Zachary

An authentic work that examines the roles of our well being in climate change and climate change in our well being

Revisado: 04-04-24

One of the few books that treats mental illness, and the mentally ill, as worthy of respect, the author sets forth very early the idea that mental illness can be a reasonable response to terrible circumstances. Pathologizing this response and treating the illness as the problem, rather than recognizing the situation as the problem and the illness as the manifestation of our suffering, is fundamentally cruel. Mental illness is often used as a weapon against the weak or oppressed by the powerful to silence or imprison them. The rising specter of mental illness among youth is ultimately a condemnation of much of modern life. Climate change is the most glaring example of this.

With the authority of someone who has been profoundly affected by this, Charlie lays out the role of our own mental well being in the context of the larger crisis. Full of helpful, concrete examples and examining the role of different kinds of climate actions in improving our well being, he looks at how real people throughout the world are dealing with this, often to great effect.

This is a work that really benefits from being read by its author. The honesty and authenticity of this work and his experience come through so clearly.

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Prophetic in its understanding of America’s Future

Revisado: 11-20-23

Early in the book its examination in minute detail of our garish culture made me feel like a dog whose master shoves its nose in its shit while saying, “No! Bad!” It emphasized the very shallowness of our culture and then carries this over into the shallowness of our politics, our scholarship, and our religion. Written in 2010, it nonetheless anticipated the rise of a shallow, right wing populism that would feel safer under a dictatorship than under the failing structures of our existing order.

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The story behind the science

Revisado: 02-15-22

This is the story of the discoveries that made it necessary to reconsider what a planet is. I love the way that it draws back the curtain, showing how scientists actually work, something our science-doubting world could use more of, as well as the way that it humanizes scientists, showing that they’re real people who are passionate about the things they study. I listened to it with my eleven year old son, who loved it. I highly recommend it.

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There’s a good story in there somewhere, but the author seems to have wandered off

Revisado: 05-25-21

I’m a huge fan of Stephenson’s work. Anathem is my favorite novel, Snowcrash is a classic, and I wholeheartedly enjoyed many of his other books. They tend to be expansive in a way that makes the question of where the story will take you orders of magnitude more complex than it is with most authors. And he fills those stories with the most interesting people and ideas. If you like that kind of thing, then his work is for you.

Fall has much in common with those other works. It’s told over a timescale of decades and set in two different worlds: one is meatspace, the world that our bodies inhabit, and the other is bitworld, a digital realm into which the human mind can be uploaded upon death. The portion told in “meatspace” is endlessly fascinating. But bitworld is a desert of literary emptiness, longing to be filled by something other than the words the author chose to set there.

This was largely the result of a stylistic choice to echo the spare language of the book of Genesis, but it leaves the underlying reality seem unsettled, bereft of detail, that whatever happens is fair game and that there are no real stakes. This is exacerbated by the fact that the characters are largely disconnected from who they were in meatspace. The result was that for a very large portion of the book I found it hard to care what happened.

This was my second attempt to read Fall. The beginning is excellent and thoroughly enjoyable. I had about 9 hours left in this 30+ hour book before I decided that I really didn’t care what happened after that. It’s possible that things turn around and it becomes a masterful story, but I’d already been giving it the benefit of the doubt for about 10 hours by that point.

If you’ve never read Stephenson before, pick up Snowcrash. It’s really fun and shorter than his other books, which risk breaking your toe if you drop them. If you like that try Anathem or Seven Eves.

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A contrasting of liberal and conservative psychology

Revisado: 03-27-21

Mooney provides a thorough description of liberal and conservative personality and behaviors, explaining how their particular attributes relate, backing it all up with thorough research. The reason he titled it “The Republican Brain,” rather than something about political psychology is simply that this topic would be interesting almost exclusively to liberals, as his research backs up. Liberals are more curious, more open, and more interested in understanding another’s perspective.

It also addresses certain questions that liberals are really curious about. Why are Republicans so wrong about so many things that are important to them? Is it just us? Is there something they know that we don’t? He examines the underlying psychology and what research finds about it to explain the mechanisms that mislead them and why they are so easily misled.

As someone who really cares about understanding the world and knowing the truth, I actually found this really comforting. As much as conservatives talk about not being able to trust the mainstream media, claiming that their own news sources are far more reliable, they lack the curiosity to know what other news sources even say and the propensity for deep, abstract reasoning that could lead one to reasonably make such a claim. The book also debunks a lot of the conservative bluster about things like liberal bias in education, noting that the kind of personality traits that might lead one to succeed in academia—curiosity, enjoyment of abstract reasoning, openness to ambiguity and new ideas, and the capacity to change one’s mind when presented with new facts—are ones that skew heavily liberal.

I would compare this book favorably with George Lakoff’s “Moral Politics” (also available on Audible), which examines the internal logic of liberal and conservative world views, showing that both are internally consistent and comprehensible from a few key ideas about them. While Lakoff’s work was more philosophical, concerned with the logic upholding these views, Mooney is more concerned with the psychology underlying the people who possess them. Both works are excellent and complement each other well, without covering the same material excessively.

Written in 2012, I found this book almost prophetic in describing phenomena that were clearly on display over the next decade. The level of Republican disinformation and denial of reality that dominated the Trump presidency, and the Republican Party throughout this era, was already clearly articulated years earlier.

The narrator was quite good, a competent reader who inflects well, is easily understood, and pronounces things correctly. Although not my ideal reader, the reading is very good.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants to understand the psychology underlying their own political views, as well of those of people of differing views. While not a light read (or listen) it’s clear and easy to follow for anyone interested in this subject. I heartily give it five stars.

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Hardcore Nerd Spec-Fic

Revisado: 09-23-19

This is an excellent narrative performance of one of my favorite novels. I would describe the story as a sort of a test of how big a nerd you are. The more nerdy, the more you’ll enjoy it. It’s got everything: math, geometry, architecture, philology, astrodynamics, quantum physics, Kantian philosophy, Plato’s forms, historical study, nuclear physics, relativity, metallurgy, musical theory, geography, and clocks, just to name a few topics it touches on. If those sorts of things interest you, you’ll love this.

The story itself is a grand narrative, told in the first person, by a monk within a sort of non-religious monastery, people who have set themselves apart from the outside world to safeguard, grow, and disseminate all the knowledge and wisdom of the ages. Its conversational narrative style makes it easy, enjoyable listening, telling a story that becomes ever vaster in scope. The characters are very well developed and interesting. The world itself is fascinating, intricately detailed, and entirely believable. It is the best sort of speculative fiction, using the people and the world they’re in to tell a good story.

It is so enjoyable watching the plot unfold that I hesitate to say too much about it. It’s the story of a young man in a world much like ours, as he and his friends uncover something mysterious in the sky, that is being kept from them.

This is one of the best narrations I’ve heard on Audible. The narrator reads it like a friend relating a story, coming across as perfectly natural, well-inflected, and just nice to listen to. He was well matched to the story and its particular voice.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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A masterpiece for the consumate nerd

Revisado: 09-23-19

A beautifully-crafted story for anyone who loves philosophy, physics, geometry, philology, history, military-theory, and biology.

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Heart Wrenching and Motivating

Revisado: 09-19-19

Focuses you on the high stakes, while demonstrating effective means to really make a difference.

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Excellent overview of the climate situation

Revisado: 05-26-19

This work gives an excellent overview of the current state of the climate situation, from the scale of the disaster, to the obstacles before us, to its moral and ethical questions, to potential solutions, to the things that are working in our favor. Although it was written in 2014, its information is still remarkebly timely, and it maintains a tone consistent with what we have learned since.

I like that she considered the cases for both pessimism and hope, starting with the former and concluding with the latter. The scale of the issue and its implications for our future are temendous, and the nuance and detail of the book reflect this. Like her other books, this one considers a serious problem in a way that presents both its details and its broad strokes in a meaningful way that impresses upon you the weight of what lies before us.

The narrator is also excellent, speaking clearly and with good nuance so that the work is easy to take in and understand, enabling the listener to get lost in the work.

I would highly recommend this to anyone for whom this is a relevant topic, which is to say everyone.

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A thorough examination of our accelerating crisis

Revisado: 03-08-19

This book examines in detail what scientists are saying about our future and how our own actions are the variables that will determine it. Going far beyond the standard 2° of warming we usually hear about, the author explains that those horrors are our best case scenario, and we learn what our more probable future of even more warning will mean.

I like that he examines not only the changes and the science behind it but our reaction to it. By this I don't mean climate denialism; there is only one political party in one country in the entire world that denies it. We are largely apathetic to what we already know, assuming that we'll fix it somehow and not worrying about it. He then looks at what a world with twice as many people and half as much food, much of that world uninhabitable, will be lime for us.

He closes the work by addressing the hopelessness and despair that his warnings could engender. But this is a sliding scale; we might not do the best possible, but we can at least leave a better world than business as usual would pass to future generations.

It will take a World War II level of engagement to deal with this crisis. This work examines the why and how of that question with great depth.

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