Books – Page 60 – artdiamondblog.com

Monkeys Want More Information

(p. 13) In his book “The Compass of Pleasure,” the Johns Hopkins neurobiologist David J. Linden explicates the workings of these regions, known collectively as the reward system, elegantly drawing on sources ranging from personal experience to studies of brain activity to experiments with molecules and genes. . . ,
. . . the biggest surprise, and the one most relevant to current debates, is a “revolutionary” experiment Linden discusses near the end of his book. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health gave thirsty monkeys the option of looking at either of two visual symbols. No matter which they moved their eyes to, a few seconds later the monkeys would receive a random amount of water. But looking at one of the symbols caused the animals to receive an extra cue that indicated how big the reward would be. The monkeys learned to prefer that symbol, which differed from the other only by providing a tiny amount of information they did not already have. And the same dopamine neurons that initially fired only in anticipation of water quickly learned to fire as soon as the information-providing symbol became visible. “The monkeys (and presumably humans as well) are getting a pleasure buzz from the information itself,” Linden writes.

For the full review, see:
CHRISTOPHER F. CHABRIS. “Think Again.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, October 16, 2011): 12-13.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date OCT. 14, 2011, and has the title “Is the Brain Good at What It Does?”)

The book under review, is:
Linden, David J. The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good. New York: Viking Adult, 2011.

Those with Full Bladders Are More Financially Prudent

(p. 12) The “your brain, warts and more warts” genre is well represented by the new book “Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives,” by Dean Buonomano, a neuroscientist at U.C.L.A.
. . .
. . . researchers have reported that subjects with full bladders exercised more self-control in a completely unrelated realm (financial decisions) than subjects who had been permitted to relieve themselves first — a finding that earned them this year’s Ig Nobel Prize in medicine, awarded annually to unusual or ridiculous-seeming scientific research.

The book under review, is:
Buonomano, Dean. Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

Can “Radical Transparency” Work “in Today’s Polarized and Litigious World”?

(p. B1) In 1993, Ray Dalio, the chairman of what is today the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates, received a memo signed by his top three lieutenants that was startlingly honest in its assessment of him.
It was a performance review of sorts, and not in a good way. After mentioning his positive attributes, they spelled out the negatives. “Ray sometimes says or does things to employees which makes them feel incompetent, unnecessary, humiliated, overwhelmed, belittled, pressed or otherwise bad,” the memo read. “If he doesn’t manage people well, growth will be stunted and we will all be affected.”
To Mr. Dalio, the message was both devastating and a wake-up call. His reaction: “Ugh. That hurt and surprised me.”
That moment helped push Mr. Dalio to rethink how he approached people and to begin developing a unique — and sometimes controversial — culture inside his firm, one based on a series of “principles” that place the idea of “radical transparency” above virtually all else.
. . .
(p. B5) Of course, the larger question is whether Mr. Dalio’s version of utopia — a place where employees feel comfortable offering blunt and in some cases brutal feedback — can exist outside Bridgewater’s controlled environment of mostly self-selecting individuals who either embrace the philosophy or quickly exit. Given the intense environment, as you might expect, there are horror stories of employees who have left in tears. Turnover among new employees is high.
Mr. Dalio’s critics — and there are many — say his principles offer permission to be verbally barbaric, and they question whether the $160 billion firm’s success is a product of such “radical transparency” or whether he can afford such a wide-ranging social experiment simply because the firm is so financially successful.
In truth, it is hard to imagine how harsh individual critiques in the workplace can work at many other organizations in today’s polarized and litigious world, where people are increasingly looking for “safe spaces” and those who say they are offended by a particular argument are derided as “fragile snowflakes.”

For the full commentary, see:
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. “DEALBOOK; Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio Dives Deeper Into the ‘Principles’ of Tough Love.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 5, 2017): B1 & B5.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Sept. 4, 2017, and has the title, “DEALBOOK; Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio Dives Deeper Into the ‘Principles’ of Tough Love.” )

The Dalio book, discussed above, is:
Dalio, Ray. Principles: Life and Work. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Gig Workers Have More Control Over Retirement Savings

(p. 2D) “There’s this myth that the Gig Economy equals Uber driver,” said Diane Mulcahy, who recently wrote a book on the subject. “If you are not a full-time employee in a full-time job, you are part of the Gig Economy.”
While gig workers have been around as long as there have been handymen, tutors, writers and musicians, what’s new about the Gig Economy is how quickly it has infiltrated white-collar professions and industries such as health care, finance, the law and technology, Mulcahy said. She is a private equity adviser for the Kauffman Foundation, which studies and supports entrepreneurship. As proof, she said, look at the growth of national online placement services like Toptal for tech and finance workers and Axiom for lawyers.
. . .
Managing volatile income can come down to ongoing business development and networking. Gig workers must make sure to keep business flowing through the development pipeline and writing contracts in a way that ensures ongoing cash flow, Mulcahy said.
Saving for retirement is one of the few areas where the independent contractor has an advantage because through IRAs and 401(k)s for the self-employed, they can save more quickly and at higher levels than their full-time brethren, she said.
This all comes as the economy has fundamentally changed.
“This is the future of work,” Mulcahy said. “The full-time employee is getting to be the worker of last resort.”

For the full story, see:
Miami Herald. “As full-time jobs slip away, Gig Economy movement leverages skills and passions into multiple jobs.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 6, 2017): 1D-2D.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the title, “As full-time jobs slip away, Gig Economy movement leverages skills and passions into multiple jobs.”)

The Mulcahy book, mentioned above, is:
Mulcahy, Diane. The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want. New York: AMACOM, 2016.

Has Jeff Bezos Given Up on Well-Paying Jobs for Average Citizens?

I have not read Scott Galloway’s new book, but suspect that there will be much in it to disagree with. But he makes a thought-provoking, and plausible, point, in the passage below, quoted from a Galloway op-ed piece.

(p. C3) I recently spoke at a conference the day after Jeff Bezos. During his talk, he made the case for a universal guaranteed income for all Americans. It is tempting to admire his progressive values and concern for the public welfare, but there is a dark implication here too. It appears that the most insightful mind in the business world has given up on the notion that our economy, or his firm, can support that pillar of American identity: a well-paying job.

For the full commentary, see:
Scott Galloway. “Amazon Takes Over the World.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 23, 2017): C3.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Sept. 22, 2017.)

The commentary, quoted above, is related to the author’s book:
Galloway, Scott. The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. New York: Portfolio, 2017.

Retail Entrepreneur J.C. Penney’s Utopian Community Collapsed

(p. A19) Many American entrepreneurs have obsessed over how to make good use of their wealth. The money of steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie built 1,689 public libraries. Julius Rosenwald, the genius behind Sears, Roebuck, devoted much of his fortune to funding schools for African-American children in the rural South. Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller gave vast sums to medical research, higher education and Baptist missions. For James Cash Penney, the obsession was farming. As David Delbert Kruger shows in “J.C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture,” the famed merchant’s devotion to his rural roots brought not just commercial success but also meaning in life.
. . .
Penney’s farming ventures began in 1921, when he bought 720 acres near Hopewell Junction, N.Y., hired a veteran breeder and worked with him to select the best Guernsey cattle he could find. Emmadine Farm would operate for more than 30 years, supplying breeding stock to small farmers around the country and eventually furnishing a large commercial dairy.
Four years later, Penney purchased 120,000 acres in northeast Florida, intending to create a utopian community where committed, morally upright families could build a future on 20-acre plots, living rent-free for a year and using buildings and equipment provided by Penney to grow their first crop before deciding whether to buy the land. He hired experts who encouraged the farmers to be self-sufficient and advised them on when and how to plant vegetables and fruit trees. Initially, Penney Farms flourished, but then disaster struck: crop prices collapsed, the farmers moved away and in 1930 Penney’s own fortune was wiped out. The following year, the entrepreneur was hospitalized following a nervous breakdown.

For the full review, see:
Marc Levinson. “BOOKSHELF; The Cowboy Capitalist.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Sept. 25, 2017): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sept. 24, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Kruger, David Delbert. J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017.

The Theologian Who Challenged Papal Infallibility

(p. A13) In his 2015 remarks to a joint session of Congress, Pope Francis was the picture of a modern pontiff. He noted that “the contemporary world . . . demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it.” He cheered the future technological contributions of “America’s outstanding academic and research institutions.” He saw it as his papal duty “to build bridges” and, departing the Capitol, asked for the good wishes of those “who do not believe or cannot pray.”
This was a far cry from his 19th-century predecessor Pius IX, who in 1864 issued a “Syllabus of Errors” to correct some of the alarming social and intellectual trends that had proliferated over the previous decades. Among the errors that “Pio Nono” condemned were the notions that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” and that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”
Those seeking to understand this dramatic transformation of the modern papacy would do well to read Thomas Albert Howard’s “The Pope and the Professor.” Mr. Howard, a professor at Valparaiso University, explains in captivating detail the circumstances of the papacy’s historical conservatism. He also resurrects the plucky scholar who sought to calibrate papal authority for modern times, the German theologian Ignaz von Döllinger (1799-1890). The conflict between Döllinger’s critique of papal supremacy and Pius IX’s defense makes for a riveting story that goes well beyond church history and explores the key intellectual and political developments of 19th-century Europe.

For the full review, see:
D.G. Hart. “BOOKSHELF; Infallibility and Its Discontents.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Aug. 30, 2017): A13.
(Note: ellipsis in original.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 29, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Howard, Thomas Albert. The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz Von Dollinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Brooklyn Reinvented Through Creative Destruction

(p. A13) The Wythe Hotel sits in the heart of Williamsburg, a Brooklyn neighborhood directly across the river from Manhattan. Opened to rave reviews in 2012, the hotel offers luxury dining at Reynard restaurant and spectacular city views from the rooftop bar. (Beers: $11.) Not long ago, the Williamsburg waterfront was a postindustrial wilderness, abandoned but for squatting artists; today it’s lined with glass towers and strolling millennials. The Wythe, set in a 1901 factory that once produced barrels for local breweries, features rooms with exposed-brick walls, spare concrete floors and beds made from salvaged wood. The streetscape retains a gritty feel–except at 3 a.m. on a Saturday, when party kids pour out of the nearby nightclubs and limos jostle for curb space with Ubers.
It’s easy to mock such scenes. But the borough’s boom deserves to be taken seriously, argues Kay S. Hymowitz in her engaging book, “The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back.” Ms. Hymowitz, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recounts how “a left-for-dead city”–“a cultural and economic peasant enviously eyeing the seigneur just across the East River”–has reinvented itself in recent decades and emerged as “just about the coolest place on earth.” What, she asks, turned Brooklyn into a global brand?
The history of the borough, according to Ms. Hymowitz, embodies what economist Joseph Schumpeter dubbed the “creative destruction” of capitalism–the continual obliteration of old modes of production by rising industries and new technologies. In colonial times, Dutch and English farmers tamed the lush hills of Long Island’s southwestern tip. Slavery flourished; the indigenous Canarsee people disappeared. In the 19th century, industrial growth annihilated the bucolic past, while immigration reshaped the city’s culture. Factories closed and capital fled in the postwar decades, shattering communities and leaving the built landscape to decay. That destruction, though, cleared the decks for another burst of creative energy–one that has made Brooklyn a model, and a cautionary tale, for the cities of tomorrow.

For the full review, see:

Michael Woodsworth. “BOOKSHELF; Kings County Comeback.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Aug. 17, 2017): A13.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Aug. 16, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Hymowitz, Kay S. The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017.

Biodiversity May Increase If We “Let the Winners Go on Winning”

(p. C7) In 2004 Mr. Thomas, a biologist at the University of York, garnered headlines with a study predicting that at least a fifth of land animals and plants would be “committed to extinction” by 2050. In “Inheritors of the Earth,” Mr. Thomas does not disavow those findings. A mass extinction is in full swing, he concedes. But the “gloom-merchants” are ignoring the success stories, Mr. Thomas argues, of animals and plants that are thriving in the Anthropocene. Nature, in many respects, “is coping surprisingly well,” he writes, and we shouldn’t ignore “the gain side of the great biological equation of life.”
In some corners of the planet, warmer, wetter conditions have allowed a greater variety of species to survive than would have just decades ago, he points out, while modern transport keeps new immigrants rolling in. The result is a greater number of species in many regions–more local biodiversity–even if the global picture may be trending toward less.
Many species that contribute to diverse and functioning ecosystems aren’t native–they did not evolve where they now occur. And introduced species can jump-start evolutionary processes. They compete with established species, prey on them, or breed with them, and they can occupy ecological niches once occupied by organisms that have died out or are faring poorly.
Mr. Thomas describes a honeysuckle in Pennsylvania that’s a hybrid of species from several remote continents, and yet delicious to local flies, which began to interbreed out of a shared love of its berries; there’s a deer with Japanese genes that’s doing just fine in Scotland’s woods. We should be cheering on these victors, he says, but instead many have been subjected to dubious campaigns to eradicate them.
Conservation usually aims to help the most imperiled species, and favors those with a longer claim to the habitats they occupy. But rather than “always try to defend the losers,” Mr. Thomas proposes, what if we embraced the dynamism of evolution and let the winners go on winning?

For the full review, see:
Jennie Erin Smith. “Picking Sides in the Fight for Survival.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 23, 2017): C7.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sept. 22, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Thomas, Chris D. Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction. New York: PublicAffairs, 2017.

Rise of Civilization Made Possible by Fish

(p. C7) The subtitle of “Fishing” rather misleads: Mr. Fagan, an archaeological writer and emeritus professor at U.C. Santa Barbara, devotes nearly half this book to the way fishing was practiced for hundreds of thousands of years in subsistence cultures around the world, beginning with pre-Neanderthal hominids trapping catfish in shallow pools or shrinking rivers. He goes on to survey ancient fishing practices in the East and the West, the Old World and the New, and then the rise and fall of civilizations, the ascendancy of commerce, and such contemporary tools as lines 60 miles long bearing 30,000 baited hooks.
Along the way we find that fishing not only sustained ancient empires and modern nations to a degree we may not have grasped before–the pyramids of Giza, Mr. Fagan notes, could not have been built without hundreds of workers processing thousands of Nile fish each day, both fresh and dried, for laborers–but nurtured them as well.
The cooperative nature of fishing, wherever catches were rich and stable, fostered complex and hierarchical communities long before cities arose. The technologies of boat-building and seamanship seeded exploration. Shells, beads and dried or salted fish sustained long-distance trade networks, and even today, Mr. Fagan writes, fish are “the most traded commodity in the world.” And of course preserved fish–nutritious, lightweight, long-lasting–were the primary fuel of merchant fleets, navies and conquering armies.
No coincidence, then, that civilizations flourished along seacoasts or river systems, and yet we conceive of civilization as primarily an agricultural phenomenon, and we celebrate the farmer as its founder and culture hero. By contrast, fishermen, writes Mr. Fagan, “lived at the obscure margins of society, anonymous, hard-working, and laconic, and largely outside the dramas that interest historians.”

For the full review, see:

Richard Adams Carey. “What the Land Owes to the Sea.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Sept. 23, 2017): C7.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Sept. 22, 2017.)

The book under review, is:
Fagan, Brian. Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.

Regulations Reduce Health Care Quality and Increase Health Care Cost

(p. A15) There are two million home health aides in the U.S. They spend more time with the elderly and disabled than anyone else, and their skills are essential to their clients’ quality of life. Yet these aides are poorly trained, and their national median wage is only a smidgen more than $10 an hour.
The reason? State regulations–in particular, Nurse Practice Acts–require registered nurses to perform even routine home-care tasks like administering eyedrops. That duty might not require a nursing degree, but defenders of the current system say aides lack the proper training. “What if they put in the cat’s eyedrops instead?” a health-care consultant asked me. In another conversation, the CEO of a managed-care insurance company wrote off home-care aides as “minimum wage people.”
But aides could do more. With less regulation and better training, they could become as integral to health-care teams as doctors and nurses. That could improve the quality of care while saving buckets of money for everyone involved.
. . .
. . . the potential cost savings are considerable. There are 2.3 million Medicaid patients receiving long-term care at home. Imagine if even half of them replaced one hourlong nurse’s visit a month with a stop by a trained aide. Assuming the nurse makes $35 an hour and the aide $15, that’s an immediate savings of roughly $275 million a year.

For the full commentary, see:
Paul Osterman. “Why Home Care Costs Too Much; Regulations often require that nurses do simple tasks like administer eyedrops.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., Sept. 13, 2017): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Sept. 12, 2017.)

The commentary, quoted above, is related to the author’s book:
Osterman, Paul. Who Will Care for Us? Long-Term Care and the Long-Term Workforce. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017.