A fascinating take on human intelligence.
A science writer examines various aspects of human intelligence.
While many of us believe that possessing a higher degree of intelligence is inherently good, Gregg shows how increased cognitive skills do not necessarily equate to success. In fact, human intelligence has frequently resulted in tragic consequences, and “evolution is still deciding what to make of the human capacity for causal reasoning.” Humans are keenly aware of their own mortality, and knowledge of the inevitability of death has resulted in ongoing holy wars among competing ideologies. Similarly, so-called moral reasoning has been used to justify innumerable “unbelievably repugnant and horrifying” actions. The author closely examines “the dark reality of the human moral capacity: We, as a species, can justify—on moral grounds—genocide. Not just cultural genocide, but the murder of entire populations and racial groups, including children.” In a seemingly innocuous but telling contemporary example, Gregg notes how Americans “love their lawns,” investing countless hours and natural resources to maintain them. At the same time, most people fully understand the dangers of burning fossil fuels and the effects of climate change. The author labels this cognitive dissonance “prognostic myopia,” which “makes it difficult for us to make good decisions about our future because we’re heavily influenced by our problems in the here and now.” Additionally, the further the problem seems to lie in the future, the less we care. Gregg argues convincingly that this is a major reason why both government and corporations are slow to act on available information, which can lead to disastrous consequences. With frightening clarity, the author shows how prognostic myopia could even lead to human extinction. Nietzsche believed that nonhuman animals’ inability to understand time or the concept of the future gave them an edge over humans. This insightful book provides food for thought and lends credence to that notion.
A fascinating take on human intelligence.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-38806-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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