. How much stays the same. How much death happens because of ignorant beliefs. Frustrating and sad for the people in Arizona who are not idiots.

But here we are.

I strongly recommend this book, but maybe not 6 months into a pandemic. Might be too depressing if you have pandemic or isolation fatigue. That said, knowledge is power and knowing what NOT to do, which you can learn from this book, might be worth the chance.

If a society does set Goethe’s “Word . . . supremely high,” if it believes that it knows the truth and that it need not question its beliefs, then that society is more likely to enforce rigid decrees, and less likely to change. If it leaves room for doubt about the truth, it is more likely to be free and open. In the narrower context of science, the answer determines how individuals explore nature—how one does science. And the way one goes about answering a question, one’s methodology, matters as much as the question itself. For the method of inquiry underlies knowledge and often determines what one discovers: how one pursues a question often dictates, or at least limits, the answer.
Page 15

According to Kuhn, the prevailing paradigm tends to freeze progress, indirectly by creating a mental obstacle to creative ideas and directly by, for example, blocking research funds from going to truly new ideas, especially if they conflict with the paradigm. He argues that nonetheless researchers eventually find what he calls “anomalies” that do not fit the paradigm. Each one erodes the foundation of the paradigm, and when enough accrue to undermine it, the paradigm collapses. Scientists then cast about for a new paradigm that explains both the old and the new facts.
Page 15

A theory must make a prediction to be useful or scientific—ultimately it must say, If this, then that—and testing that prediction is the single most important element of modern methodology. Once that prediction is tested, it must advance another one for testing. It can never stand still.
Page 17

Those who wrote the Hippocratic texts, however, observed passively and reasoned actively.
Page 17

In fact, biology is chaos. Biological systems are the product not of logic but of evolution, an inelegant process. Life does not choose the logically best design to meet a new situation. It adapts what already exists. Much of the human genome includes genes which are “conserved”; i.e., which are essentially the same as those in much simpler species. Evolution has built upon what already exists.
Page 24

Welch confessed to his stepmother, “Such great things are expected of the faculty at the Johns Hopkins in the way of achievement and of reform of medical education in this country that I feel oppressed by the weight of responsibility. A reputation there will not be so cheaply earned as at Bellevue.” Yet precisely for that reason the Hopkins offered, he wrote, “undoubtedly the best opportunity in this country.” Declining would reveal him as a hypocrite and a coward.
Page 55

Welch accepted the Hopkins offer. Dennis was furious. His friendship with Welch had been, at least on Dennis’s side, of great emotional depth and intensity. Now Dennis felt betrayed. Welch confided to his stepmother, “I grieve that a life-long friendship should thus come to an end, but . . . [i] t looks almost as if Dr. Dennis thought he had a lien upon my whole future life. When he appealed to what he had done for me I told him that was a subject which I would in no way discuss with him.”
Page 55

The greatest challenge of science, its art, lies in asking an important question and framing it in a way that allows it to be broken into manageable pieces, into experiments that can be conducted that ultimately lead to answers. To do this requires a certain kind of genius, one that probes vertically and sees horizontally. Horizontal vision allows someone to assimilate and weave together seemingly unconnected bits of information. It allows an investigator to see what others do not see, and to make leaps of connectivity and creativity. Probing vertically, going deeper and deeper into something, creates new information. Sometimes what one finds will shine brilliantly enough to illuminate the whole world. At least one question connects the vertical and the horizontal. That question is “So what?” Like a word on a Scrabble board, this question can connect with and prompt movement in many directions. It can eliminate a piece of information as unimportant or, at least to the investigator asking the question, irrelevant. It can push an investigator to probe more deeply to understand a piece of information. It can also force an investigator to step back and see how to fit a finding into a broader context. To see questions in these ways requires a wonder, a deep wonder focused by discipline, like a lens focusing the sun’s rays on a spot of paper until it bursts into flame. It requires a kind of conjury.
Page 60

Welch had a vital and wide curiosity, but he did not have this deeper wonder. The large aroused him. But he could not see the large in the small. No question ever aroused a great passion in him, no question ever became a compulsion, no question ever forced him to pursue it until it was either exhausted or led him to new questions. Instead he examined a problem, then moved on.
Page 61

Judge Learned Hand, one of Simon Flexner’s closest friends, later observed, “That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, becomes a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent.”
Page 125

Bullard had written from Europe about the war for Outlook, Century, and Harper’s Weekly. He pointed out that Britain was censoring the press and had misled the British people, undermining trust in the government and support for the war. He urged using facts only. But he had no particular affection for truth per se, only for effectiveness: “Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms. . . . There is nothing in experience to tell us that one is always preferable to the other. . . . There are lifeless truths and vital lies. . . . The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.”
Page 126

The research mattered, Avery was saying, not the life. And the life of research, like that of any art, lay within. As Einstein once said, “One of the strongest motives that lead persons to art or science is a flight from the everyday life. . . . With this negative motive goes a positive one. Man seeks to form for himself, in whatever manner is suitable for him, a simplified and lucid image of the world, and so to overcome the world of experience by striving to replace it to some extent by this image.
Page 158

Man might be defined as “modern” largely to the extent that he attempts to control, as opposed to adjust himself to, nature. In this relationship with nature, modern humanity has generally been the aggressor, and a daring one at that, altering the flow of rivers, building upon geological faults, and, today, even engineering the genes of existing species. Nature has generally been languid in its response, although contentious once aroused and occasionally displaying a flair for violence. By 1918 humankind was fully modern, and fully scientific, but too busy fighting itself to aggress against nature. Nature, however, chooses its own moments. It chose this moment to aggress against man, and it did not do so prodding languidly. For the first time, modern humanity, a humanity practicing the modern scientific method, would confront nature in its fullest rage.
Page 166

At the Grove Park Inn, one of the most elegant settings in the city, they listened to a concert. Welch lit a cigar. A bellboy promptly told him smoking was not allowed. He and Cole withdrew to the veranda and began talking. Another bellboy asked them to please be quiet during the concert. Welch left in disgust.
Page 188

He had already achieved much, and he held the promise of much more. He also knew his own worth, not in the sense that it made him smug but in that it gave him responsibility, making his promise at least as much burden as ambition.
Page 200

Even if Lewis succeeded in making a vaccine, it would take weeks to produce in sufficient quantities. Thus, only drastic action could prevent the spread of influenza throughout the city. Banning public meetings, closing businesses and schools, imposing an absolute quarantine on the Navy Yard and on civilian cases—all these things made sense. A recent precedent existed. Only three years earlier Krusen’s predecessor—during the single term of the reform mayor—had imposed and enforced a strict quarantine when a polio epidemic had erupted, a disease Lewis knew more about than anyone in the world. Lewis certainly wanted a quarantine.
Page 203

But Plummer was Lewis’s commanding officer. He and Krusen wanted to wait. Both feared that taking any such steps might cause panic and interfere with the war effort. Keeping the public calm was their goal. Those polio restrictions had been imposed when the country wasn’t fighting a war.
Page 203

Advertising was about to emerge as an industry; J. Walter Thompson—his advertising agency was already national, and his deputy became a senior Creel aide—was theorizing that it could engineer behavior; after the war the industry would claim the ability to “sway the ideas of whole populations,” while Herbert Hoover said, “The world lives by phrases” and called public relations “an exact science.”
Page 205

Total war requires sacrifice and good morale makes sacrifices acceptable, and therefore possible. The sacrifices included inconveniences in daily life. To contribute to the war effort, citizens across the country
Page 205

endured the “meatless days” during the week, the one “wheatless meal” every day. All these sacrifices were of course voluntary, completely voluntary—although Hoover’s Food Administration could effectively close businesses that did not “voluntarily” cooperate. And if someone chose to go for a drive in the country on a “gasless Sunday,” when people were “voluntarily” refraining from driving, that someone was pulled over by hostile police.
Page 205

But Hagadorn believed that disease could be controlled.
Page 213

And this was only influenza.
Page 213

Those pockets of air leaking through ruptured lungs made patients crackle when they were rolled onto their sides. One navy nurse later compared the sound to a bowl of Rice Krispies, and the memory of that sound was so vivid to her that for the rest of her life she could not tolerate being around anyone who was eating Rice Krispies.
Page 235

Extreme earaches were common.
Page 235

The headaches throbbed deep in the skull, victims feeling as if their heads would literally split open, as if a sledgehammer were driving a wedge not into the head but from inside the head out. The pain seemed to locate particularly behind the eye orbit and could be nearly unbearable when patients moved their eyes.
Page 236

The ability to smell was affected, sometimes for weeks.
Page 236

This was influenza, only influenza. Yet to a layperson at home, to a wife caring for a husband, to a father caring for a child, to a brother caring for a sister, symptoms unlike anything they had seen terrified. And
Page 236

The immune system begins its defense far in advance of the lungs, with enzymes in saliva that destroy some pathogens
Page 246

Then it raises physical obstacles, such as nasal hairs that filter out large particles and sharp turns in the throat that force inhaled air to collide with the sides of breathing passageways.
Page 246

Mucus lines these passageways and traps organisms and irritants. Underneath the layer of mucus lies a blanket of “epithelial cells,” and from their surfaces extend “cilia,” akin to tiny hairs which, like tiny oars, sweep upward continuously at from 1,000 to 1,500 beats a minute. This sweeping motion moves foreign organisms away from places they can lodge and launch an infection, and up to the larynx. If something does gain a foothold in the upper respiratory tract, the body first tries to flush
Page 246

it out with more fluid—hence the typical runny nose—and then expel it with coughs and sneezes.
Page 246

And if one experiment shows a hint of a result, the slightest bump on a flat line of information, then a scientist designs the next experiment to focus on that bump, to create conditions more likely to get more bumps until they either become consistent and meaningful or demonstrate that the initial bump was mere random variation without meaning. There are limits to such manipulation. Even under torture, nature will not lie, will not yield a consistent, reproducible result, unless it is true. But if tortured enough, nature will mislead; it will confess to something that is true only under special conditions—the conditions the investigator created in the laboratory. Its truth is then artificial, an experimental artifact. One key to science is that work be reproducible. Someone in another laboratory doing the same experiment will get the same result. The result
Page 263

then is reliable enough that someone else can build upon it. The most damning condemnation is to dismiss a finding as “not reproducible.” That can call into question not only ability but on occasion ethics. If a reproducible finding comes from torturing nature, however, it is not useful. To be useful, a result must be not only reproducible but . . . perhaps one should call it expandable. One must be able to enlarge it, explore it, learn more from it, use it as a foundation to build structures upon. These things become easy to discern in hindsight. But how does one know when to persist, when to continue to try to make an experiment work, when to make adjustments—and when finally to abandon a line of thought as mistaken or incapable of solution with present techniques? How does one know when to do either? The question is one of judgment. For the distinguishing element in science is not intelligence but judgment. Or perhaps it is simply luck.
Page 263

Judgment is so difficult because a negative result does not mean that a hypothesis is wrong. Nor do ten negative results, nor do one hundred negative results. Ehrlich
Page 264

How does one know when one knows? When one is on the edge, one cannot know. One can only test.
Page 264

LABORATORIES EVERYWHERE had turned to influenza. Pasteur’s protégé Émile Roux, one of those who had raced German competitors for a diphtheria antitoxin, directed the work at the Pasteur Institute. In Britain virtually everyone in Almroth Wright’s laboratory worked on it, including Alexander Fleming, whose later discovery of penicillin he first applied to research on Pfeiffer’s so-called influenza bacillus. In Germany, in Italy, even in revolution-torn Russia, desperate investigators searched for an answer.
Page 266

Institutions are a strange mix of the mass and the individual. They abstract. They behave according to a set of rules that substitute both for individual judgments and for the emotional responses that occur whenever individuals interact. The act of creating an institution dehumanizes it, creates an arbitrary barrier between individuals. Yet institutions are human as well. They reflect the cumulative personalities of those within them, especially their leadership. They tend, unfortunately, to mirror less admirable human traits, developing and protecting self-interest and even ambition. Institutions almost never sacrifice. Since they live by rules, they lack spontaneity. They try to order chaos not in the way an artist or scientist does, through a defining vision that creates structure and discipline, but by closing off and isolating themselves from that which does not fit. They become bureaucratic.
Page 299

the coroner—Vare’s man—blamed the increasing death toll on the ban by the state public health commissioner on liquor sales, claiming alcohol was the best treatment for influenza.
Page 328

In virtually every home, someone was ill. People were already avoiding each other, turning their heads away if they had to talk, isolating themselves. The telephone company increased the isolation: with eighteen hundred telephone company employees out, the phone company allowed only emergency calls; operators listened to calls randomly and cut off phone service of those who made routine calls. And the isolation increased the fear. Clifford Adams recalled, “They stopped people from communicating, from going to churches, closed the schools, . . . closed all the saloons. . . . Everything was quiet.”
Page 328

The attrition rate even where volunteers did not come into contact with the sick—in the kitchens, for example—was little better. Finally Mrs. Martin turned bitter and contemptuous: “Hundreds of women who are content to sit back . . . had delightful dreams of themselves in the roles of angels of mercy, had the unfathomable vanity to imagine that they were capable of great spirit of sacrifice. Nothing seems to rouse them now.
Page 331

They have been told that there are families in which every member is ill, in which the children are actually starving because there is no one to give them food. The death rate is so high and they still hold back.”
Page 331

In 1918 fear moved ahead of the virus like the bow wave before a ship. Fear drove the people, and the government and the press could not control it. They could not control it because every true report had been diluted with lies. And the more the officials and newspapers reassured, the more they said, There is no cause for alarm if proper precautions are taken, or Influenza is nothing more or less than old-fashioned grippe, the more people believed themselves cast adrift, adrift with no one to trust, adrift on an ocean of death.
Page 340

But as Camus knew, evil and crises do not make all men rise above themselves. Crises only make them discover themselves. And some discover a less inspiring humanity.
Page 343

Monument and Ignacio, Colorado, went further than banning all public gatherings. They banned customers from stores; the stores remained open, but customers shouted orders through doors, then waited outside for packages.
Page 348

Despite that effort, whoever held power, whether a city government or some private gathering of the locals, they generally failed to keep the community together. They failed because they lost trust. They lost trust because they lied. (San Francisco was a rare exception; its leaders told the truth, and the city responded heroically.) And they lied for the war effort, for the propaganda machine that Wilson had created.
Page 396

Paul Lewis was a romantic, and a lover. He wanted. He wanted more and loved more passionately than Park or Avery. But as is true of many romantics, it was the idea of the thing as much or more than the thing itself that he loved. He loved science, and he loved the laboratory. But it did not yield to him. The deepest secrets of the laboratory showed themselves to Lewis when he was guided by others, when others opened a crack for him. But when he came alone to the laboratory, that crack closed. He could not find the right loose thread to tug at, the way to ask the question. To him the laboratory presented a stone face, unyielding to his pleadings.
Page 447

Okay, when your tribe recommends a book, and an Internet Personality™ who has not failed in his book recommendations for you recommends the same book, well, you kinda have to read said recommendation. This book is that recommendation. This book is worth that recommendation.

Here's the thing, when you are the odd one out, when you are the weird one, your life is more difficult than the lives of those who fit in, who make friends easily, who aren't teased for being who they are, who don't stand out. Khazan understands, having been the weird one. She goes through how it feels to be weird, retells her journey, reviews many others' journeys with being weird, tells us there is strength in our weirdness, and lets us know it gets better. It does.

There's a cadence to this book that is welcoming, like sitting with a friend you've known for decades at a quiet cafe in a small European city and talking for hours. It's a nice feeling. During that conversation, Khazan tells us about the inverse correlations between societies' conformity and freedoms, about how different opinions lead to better decisions, about how being outside is a strength, and about how you have the choice to confirm or stay weird.

I enjoyed this book, and likely would have devoured this when I was 11 years old and crying that I just wanted to be normal, why wasn't I normal? I've found peace in my gracelessness, in my dorkitude, in my being the only girl in a group of "hey guys!" but it took a long, long time to find that peace. I would argue this book many years ago might have helped me accept myself faster. For that, I recommend this book to anyone who is even just a little bit weird. I'd tell them, "It's okay. Here, read this one, and Grit and let's talk."

When you’re locked outside something, it’s hard to know whether it’s because of something about you.
Chapter 1: Weird

One researcher found that lacking social connections is as harmful as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Loneliness is deadlier than obesity, and it increases the risk of dementia.
Chapter 1: Weird

I realized that sometimes my weirdness was someone else’s fault, but sometimes it was actually mine. Sometimes it was no one’s fault, but the wound from all the previous times was still so raw that I reacted three or four or forty times as strongly as I needed to. Later, experts would tell me this is called “inflammation.”
Chapter 1: Weird

There are systemic, horrific problems in our society that the tools of psychology are not equipped to address. The fact that marginalized people have learned to cope with some of them does not mean the fight for equality should ebb.
Chapter 1: Weird

Before the 1800s, weird was more likely to mean supernatural, or fantastical. Shakespeare, for instance, called the witches in Macbeth the “weyard sisters.” Wyrd is the Old English word for “fate,” and by the eighth century, a form of it, wyrde, was used to refer to the three Roman mythical, goddess-like Fates. The first one, Nona, spun the thread of life; the second, Decima, measured it; and the third, Morta, cut it as she saw fit. The three Fates represented the idea that our futures are determined, in part, by our circumstances. In that case, wyrde—weird—could be considered a kind of prediction, a destiny. Much like what psychology suggests, your unusualness is a fabric woven from the thread of your life. Your identity, your environment, and your experiences all combine to make you who you are. But your weirdness is also a hint at what you might live to see and do, at what hidden powers you possess. “Weird,” then, is your potential.
Chapter 1: Weird

All these findings point to roughly the same conclusion: we like to fit in with the group; we like people who fit in with the group; we dislike those who don’t. These norms, or unwritten rules about what we “ought” to be doing, determine what’s weird or isn’t.
Chapter 2: The Realization

In a 2014 study, the psychologist Shinobu Kitayama found the degree to which we uphold cultural norms is related to the type of variation we have on one gene, the dopamine D4 receptor gene. The gene doesn’t change how we behave; instead, it influences how much we endorse the prevailing norms of our environments.
Chapter 2: The Realization

People with borderline personality disorder and certain other conditions, such as autism, have trouble comprehending social norms. People with borderline, or BPD, as it’s abbreviated, struggle with mentalizing, or guessing what other people are thinking. They tend to be hypermentalizers—they interpret people’s intentions in the worst way possible, and they don’t react, well, normally.
Chapter 2: The Realization

social norms can change without people changing their actual attitudes—toward naked butts, in this case. It’s enough simply to plant the idea that something is normal and suggest that it’s the right thing to do. How you, personally, feel about it doesn’t matter; you’ll do it anyway.
Chapter 2: The Realization

Research has consistently shown that instead, in both friendships and romantic relationships, people seek out people who are almost exactly like themselves. Spouses and friends may very well become more similar to each other over time, but they start out resembling each other, too.
Chapter 2: The Realization

Russia’s anti-gay law is an interesting example of the psychological phenomenon in which, when our self-esteem is threatened, we start to desire surroundings that are more homogeneous. The idea is that when all else fails to give us a self-esteem boost, we can shore up our identity through sameness. (In fact, just doing the opposite, reminding people of their own self-worth, can make them more tolerant toward difference. One study found that after people wrote essays about their own positive traits, they were more likely to offer concessions to people who disagreed with them about abortion.)
Chapter 2: The Realization

Within each country, tightness can vary depending on the situation. Privacy is an important value in the U.S., so the normally loose Americans tighten up in that realm—they don’t drop by each other’s homes unannounced. Meanwhile, in the more culturally tight Japan, people crowd into bars after work to let loose—literally.
Chapter 2: The Realization

In psychology, “wanting things to be the way they’ve always been” is called “system justification,”
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

Norms trap us in the status quo, even when the status quo is irrational.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

“Most of the time that people do that kind of thing, it’s because they’re afraid, because they don’t understand, they don’t know me, and I’m different, and different scares people,” she told me.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

When the extent of the Nazis’ atrocities was revealed, it was thought that it would take a nation of very disturbed personalities to commit such violence.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

Seeing our group win matters, even if the group itself doesn’t matter at all.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

So if this was our past, when did we become so hateful toward outsiders? How did we get from whale party to fascism? Apparently, it was when we started farming, about ten thousand years ago. Farming involved settling on patches of land and interacting less with outside groups
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

Women, in particular, were expected to mold themselves to fit their husbands’ expectations, and those who had marriage trouble were asked by therapists if they were keeping themselves attractive enough.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

“Remember your most important job is to build up and maintain his ego,” Edward Podolsky advises wives in his 1943 book, Sex Today in Wedded Life. “Don’t bother your husband with petty troubles and complaints when he comes home from work…Be a good listener. Let him tell you his troubles; yours will seem trivial in comparison.”
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

Multiple studies and surveys have now shown that it was a fear of losing status to other groups—like immigrants and people of color—that motivated many white Americans’ support for Trump.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

It’s commonly thought that the main reason behind opposition to immigration is a fear that immigrants will take Americans’ jobs, but research on anti-immigrant sentiment suggests that’s not quite true. Instead, what seems most important is how culturally different the immigrants are from the native population. Specifically, what matters is if the immigrants speak English. To wit: more than 90 percent of Americans believe a person “must speak English” to be an American.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

It turns out we don’t want to safeguard our jobs so much as our norms.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

The reason a heavy disease burden dampened the kind of creative thinking required to win a Nobel, Murray found, was because worrying about biological threats made people in those nations more conformist. A history of infectious diseases didn’t make people in those nations dim-witted. But, according to this theory, it helped make them more traditional and avoidant of other people, and thus, less likely to come up with new and interesting ideas.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

Our behavioral immune systems predispose us to avoid people who break our social norms because we, subconsciously, fear they might harbor illnesses we are not equipped to fight off.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

Several studies have now shown that when people are more worried about disease, they react more negatively toward foreigners and norm violators.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

One study found that states and countries that are more plagued by infectious diseases tend to have stronger family ties and greater levels of religiosity; the authors interpreted these measures as indicating a preference for sticking with your own kind of people.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

People who are more careful about germs—who, say, open the bathroom door with a paper towel—have less inflammation, which is the way our body typically protects us from pathogens. When you’re taking pains to avoid germs—when your behavioral immune system is revved up—your body realizes there’s less of a need for it to fight infections below the skin, so it turns down the inflammatory activity.
Chapter 3: The Exclusion

“All this freedom” is something we heard a lot. Aren’t you enjoying all this freedom? Texans felt they had given us something that was so dear to them—freedom—and seemed hurt it was not more transformational for us,
Chapter 4: The Sting

But more often than not, people who are expected to feel persistently grateful instead wind up feeling subtly inferior.
Chapter 4: The Sting

Loneliness is not simply introversion. It isn’t the same as preferring to be alone. Rather, it’s a gap between the amount of social interaction a person would like to have and the amount they experience.
Chapter 4: The Sting

But that’s easier said than done: lonely humans have an overactive sense of social threat—a fear that they’ll be rejected if they try to reach out and socialize. Lonely people want to be around others, but they are afraid that if they try, they will be rejected.
Chapter 4: The Sting

People who are chronically lonely tend to withdraw socially because they start to feel like other people aren’t trustworthy. Socially isolated people view their interactions with others more negatively, so they keep their distance, perpetuating a cycle of loneliness.
Chapter 4: The Sting

The problem is that loneliness is not an actual, physical wound, so this inflammatory response is pointless. You could be lonely for days, weeks, months. The entire time, the immune system is gearing up to fight off bacteria that aren’t really there, pumping you full of inflammatory chemicals in the process.
Chapter 4: The Sting

Feeling excluded can be so painful, in fact, that people will turn to terrible alternatives to avoid it. Researchers are increasingly finding that the roots of various kinds of terrorism and radicalization lie in the rather banal sensation of feeling cut off from your social circle.
Chapter 4: The Sting

Exclusion is one of the things that can trigger what the psychologist Arie Kruglanski calls a “significance quest”—a plot to restore your place in society by becoming “somebody” again. You can restore your significance constructively—by, say, volunteering at your mosque, or destructively, by volunteering for ISIS. It all depends on what paths you see available to you, and who your friends are.
Chapter 4: The Sting

This is how social exclusion can become so perverse: it can insert ideas into your head that you don’t even possess. You might not be unusually hateful, but you’re lonely, and that can be enough.
Chapter 4: The Sting

I wanted a past that when I explained it to people, no one asked “why?” about any part of it.
Chapter 5: Creativity

There are a million little signals we get that suggest difference is inherently bad. “Living in interesting times” is supposed to be a curse. Interestingness, according to this bit of apocrypha, is inferior to normalcy. Boringness is tranquility, and divergence will inevitably hurt. For people who are considered interesting, that is often the case. But probe a little deeper, and you find that being weird isn’t always difficult. Even when it is, there are moments of glory amid the turmoil.
Chapter 5: Creativity

But believing that your weirdness is your superpower can also be hugely beneficial. There is evidence that thinking about your circumstances in a different way—a process called cognitive reappraisal—can help you cope with challenges. Perceiving what makes you weird as being what gives you strength can, ultimately, make you happier.
Chapter 5: Creativity

It occurred to me that the rest of my life hinged on performing well the following day. I didn’t have time to be depressed
Chapter 5: Creativity

So there was a relationship between rejection and creativity. But this advantage was only seen among the participants who considered themselves unique—who had an “independent self-concept.” Those who felt like they already weren’t part of any particular group were more creative when they were rejected by an arbitrary collective. There appears to be something about being a weirdo that uncorks your mind and allows new ideas to flow.
Chapter 5: Creativity

Creativity is defined scientifically as a process that results in a “new and useful” product. It doesn’t have to be art—a new assembly-line procedure can be as creative as a painting. And its usefulness doesn’t have to be physical—joy can be as useful as productivity.
Chapter 5: Creativity

people who are on the periphery of all sorts of groups are often freer to innovate and change social norms.
Chapter 5: Creativity

Outsiders are already not concerned with what the in-crowd thinks of them, so they have more leeway to experiment and come up with the next iThing or bestseller.
Chapter 5: Creativity

“The idea behind this is that once you’ve experienced things that violate norms and rules and expectations, you’re more open to more things like that,” Damian told me. “You experienced that the world doesn’t have to work by your rules, so you can break the rules.”
Chapter 5: Creativity

If something too jarring or traumatizing happens to you, just coping with it might use up all your mental capacity.
Chapter 5: Creativity

Your weirdness is attached to you. But rather than a millstone around your neck, it can be a jet pack.
Chapter 5: Creativity

Being unusual doesn’t just make you, yourself, more creative. Dissenting voices can also boost the creativity and decision-making power of the broader group you’re a part of.
Chapter 5: Creativity

Among the more democratic teams, in which all the workers took part in the decisions, the teams that had dissenting opinions in their midst came up with more innovative solutions than the teams in which everyone agreed.
Chapter 5: Creativity

The presence of a person who voices a competing perspective to the predominant one of the group has also been found to reduce our tendency to throw good money after bad. In a phenomenon called the sunk-cost fallacy, people are tempted to see a terrible idea through to the end once they’ve committed to doing it, even if it seems less and less brilliant as the problems pile up. (Those who have stuck with a terrible TV show or relationship because of the time they’ve already invested know this phenomenon well.)
Chapter 5: Creativity

This liberating element of alternate viewpoints has been replicated in other studies, and it underscores the value of having a diverse array of people around to poke holes in the prevailing idea.
Chapter 5: Creativity

The reason why minority views are so potent, according to research on persuasion, is that in certain circumstances, people tend to scrutinize a minority viewpoint more carefully. When we hear a dissenting view, we think more critically about what we’re hearing. Listening to a minority viewpoint prompts, in the listener, a consideration of information about different sides of an issue. Majorities, meanwhile, spur us to think only about data that supports the majority perspective.
Chapter 5: Creativity

Unfortunately, though, when people stop being weird, these benefits go away. When people who were once in the minority become the majority, research shows they become more closed-minded.
Chapter 5: Creativity

The idea was pioneered by the psychologist Edwin Hollander in the 1950s. By studying the way people interact in groups, Hollander theorized that newcomers to a group are better accepted if they first pay homage to its established values and goals, then start to deviate in small ways. At first, conform; then innovate.
Chapter 8: Comfort with Discomfort

Another way my interviewees combated the social anxiety that can arise from standing out was, frankly, by simply not giving a hoot what people thought of them.
Chapter 8: Comfort with Discomfort

As much as research tells us that it’s painful not to conform, some studies also hint at a way out: you can, like Asma has, change the way you think about your own nonconformity.
Chapter 8: Comfort with Discomfort

“People’s discomfort is theirs and not mine,” she said. The way she sees it, if someone judges you for your choices, it implies they’re the ones who aren’t okay.
Chapter 8: Comfort with Discomfort

Impostor syndrome can manifest in a variety of ways, including procrastination or an inability to accept compliments
Chapter 9: Better Than the Rest

The more Daniel learned about the theories behind societal stereotypes, the easier it seemed to be for him to process people’s mistrust of him. When a suspicious mom treats him unfairly, he could chalk it up to psychological phenomena, rather than making it about himself.
Chapter 10: The Big Picture

Daniel has stumbled on a technique psychologists commonly employ to help people maneuver through painful situations: they advise people to view their problems from an outside perspective. It’s a theory called Solomon’s Paradox, after the biblical king of Israel.
Chapter 10: The Big Picture

Other studies show it can be beneficial, when thinking about our problems, to refer to ourselves in the third person, rather than using “I.”
Chapter 10: The Big Picture

A major trait that helps in such grueling circumstances, Barrett and Martin write, is “hardiness,” which they define as a commitment to seeing life as meaningful and interesting; a belief that you can influence events; and a tendency to view even negative events as an opportunity to grow.
Chapter 10: The Big Picture

Research shows that greater well-being and self-confidence tend to come with these so-called “redemptive” narratives, which are a way of telling yourself more edifying stories about what’s happening to you.
Chapter 10: The Big Picture

the kinds of stories you tell yourself matter. There are narratives about yourself in which your life can still get better, and there are those in which it will keep getting worse.
Chapter 10: The Big Picture

Many researchers have now found that adults can change the five traits that make up personality: extroversion, openness to experience, emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Changing a trait primarily requires acting in ways that embody that trait, just as Curt did, rather than simply thinking about it.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

He thinks it might be that when a person reaches their nadir and realizes they want to change, there’s something beneficial about having a warm, comforting presence there to support them.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

One way to revamp your social life is to simply make more friends.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

“Dunbar’s number” is the amount of individuals that can realistically make up a social group—about 150, in the view of its namesake, the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar. That’s roughly how many casual friends, whom you see at least once a year, a person can maintain. But within that are concentric circles of bros, homies, and confidants. The innermost circle is a pack of three to five very best friends and family members. Then there’s a “sympathy group” of about twelve to fifteen, who wouldn’t necessarily give you a kidney, but would give you a lift to the airport.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

For example, if you invited someone to do something one time, and they don’t invite you back for a while, it’s okay to invite them again. In other words, just because you don’t alternate the role of initiator doesn’t mean you aren’t really friends.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

But friendship can be so difficult, and so time-consuming, that maybe this is just what the initial stage looks like: admitting human connection is something you need, like vegetables and water, because it’s good for you. Eventually, you come to like it. Or maybe even to crave it.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

This entire process is codified in what Joyable calls the “three Cs”—catch the thought that’s making you anxious, check that thought, and change the thought to something that’s “more accurate,” which is likely to be something less anxiety-inducing.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

I told Chloe that my boyfriend naturally takes criticism in the Joyable-approved way. “When you criticize him, he seems to say, ‘That’s interesting! I’ll assess your viewpoint along with all the other evidence,’” I said. She laughed again. “That’s rare, though,” she said.
Chapter 11: Change Yourself

This book has an excerpt from it published a couple months ago about what what really happened when six boys were shipwrecked on a crappy island for years, in the way of The Lord of the Flies. Spoiler alert: they were not the horrible fictional characters of that book, rather, they adapted and were incredibly "civilized," a term that, after reading this book, I'm more than a bit put-off with. Maybe "advanced" or "cultured" would work better? Cultivated? Sophisticated! There we go.

Another spoiler alert: you should read this book.

When I started reading this book, I was somewhat rolling my eyes, thinking it was going to be a remake of Enlightenment Now, which was WAAAAY better than the actively-disliked Rational Optimist, but still a "yeah, yeah, I already read this" book. Except Bregman actively talks about Pinker's earlier work that says humans are awful beings, and then says, "welllllllllll, about that."

Which sets the stage for just about every major study you've heard about that tells us humans are awful creatures. I mean, we are, but.... welllllll, actually....

Take the death of Kitty Genovese in New York City in March of 1964, everyone says it is the abdication of responsibility, that when surrounded by a crowd doing nothing as you're being murdered, call upon one person to take action. Except, the whole story about how 37 neighbors ignored her death wasn't accurate: they didn't hear her. And the one who did actually did his best, and she died in a friend's arms. The newspapers reported the made-up news of uncaring neighbors, because it sold more newspapers.

Take the most famous Stanford Prison Experiment. Turns out, Zimbardo egged on the students. He actually worked to create the results he wanted to have. He set up the whole experiment.

Take Stanley Milgram's shock machine which tells us that people will blindly follow authority. Turns out, the participants who "blindly followed authority" were either bullied, or misled into believing they were doing Good™.

Take the destruction of Easter Island (didn't happen by the war claimed). Take the Lord of the Flies (totally fiction, people actually behave and share in said island tragedies). Take the killer instinct (most soldiers won't fire unless there's 1. serious training or 2. distance).

A couple parts of this book had me near tears, not of relief, but of hope. What if people really are good, and we've been blinded by what sells to believe otherwise? Oh, wait, that is exactly what happened.

Gosh, I want to believe that humans are good. With all the shit in the world right now, this is a book of hope. I strongly recommend this book. If you can't afford a copy, let me know, I will buy you a copy.

True, the disaster in New Orleans was an extreme case. But the dynamic during disasters is almost always the same: adversity strikes and there’s a wave of spontaneous cooperation in response, then the authorities panic and unleash a second disaster.
page 26

If you believe something enough, it can become real. If there’s one lesson to be drawn from the nocebo effect, it’s that ideas are never merely ideas. We are what we believe. We find what we go looking for. And what we predict, comes to pass.
page 30

Imagine for a moment that a new drug comes on the market. It’s super-addictive, and in no time everyone’s hooked. Scientists investigate and soon conclude that the drug causes, I quote, ‘a misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, [and] desensitization’
page 34

That drug is the news.
page 35

Because the news is about the exceptional, and the more exceptional an event is – be it a terrorist attack, violent uprising, or natural disaster – the bigger its newsworthiness.
page 36

Second, to stand up for human goodness is to take a stand against the powers that be. For the powerful, a hopeful view of human nature is downright threatening. Subversive. Seditious. It implies that we’re not selfish beasts that need to be reined in, restrained and regulated. It implies that we need a different kind of leadership. A company with intrinsically motivated employees has no need of managers; a democracy with engaged citizens has no need of career politicians.
page 44

Bryan Gibson demonstrated that watching Lord of the Flies-type television can make people more aggressive.25 In children, the correlation between seeing violent images and aggression in adulthood is stronger than the correlation between asbestos and cancer, or between calcium intake and bone mass.2
page 67

Cynical stories have an even more marked effect on the way we look at the world
page 67

The latest generation of friendly foxes was not only remarkably astute, but also much smarter than their aggressive counterparts.
page 105

Up until then the assumption had always been that domestication diminishes brainpower, literally reducing grey matter and in the process sacrificing skills needed to survive in the wild. We all know the clichés. Sly as a fox. Dumb as an ox. But Brian came to a completely different conclusion. ‘If you want a clever fox,’ he says, ‘you don’t select for cleverness. You select for friendliness.’
page 105

hunter-gatherers travelled light. They didn’t have much and they didn’t leave much behind. Fortunately for us, there’s an important exception. Cave paintings. If our state of nature was a ‘war of all against all’ à la Hobbes, then you’d expect that someone, at some point in this period, would have painted a picture of it. But that’s never been found. While there are thousands of cave paintings from this time about hunting bison, horses and gazelles, there’s not a single depiction of war.45
page 136

Take the following account recorded in 1492 by a traveller on coming ashore in the Bahamas. He was astonished at how peaceful the inhabitants were. ‘They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword … and [they] cut themselves out of ignorance.’ This gave him an idea. ‘They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.’1 Christopher Columbus – the traveller in question – lost no time putting his plan into action
page 137

you need to know something about prehistoric politics. Basically, our ancestors were allergic to inequality. Decisions were group affairs requiring long deliberation in which everybody got to have their say. ‘Nomadic foragers,’ established one American anthropologist on the basis of a formidable 339 fieldwork studies, ‘are universally – and all but obsessively – concerned with being free from the authority of others.’3
page 139

Settled life exacted an especially heavy toll on women. The rise of private property and farming brought the age of proto-feminism to an end. Sons stayed on the paternal plot to tend the land and livestock, which meant brides now had to be fetched for the family farm. Over centuries, marriageable daughters were reduced to little more than commodities, to be bartered like cows or sheep.29 In their new families, these brides were viewed with suspicion, and only after presenting them with a son did women gain a measure of acceptance. A legitimate son, that is. It’s no accident that female virginity turned into an obsession. Where in prehistory women had been free to come and go as they pleased, now they were being covered up and tethered down. The patriarchy was born.
page 150

The very things we hold up today as ‘milestones of civilization’, such as the invention of money, the development of writing, or the birth of legal institutions, started out as instruments of oppression. Take the first coins: we didn’t begin minting money because we thought it would make life easier, but because rulers wanted an efficient way to levy taxes.42 Or think about the earliest written texts: these weren’t books of romantic poetry, but long lists of outstanding debts.
page 157

So why is our perception of ‘barbarians’ so negative? Why do we automatically equate a lack of ‘civilisation’ with dark times? History, as we know, is written by the victors. The earliest texts abound with propaganda for states and sovereigns, put out by oppressors seeking to elevate themselves while looking down on everybody else. The word ‘barbarian’ was itself coined as a catch-all for anyone who didn’t speak ancient Greek. That’s how our sense of history gets flipped upside down. Civilisation has become synonymous with peace and progress, and wilderness with war and decline. In reality, for most of human existence, it was the other way around.
page 159

Too many environmental activists underestimate the resilience of humankind. My fear is that their cynicism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy – a nocebo that paralyses us with despair, while temperatures climb unabated.
page 192

‘There’s a failure to recognise that not only problems but also solutions can grow exponentially,’ Professor Boersema told me. ‘There’s no guarantee they will. But they can.’
page 192

Painstaking analyses of the hundreds of sessions at Milgram’s shock machine furthermore reveal that subjects grew more disobedient the more overbearing the man in the grey coat became. Put differently: Homo puppy did not brainlessly follow the authority’s orders. Turns out we have a downright aversion to bossy behaviour.
page 232

When psychologist Don Mixon repeated Milgram’s experiment in the seventies, he arrived at the same conclusion. He later noted, ‘In fact, people go to great lengths, will suffer great distress, to be good. People got caught up in trying to be good …’24 In other words, if you push people hard enough, if you poke and prod, bait and manipulate, many of us are indeed capable of doing evil. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But evil doesn’t live just beneath the surface; it takes immense effort to draw it out. And most importantly, evil has to be disguised as doing good.
page 234

The subjects who managed to halt the experiment used three tactics: 1. Talk to the victim. 2. Remind the man in the grey lab coat of his responsibility. 3. Repeatedly refuse to continue. Communication and confrontation, compassion and resistance.
page 241

The good news is: these are trainable skills. Resistance just takes practice. ‘What distinguishes Milgram’s heroes,’ Hollander observes, ‘is largely a teachable competency at resisting questionable authority.
page 241

Where mighty Germany was doped up on years of racist propaganda, modest Denmark was steeped in humanist spirit. Danish leaders had always insisted on the sanctity of the democratic rule of law. Anybody who sought to pit people against each other was not considered worthy to be called a Dane. There could be no such thing as a ‘Jewish question’. There were only countrymen.
page 244

Over the course of history, weaponry has got ever better at overcoming the central problem of all warfare: our fundamental aversion to violence. It’s practically impossible for us to kill someone while looking them in the eyes. Just as most of us would instantly go vegetarian if forced to butcher a cow, most soldiers become conscientious objectors when the enemy gets too close.
page 294

Keltner eventually realised what it reminded him of. The medical term is ‘acquired sociopathy’: a non-hereditary antisocial personality disorder, first diagnosed by psychologists in the nineteenth century. It arises after a blow to the head that damages key regions of the brain and can turn the nicest people into the worst kind of Machiavellian. It transpires that people in power display the same tendencies.10 They literally act like someone with brain damage. Not only are they more impulsive, self-centred, reckless, arrogant and rude than average, they are more likely to cheat on their spouses, are less attentive to other people and less interested in others’ perspectives.
page 301

In reality, bonobos are an altogether different creature. In Chapter 4 we saw that these apes have domesticated themselves, just like Homo puppy. The female of the species seem to have been key to this process, because, while not as strong as the males, they close ranks any time one of their own gets harassed by the opposite sex. If necessary, they bite his penis in half.19 Thanks to this balance of power, bonobo females can pick and choose their own mates, and the nicest guys usually finish first.
page 306

Leadership was temporary among hunter-gatherers and decisions were made as a group. Anyone foolish enough to act as Machiavelli later prescribed was risking their life. The selfish and the greedy would get booted out of the tribe and faced likely starvation. After all, nobody wanted to share food with those who were full of themselves.
page 307

We’re fine with a little inequality, psychologists emphasise, if we think it’s justified. As long as things seem fair. If you can convince the masses that you’re smarter or better or holier, then it makes sense that you’re in charge and you won’t have to fear opposition.
page 308

With the advent of the first settlements and growth in inequality, chieftains and kings had to start legitimising why they enjoyed more privileges than their subjects. In other words, they began engaging in propaganda.
page 308

Just consider: why would people hole up in cages we know as ‘offices’ for forty hours a week in exchange for some bits of metal and paper or a few digits added to their bank account? Is it because
page 314

The reason is self-evident. If you ignore a bill or don’t pay your taxes, you’ll be fined or locked up. If you don’t willingly comply, the authorities will come after you. Money may be a fiction, but it’s enforced by the threat of very real violence.
page 315

Most revolutions ultimately fail, though. No sooner is one despot brought down than a new leader stands up and develops an insatiable lust for power. After the French Revolution it was Napoleon. After the Russian Revolution it was Lenin and Stalin.
page 316

Rousseau already observed that this form of government is more accurately an ‘elective aristocracy’ because in practice the people are not in power at all. Instead we’re allowed to decide who holds power over us. It’s also important to realise this model was originally designed to exclude society’s rank and file.
page 317

Take the American Constitution: historians agree it ‘was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period’.35 It was never the American Founding Fathers’ intention for the general populace to play an active role in politics.
page 317

Time and again we hope for better leaders, but all too often those hopes are dashed. The reason, says Professor Keltner, is that power causes people to lose the kindness and modesty that got them elected, or they never possessed those sterling qualities in the first place.
page 317

In 1959, the BBC asked Russell what advice he would give future generations. He answered: When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at what are the facts.
page 332

But from then on I would be haunted by Russell’s warning: ‘Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe.’
page 332

Beliefs we’re devoted to – whether they’re true or imagined – can likewise come to life, effecting very real change in the world. The Pygmalion Effect resembles the placebo effect (which I discussed in Chapter 1), except, instead of benefiting oneself, these are expectations that benefit others.
page 336

What’s fascinating is that the two major ideologies of the twentieth century – capitalism and communism – both shared this view of humanity. Both the capitalist and the communist would tell you that there are only two ways to propel people into action: carrots and sticks. The capitalists relied on carrots (read: money), whereas the communists
page 346

For all their differences, there was one basic premise on which both sides could agree: People don’t motivate themselves. Now you may be thinking: Oh, it’s not as bad as that. I, for one, am plenty motivated. I’m not going to argue. In fact, I’m sure you’re right. My point is that we tend to think those other people lack motivation. Professor Chip Heath of Stanford University refers to this as our extrinsic incentives bias. That is, we go around assuming other people can be motivated solely by money.
page 346

Edward Deci was a young psychologist working on his PhD at a time when the field was in a thrall to behaviourism. This theory held – like Frederick Taylor’s – that people are shiftless creatures. The only thing powerful enough to spur us to action is the promise of a reward or the fear of punishment. Yet Deci had a nagging sense that this theory didn’t stack up. After all, people go around doing all kinds of nutty things that don’t fit the behaviourist view. Like climbing mountains (hard!), volunteering (free!) and having babies (intense!). In fact, we’re continually engaging in activities – of our own free will – that don’t earn us a penny and are downright exhausting. Why?
page 348

HELLO, ULTIMATE FRISBEE!

A few years ago, researchers at the University of Massachusetts analysed fifty-one studies on the effects of economic incentives in the workplace. They found ‘overwhelming evidence’ that bonuses can blunt the intrinsic motivation and moral compass of employees.12 And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they also discovered that bonuses and targets can erode creativity. Extrinsic incentives will generally pay out in kind. Pay by the hour and you get more hours. Pay by the publication and you get more publications. Pay by the surgical procedure and you get more surgical procedures.
page 350

People do what they are incentivized to do.

Time and again, we assume that others care only about themselves. That, unless there’s a reward in the offing, people much prefer to lounge around. A British study recently found that a vast majority of the population (74 per cent) identify more closely with values such as helpfulness, honesty and justice than with wealth, status and power. But just about as large a share (78 per cent) think others are more self-interested than they really are.
page 352

De Blok sums up his philosophy like this: ‘It’s easy to make things hard, but hard to make them easy.’ The record clearly shows that managers prefer the complicated. ‘Because that makes your job more interesting,’ de Blok explains. ‘That lets you say: See, you need me to master that complexity.’ Could it be that’s also driving a big part of our so-called ‘knowledge economy’? That pedigree managers and consultants make simple things as complicated as possible so we will need them to steer us through all the complexity?
page 358

Not until the late nineteenth century did children once again have more time to play. Historians call this period the ‘golden age’ of unstructured play, when child labour was banned and parents increasingly left kids to themselves.21 In many neighbourhoods in Europe and North America no one even bothered to keep an eye on them, and kids simply roamed free most of the day. These golden days were short-lived, however, as from the 1980s onward life grew progressively busier, in the workplace and the classroom. Individualism and the culture of achievement gained precedence. Families grew smaller and parents began to worry whether their progeny would make the grade.
page 370

Turns out, I keep catching the edge of a lot of good things.

So maybe there’s an even bigger question we should be asking: What’s the purpose of education?
page 382

‘The opposite of play is not work,’ the psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith once said. ‘The opposite of play is depression.’41

These days, the way many of us work – with no freedom, no play, no intrinsic motivation – is fuelling an epidemic of depression.
page 383

Many citizens of democracies are, at best, permitted to choose their own aristocracy.
page 391

On the whole, voters tend to take a fairly dim view of politicians, and vice versa.
page 392

Among the most notable findings to come out of contact science is that prejudices can be eliminated only if we retain our own identity.40 We need to realise it’s okay that we’re all different – there’s nothing wrong with that. We can build strong houses for our identities, with sturdy foundations. Then we can throw open the doors.
page 464

Having faith in others is as much a rational decision as an emotional one. Of course, seeing where someone else is coming from doesn’t mean you need to see eye to eye. You can understand the mindset of a fascist, a terrorist, or a fan of Love Actually without jumping on the fascist, terrorist, or lover-of-sappy-movies bandwagon. (I have to say, I’m a proud member of that last group.) Understanding the other at a rational level is a skill. It’s a muscle you can train.
page 495

Where we need our capacity for reason most of all is to suppress, from time to time, our desire to be nice. Sometimes our sociable instinct gets in the way of truth and of equity. Because consider: haven’t we all seen someone treated unfairly yet kept silent to avoid being disagreeable? Haven’t we all swallowed our words just to keep the peace? Haven’t we all accused those who fight for their rights of rocking the boat?
page 496

Okay, yes, I know that I have said, on numerous occasions, if Scalzi writes it, I will read it. That is just the way it is, no arguing.

Except I hadn't read this book. I had actively chosen not to read this book. Why? Because the reviews said it diverged from the classic science fiction that Scalzi is known for, and if I wanted to read not-science-fiction Scalzi, I'll read his blog. So, I skipped it.

All the way until Rob commented that it was the perfect brain candy and he hadn't laughed this hard in a while (who knows if that while is more than I day, I don't, because getting Rob to laugh is a goal of every conversation), and I have already read it wait I haven't well I should. So, as soon as I was done with The Gates of Fire (which I recommended to Rob), I started Redshirts.

Is not classic Scalzi science fiction.

Is amusing.

Yes, the Redshirt phenomenon from Star Trek is the title of the book, and yes, the characters figure this out, but there are more absurdities in the plot, resulting in an internally-consistent and thoroughly-absurd plot twist (time travel back to the authors) that is the cause for the original fanboy uproar that kept me from reading the book. It wasn't so bad. I enjoyed how all the pieced tied up nicely at the end.

Worth reading if you're a Scalzi fan, or a quirky science-fiction fan.

Dahl paused a moment before answering. “Do you know how the rich are different than you or me?” he asked Duvall.

“You mean, besides having more money,” Duvall said.

“Yeah,” Dahl said.

“No,” Duvall said.

“What makes them different—the smart ones, anyway—is that they have a very good sense of why people want to be near them. Whether it’s because they want to be friends, which is not about proximity to money and access and power, or if they want to be part of an entourage, which is. Make sense?”
Page 14

Hester looked at Hanson admiringly. “I didn’t think you were that cynical,” Hester said.

Hanson shrugged again. “When you’re the heir to the third largest fortune in the history of the universe, you learn to question people’s motivations,” he said.
Page 62

“Sure, I’ll baby-sit him until he passes out,” Dahl said.

“Man, I owe you a blowjob,” Duvall said.

“What?” Dahl said.

“What?” Hester said.

“Sorry,” Duvall said. “In ground forces, when someone does you a favor you tell them you owe them a sex act. If it’s a little thing, it’s a handjob. Medium, blowjob. Big favor, you owe them a fuck. Force of habit. It’s just an expression.”

“Got it,” Dahl said.

“No actual blowjob forthcoming,” Duvall said. “To be clear.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Dahl said.
Page 68

I read this and, yes, starting laughing out loud. I'm sure this isn't Caltech specific, but this is an actual conversation I have had.

"But they don’t know why. You do.”

“Maybe I do,” Jenkins said. “But why would it matter?”

“Because if you don’t know why something is the way it is, then you don’t know anything about it at all,” Dahl said. “All the tricks and superstitions aren’t going to do a damn bit of good if you don’t know the reason for them. The conditions could change and then you’re screwed.”
Page 87

Hanson said. “When you’re nuts, your reasoning is consistent with your own internal logic, but it’s internal logic, which doesn’t make any sort of sense outside your own head.” He pointed at Jenkins. “His logic is external and reasonable enough.”
Page 96

“In retrospect, the plan has significant logistical issues,” Finn admitted. “On the other hand, it worked. You can’t argue with success.”

“Sure you can,” Dahl said, “when it’s based on stupidity.”
Page 120

Also known as a Bold Play™ in ultimate.

“Yes, and I have training dealing with deep, existential questions,” Dahl said. “The way I’m dealing with it right now is this: I don’t care whether I really exist or don’t, whether I’m real or fictional. What I want right now is to be the person who decides my own fate. That’s something I can work on. It’s what I’m working on now.”
Page 159

I never understood writer’s block before this. You’re a writer and you suddenly can’t write because your girlfriend broke up with you? Shit, dude, that’s the perfect time to write. It’s not like you’re doing anything else with your nights. Having a hard time coming up with the next scene? Have something explode. You’re done.
Page 228

You don’t win by getting through all your life not having done anything.
Page 284

“E, don’t you ever wonder about how your life could have been different?” Samantha asks, changing the subject slightly. “Don’t you ever wonder, if things just happened a little differently, you might have a different job, or different husband, or different children? Do you think you would have been happier? And if you could see that other life, how would it make you feel?”
Page 292

“Did you want to make a confession?” Father Neil asks. Samantha giggles despite herself.

“I don’t think I could confess to you with a straight face,” she says.

“This is the problem of coming to a priest you used to date in high school,” Father Neil says.

“You weren’t a priest then,” Samantha notes.
Page 299

SAMANTHA WASN'T THE ONLY ONE GIGGLING AT THIS. Take note, Paul. <grins>

This book was recommended by Ryan Holiday in his June reading list. It sounded interesting, so I borrowed it from the library, read it, and here we are.

The struggle in this book is man against nature in a post-apocalyptic world which seems to be some sort of ecological disaster that blighted the world. Many scenes include ash and melted roads, along with the two main characters, a father and his son, covering their faces with masks so that they can breathe. The disaster is such that it appears there are very few people left, and the ability to grow crops or feed is pretty much gone. The remaining people are struggling to survive, which includes resorting to anything edible, including other people.

The journey of the father and son is to the ocean. They are moving along with a shopping cart, trying to survive. They appear to have been doing this together for six, eight, maybe ten years, since the boy was born, and the ocean is some level of salvation. Except it really isn't. It is more like "something to do that provides some level of meaning."

I can see where the book would be more emotional if, say, a parent is reading the book and is thinking of their child when reading it. I lack that perspective, so some aspects were perhaps lost on me. What wasn't lost on me was the portrayal of flowing empathy and refused kindness. The boy wants to help, the father knows they can't. The boy is angry the father refused to help some people, the father fears losing his son's love as the father chooses their survival. It's a hard choice, too willfully lose your humanity to keep a loved one alive.

The book is worth reading, but I'm not sure it would be one of my first books to recommend.

He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
Page: 11

He mistrusted all of that. He said the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.
Page: 17

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.
Page: 56

I cant help you. They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I dont dream at all. You say you cant? Then dont do it. That’s all.
Page: 59

A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.
Page: 59

While reading The Killer Angels, I found myself in a fit of "gosh, I want to read fiction right now." I had enjoyed reading Dread Nation, and recalled a sequel was coming out. That thought, along with the so f'ing long overdue recognition of racial inequality in this country, meant reading this book next was a no-brainer.

And it is so very much worth reading, recommended with delight.

Yes, there are zombies in it. Yes, there is heartbreak in it. No, there isn't a happy ending. Yes, there are many, many social commentary digs at both being a woman, and being black. And yes, there were black people in the Wild Wild West, which was a comment that Ireland makes in the author note at the end of the book, though you wouldn't know it from most of the other western fiction books out there.

This book follows immediately after Dread Nation, with Jane, Katherine, and a number of other Summerland residents fleeing the zombie hoard that broke out in town. What we learn in this tale, which alternates between Jane's and Katherine's perspectives (a style I enjoyed very much), is that Gideon Carr, the rich white boy from the previous book, has a significant part to play in this tale, and that one needs friendships (a lot).

As learned in The War for Kindness, fiction is a gateway drug into empathy. I feel this book does a gentle introduction into the crap a woman deals with as second class citizens, and barely starts to introduce the worse crap non-white people have dealt with in this country.

While I recommend this book more than I recommended Dread Nation, the first is needed to understand this one. Read them in order, if you decide to read them.

Adventure is only swell so long as a body is enjoying the trip. After that, it becomes an ordeal.
Location: 85

And even if I do not understand the pain she feels right now, it does not mean I cannot support her through it. That is what friends do.
Location: 377

“You can’t help but get involved in things, even when you know better. How can I depend on a woman who finds it appropriate to run off into the fire instead of away from it? It’s who you are, Jane, and I’ve always loved that about you. But while that may be admirable in a Miss Preston’s girl, it ain’t in a wife. I want someone I know is going to be there, day after day, not off running on some adventure.” “Why is that okay for you and not me? Why is it okay for a man to be out running around and not a woman?” Jackson shakes his head. “I ain’t saying it’s fair, but that’s the kind of woman I want.
Location: 545

He shakes his head, and I can’t help but feel that in all our time together I didn’t know him like I thought I did, not really. He doesn’t want a wife. He wants a doormat.
Location: 552

Hope is deadly,
Location: 782

move.” I force myself deep, deep down into the place in my mind where everything is quiet and cold and my heart ain’t breaking. Luckily it ain’t as hard as a body would think. How does one go on when they’ve lost their heart? By being heartless.
Location: 825

He gives me a polite smile, one that I suppose is meant to be reassuring. Men have been giving me that smile my entire life. I do not return it.
Location: 1,604

I take a deep breath and let it out. There is no use in yelling at a grown woman about her life choices, even if they are poor.
Location: 1,795

As Eve got to the part where the ghost led her through the dark woods and west to something like freedom, Aunt Aggie shook her head. “Sometimes, when the world doesn’t make sense, it’s easier to pretend like there are other forces at work. But there ain’t. That’s just life.”
Location: 1,938

“There ain’t any kind of inoculation against fear and false confidence.”
Location: 2,026

lap. I suppose when lines are drawn it is easier to go with what one knows than to forge new paths.
Location: 2,072

I’ve been living so long for the future that I haven’t been focusing on the now. And I ain’t sure I know how to change that.
Location: 2,294

I was scared, so I stayed.” He shakes his head. “I should have run like my friends, but I didn’t.” I nod, because I understand that feeling. Sometimes it can feel like the unknown is worse than the hardships you’re enduring.
Location: 2,320

“Betsy was a hero,” I say. “Exactly,” Redfern says, nodding. “Heroes die. But survivors live to tell the story. When the dead got to be too much for us to handle, most of those fools wanted to keep fighting, because that’s what we’d been taught. I was one of the first to cut and run. I knew what the score was. The things you’re taught are only useful if they keep you alive.”
Location: 2,344

“It’s the American way,” she would say, watching from the porch as another family took up residence at Rose Hill. “You help as much as you can—but no more. You don’t think those founding fathers wrote all those pretty words about independence just to help the poor, do you? The books are right there in the library, Jane. They did it because they didn’t want to pay taxes, to have some king tell them the price of tea. And for that, they went to war, and hundreds of people died.
Location: 2,353

In a world that is morally gray, I somehow still believe in right and wrong.
Location: 3,079

I laugh, because that is what you do when a man says something ridiculous.
Location: 3,090

An ache blossoms in my chest, and I pick up my untouched glass of whiskey and drain it. The liquid tastes as smoky as my memories and burns all the way down. It feels like penance. That is the real reason I do not drink too often: I am afraid that if I find my way to the bottle I will be lost forever.
Location: 3,101

I smile tightly, but say nothing. He is trying to protect me, in the simple way men are always trying to protect women: by stealing away their freedom.
Location: 3,125

Don’t let San Francisco fool you. It might seem pretty, but it’s been built on the same volatile mixture of greed and exclusion as the rest of this country.
Location: 3,411

But more important, it makes me wonder: How can we make the world a better place if we are always at odds with one another for every single kind of reason under the sun?
Location: 3,436

Unlike so much else in our lives, it felt . . . easy. I guess falling for someone always is. It’s the staying in love that’s hard.
Location: 3,599

I cannot help but remember the way she had never hesitated to call out some random bit of unfairness or chicanery. (As long as it was not her own, of course.) There is something admirable about being willing to stand up against injustice and name the devil true.
Location: 3,756

I consider telling them about the feelings between me and Callie, how close we’d grown over the past year, but I decide not to. Some things just ain’t for the telling, and even though Callie is gone, I want to keep the memory of our time together for myself.
Location: 4,528

face. I know this is a sin, but there are few things I enjoy more than being right.
Location: 5,274

And that is that. Sometimes the people we love fiercest leave the world like a whisper.
Location: 5,957