On September 14, 2019, a drone hit two oil facilities in Aramco. The Houthis in Yemen claimed responsibility, proclaiming that the strike was revenge for the hostilities they are facing on their own soil, in a civil war against a Saudi backed government. The strikes cut Saudi Arabia’s oil production by half. I was reminded … Read more
Thomas Szasz was a physician who later became a psychologist. The Myth of Mental Illness is a controversial book, and it is famous for having changed the way people have viewed psychiatry for decades. For some, the arguments give them more confidence in accepting themselves as they are, by seeing the social stigmatization does not … Read more
This is a graduation speech by David Foster Wallace that was made into a book. In this speech, Wallace relates to us to what we need to me aware of throughout our lives. What to Think The purpose of a liberal arts education is to teach you what to think about. It has nothing to … Read more
Human Incompetence In The Glass Cage, Carr warns about a near future that is dominated by artificial intelligence – he argues that the problems that come with advanced artificial intelligence go beyond the loss of jobs for some people the way technology always had. He thinks that at some point, because of the ease with … Read more
“The sadist doesn’t create a masochist, he finds him ready made.” – Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death Masochism in Modern Man explores the psychological roots of masochism from an interesting perspecitve. When I read the final chapters of The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, I was struck by an interesting discussion about sadomasochism, … Read more
One way of understanding how something works is to divide it into its component parts, and then to study the parts individually. This is the linear way of understanding. But there is a second way, and this is the holistic way of understanding something. This requires you to understand how the whole works, and how … Read more
I first read the 48 Laws of Power, and since then, I have read the other five books that he wrote and have summarized them. Understanding Greene The reason why I enjoy his work is because they are written in a simple way, and while there is some degree of pretension, his outlook on human … Read more
Mozart’s Rebellion Mozart was a gifted child, who surprised everyone around him with his musical genius. But for his entire youth, and up until his mid-twenties, he was imitating other people’s styles of music rather than developing something uniquely his. His father was very involved in his career, and money was always an issue. Mozart … Read more
The Naive Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin loved reading and writing. In newspapers, he found the perfect outlet to improve his skills, and he did. At a young age, he wanted to display his talent. It so happened that his older brother started his own newspaper business. Benjamin worked with him for years before, but his … Read more
A mentor is a shortcut to mastery. Of course, you can teach yourself anything you want on your own, and many have done this, but there are two main disadvantages with this. The first is that you could waste a lot of time. A good mentor can give you direct feedback, and they can tell … Read more