The 13 Books I Finished in February
If you prefer to listen rather than read, this blog is available as a podcast here. Or if you want to listen to just this post:
The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth by Jonathan Rauch
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by: Helen Joyce
The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup by: Evan Hughes
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by: Adam M. Grant
The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories about Defying the Impossible by: Various
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty by: Robert K. Massie
Greenlights by: Matthew McConaughey
The Midnight Library by: Matt Haig
Trouble on Paradise: Expeditionary Force, Book 3.5 by: Craig Alanson
Black Ops: Expeditionary Force, Book 4 by: Craig Alanson
Zero Hour: Expeditionary Force, Book 5 by: Craig Alanson
Mavericks: Expeditionary Force, Book 6 by: Craig Alanson
Renegades: Expeditionary Force, Book 7 by: Craig Alanson
As you can see I read even more books in February than I did in January. I took a trip to Alaska, where I mostly did stuff like driving, walking and snowshoeing and those all combine well with audiobook listening. So I did a lot of it.
If you’re interested in more pictures you can email me.
I- Eschatological Reviews
The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth
By: Jonathan Rauch
280 Pages
Briefly, what was this book about?
How both right and left have abandoned the reality-based community, with its constitution of knowledge, and how returning to, and strengthening that community is the solution to all our problems.
Who should read this book?
If you think the vast epistemological crisis we’re suffering is purely a feature of the right or the left, then it might be worth reading this book, though even in that case you should probably just skip to the chapters in question. (Chapter 6 is about the sins of the right and Chapter 7 is about the sins of the left.) Beyond that the book is a rehash of classical liberal arguments that have been made better elsewhere.
General Thoughts
In some of the press for his novel Termination Shock (see my review here), Neal Stephenson recommended this book, along with five others. I’m a big fan of Neal Stephenson, and I’d heard good things about it from other sources as well, so I was surprised to find it to be unimpressive. Though perhaps calling it unimpressive is both too harsh and too kind. The amount of work that obviously went into it was definitely impressive. Rauch’s obvious passion was also impressive. Accordingly, calling it unimpressive is being too harsh. But on the other hand, to merely say that it’s unimpressive is to be far too kind to the book—to overlook its central and glaring flaw. To cut to the chase: the book is hopelessly naive.
Despite “constitution of knowledge” being the book’s title, the book’s premise actually hinges on the idea that there is a “reality-based community” (RBC) that follows and maintains that constitution. It would be one thing if Rauch was claiming a constitution of knowledge is something we need, but have never had. Under those circumstances we might usefully aspire to acquire one, and furthermore optimistically assume that it will fix the problems he describes. But if we already have such a constitution and a group that reveres it, then our task becomes determining whether it ever fixed the problem, and if so what caused it to stop. Under the first scenario it’s permissible to imagine that the constitution will fix the problem, under the second scenario we know that it didn’t, and our whole task is to determine why.
This is where Rauch’s naiveté comes into play. We know the RBC failed, so arguing that we just need to strengthen it without understanding why it failed is just to double down on that failure.
To be clear he spends a lot of time on what has happened, but it’s always happening outside of the RBC. I would almost say that this creates a book length version of the no true Scotsman fallacy but Rauch doesn’t even make it that far, because that would require him to concretely define the RBC and then to offer explanations for times when it failed. Instead Rauch’s RBC is an amorphous designation, something described in anecdotes, but also somehow concrete enough to provide the answers to all of our questions, and if this were not enough, the RBC is so flawless that it is the originator of none of our problems.
To the extent that Rauch does define the RBC it probably includes scientists and journalists. But already you can see where we have the beginnings of no true Scotsman, because he’s pretty selective in the scientists he profiles, and as you might imagine huge swaths of right-wing media have been excluded from being designated as journalists. But if scientists and journalists are part of the RBC, upon which Rauch pins all his hopes, then one would think it would be very important to examine instances where they failed. When discussing science it’s remarkable that he never mentions the replication crisis. And the journalistic profession, no matter how narrowly you want to define it, contains even more examples of times the constitution of knowledge was violated. One presumes that Rauch includes the NYT in his RBC designation, and yet he makes no mention of the egregious twisting of the historical record perpetrated by the 1619 Project, nor the changes made to its assertions without an accompanying formal retraction, a violation of one of the ironclad rules of the constitution of knowledge.
Rauch does mention the NYT, but only to illustrate the problems of left-wing cancel culture. For his example he uses the Tom Cotton editorial, where the younger members of the editorial staff freaked out because they disagreed with Tom Cotton’s viewpoint, but rather than rebutting it they tried to cancel it.
To cut to the chase (and recall I still have 12 more books to review) Rauch’s criticism of the right is comprehensive and deep, while his criticism of the left is narrow and perfunctory. One gets the impression that to the extent the RBC can be identified, Rauch believes it resides with the left. And that if young people could just be weaned off their desire to cancel opinions they disagree with and learn to engage with them, the left could re-assume the role of the RBC and everything would turn out okay.
Even if I agreed with this narrow diagnosis I still think Rauch would be understating the difficulties involved in recovery. He points out that the underlying reason for canceling instead of engaging is the phenomenon of safetyism. In making this point he draws a lot on Jonathan Haidt’s and Greg Lukianoff’s Coddling of the American Mind (see my discussion of that here). I think there are other things that contributed to the creation of cancel culture, but even if safetyism was the only disease the left was grappling with, it still represents a huge and deeply embedded behavioral trend that goes back decades and has penetrated nearly everything.
But of course I don’t agree with Rauch’s narrow diagnosis, I think the problems created by the left are just as consequential as the problems which originated on the right. Rauch makes much of the importance institutions play in maintaining the constitution of knowledge, and of all those institutions none is more critical than the university. There’s also no institution which is more heavily tilted to the left, and if we snapped our fingers and got rid of safetyism, the university would still be left with an enormous array of problems.
Eschatological Implications
What are these problems of which I speak? There are many, and one of the many purposes of my blog is to document them in all their variety, but for the moment let’s just focus on one:
The acquisition of truth and knowledge, regardless of how well designed your “constitution”, is neither as easy nor as certain as it once was. I know I say this a lot, but we have picked the low-hanging fruit.
Rauch mentions Newton and positions him as one of the very first members of the RBC, as he should. And while I would not say that Newton’s discovery was easy, it is very easy to replicate and beyond that ironclad in it’s predictions. Since his time science has only gotten more difficult and less ironclad, to the point where these days most findings can’t be replicated and even if they can, they mostly just suggest probabilities rather than laying down the law in the fashion of Newton. All of this means that those parts of “reality” people are inclined to fight about are hard to pin down. Science is unable to swoop in and grant either side a decisive victory, and so the war continues.
This is why the book is, at its core, hopelessly naive. Science is not powerful enough to provide a reality on which to base a community, and that is particularly the case when it comes to the issues that divide us.
Of course everyone wants science to be able to decide such issues, and at the risk of overgeneralizing, the two sides have come at it from opposite directions. The left has adopted the tactic of weaponizing scientific authority, and in response the right has weaponized doubt. Rauch is definitely lined up on the left side of things and his book is replete with appeals to scientific authority rather than appeals to actual science. The difference can be subtle. But if you assert that the authority of institutions which conduct science is the same as science, as Rauch does, that only works if they have no other motivations, and no ideological biases, but these days everyone has both of those.
Finally, a couple of very short points, points that I was going to expand on but ran out of space.
First, for all the problems I have with the rationalist community, and there are definitely more than a few, I think they are as close to an RBC as you’re likely to find these days. And of course the most common criticism I hear about this community is that it leans right.
Second, I think Rauch’s definition of “reality” is fatally hampered by ignoring the is-ought problem. Science is at its most powerful when it’s telling us what is, it has no actual ability to tell us what ought to be. To the extent people try to use it in that fashion, bias enters into science. As an example of this bias, Rauch’s view of science-based reality ends up being a decidedly progressive one, even if he takes aim at some of its worst excesses.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine if there’s any connection between the progressive “ought” bias and the many excesses Rauch takes aim at. Speaking of which:
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality
by: Helen Joyce
331 Pages
Briefly, what was this book about?
A comprehensive overview of the history of the transgender movement culminating with a discussion of it’s many manifestations in the present day, and their attendant overreach.
Who should read this book?
Helen Joyce is one of the editors of The Economist. If you already think that magazine is horribly transphobic, then you’re probably not going to like this book, though it is also a book length defense of that position if you’re looking to steelman it. On the other hand, if you feel that The Economist is a moderate voice of reason when it comes to this controversy, then you’ll really appreciate this book, even as it horrifies you.
General Thoughts
Let’s start with two personal observations:
One, I’ve never been much of a feminist. (I know you’re all very surprised.) I think that, particularly once you account for differences in interest, second wave feminism largely succeeded, and after that things get complicated. To the extent my feminism has a peak it was reached while reading this book. Joyce makes the claim that there are a lot of people who have been victimized by transgender ideology, the vast majority of these people are women. Reading their stories I have never felt more deeply the need for feminism, particular feminism centered on the needs of natal females.
Two, I am more and more convinced that, should we survive the next 50 years, that people will put transgenderism in the same category as eugenics. Something which seemed sensible, but actually caused enormous and numerous harms to some of the very most vulnerable people, all in the name of what, at the time, was considered the height of progressivism. I don’t expect to live 50 more years, but I’m confident enough in things that I’m willing to make this same bet with a 30 year time horizon.
As I’ve already repeatedly pointed out, I have a lot of books to cover this month, and I imagine that anyone reading this has already made up their mind one way or the other on the transgender issue, so I won’t spend much time in the weeds. Further complicating the discussion, much of the data is anecdotal, which is easy to be horrified by if that’s your inclination and alternatively easy to dismiss if you’re of the opposite inclination.
As an interesting side note, part of the reason why there isn’t better data (and this firmly relates to the previous book review) is that many institutions don’t track transwomen separately from women and transmen separately from men, hewing to the supposedly “reality” that there’s no reason to, they’re the same.
In an attempt to tie all of these things together let’s talk briefly about Canadian prisons. Joyce points out that getting data from the relevant Canadian authorities on the number of transwomen housed in female prisons has proven to be exceptionally difficult. But it has happened that men who have done nothing to transition other than identifying as female have been transferred to women’s prisons. One of the best people working this beat is a female former inmate named Heather Mason. If you’re interested in what she has to say here’s one of her tweets:
We have Self-ID in Canada they started transferring males when I was still in. There have been sexual assaults, physical assaults, pregnancies, abortions, and HIV passed on. One of the males beat up the woman he impregnated and she miscarried his baby. Incarcerated women are silenced
And if you’re really interested in what she has to say my friend Stuart Parker interviewed her on his podcast. The anecdotes are horrifying, the question is how widespread is the problem. Which takes us to:
Eschatological Implications
How you feel about the long term implications of this issue will depend on how you feel about the aforementioned anecdotes. The anecdotes are extensively sourced, so you can’t ignore them, but it’s certainly possible to argue that they are just inevitable speed bumps on the way to our glorious, completely authentic future. Alternatively you might argue that, yes, transgender identification and wokeism more generally has gone to far, but that it’s about to (or has already) peaked, so yes the pendulum has swung too far, but it’s about to swing back.
If you take either of those positions then you might be comfortable minimizing the anecdotes or at least delaying doing anything expansive or hasty based on them. But there are of course some who believe that these situations are not temporary, that they’re not going away, that in fact what we’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg.
I think as with so many things that we should hope that people are starting to realize things have gone too far, but act as if they’re not and it’s a crisis. Though with transgender issues there’s another problem: “people”, as in the majority, mostly aren’t aware of the excesses of gender self-id. As Joyce points out, transgender activists have mostly succeeded by flying under the radar. To the extent that gender self-id is the norm, it has mostly been accomplished through the courts, not national referendums. As a consequence, most voters have no idea that murderers and rapists are being transferred to women’s prisons based merely on self-id. Nor do they really understand what self-id entails, that merely declaring yourself to be a different gender makes it so, without any other efforts to transition.
To sum up here’s what I’m worried about:
To reference the previous book: the surreality and Orwellian tactics of gender self-id is doing lasting and potentially irreversible harm to the RBC.
Gender self-id is easy to abuse, and instances of it being abused are going to become more frequent.
Transgender advocacy has not peaked and it will get worse before it gets better.
Even if we do get rid of the craziness around the edges, it will still be mainstream to prescribe puberty blockers and practice unquestioned affirmation, which has a nearly a zero percent success rate, as opposed to waiting things out which has a 90% success rate. Success with what? Making people happy in the body they were born with.
It’s amazing how radical that last suggestion has become. The idea that the best option is not taking drugs or undergoing major, frequently sterilizing surgery.
II- Capsule Reviews
The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup
by: Evan Hughes
288 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
The history of Insys Therapeutics and in particular their drug Subsys, an under the tongue fentanyl spray, which was approved in 2012, when we were already well into the opioid crisis.
Who should read this book?
If you’re really interested in the opioid crisis this is a fascinating footnote. And the way Insys marketed Subsys is appalling, but if you’re familiar with the way Purdue marketed Oxycontin then you’ve already heard that story.
General Thoughts
This was another book I read in preparation for my eventual post (maybe my next one?) on the drug crisis. I don’t think it added much to my understanding of the subject, which is why I would only weakly recommend it.
What’s most interesting is how Insys was basically able to re-run the same playbook as Purdue after Purdue had already gotten in trouble for it. Recall that Purdue’s first settlement was in 2007, but despite that Insys was still able to come along and do basically the same thing in 2012. Now to be fair it was on a much smaller scale, and Insys was more brazen than Purdue, but on the other side of the equation you have to consider that we’re talking about fentanyl. If that drug doesn’t make people pay close attention I don’t know what would.
Of course people did eventually pay attention, but it took five years, and probably would have taken longer if Insys had been just a little bit more careful. And in those five years the owner of Insys, John Kapoor became a billionaire, and I’m sure hundreds if not thousands of people died. One could say that the government eventually fixed things, but given that this all took place well into the crisis, why did it take so long? And perhaps the better question is why did they approve the drug in the first place?
If the government can’t be trusted to keep an eye on something with such a clear potential for abuse, perhaps we can turn to the market? Here again we’re going to be disappointed. In the two and a half years after the release of Subsys, Insys’s stock price increased by 1500% (which is how Kapoor became a billionaire). And it was still beating the performance of the S&P 500 even a couple of years after people started getting arrested.
If you can’t trust the government to manage this sort of thing, and you can’t trust the market, all that’s left is the individual and the community. Consider that a preview of my upcoming post.
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
by: Adam M. Grant
320 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
Questioning assumptions, deep thinking, examining the evidence, all the stuff recommended by the “constitution of knowledge”.
Who should read this book?
If you’ve read Scout Mindset you probably don’t need to read this book as they cover very similar territory. But otherwise anyone interested in leveling up their critical thinking would probably benefit from this book.
General Thoughts
As is so often the case it feels like the books I read in a given month end up being connected. This one is definitely closely related to The Constitution of Knowledge and I might even argue that it gives a better description of what that constitution entails, particularly for the individual, than Rauch’s book. But as a consequence it also fails in similar ways. Though because Think Again is less ambitious its failures are both more subtle and more forgivable.
The problem with both books is they promise if you dig deep enough that you will eventually strike bedrock, and unfortunately that’s just not the case. There is no bottom to the complexity of the modern world. It’s turtles all the way down. This is not to say that I think critical thinking is pointless. It’s tremendously important and Think Again is a great introduction to it. The problem comes when people assume/assert that critical thinking will solve our problems. That if we trained everyone to think critically that we would all end up on the same page and our disagreements would go away. That’s not what has happened, and despite the efforts of books like this it’s not what will happen. Critical thinking is not a method for achieving societal harmony.
The Moth Presents Occasional Magic: True Stories about Defying the Impossible
by: Various
368 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A collection of stories originally told as part of The Moth Radio Hour, an NPR program featuring amazing stories.
Who should read this book?
If you’re already a fan of The Moth radio program you might like this handy “best off” collection. Otherwise if you like stories these are pretty good, though not as exceptional as I would have expected.
General Thoughts
I expected a truly extraordinary collection of stories, and in the end they were just good, with a couple that qualified as great. I think part of it is that (like many people) I'm weary of content where the primary point is to impart some lesson about social justice, and not to just be a good story. I didn’t keep track, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say that 80% of the stories in the book had a very clear social justice message. Which is not to say the stories weren’t good, they were, it just made things repetitive, and ever so slightly preachy.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
by: Robert K. Massie
672 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
The reign of Tsar Nicholas, in which he was strongly influenced by his wife Alexandra who in turn was strongly influenced by Rasputin. With particular emphasis on World War I and their tragic end.
Who should read this book?
Anyone who loves great history, particularly if you’re interested in the history of Russia.
General Thoughts
Massie is probably my favorite historian, and this is probably his masterpiece. I can’t possibly do a 672 page book justice in my short review, so I’ll just quickly list off a few things that stood out to me:
However bad you think Rasputin was, the truth is he was far worse.
Nicholas and Alexandra despite making nearly all the mistakes you could make as a leader were nevertheless good people who were basically doing their best.
This whole period is one of the most fertile for asking “What if?” What if Alexei hadn’t been a hemophiliac? What if Rasputin had never existed? What if World War I hadn’t happened or had happened two years later?
It was fascinating to hear about the immense difficulties they had in keeping Alexei from injuring himself by being rambunctious. You get the feeling that if anything he was less rambunctious than a normal boy of his age. But these days I can’t imagine there being any problem. Of all the things which have suffered over the last few decades I think the rambunctiousness of boys has to be very high on the list.
304 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
This is both McConaughey's memoir but also his book of life advice.
Who should read this book?
If you are a particular fan of McConaughey you will probably really enjoy this book. And in particular I would recommend listening to it as he also does the narration.
General Thoughts
I like McConaughey, and I liked the book. That said it wasn’t revelatory or anything like that. Also I think I had already heard the book’s best stories during his appearance on the Graham Norton show.
Also like so many memoirs written by successful people this book vastly understates the role of luck. McConaughey was lucky to be born fantastically good looking. And lucky to just happen to be around and looking for work when Dazed and Confused was being filmed.
But as has often been said McConaughey is alright, and if you go in looking for some of that alright-ness you’ll find it. But it doesn’t break any new ground as either a memoir or as a self-help book.
by: Matt Haig
304 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
After attempting suicide Nora Seed finds herself in a library where she can try out every possible life she might have lived, and choose the one that will actually make her happy.
Who should read this book?
Dolly Parton called this a “charming book”. If that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for you’ll probably enjoy this book, and it’s short.
General Thoughts
One downside of reading books fast which I didn’t mention in my defense of the practice is that if a book is short enough there’s very little resistance to adding it to your library. So for a while there if I heard of a book that seemed interesting and it was less than 10 hours I would almost reflexively grab it. This book was from that period. Which is not to say it was a bad book, I quite enjoyed it, but it wasn’t so light as to be diversionary, and the areas in which it was serious were not areas in which I needed additional seriousness.
Beyond that a few rapid fire thoughts:
It reminded me of Short Stay in Hell which I read almost exactly a year ago, though where Stay was about as pessimistic as it’s possible to imagine, Library was pretty optimistic.
It’s always interesting for me that when people want to signal contentment and happiness it almost always involves being married and having children. I’m not sure if that’s because, on some deep level it’s true or if it’s just something that’s easy for people to grasp.
Minor spoiler: It kind of ends up in the same place as It’s a Wonderful Life. And to the extent that people criticize it, it’s for this, or more generally not being creative, but I find it hard to imagine how it could be otherwise.
I guess I also wonder how some 300 page books are 8 hours while some 300 page books are nearly 18 hours. Speaking of which:
By: Craig Alanson
98 Pages
276 Pages
299 Pages
289 Pages
314 Pages
Briefly, what is this series about?
Military science fiction about humanity suddenly discovering that the galaxy is full of super powerful warring aliens, and their attempts to avoid being collateral damage in those wars.
Who should read these books?
As I mentioned last month this is a quick diverting series that goes down super easy. If you’re looking for a fun diversion and you enjoyed previous books in the series it’s probably worth it to continue.
General Thoughts
One of the reasons why this series is so easy and quick to read is that the number of characters is very limited. However, by the time you get to book seven that strength can become a weakness, as the characters start to become caricatures. This happens with all long running sitcoms and maybe that’s the best way to describe this series, a military sci-fi sitcom. Another weakness of sitcoms is repetitive plots, which is also a weakness of these books. And I will admit that by book seven I was starting to get annoyed. I have various reasons for believing that he might turn a corner in book eight, so I’m going to keep reading. Also I continue to enjoy his world building and the mysteries he’s introduced and seeing how those mysteries resolve would be almost enough on it’s own to keep me reading, though probably not at quite the blistering pace I’ve maintained thus far.
For all the criticisms I have of a reality based community, I hope that you consider me part of it. Even if or especially if my version of reality is uniquely eccentric. If it is, as they say, just crazy enough to work then consider donating. Craziness isn’t as cheap as it’s made out to be.