Books: The Problem of Political Authority

I'm looking forward to reading this book: The Problem of Political Authority, An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Heumer ($36, paperback). Excerpts can be found on Heumer's website.

A strong recommendation from John Danaher (Philosophical Disquisitions) is enough to convince me to drop a few bucks on this.

Needless to say, I think that the problem of political authority is the fundamental issue in political philosophy, and I was sorely disappointed by how it was dismissed as an issue in the political philosophy survey course that I took in college. Even those who support political authority should grapple with this issue, because the nature of political authority has profound consequences for determining the appropriate use of political authority (which seems to be what political philosophers care about).

While we're on this topic, I want to reiterate my recommendation of Common Sense, as a beautiful example of how to demolish the perception of political authority ($0, online). 

For completeness, here is related content that I noticed:

• Cato Unbound debate featuring Heumer.
• Goodreads reviews
• Bryan Caplan review ; Caplan "criticism"
• Samizdata review.
• Strike-the-root review (inaccessible right now)

My favorite sci-fi fantasy books

Something fun... my thoughts on the "Top 100 Sci-Fi Fantasy books": audience picks from NPR's.

Following Russel Arben Fox, I've noted which ones I've read... and I've added some notes. I have one comment in preface: it's hard to believe that all these stories get lumped together in one category; the tone and style varies so much! It's also a shame that they separated these from stories of supernatural horror.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

I read it once in middle school, and once when I was thirty. I appreciated it much more upon my second reading (especially the romance). I then got sucked in and read "The Children of Hurin" (powerful, though the quality of the writing varied...as might be expected given that Tolkien left it unfinished). Then read the Silmarillion(below).

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Load's of fun... though I may like the Dirk Gently stories better.

3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

Clever story... and the series develops in an interesting direction.

6. 1984, by George Orwell

I read it more than once... then saw the movie.

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

I heard it first on audiotape, then I read it.

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

I've read much of Asimov's work, and my favorite story is not on this list ("The Gods Themselves")

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Brilliant. Both in concept and execution. I've read it two or three times.

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

Read this, and think about the riots in London.

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

Really? Decent book, excellent movie, awesome drinking game.

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

Didn't think this was Sci-Fi... but a good book. I read it twice; both as child and adult.

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

Brilliant vision. Excellent writing... if you like dark humor. I read it two or three times.

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

I don't recall if I read this. I know I read a story that took place on the ringworld though. I've read so many of Niven's stories, it's hard to keep them straight. He's a great storyteller and explores a lot of interesting (speculative) social issues, but I don't find any of his stories particularly profound. The only one I read twice was "Protector".

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

An ambitious attempt to create a new genre of modern literature. Brilliant.

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

Neat idea, and amusing writing... but should have been half as long.

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

Started off strong... but quickly turned to drivel. I don't think I actually finished it, even though I had selected it as "light" beach reading.

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

I read this or another book about Rama.

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

Fun series, good stories. I get a kick out of imagining how to resist a totalitarian regime.

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

This is one of the first "adult" books that I read...I didn't realize it had such a following. Maybe I should read it again.

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

So, that comes to 26 / 100. I'll add three more books/series to the list:

• The Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft. This book was engrossing (though he spent too much time explaining his mythology), and got me into Lovecraft. Unfortunately, none of his other stories were as good as this one.
  
• Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. This is a great work of supernatural horror (Lovecraftian)-- but it's presented as a space-exploration story.
  
• The Berserker series by Fred Sabrahagen. I haven't read these since I was a kid, so they may be juvenile... but they sure made an impression on me.

I seen the movie version of many of those books, and had never even realized that there had been a book!

Phillip Dick has been on my reading list since I've seen three or four movies based on his books, and since I saw that Neuromancer won the "Phillip Dick award".

Ian Banks has also been on my reading list; the culture series sounds awesome. I looked for it at my local library, but found "Song of Stone" instead, which is itself an excellent story (though hardly Sci-Fi/Fantasy).

Update: I saw Flatland at the local bookstore in the SciFi/Fantasy section. If it belongs in that category (rather than, say, philosophy), then it belongs on this list.

Books: Inside Wikileaks

Daniel Domscheit-Berg (DDB), a hacker and member of the Chaos Computer Club, had been keeping an eye on Wikileaks for over a year, nursing a suspicion that it was some sort of front for an intelligence agency. That suspicion fell away in November of 2007, when Wikileaks published the Guantanamo Bay handbooks. Shortly thereafter, DDB invited Julian Assange to speak at the December meeting of the Chaos Computer Club, and began collaborating with Assange on the Wikileaks project, becoming a major coordinator of Wikileaks activities in Europe. By September of 2010, DDB had fallen out with Assange, and left Wikileaks to establish a competing system, called OpenLeaks (I've added the blog to my list).

This book is a description of DDB's experience working with Wikileaks. The main theme of the book is the unstable genius of Assange, which provides the context within which all of the technical, administrative, and political problems of Wikileaks had to be addressed.

DDB obviously has a bone to pick with Assange, and is using this book to publicize his own competing project. Like everything, it should be read with a skeptical eye -- this is simply the story that one man is telling. I actually had trouble finding independent information about DDB. His Wikipedia entry is sparse, and I only found one news article describing the release of this book. (ForeignPolicy.com has posted a video of a recent interview.)

Anyway, this book provides some insight into what drives an entrepreneur like Assange. Wikileaks was a visionary project, and perhaps such a project can only be pushed through by someone with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. Based on DDB's story, not only did Assange essentially dedicate his life to this high-risk project, but he also had the charisma to convince several volunteers and journalists to make substantial contributions to Wikileaks. This type of achievement is not possible for people with a healthy sense of their own limits.

DDB's thesis is that Assange's egocentrism* is destroying the project. DDB presents Assange as insisting of keeping total control over the project, while also being a completely inept administrator. I suspect that many visionary projects encounter this type of problem. The entrepreneur basically has to get the project off of the ground on his own because no-one else understands what he is trying to achieve, or they doubt that it is possible. Once the project has demonstrated success, the visionary entrepreneur will suddenly have collaborators, but he will not necessarily have any ability to manage a team. Even worse for a visionary project like Wikileaks, the entrepreneur cannot assume that his team-mates actually have a clear understanding of his own goals for the project -- after all, there are no examples from which they can derive shared expectations or even terminology. The visionary project has to deal with all of the problems of any start-up, plus the additional burden of having to deal with issues that no-one has dealt with before.

DDB sees three major core objectives for a project like Wikileaks:

1. Maintain the anonymity of the source (while possibly enabling further communication)
   
2. Organize and filter the documents, perhaps removing information about private persons.
3. Publicize the documents.
   

These objectives can conflict with each other, especially when resources are scarce. DDB describes these conflicts, how Wikileaks tried to balance these objectives, and how the conflicts led to arguments among volunteers on the project.

Ultimately, DDB decided to start a competing institution, OpenLeaks. I wish him luck in this endeavor. This represents a maturation of the industry that Wikileaks established. Now we know what an institution like Wikileaks can accomplish. Now some people (like DDB) have first-hand experience tackling the problems of these anonymous leak systems. The only question now is how many of these institutions can be supported, and how will the public interact with them. Should a leak-source provide documents to both Wikileaks and OpenLeaks? Will that increase the chance of being identified? Will it assure prompt publication, or would it just waste resources with duplicate effort? How can a new institution gain the trust of potential sources? How does it demonstrate its ability to maintain anonymity?

It appears that the Wikileaks revolution has only just begun, and at some point it may be able to continue even if Wikileaks itself fails.


*my word, not DDB's; not meant as a psychological diagnosis

Books: The Black Swan; The Impact of the Highly Improbable

The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an engaging book about an important topic. However, if a reader who is familiar with the topic(s) will not find any new ideas.

This book is about risk management; specifically, how to deal with the risks arising from unpredictable events. To examine this issue, Taleb crafts a narrative that surveys a number of intellectual fields, including probability theory, complexity theory, epistemology (empiricism and philosophy of science), cognitive psychology, and social psychology. For a systematic summary, see Wikipedia.

The most striking thing about this book was Taleb's prescience with regard to the recent financial crisis. This book was published in April 2007, but Taleb (who made his "f*** you money" during the stock market crash of 1987) asserted that modern financial risk-assessment is total bullshit, and that when some unpredictable disruption occurs, the structure of the financial system will cause cataclysmic failure. Oh boy, was he right!

This book is supposed to be practical, so it's worth mentioning the advice provided. It can basically be summed up with two points:

1. Know the limits of prediction (specifically, that some very important phenomena are fundamentally unpredictable). Don't fool yourself into thinking that you what the probabilities of events are (as if you were playing a game with well-defined rules)
   
2. When you make predictions for unpredictable phenomena, ask yourself what are the consequences of being wrong. Don't estimate probabilities of being wrong--just avoid situations where being wrong will be fatal.

This book also has a few messages for how we think about social issues. One is that many "experts" are frauds, in that they pretend to be able to predict phenomena that are fundamentally unpredictable. The other is the randomness plays a major role in personal success, especially when we are looking at people who are extremely successful.

Taleb also warns us about putting much faith in predictions about what the world will be like in a few decades. He specifically dismissed predictions that the American Social Security system will be bankrupt in 40 years, implying that the funding of SS in 2048 is a concern for the people living in 2048, not for those of us living in 2008. By extension, we may also downplay predictions of radical climate change over the next few decades. However, both types of predictions do have value in that they provide us with a sense of the range of possible scenarios that we should be prepared for. [added after initial publication]

One more merit for this book is that it provides a good description of the life a scientist, including the methodological, psychological, and social aspects. I recommend this book for anyone interested in pursuing a career in science.

The main drawback of this book is that the author comes off as being quite arrogant. He is dismissive of many scientists, claiming that they make unjustifiable assumptions about the probability distribution of events. He even claimed that psychologists were "lucky" that they frequently used binary (Yes/No) measurements for which probability distributions ARE predictable. In fact, this is no accident. A careful scientist will design experiments in a way that the data conforms to certain assumptions, thereby allowing hypotheses to be tested. If you look in a book like Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures, you will find extensive discussions about when it is appropriate to use various probability distributions.

Taleb also engaging in a form of name-dropping, describing how his arguments have gotten under the skin of a number of prominent intellectuals. This is the down-side of his narrative style of writing. However, the narrative of his life is what keeps this book interesting even if you are thinking "I know this already".