Sorry I'm Late. I Didn't Want to Come

By Jessica Pan.

Jessica is an introvert much more deeply than I am. She spends a year extroverting and writing about it. She networks, uses apps to make friends, takes an improve comedy course, does standup, *and* horror of horrors, hosts a dinner party. 

I am an introvert in a somewhat different position than Jessica. I don't mind being alone. I don't worry that I have too few friends. Perhaps its because I have a husband who makes up for all that.

None the less, this is a fun read. 

MIne! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives

By Michael Heller & James Salzman.

Ownership is a complex thing. This book provides a great discussion about how we decide ownership, and the consequences thereof. For every ownership scheme, there are winners and loser. Upsides and downsides.

Ownership schemes...

• First come first served.
• Possession is nine-tenths of the law
• You reap what you sow.
• My home is my castle.
• Our bodies, our selves.
• The meek shall inherit the earth

Many of these schemes have the benefit of being "bright line." Clear. Unambiguous. Easy to Administrate. Easy for people to work out disputes themselves. For example.. first come, first served... possession is nine-tenths of the law... you reap what you sow... my home is my castle. With these rules average people can sort out who owns what without needing someone to arbitrate. These rules work well when resources are plentiful. However, when resources  are scare, they create a race to the bottom-- the tragedy of the commons. Consider water rights in doubt ridden California. Or fishing rights in Alaska. To thrive in the long run, participants must move past these schemes when resource exhaustion is inevitable.

Resource gridlock-- sometimes so many people own needed resources that commerce can't happen. Think of a patent that's not being used. Or a farm or vacation property owned by so many heirs that no one can agree what to do with it. Care must be taken to ensure that owned resources can stay useful, that ownership is passed on cleanly after the original owner dies.

The book urges us to think through problems with a few tools...

ex ante/ex post. Ex ante: looking forward-- what decision will have the best consequences going forward. Ex post: looking back after the fact-- Who acted badly? Who well? What consequences are fairest for those in the past. Judges, by design, my decide "ex post." Legislators should decide "ex ante." 

Pay attention to and think though ownership design. Every ownership scheme has it's winners, it's losers, and those who stand by. Think about the "Reclining space" behand a chair on an a jet. Who owns it? Does the person who wants to recline? Does the person whose leg space is taken away? Airlines usually don't have policies on this. They prefer the two passengers to work it out themselves. They could set a clear policy. But why should they? By staying uninvolved in this ownership dispute, they deflect anger to other passengers, while they quietly reduce the space between seats. "It's not the airline's fault that my knees are hitting the seat in front of me. It's that jerk passenger." No, it really was the airlines choice to make that happen. 

We are often afraid of solving a problem because it creates a slippery slope. Instead, can we think of a "sticky step."-- a set of concrete things that we can do to address a problem.

Ownership in the future-- we have started renting things through microtransactions and subscriptions fees. Spotify v.s. CDs. AirBnb. This is concentrating wealth.

The Dark Forest

Part two of  Cixin Liu's increasingly dark "Three Body Problem" series.

Liu has a theory as to why our galaxy appears so empty of life. Species are hiding from each other. When a species does announce its self to the galaxy, a nearby more-advance and more-paranoid species will destroy it. Slowly our galaxy fills up with paranoid civilizations hiding from each other.

The book then is about earth's first encounter with an alien civilization, and how wrong that goes.

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

 by Albert Camus

I was drawn to this book because I heard that, in it, Camus argues against suicide in a meaningless world. As I started reading, I realized that Camus was writing for people who were approaching suicide as a reasoned intellectual process. This is distinctly different from my experience where the suicidal are just trying to end their pain.

Maybe I'll try reading again in the future. But for now, I can find my own happiness in a very tough world, so I'm not there right now.

Theories of International Politics and Zombies

By Daniel W. Drezner.

Another book that I didn't make it though. It seems to be a serious treatment of what international politics would be like during a zombie outbreak. 

I think I was hoping for a humorous attempt to teach international politics.  

Breath. The New Science of a Lost Art

By James Nestor.

Breath through your noise. Chew.

I aborted reading this book. To many conclusions are drawn from too thin of an experience.

"There is nothing as inspiring as someone doing good, in public, when things feel hideous and doomed. Let’s do some good, and let’s resist the temptation to browbeat those around us into doing good better. It’s not truly empathy if it’s procured at knifepoint, from the depleted." 

-Dahlia Lithwick

I appreciate that quote. I've seen it happen a few times recently in the form of well-meaning people peppering someone who is exhausted with advice, then watching these well-meaning people become frustrated when their advice is not warmly and quickly received.

I have been reading a lot recently, though.

I've aborted reading one book-- the Road Less Traveled. I used to read it once a year. Then I read the tale of the authors life, and his multiple infidelities. It turned me off of the book. It occurred to me that perhaps the challenge of life is much more than knowing the ways of the wise. It's equally important to be disciplined enough to actually improve yourself. The Road Less Traveled is very weak and how to achieve that discipline.