Thoughts on Books, Q2'24

Introduction
I have spent less time reading this quarter than I would have liked, for various reasons. I have still be able to read some books, some of which I enjoyed and several of which I did not. I have thought for a while that there are books that should be written, books that should not, and books that are written because that is what the author does. Obviously, the former should be encouraged and the middle discouraged. But what of those books which are written by 'people who write books'? Of this, I am less sure. Most of these are terrible, and not necessarily because the author is a bad writer, or ignorant. It is more because of the audiences for whom they are intended. Books written by people who write books tend to be too dumbed down while revelling in their own smartness, because I suppose that is what the typical Waterstones shopper wants--to feel smart without ever being challenged. It is no surprise that people who write books subsequently write books that meet this criterion, and end up being disappointing as a result (I would suggest this is a tendency in publishing that cuts across the political divide, too). Equally, I hate the idea that knowledge should be inaccessible or otherwise gatekept, and I suppose to the extent that people who write books also write accessible books, I cannot fault them for that. I just wish there were a bit more humility; a bit more acknowledgement that what is being given is a disgestible synthesis, rather than the definitive article. I also recognise that, as an academic, I am often a much more operational reader than someone who reads for pleasure, and from that perspective, I am more likely than most to be peaved off at books that skirt detail in exchange for delicate prose. Anyway...

Below is my list of books I plan on reading:

1. Super Imperialism, Michael Hudson
2. How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters
3. The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, Wang Hui
4. Determined, Robert Sapolsky
5. Nuclear War, Annie Jacobsen
6. Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina
7. Trade Winds, Christian de Beukelaer

Tools for Conviviality, Ivan Illich

I read 'Tools for Conviviality' in an effort to understand the notion of conviviality, which Illich introduces in 'Deschooling Society' but, in typical Illichian fashion, fails to further elaborate upon, or if he does, fails to do so in a straightforward way. None of this distracts from Illich, in my opinion, because he always seems to have interesting things to say. But trying to understanding Illichian theory is a bit harder in this regard. I think, in this same regard, 'Tools for Conviviality' is better. Illich gives quite a direct discussion of conviviality, most interestingly noting how he does not think we should all be independent of one another (something which is perhaps lost in 'Shadow Work'), but rather that we should marry our independence with a more conscious notion of interdependence. This is to say, if we are to rely on one another, we should do so consciously and equitably, rather than being forced into it.

For Illich, such forces are things like technologies. Yes, some technologies offer us 'progress' in the sense that we can do more, or go faster, or so on. But this 'progress' necessarily demands a sacrifice from everyday society; an implicit consenting to (Illich would say manipulation) new forms of societal interdependence. He questions, for instance, why cars are so much better than bikes, when a bike offers various freedoms to society while creating fewer social externalities; and while cars, for their social externalities, often fail to substantially outperform bikes in everyday life.

I keep threatening to write something much longer on Illich, and I will at some point. For now, I want to say this. One of the ideas from Michael Muthukrishna which I like (see below for stuff I don't like) is that of culture as a collective brain. Essentially, we each don't need to know everything, because we can each share our fragments of whole with one another if and when it is necessary. From 'Shadow Work', I thought Illich would oppose this idea. But from 'Tools for Conviviality', I'm not so sure Illich would. Illich, I think, would more challenge how the collective brain forms; when and why we must tolerate the collective brain; and who decides what constitutes it (the latter is quite interesting to me, and has some links to, say, Foucault's notion of power-knowledge). This, I think, is the wider oversight of thinkers such as Muthukrishna and Bastani, who champion technological 'progress' without stopping to consider what 'progress' means (or, more so, without considering that their notion of progress might even be questioned). For instance, while a technologist might think progress is 'more stuff', or any of the adjectives in that Daft Punk song, Illich defines it quite curiously: "Progress should mean growing competence in self-care rather than growing dependence." Food for thought.

You Are Not A Gadget, Jaron Lanier

Hot off a streak of reading Illich, I had anticipated a degree of radicalism from Lanier which I might associate with my favourites, such as Illich or Feyerabend. It's not so much that I had hoped Lanier to be some kind of subversive anarchist; but I had heard he held cutting, alternative views on the state of the web, and I thought they'd be quite valuable to consider. Now, I should begin by noting that 'You Are Not A Gadget' is somewhat dated now, and I do know that Lanier has written much since. Having not read his more recent work, it is not fair for me to comment on what Lanier might believe now, as I am sure his views will have evolved.

I have a few problems with the politics of this book. It strikes me that it exists in the same universe as the typical thing one might find written in the Guardian between 2006-2012. Something born of a mindset that says: liberal democracy has won, left-wing structural critique is unhelpful and dead, and all problems we have now just require a bit of rational, good-faith debate. I am not saying that Lanier thinks this. But there is a certain brand of liberalism throughout this book which I think, in retrospect, is pretty much dead, or at the least, a zombie. A good contrast with 'You Are Not A Gadget', I think, would be Evgeny Morozov's 2012 book 'The Net Delusion'. A reader will know that Morozov spends much of this book criticising the delusions of liberal politicians who believed the internet and related technologies to be 'democratising' forces, rather than capable of what has actually happened, which is creating reality out of Aldous Huxley's fiction.

I do not think Lanier is as deluded as some of those Morozov mocks, though I do think in 2009 he was probably attentive to some of the same conversations, at least insofar as considering alternative political approaches. I will try and emphasise some positives to wrap up. Lanier's defence of paying for information I found challenging, and certainly has prompted me to rethink my views on the (financial) freedom of information. Incidentally, this is an example of the type of politics I'm criticising. I am inclined to see something like music as something one pursues intrinsically, and to argue that policies should exist to allow each of us the material comfort to pursue our intrinsic interests. We do not need to be paid to make music; if we already have what we would buy, then all we must do is sing. For Lanier, art exists within an economic system that essentially is not to be challenged (by which I mean, in 2009, was not necessarily going to be challenged), and therefore the internet represents a threat to artistic creation, rather than a means of liberating creation. As above, I find this interesting and I am not settled on my views. Another aspect of Lanier's book which I liked was when he (briefly) began describing what alternative information technologies could look like. Discussions of transforming humans into cephalopods with virtual reality, or how programming a human function crystallises functionality and almost accidentally separates the important from the superfluous, I thought was interesting. I would have liked more of this, throughout.

Only the Paranoid Survive, Andrew Grove

I read this book as a result of reading Chris Miller's 'Chip War'. It probably would not have appealed to be too much, otherwise. I will not say much about Grove's book because it is quite short, and in some ways feels more like a memoir of his time running Intel than a book on business strategy. Certainly, the writing style is that of a CEO, and I appreciated some aspects of the brevity, and the meta-commentary (e.g., Grove argues businesses that are about to face market challenges typically have CEOs who are spending their time doing other things, and he notes that he has spent much of this time writing this book, so maybe Intel is about to face a big challenge).

In quite typical Harvard Business School fashion, the book is all about 'strategic inflection points'. These are moments when a business must take a large risk, often changing how and what it does, to survive a changing marketplace. The major example discussed is Intel switching from manufacturing memory chips to CPUs, a product which is still its bread and butter today. Grove supplements his practical discussions with various observations which I think could also be found in various work on bounded rationality, from Simon onwards of course, but also in the work of people like James March. I am unsure how much Grove was aware of these thinkers, and had 'Only the Paranoid Survive' been written as a more academic book I would have perhaps expected this literature to be addressed. As it stands, the book is a typical business book, though not one wirtten by the typical person who writes books (see above), and so is quite a bit better than your average business book.

The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton Christensen

My relationship with this book is a bit perplexing, because I really want to like it, and in places, I really do. I am sympathetic to some of the methods that Christensen uses, and I love someone who is willing to really get into the fine, often esoteric detail, to try and offer commentary on wider phenomena. That is a big part of Christensen's contribution with this book. The problem is, I'm not necessarily convinced that Christensen is right.

I can't say it was wholly my own realisation. This article by Jill Lepore (more on her brilliant work, later) helped me see a lot of things which changed my opinion on 'The Innovator's Dillema'. Christensen's basic idea is that as businesses develop, new innovations change the shape of the markets in which they operate. New product uses may emerge, and knowledge which was not previously profitable may become so, while established uses may fall out of favour. The net result is that businesses which do everything right may still fail. This is a dramatic headline. It is very much in the same vein of Grove--again, this was a recommendation I got from 'Chip War'--and very much of the Harvard Business School brain (Christensen was a PhD and then professor at HBS). It's a fun idea. But as Lepore points out, the case studies which Christensen uses are a bit too cherry-picked, while a more critical eye may come to a rather different theory of innovation than Christensen's 'disruptive innovation' perspective.

I am not an innovation scholar, so I plead ignorance for lack of an opinion. I will say a couple of things, though. Christensen's doctrine of innovation is basically the gospel of modern Silicon Valley, and--in my opinion--Silicon Valley has been tremendously successful at innovating a whole bunch of shit nobody wants or needs. This being so, actively embracing disruptive innovation, rather than focusing on practical applications and consistent improvement, has probably lead to a tremendous amount of wasted time, talent, and rare earth minerals (to name but a few). I'd also note that Christensen is a fan of 'illustrative graphs'. These are figures, or diagrams, that are not constructed from quantitative data, but are more so meant to help convey qualitative ideas. I am a fan of 'illustrative graphs', but they have to capture a core idea in a sensible and, preferably, enhancing way. Christensen's graphs do not do this. They are bad. I have notes where I have redrawn them in ways which I think are better. Now, I know critiquing graphs is somewhat silly--surely, it is the big idea that matters! But when one combines these oversights with critiques such as Lepore's, I find myself struggling to take the book all that seriously. Interesting case studies meet a desperate attempt to say something new to appeal the gods of the Harvard Business School. Insofar as I think Christensen was one of the first academics to be caught in this bind, writing just before the turn of the millenium, he was perhaps an innovator for many less interesting academics to follow.

The Road to Freedom, Joseph Stiglitz

I found myself without much to read at the same time that Joseph Stiglitz's latest book was released, and so it seemed like a worthwhile product to pick up. I have always liked Stiglitz, and I don't dislike this book. I have always been sceptical of Hayek, and I was intrigued to see what Stiglitz might do with that contrast. I'm not sure much has ultimately been done.

Stiglitz's schtick in 'The Road to Freedom' is that Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek supplied various economic ideas which have now led us to adopt policies that constrain, rather than expand, our freedom. Stiglitz makes various sensible arguments for how different policies would provide us more freedom, and in that sense, the book is worthwhile. But from a political perspective, it strikes me as a bit naive. There is little sense of a project, or a vision beyond the notion that he, being a distinguished economist, talks sense. It is, in some ways, a very liberal perspective that holds that those who disagree with us have simply not yet been exposed to our arguments, and the information we are privy to. This perspective, though, falls down in two ways. Firstly, there is a selection bias--no one reading Stiglitz's book is really going to disagree with Stiglitz, and those whom he needs to convince are not those paying £25 for it. Secondly, those who do disagree with Stiglitz do so as a result of decades of ideological engineering, not because they are simply ignorant of Stiglitz's perspective. Do not misunderstand me--I do not doubt that there is ignorance of Stiglitz's perspective by, say, followers of Friedman and Hayek. But erasing this ignorance is only a necessary, not sufficient, condition for affecting political change in this group of believers. To cease burying the lead--Hayek and Friedman spent decades building up institutional clout, developing propaganda agents, undermining alternative perspectives, and so on. Yes, there was 'The Road to Serfdom' and 'Capitalism and Freedom' and so on. But there was also a deep political project engineered by these thinkers and their immediate followers. There was a plan to institutionalise their ideas. Stiglitz, rightly, challenges the ideas themselves. But he challenges them in an academic way--pointing out the wrongness of these ideas in terms of the ends they seek to achieve. But this is not why these ideas prosper. Indeed, if wrongness mattered, they would have already failed. They have succeeded because of political efforts. And it is the politics of economics, not the economics itself, which must be tackled so as to affect political and economic change.

I have no doubt that Stiglitz knows this. I was surprised, in fact, to see so many left-wing thinkers--new and old--cited by Stiglitz. It can hardly have slipped his mind that there is politics at play here, nor do I doubt he is aware of things like Mont Pelerin, the society which channelled many of Hayek's and Friedman's ideas into policy and influence. But I do not see an eagerness in Stiglitz to put the political gloves on and, to mix metaphors, start slinging some mud. I do not blame him either. But in the absense of a bold political project to back up 'The Road to Freedom', one cannot help but see this book as little more than a 'book for those who read books'--liberals who want to look enlightened--rather than what it could (and in another universe, might actually) be.

Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith

'Others Minds' was given to me by a friend several years ago, and has sat, lingering, on my bookshelf ever since. It is not so much that I was not intrigued by the broad premise of the book (more on that later), but more so that this premise did not seem to be of immediate relevance to me. Yet, after reading Lanier's 'You Are Not A Gadget', which features quite a lot of discussion of cephalopods, I recalled I had this book, and decided to give it a go. Furthermore, I have seen this book cited a few times by those who write critically on artificial intelligence, so I assumed it would be quite good.

I think I enjoyed the first half of this book, the second not so much. My understanding of the book, before I started reading it, was that Godfrey-Smith argues cephalopods demonstrate an alternative way of thinking about intelligence, the mind, and so on, and that this alternative perspective perhaps challenges humans to reimagine ourselves. The book is called, after all, other minds, and there is definitely some comment somewhere about cephalods being the closest thing we have to an alien species. Godfrey-Smith's discussion of the biology of these creatures, of the role of evolution in creating this branching path of mind, and so on, is quite engaging. There is genuine passion on behalf of the author, and it inspires it in the reader. There was a moment when, looking at some of the images published with the book, I began to reflect upon the 'person', so to speak, within the photograph. Of course, it was a photograph of a cephalopod.

Where the book falls down, in my opinion, is in the second half. The trouble Godfrey-Smith faces is that, in having set up cephalopods so much to be these incredible, almost mystical creatures, he must address the reality of the situation. It is not, as one might be led to believe, that cephalopods have some degree of comparable intelligence to humans. It is not that these creatures are a different way of expressing how intelligent life might be; how humans might learn from cephalopods in a manner beyond simple biology. These creatures, instead, exhibit curious behaviours, but in some ways are very comparable to many others kinds of animal. An alien lifeform, descending from the stars, would be most comparable to us (or, perhaps, we would be comparable to them). The otherness of cephalopods, therefore, loses some of its shine.

It is perhaps curious, though, to reflect on what cephalopods could be comparable to. Again, not humans. But in some ways, cephalopods could be compared with a kind of artificial intelligence system. I mean this is in a very social way. Of course, the 'thinking' mechanism of an AI (insofar as AI systems 'think') is quite different to that of a cephalopod. But both AI and cephalopod at times exhibit strange behaviours which prompt humans to see something profound in both. To be sure, this is projection on the part of people. But we do not project intelligence onto everything. If we are to understand intelligence in the way it should be understood--as a social phenomenon, per Matteo Pasquinelli--then examining why entities like large language models or cephalopods cause us to project intelligence onto them is perhaps important.

If Then, Jill Lepore

I fear my reviews thus far have been quite negative, though if that is so, I think my reviews reflect the general sentiment of the works I have read recently. It is why I opened this post with my comments about 'people who write books'. I cannot guarantee my negativity will come to an end. However, such negativity cannot be applied in the case of Jill Lepore's 'If Then'. I think this is a wonderful, engaging, and unexpectedly fascinating book. It is a book I think many people should read, not the least behavioural scientists, but I am getting ahead of myself.

I had no plans to read 'If Then' at first. I spotted it in the bookshop, while I was killing time waiting for my fiance to finish browsing. I recognised the computational title, but noticed it was in the 'business' section of the store. Being who I am, I took a closer look and saw some tagline about the unknown history of the first real social analytics company--a company which preceded Facebook or Google by decades. It could have been another terrible business book, but it is not (note that I had not at this point realised that this Jill Lepore was also the author of the fascinating article about disruptive innovation).

Lepore, an expert in modern American history, weaves an excellent history of Simulatics, a company that in the 1960s used cutting-edge computers to try and model electorates and predict the best political strategies for candidates. Whether or not Simulatics actually had any impact on politics is a question Lepore leaves open in the book. It is a fascinating question, because I think it remains an open question of targeted advertising today. A lot of hype, but little tangible evidence that because of A, B happened, and so on. Why I say all behavioural scientists should read this book is because Simulatics, as Lepore notes, was really a behavioural science company, not a technology company. In this regard, the lack of evidence of Simulatics accomplishing anything, coupled with the compelling story which has kept the idea of behavioural targeting alive for decades, is really very interesting. So too is the politics involved, which lesser authors would have shied away from, or attempted to repackage as something more benign. Lepore provides details of how Simulatics was deployed in the Vietnam war to help win hearts and minds, and how proximity to government and the military-industrial complex helped further their shaky work (with Lepore not hesitating to imply that the appearance of scientific rigour also did some political lifting for the war effort, too).

Lepore is undoubtedly a good writer, and for that reason I think many would enjoy 'If Then'. For someone like myself, who lives in this niche of political economy and behavioural science and technology, it is both engaging as a book and fascinating as a work of scholarship. I want more people to read it so I have more people to talk about it with.

A Theory of Everyone, Michael Muthukrishna

I will start with two things. Firstly, I know Michael, somewhat--we used to work together, though I will have rightly not registered on his radar. I therefore had expectations--perhaps elevated expectations--of this book. Secondly, I dislike this book. I think it is generally quite bad, though for different reasons in different places. It feels like the quintessential 'book written by people who write books'.

Because I dislike this book, I have rewritten this review several times. This is unusual for me, as I usually try to write these informal reviews from more of a stream-of-thought perspective. But partly because, when one is negative it is easier to be too negative. I think it's important to get one's words right. So, here are my broad thoughts. I was expecting this book to be great. I have read some of Muthukrishna's papers and I think they contain some interesting ideas (see above, for instance). The book's title was ambitious, and some of its opening comments really made me think that this book would give me many ideas which would change how I thought. I think, broadly, the book failed to meet these expectations. As above, perhaps my expectations were too high, but c'mon--the book is called a theory of everyone! What were my expectations supposed to be?

To put a little bit of meat on these critical bones, I think the book lacks detail and depth in several places. It is not necessarily wrong (it is a politically strange and at times frustrating book), but I did not find it as self-evidently right as the narrative might suggest. Related to detail, I think there is scope for taking history more seriously throughout (Muthukrishna has a bit of a restricted view of human history, in my opinion), and tightening up the narrative a bit more in the policy recommendation section (it is here where I think Muthukrishna's tech-bro technosolutionism really shows through, and in some ways, harms the overall argument. Contrast this with, say, Aaron Bastani's 'Fully Automated Luxury Communism', one can see many common failings but at least a more explicit, coherent political narrative in Bastani's work).

The Office For Budget Responsibility and the Politics of Technocratic Economic Governance, Ben Clift

Now, I guess, for something completely different. I heard Clift discuss this book on a podcast with Mark Blyth, and I thought the idea of a political analysis of the OBR was interesting. Mostly, that is because I am sad. But somewhat it is because I am thinking about similar ideas in relation to before behavioural nudging and artificial intelligence in government. So, I wanted to see what it had to say. Furthermore, after a generally disappointing run of 'books written by people who write books' I wanted to read something which I knew would be intellectually rigorous. I knew it might be boring, difficult, and so on. But I also had little doubt that Clift would produce, at the least, a well-researched academic resource.

The book is actually quite engaging. Not in all aspects--there are a few asides here and there, which maybe reflect the style of the field, and are less well translated for a book. But overall, the book is focused and detailed. Clift makes quite a compelling argument not only that the OBR is a political organisation (whether it knows it or not), but more importantly, as to why politicians in the UK seem compelled to bind their political power to this 'non-political' entity. Reading this book in the context of a UK general election was even more interesting, because it becomes quite clear how the spectre of the OBR looms over the parties, particularly the Labour Party.

This book feels like it has more to say than an academic paper, and from this perspective I can understand why it is a book. Yet, it also at times feels overlong and repetitive, perhaps reflecting the leniency in wordcount which comes from writing a book, rather than a paper. Nevertheless, I think this is quite a good book. It is the kind of book I think most of my academic colleagues should read, and certainly, I think left-wing influencers should pick up the phone and give Ben Clift a call. He could enlighten them to the political narrative of an important, political institution in the UK better than most.