add book

_data/reading-list.json

@@ -1502,5 +1502,16 @@
       "pages": 320,
       "dateread": "March 2024",
       "notes": "This book follows Muhammad Amici, a man who made money in the burgeoning telecom industry of post-USSR states, and seemingly uses connections between Russia's government insiders and British party members to profit by passing influence. These facts and representations are covered, but the voice of the author is telling how libel lawsuits can be expensive in England, which can have a chilling effect on journalism specifically because journalists as a whole don't have money but their subjects do. The author says this attacks a pinnacle of democracy because positions require debate to arrive at the truth. All of that so far is the basic story and its characters. Next, here is the dance between the author and the subject where the journalist plays the role of the dispassionate fact finder during their interview. And the subject plays the role of the selfless philanthropist. Both are deluding. Where the author brings up allegations of specific unregistered foreign lobbying, asset laundering and, don't forget, who controls the narrative of the book, the subject plays on major defensive points. \"I'm making the world better so judge me on that rather than what laws say.\" And the much more basic argument \"Only prosecutors actually know the laws and how to apply them. I'm not a prosecutor. Therefore I [or anybody] cannot be responsible or liable for following the law.\" As to asset laundering, his argument is way more constructive. Basically \"the west has created and accepts anonymous corporations and trusts, the ingredient for laundry, and therefore capitalist society wants asset laundry.\" On the offensive he comes back arguing \"you have it out for me and you're not a dispassionate journalist.\" To that, the author refuses to be interviewed. If the purpose of the journalism was to investigate breaking of laws, perhaps maybe just one page or one day's effort could have been devoted to reviewing the merit of those laws, the morals arguments of providing telecom access in these states versus the ills of influence peddling. The journalist did not demonstrate that he took the time to do this. And then also, if the laws are worth being prosecuted, then as a journalist he should have spilled some ink looking into if western society and capitalism actually does explicitly tolerate evilness when allowing for anonymous trusts. Stated the other way, kill anonymous trusts and corporations to improve the western vision of democracy. By failing to look at these topics, the book does bring an adversarial tinge which cannot be said to be fully journalistic. In other words, yes he was out to get him. In all, the real story in the book is timely. In this generation journalism is changing, communication is changing and we will have another major societal revolution on earth soon if it has not already begun. Because of technology. And discussions like Cokooland, whether adversarial or not, must be a sourcebook to prepare how we as a society better understand the human nature and make rules for journalism which I hope still has a strong role in our future."
+    },
+    {
+      "title": "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies",
+      "author": "Jared Diamond",
+      "publisher": "W. W. Norton & Company",
+      "publishdate": "March 1997",
+      "isbn": "978-0393317558",
+      "pages": 480,
+      "dateread": "March 2024",
+      "notes": "Here's the question: in the history of humanity, coming from the apes, why was it that the Europeans came to dominate and not the Africans, the Australians or the Americans? This book is an answer to this question from looking at the unique geography of these regions and the native plants & animals. Europe was uniquely blessed because of its vast east-west strides, useful mammals and farmable plants. This book looks through specific conquests in history and language & technology developments to find that these were the important factors. There are only so many useful animals on earth for eating and for work. In the beginning they were unevenly distributed, of course nowadays humans bring them wherever they want. Plants are much more productive to farm than chasing animals—allowing for dense societies with armies and organization. But plants only live in specific climates, they die if you take them even a little bit, relatively, north or south. These are the root causes we're given, to review against all the natural experiments from history. Asia is given as a special example (which also has vast east-west mobility, and useful animals and plants). He cites Asia's short coasts, compared to land mass, as supporting a unified government. And this unified government—for most of human history—as an impediment to natural selection of ideas. Maybe peace and unity in Europe today, if it persists over 1,000 years, will cause the same problem. So far we discussed the main part of the book. The second part, only brought up at the end, is that the study of history should be considered a science. He laments that chemistry and biology are sciences because you can do lab experiments, and astronomy is a science because... actually there's no reason for that. He argues that history can be scientific at least as much as astronomy because it builds hypotheses, tests them with evidence, and strives to make a better model of the world."
     }
+
 ]