So far, I’ve only read the introduction. It pulls together things I already believe, so I like it.
First thought is James C. Scott’s work—Two Cheers for Anarchism is a good starting point. He writes about tyranny’s demands for legibility.
Also, a lot of science requires taking a close look at the world.
See also “the map is not the territory”—but it takes time to see the territory.
I’ve been doing qi gong—it’s amazingly easy to think I know what I’m feeling physically, and a lot of work to actually start to notice it.
And I’ve been thinking that a way for rationalism to go wrong is to think that good enough concepts reliably trump observation. Sometimes concepts work—perpetual motion machines really are impossible—but mostly you need to keep looking at the world.
So far, I’ve only read the introduction. It pulls together things I already believe, so I like it.
First thought is James C. Scott’s work—Two Cheers for Anarchism is a good starting point. He writes about tyranny’s demands for legibility.
Also, a lot of science requires taking a close look at the world.
See also “the map is not the territory”—but it takes time to see the territory.
I’ve been doing qi gong—it’s amazingly easy to think I know what I’m feeling physically, and a lot of work to actually start to notice it.
And I’ve been thinking that a way for rationalism to go wrong is to think that good enough concepts reliably trump observation. Sometimes concepts work—perpetual motion machines really are impossible—but mostly you need to keep looking at the world.