Douglas Purdy

I have no idea how it happened but I read two separate works about gods this past week:

Deathbird Stories & The God Engines

Deathbird Stories (1973) by Harlan Ellison is a changed my life set of short stories that Neil Gaiman credits at the end of the American Gods.  The book starts as follows:

Caveat Lector

It is suggested that the reader not attempt to read this book at one sitting. The emotional content of these stories, taken without break, may be extremely upsetting. This note is intended most sincerely, and not as hyperbole.

H.E.

“The Deathbird“, the last story in the book, is now my favorite fiction short story (and not just because it quotes Nietzsche wholesale).

The God Engines (2009) by John Scalzi is a fair trade novella in the same vein as Deathbird Stories.

It was interesting to read both at the same time, primarily as it showed how exceptional I found Ellison’s writing.

I had planned on reading the entire The Baroque Cycle this week.

Judging from my notes in the book, I got through about 80% of Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1) the first time I attempted to read it.

I don’t recall why I didn’t finish, but I have a good idea — I have book attention deficit.

While I am still making progress on Quicksilver, I read three different books on Greek and Jewish religion this past week:

• Dionysos: Good survey of Dionysos over the centuries, inclusive of Nietzsche, but it was a little preachy at the end around the potential of the Dionysiac to help with modern consumerism.
• Ancient Greek Religion:  Really enjoyed this overview of the Greek religion (largely from the point of a view of an Athenian).  Hit the main mystery-cults I was aware of in reasonable detail.
• The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus:  I have read this before if memory serves (during the development of “Indigo“).  The Gospel of Thomas is still my favorite (reminds me of a proto-Jefferson Bible).

Was there anything that bound these books together for me (beyond the obvious category of religion)?

Yes.

It is ignorance that is the cause of our downfall and suffering.

Religions can be (but often are not) a tool to address this ignorance; to remind us of our interconnectedness and reliance on nature/each other.

Nevertheless, religion is often used to separate.

Science fairs no better in this respect, should you think it is the “one true path”.

Science (actually Scientism) often dismisses the utility of ritual, myth, and religion in mediating the relationship of the individual to the greater whole.

That all said, one of these days, I am going to complete the The Baroque Cycle.

In 2000 (if memory serves), I had the privilege of watching Alan Kay present at Microsoft Research.

As a Smalltalker, I had a tremendous amount of respect for his work, but I was completely blown away by him and his presentation (all done in Squeak).

He chastised us (Microsoft and the industry) for all the unfulfilled promise that he had outlined years before.  We deserved it.

Alan turned 70 on May 17.

His friends and co-workers (including Gordon Bell, Chuck Thacker, and Butler Lampson) have written him a book.

It is available online (donations welecome) at http://vpri.org/pov/

It is worth reading.

We still have a lot of work to do.

Iain M. Banksis one of my favorite authors.

I just finished up his latest, Transition, on my new iPad 3G.

I hate saying this, but I want my money back.

I hate saying it, because I can imagine how hard to must be to write a book (I know quite a few authors), how hard it must be write a truly excellent book (which the author has done so many times), how hard it must be to get feedback like this after pouring so much energy into something (I hate when I get bad feedback about a talk or article).

Nevertheless, I must.

Banks clearly wants to condemn the Bush torture policy and the greed of Wall Street, but he does it in such a glaring way that it comes off as a talk-radio rant wrapped in a Sci-Fi novel.

I like my social commentary in subtle, nuance, artistic form within a novel (surprised?)

It was something that Banks did so well in many of Culture novels.

Further, I thought the torture induced powers of the main character to be too similar to Miles Teg in the last two Dune novels.

That was a further off putting.

I will say that Transitionhad a few interesting moments, the best example is an explanation of why aliens may choose to visit us.

Our moon is perfectly size for a total eclipse; perhaps the only place in the universe that you can see such a thing.

Yes, the aliens could come visit us for holiday.

Nietzsche is, by far, my favorite philosophizer.

I tend to always be (re)reading something directly by him or something that is clearly influenced by him.

I found The Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer at a party at age 16 (I had an interesting mix of friends to say the least); I have been completely fascinated since.

Over the past few weeks, I have been rereading BGE (Beyond Good and Evil) with the help of a companion: Nietzsche’s Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil.

It has been incredibly helpful and recommended if you really want to get beyond a fairly cursory understanding of BGE.

In particular, this has been a big help understanding how to cope with the death of “God” in modern Western society.

This is been a long personal struggle of mine; the depth of despair that you reach when you really comprehend the capriciousness and indifference of “nature”.

I am not talking about atheism and the lack of immortality or the triumph of science.

I am talking about understanding that our Western world view, values, culture, morality, etc. are based on some notion of “natural law” and in many cases some notion of progress/improvement.

I am talking about the death of something more powerful than the death of “God”, the death of teleology.

Nietzsche provides the best answer that I have yet found to this struggle and Nietzsche’s Task: An Interpretation of Beyond Good and Evil is a great help in understanding it better.

My rating:  Changed my life.

I could not sleep last night (not that I do much of that).

I thought a Kurt Vonnegut book would lure me into Hypnos‘ embrace.

Using my Kindle device (perhaps for the last time), I purchased A Man Without a Country: A Memoir Of Life In George W. Bush’s America.

I was wrong; I read the whole thing (~160 pages).

Not a change your life book, but certainly a fair trade.

That said, this is one story that has really captured my attention during spare moments today:

I did get to know one socialist of his generation, who was Powers Hapgood of Indianapolis. After graduating from Harvard he went to work as a coal miner, urging his working-class brothers to organize, in order to get better pay and safer working conditions. He also led protesters at the execution of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in Massachusetts in 1927.

We met in Indianapolis after the end of World War Two, and he had become an official in the CIO. There had been some sort of dust-up on a picket line, and he had just testified about it in court. The judge had interrupted the proceedings to ask Powers Hapgood why, with all his social and economic and educational advantages, he had chosen to lead such a life. And Powers Hapgood replied, ”Why, because of the Sermon on the Mount, sir.”

Jesus may have not been God, but he certainly seemed like a divine human; so does Powers and Vonnegut.

I finished Futuretainment yesterday.

It was a loaner (thanks Hoop).

Since it was free, it gets a “fair trade“.

If I had spent money on it, I would have wanted a refund.

It is a fine book for BDM/TDMs (business/technical decision makers) that want to be clued into many of the macro trends powered by recent technology, but I didn’t glean any new insights on my first read and nothing compelled me to read through it again.

This is a title of a book.

You may know it better as Slaughterhouse-Five.

For some reason, I have never gotten around to reading it until now.

I am making up for lost time; I have read it three times, back to back, already.

This is a “changed my life” book, a rare bred indeed.

I find Vonnegut’s prose, for lack of a better word, enthralling.

It is curt, but poignant.

It has an almost (and I hate to use this word) Zen-like quality.

His underlying philosophy, such as I can determine from this book, matches my own (at least as I am today and when he wrote the work).

If you have never read this book, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I am the Eschaton. I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.

I am in the midst of preparing a special surprise for MIX 2010, but I did get a chance to finish Singularity Sky (in which you can find the above quote).

I don’t have time for an in-depth review, but I do plan on reading the sequel when I get a chance.  Net: according to my rating system, this book is a fair trade.

I rapidly read The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Manhood last night.

Why rapidly?  I found that it merely iterated things (lists of gear, skills, books, movies, etc.) that I already owned or had (some) experience with.  In addition, it gave very light treatment to things that I believe can really help define virtue (not in the sense that you think, but in the Roman sense) like Cicero’s De Officiis (that said, perhaps the fact that it covered Cicero at all is something).

I am not going to give this a “Give me my money back” rating, however, for two reasons.

First, the introduction to the book that tells of the author’s experience at the Running of the Bulls was well written and (I thought) strangely profound.

Second, it gave me the best chuckle that I had in recent memory in recounting an (a somewhat off-color) Churchill story, which I have provided below.

Churchill entered the men’s room at the House of Commons to find his political rival Clement Atlee standing at the urinal.  Churchill took a position as far away as he could from Atlee, only to hear Atlee jab, “My dear Winston, I hope that despite being adversaries in the House, we could be friends outside of it.”  Churchill replied: “Ah, Clement, I have no quarrel with you, but in my experience, whenever you see something big, you tend to want to nationalize it.”

.

I just completed A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine.  Irvine is a professor of Philosophy at Wright State.

The goal of the work is two-fold: convince you to have a “philosophy of life” and that Stoicism is an ideal candidate for this philosophy.

Most of the book is taken up examining of Stoicism from a purely pragmatic standpoint, but it is all toward helping to frame what a consistent philosophy of life should entail.  It explores Irvine’s discovery of Stoicism, provides a very nice overview of various Stoic techniques and tales from his adventures as a practicing Stoic.

Above all things, this is a handbook for the budding modern Stoic.  It covers techniques like negative visualization (imagining that you will lose what is most precious to you), self-denial and daily mediation.

Using my rating system, I give it a fair trade.  If you are not familiar with Stoicism and it speaks to you, this book could enter “change your life” territory.

A couple of personal observations/insights…

One of the things that I enjoyed was the comparisons between Stoicism and Buddhism.  Many of the same principles and techniques are found in both.  I am beginning to think of Stoicism as a “Western Buddhism” in many ways.

I have found the techniques, particularly negative visualization, to be quite powerful.  Contemplating the loss of your children is a powerful way to appreciate them and generate personal joy no matter what your current circumstance.

This the key goal of Stoicism; to gain tranquility in the worst situations; to appreciate the things that you have today, rather than the things you want.

Typically this sort of self-denial is coupled with metaphysics hat justifies this denial for a reward after death (this is not the real world, the next one is).  Further, this sort of metaphysics (read: monotheist religions) often punish anyone that does not adopt the same self-denying world-view.

I jettisoned the shackles of that world-view long ago.  In the process, I viewed any philosophic system that taught self-denial as inconsistent with human nature and evolution.  This was always my complaint with Buddhism and the reason that I was attracted to Thelema.

What was so interesting about Irvine’s work was that he tackled the human nature and evolution issue head on.  He claimed that self-denial is unnatural. To over come this, he did not resort to the Platonic/Christian trick of claiming that the natural world is somehow debased.  Rather, he simply states that man can use his reason to overcome nature (which is the cause for our dissatisfaction with present circumstances) and in doing so achieve happiness.

Evolutionary forces have led us to a state of continued dissatisfaction, a state of unhappiness with our present circumstances.  That is the state of nature and is good (we are all here after all), but this state of nature is the cause for our unhappiness.  If we use our reason to temper our desires, it is possible for us to win a reprieve and experience joy with what we have right now.

I just completed Stoic Warriors.

This book was notable for two reasons.

First, it was the first book at I read on the Kindle device.

I have read several books on the iPhone with the Kindle app, which I enjoy (small screen and all), but the reading experience on the device itself was great, modulo one thing — it needs a backlight for nightime reading.

Second, this is the last book that I will complete this year and it will likely have the most impact of any book in 2009.

In short, the book outlines Stoic philosophy through the lens of the needs of today’s military forces. For example, what does Stoism tells us about anger, grief, loss, etc. — all emotions and feelings that are most manifest in military situations where life and limb hang in the balance.

The book covers basic Stoic philosophical teachings, largely through Cicero and Seneca, but a sizable portion of the work covers ‘applied Stoism’ through military experiences in WWI, WWII, Vietnam and the Gulf Wars.

The book has flaws. The final chapter should have likely kicked off the work as the notion of a human community makes war and its horror much more profound. The points about Buddhism and Stocism should have been explored. I think there was maybe a paragraph on it throughout the whole book — but I think the connection is profound. Lastly, the author seems to be an Aristotlian but doesn’t come out and say it.

I wrote a big wrap-up paragraph here, but the Wordpress iPhone app ate it, so I will close by saying that I recommend the book, especially if you are one that holds (as I do), that practical philosophic inquiry is not about Truth (whatever that is), but about ways of thinking about the world that help us survive and even thrive in a hostile environment.

Reading The Phenomenon of Life, The Emperor’s New Mind, Meditations on Violence (all of which fall into the changed my life category) and Outliers (give me my money back and don’t waste yours) in the past few days leads me to offer up chapter 15 from Thus Spake Zarathustra below (it was a complex and long journey to this chapter that am not going into on a blog).

I really encourage you to read the entire thing and consider these questions at the end:  What do you value?  Why?  If you could create your own value system for humanity, what would it be?  What would the goal of humanity be?

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: thus he discovered the good and bad of many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than good and bad.

No people could live without first valuing; if a people will maintain itself, however, it must not value as its neighbour valueth.

Much that passed for good with one people was regarded with scorn and contempt by another: thus I found it. Much found I here called bad, which was there decked with purple honours.

Never did the one neighbour understand the other: ever did his soul marvel at his neighbour’s delusion and wickedness.

A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo! it is the table of their triumphs; lo! it is the voice of their Will to Power.

It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direst distress, the unique and hardest of all,—they extol as holy.

Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and shine, to the dismay and envy of their neighbours, they regard as the high and foremost thing, the test and the meaning of all else.

Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people’s need, its land, its sky, and its neighbour, then wouldst thou divine the law of its surmountings, and why it climbeth up that ladder to its hope.

“Always shalt thou be the foremost and prominent above others: no one shall thy jealous soul love, except a friend”—that made the soul of a Greek thrill: thereby went he his way to greatness.

“To speak truth, and be skilful with bow and arrow”—so seemed it alike pleasing and hard to the people from whom cometh my name—the name which is alike pleasing and hard to me.

“To honour father and mother, and from the root of the soul to do their will”—this table of surmounting hung another people over them, and became powerful and permanent thereby.

“To have fidelity, and for the sake of fidelity to risk honour and blood, even in evil and dangerous courses”—teaching itself so, another people mastered itself, and thus mastering itself, became pregnant and heavy with great hopes.

Verily, men have given unto themselves all their good and bad. Verily, they took it not, they found it not, it came not unto them as a voice from heaven.

Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself—he created only the significance of things, a human significance! Therefore, calleth he himself “man,” that is, the valuator.

Valuing is creating: hear it, ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things.

Through valuation only is there value; and without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, ye creating ones!

Change of values—that is, change of the creating ones. Always doth he destroy who hath to be a creator.

Creating ones were first of all peoples, and only in late times individuals; verily, the individual himself is still the latest creation.

Peoples once hung over them tables of the good. Love which would rule and love which would obey, created for themselves such tables.

Older is the pleasure in the herd than the pleasure in the ego: and as long as the good conscience is for the herd, the bad conscience only saith: ego.

Verily, the crafty ego, the loveless one, that seeketh its advantage in the advantage of many—it is not the origin of the herd, but its ruin.

Loving ones, was it always, and creating ones, that created good and bad. Fire of love gloweth in the names of all the virtues, and fire of wrath.

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones—”good” and “bad” are they called.

Verily, a prodigy is this power of praising and blaming. Tell me, ye brethren, who will master it for me? Who will put a fetter upon the thousand necks of this animal?

A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking; there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal.

But pray tell me, my brethren, if the goal of humanity be still lacking, is there not also still lacking—humanity itself?—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

I have been thinking more about Post-American World.

It turns out that there was something a little deeper there for me to grok; the importance of Soft Power.

This has always been applicable to nation-states, but I have been thinking about it in context of professional team interactions.

It is an interesting to reflect on the different styles of interaction between different teams, especially at a large corporation like Microsoft.

Zakaria’s book has started to help me see the utility of soft power in a different light.

This puts it firmly in the “fair trade” category.

I am a fan of Fareed Zakaria, but this book is very close to “Give me my money back” territory.

It reads like a The Rise and Fall of Great Powers-lite.

Reviewing my notes, I don’t believe that I gained any particularly new insights, but updated my Paul Kennedy VM with some new anecdotes. 

Three things are worth calling out:

1. The book didn’t spend nearly enough time talking about the challenges of carbon-based economies and how this will play a role in a “Post-American World” (this is top of mind for me right now).
2. The footnote that outlined Fareed’s defense of the Iraq war seemed very forced and very out of place, so much so that it diminished the rest of the chapter for me.
3. I kept having the nagging feeling that the world is in a state like something from the time of Unification of Germany.  I need to think more about it.

Unbelievable writer.

How did I miss him so far?

http://www.amazon.com/Warfighting-U-Marine-Corps-Staff/dp/0385478348

You can get it online (latest edition) at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/mcdp1.pdf.

Do not let the title make you think that this has no applicability to your business life.

Almost every single thing in the book can be applied to your organization and how you think about the competition.

I read a lot in this space and this is the most concise write-up of all of these principles that I have seen repeated again and again.

I am seriously considering buying the softcover for my entire team at work for Christmas.

http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-About/dp/0307264785/

Fair trade

Prior to reading this book, I was a supporter of mass transit in terms of voting and outlook.

This book provides completely new insight into why I should be more supportive (and active) in getting more of us out of our cars (not me of course ).

A couple of key takeaways for me:

• The lack of feedback to the driver in road-car-driver system
• The lack of attention that most drivers have (not me of course)
• We are seemly genetically programmed to travel a max of 1 hour per day (regardless of distance)
• I need to think more deeply about Nash equilibrium and my personal philosophy

Best quote in the book: “The most effective car-safety instrument would be a dagger mounted on the steering wheel and aimed at the driver.”

Amazon was kind enough to ship me my long pending order of The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing’s Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine yesterday.

I am looking forward to seeing Petzold’s commentary on this paper. I thought he did a wonderful job with Code which was the last Petzold book I read (I have too many WPF authors on my team to say that I read his book without getting hit by something in the hallway).

I am on page 50 or so. I cannot put it down.

I was telling my wife that I loved this book so much so fast that it was scary.

Like any relationship, we’ll see if it lasts…

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp/1400063515