Paul

More insight per minute than any AI book

Revisado: 04-01-24

I read a lot on AI. This has more new ideas per minute than any other book I’ve read (outside textbooks). 60% of the chapters are brilliant. 25% more are quite good. The remainder are fine. So many rock star writers.

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Feels ghost-written

Revisado: 02-16-24

It was very generic in many areas, self-contradictory in others. Maybe ten new ideas, and four of them are absurdly naive.

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Delivers as promised

Revisado: 10-04-23

Good depth, balance and storytelling. Overall a very enjoyable listen. Recommended for anyone interested in the topic.

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Lots of Data If You Don’t Look Deeper

Revisado: 09-30-23

There are a lot of studies mentioned. Most I looked up didn’t support the claim he made or lacked critical context. A few were jaw droppingly false, and I wondered if he misspoke, but it happened several times, which damaged his credibility for me. Good if you want red meat hooraying for your team. Not great if you want to understand the issue.

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Straightforward

Revisado: 02-13-23

Almost encyclopedic in its presentation. If you’re looking for straight facts, this is it. If you want memorable anecdotes, it’s probably not for you. Likewise, there are better histories of you want a history of a specific location or DnD supplement.

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Great Science, Spotty Policy

Revisado: 01-28-23

The science portion was excellent, though becoming outdated. The policy portion lacked essential context, had some erroneous facts, and omitted counter arguments. It was still helpful (and more even handed than most), but take it with a grain of salt.

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So insightful, even when you disagree

Revisado: 07-25-22

This is one of the most insightful books I’ve read in ages. Ultimately, accepting his facts leads me to very different conclusions. But absolutely worth the read.

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Red Meat for Supporters, Not a Great Course

Revisado: 07-05-22

Starts great, but then quickly moves to contradictions and equivocation to show broad, unsupported points. For example, she argues that Blacks were not disproportionately on welfare, but she still treats welfare restrictions as an attack on Blacks. She does the same with other policies, and provides only absolute values when percentages would be the relevant metric or vice versa. She seems to define civil rights laws as those that align with the Democratic Party, without discussing the good faith reasons one might oppose a policy like defunding police or support a policy like voter identification. With that definition. She then tautologically shows that Republicans hate Black people. She talks about President Biden with praise that will sound bizarre to anyone who has seen how 2022 is turning out.

Overall, it feels unsharpened by an editor with an opposing viewpoint, so it ultimately fails at being a fair handed bit of education. Not a great starting point for the topic, but useful if you’re looking to understand that side.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

Questionable Accuracy

Revisado: 12-08-21

There are a lot of facts in this course that don’t align with facts taught in other Great Courses. Maybe he’s right? Maybe they are? It’s not an issue I’ve run into so frequently with other courses.

He also injected lots of modern opinion and judgment, particularly about why religion is terrible. I kept listening because I thought it would get better, but it didn’t. I just wanted to learn history.

Try instead Michael Bailey’s Magic and Superstition in Europe. It’s more fact-focused and more in depth (though it doesn’t cover Salem, though this barely does).

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Academic, Not for Littles

Revisado: 06-06-21

I bought this to listen to with my kids, who enjoy Gaiman’s Norse Mythology and D’Aulaire’s Greek Mythology. But this was at the same time too academic and too focused on sex for kids, which is an impressive combination to pull off. The sex isn’t graphic—he merely says “they slept together”—but sex is the goal of the hero in many of the tales. Not a knock on the author, of course. Just an advisory to the listener.

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