Reading List for 09.03.2024

Labor Day weekend is always a big deal for me because it means FOOTBALL SEASON! This admittedly cuts into my Saturday night reading, but it means cooler weather is on the horizon and my Vols are on television, and it just puts me in a fantastic mood. Oddly enough, Labor Day this year also marks another signal -- the final push of what many deem the most important Election Season since Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860. I didn't plan on it, but two of the books I read this month deal directly with issues this election will be decided on. No matter which way you are leaning in the coming election, I encourage all of you to read as much as possible on the issues that matter to you, and don't just take what you see on TV and social media as truth. As we'll see below, the amount of misinformation is increasing exponentially. On with the books!

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

You've no doubt heard of Harari in the last several years. His first book, Sapiens, looked at how humans evolved to be the dominant species on the planet. His next book, Homo Deus, looked to the future and pondered what life, intelligence and consciousness might look like centuries from now. His newest book is an attempt look at the major forces shaping society today all over the world and how they are likely to influence the future, and a main tenant is the loss of faith in Democracy (Liberalism) in recent decades. He spends chapters looking at the political challenges we face moving forward, such as nationalism, religion, and immigration. He looks at how differing senses of humility, ignorance, and justice cause major fractions in the populace. People will read this book and take different things away from it, but Harari has proved himself again as a great thinker with the challenges and possible solutions he presents. If you do end up enjoying this one, or you enjoyed his previous books, Harari actually has another book coming out in September called Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.

Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality by Renee DiResta

I will go as far as to say this book should be required reading for all adults in the 21st century. The topic is that important. DiResta is the Technical Research Manager for the Stanford Internet Observatory, a program that researches the abuse in information technologies. The book itself starts with a history of how rumors and propaganda have infiltrated all media platforms for centuries, but the main focus is on people who use social networks and other media platforms to spread provably false misinformation and create bespoke realities. There are two major drivers of this, something DiResta calls the "majority illusion" and social media algorithms. The algorithms that social media companies use are not set up to spread the most truthful information, but the most viral. The more interactions a post receives, the more people see it, whether the information is true or not. This allows the majority illusion to take hold. Q'anon is a prime example. A small, a few thousand or less, group of people who know how to make engaging information and utilize the tools social media companies provide to amplify the message can make a minority point of view look like a majority point of view. Anti-vaccine influencers also fall into this category. Most people who get their children vaccinated don't go on social media to post about it. Therefore, the minority anti-vaxx opinion makes up the majority of social media information on the subject. It is the single most threatening factor to our Democracy today, and we have seen politicians and pundits such as Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Tucker Carlson use this tactic to further their agenda (Note: I don't mean to imply that only Republicans engage in this, but provable misinformation examples are much easier to find from these examples). It no longer matters if what you say is true. As Diresta explains, "if you make it viral, you make it true." I could go on for three more paragraphs about this book, but I'll leave you with a reiteration of the beginning. READ THIS BOOK. Education is the only way to fight what is happening on social media.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Grann got on my radar with his book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and th Birth of the FBI, which I highly recommend. I have also always had an interest in what I call "exploration" books. One of the things humanity has largely lost in the 21st Century is the ability to explore "new worlds." Reading about expeditions to the North Pole (Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition) and through the continent of Africa (Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley Livingstone) takes you back to a time when there was so much we didn't understand about the geographical world and its inhabitants. This book by Grann follows an explorer named Percy Fawcett as he makes multiple expeditions into the unknown Amazon. Fawcett ended up being largely responsible for mapping the borders of Brazil and Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. However it was his last expedition, in 1925, when he was looking for an ancient city called Z that Fawcett and two others disappeared without a trace. Grann follows the footsteps of up to 100 other explorers who went looking for Fawcett, the majority of which died during the effort. It's a really interesting look at just how inhospitable the Amazon can be.

Books I'm Excited About for Next Month

Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War by Raj Shah

10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People by David Yaeger

The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest and Play by Frank Andre Guridy

Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future by Mike Maples, Jr.

As always, I'd love to hear from you if you've read any of these books or have thoughts on them. My biggest goal for this newsletter is to build a group of people who enjoy discussing non-fiction books and what can be learned. Better yet, if you know of another book that's worth checking out, I'd love to hear about it!

Enjoy the books, have a wonderful month, and let me know what you learn!

-Blake