Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight by M.E. Thomas

I found this book incredibly interesting and couldn't put it down. The best thing about this book was that it was written by someone that is a high-functioning sociopath and she is not a criminal. Millions of times I have seen books written about or by people that are considered sociopaths but are criminals. This was the first I had seen the broke the mold, so being interested in learning about such topics, I dove right into this book. I liked how the author directed you to visit her website to see how sociopaths and others interact. The website is SociopathWorld.com. I was able to browse around a bit and get a feel for what the author was talking about how people completely condemn and judge those that are sociopaths. The conclusion I came to from reading this book was: all people have some little quality or varying degrees of traits that would/could be related to sociopaths. So before people start judging they need to learn all the facts and take into account people's lifestyles and upbringing. There are so many factors related to the subject that to just lay a blanket statement over everything is really under-estimating people and their abilities. This book got me to think about and view things differently as well as slightly get a look as to how a person, that is considered a sociopath, deals with various tasks and things in everyday life. A very eye opening experience reading this book, but it was all worth it :) 

Why Nations Fail (A Book I am Reading)

"Why Nations Fail" is different from a lot of development books. It neither focuses on specific policy proposals, and neither does it focus on specific micro or macroeconomic theories that lead lead a nation towards economic development.  Quite simply, this book wants to tell you why the same specific sets of policies will work in one nation, and lead nowhere in another. It wants to tell you how you know which nations can run with a specific set of development actions, and end up achieving their objectives.

This book is also different from your regular pseudo-cultural economics books which explain away economic development in successful countries to their specific cultural, anthropological, sociological, or religious makeup. Neither does it barrage you with pseudo-explanations that attribute success to geographical location as the differentiating factor. And neither does it shirk by merely pointing out that successful countries just had the luck of having a really brilliant leader who knew what to do. Yes, these can be big factors that certainly help, but the book in fact explains how each of these common success theories fall short. After all, how many times have we seen countries located strategically next to emerging economies, and led by seemingly smart and charismatic leaders, that still fall short of economic progress, while their neighbours, with seemingly less resources, more run of the mill leaders that come and go, leap into the industrialized world?

No, this is a book that focus on institutions.  It distinguishes between institutions that can be considered extractive from those that are more inclusive.  It then explains how inclusive institutions create the right incentives for local people to invest, to strive, and to take initiative, and how extractive ones discourage them.  If you've been with me on this blog for some time, you know I have a great deal of respect for institutional explanations, and how these institutions create very concrete transmission channels and mechanisms for economic policy. You can have the right policy, but it you do not have the right institutions for it, then no amount of effort will result in successful implementation. To have the right institutions, you need to know how it aligns its objectives with people's incentives and helps them overcome their constraints.

At the macroeconomic level, before you even think of specific goals and policies, you need to ask whether people can see themselves getting more prosperous if they work harder, invest their savings, and take risks with new ways of doing things.  Do they see that rewards go to those who make the effort and investment, or do they risk losing the fruits of their labour to an extractive regime that expropriates and gives everything to someone else more closely connected to the ruling elite? Do they know for a fact that they will have a voice going forward, to ensure that their economic interests are protected and represented, or will they lose out to an elite that's suddenly given a monopoly on their industry?

In my mind these are the questions that must run in the minds of the multitude of people who ultimately make the difference between a nation taking off and a nation not making it.  Steve Waldman posts that depression is a revealed preference, as a polity, and we are choosing continued depression because we prefer it to the alternatives. In the same vein, nations can choose slavery, apartheid, or pluralism, rule by absolute royal decree or rule of law, upward mobility for newcomers or stable representation for incumbents, openness to creative destruction or loyalty to existing regimes. these revealed preferences often also reveal whose interests are most given importance in society. Whether these interests are those of one person, a few elites, or the greater multitude makes all the difference for a nation's rise, and it continued stay up there.

The book provides enough stories and anecdotes from history to make this  view of development vivid.  Soviet Russia, ancient Rome, Maya city states, sub-saharan Africa, medieval China and Japan, medieval England, Spain and Europe, even the neolithic age, as are a bunch of other historical places and times make it to this thick book as examples. it's like reading history all over again, but with the end of analyzing why one people or nation makes it, while others don't, and still others fall. Highly recommended for both history and economics buffs.

Written by Daron Acemoglu, MIT professor of Economics; and James Robinson, Harvard professor of Government.

INFERNO by Dan Brown Revised

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

1) I have seen that the primary figure in most of the action novels is a stand-in for the author. It is loosely based on the author or rather what he would like to be or thinks of himself. He is almost perfect, the women just love him. He escapes capture and defeat in the (n-1) th second. "Handsome face", "couldn't help liking the Harvard professor" are oft repeated.

2) The antagonist is deeply troubled by overpopulation and asks some pertinent questions but that plot is completely muddled up by introducing this concept of superhuman by the same set of people who want to alter gene sequences (YAWN)
And without doubt, I was rooting for them and when I knew the virus/bacterium had already been released that will make one-third of the earth's population infertile, my heart sang. YES!!

3) In Angels and Demons and Da Vinci code, the plot was clear. It unraveled well, with one plot leading o another. Here, so much of the symbolism goes over my head, I am unable to recall one clear

4) Brown has actually done a product placement in his book! What the.. No, I am not going to repeat it.

5) The writers should be taken to task for allowing such huge repetitions. Now, come on! The Guardian's review of the book had me LMAO.


http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/19/dan-brown-inferno-review

The Curse Of The Good Girl

Rachel Simmons has written a book called The Curse of the Good Girl that is getting a lot of attention, for good reason. It makes sense! Right now this book is 4th on my reading list, but it may be moved up =) 

I definitely think I fit under this curse. People who know me know that I always put others before myself, and yes, sometimes it comes back to bite me.

Let's take a step back. What is a good girl? Simmons calls a good girl somebody who is always polite, selfless, and modest. The curse is that people will walk over you, and sometimes it's not helpful to yourself or anyone else to be a good girl all the time. You don't have a full range of emotions because you're too busy being polite - so your anger builds up and you explode at improper times, or worse, you never get your anger out.

Good girls also grow up to be diminished in the workplace - they often begin sentences by "I don't know if this is correct, but this is my opinion." Do we want young women growing up to diminish themselves? Of course not!

This all leads back to how you were raised. I'm not sure how I was raised. Yes I know to put on a pot of tea whenever somebody comes into the house, and always serve food and drink on a tray, even if it's one person, but what does that have to do with giving my opinion?

I'm not sure there was enough discussion in my house when I was little to even have something to discuss. I know as I've gotten older, my parents do ask for my point of view because I generally have a complete 180 opinion than they do. And of course, if I ever do share it, they tell me I'm wrong. Is that part of this?


I have no answers unfortunately, just food for thought. If you read the book, let me know what you think.

Working My Mind

I've realized just recently that it had been ages since I have read a good book. A story book to transport me to times past, present and future. A book to push my bed time later than usual, risking blank stares and blurry thoughts the following morning. Atenolol, paracetamol-wha?

 I picked up a book from the shelf and started to read.

The book was The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.

I found myself daydreaming about the characters, thinking about them as I drive to work, as I bathe, as I eat, looking forward to the time when I cozy myself on the bed with the book before retiring for the night.

Suffice to say, I Missed reading. With a capital M.

While on the subject of picking up old habits, this distant memory of distinctly owning a blog stole itself into my consciousness.

Reading what I have written, I marvel at how time passes by so stealthily, nay a noise.

So here I am again, having words manifest themselves from the brain through the nerves to the muscles to the screen. Random words with constant erasing of grammatical boo-boos and spelling errors-I'm convinced my England is going down the longkang.

But of it feels so good.

......

Would wearing one's heart on one's sleeves be better than being sensitive to others' feelings?

Book Review for ( Found & Found 2 )

I first became familiar with Found when I flipped through my mom's copy of the first book. She had heard about the book from some local radio station. At first the basic premise of the book didn't sound too intriguing. It sounded like a book full of trash... Essentially, that is what Found is, but trash that tells stories. Love letters, photos, shopping lists, homework (one kid handed in a report on a certain part of the male anatomy) etc. Some finds are funny. Some tragic. Some heartwarming. Think of the finds as short stories, sometimes consisting of only a few words. Or better yet, windows into the lives of others. This is one of those books that is fun to just pick up and flip through making it a perfect "coffee table" book. I took the first Found book to work a few years ago and was constantly lending it to people (or rather leaving it around while people couldn't help but be intrigued) who would soon be showing me their favorite finds. After reading this book you will never look at trash the same way again. I constantly scan the streets in search of my own finds worthy of Found Magazine. So far the most interesting thing I've found is a name tag that says "Pastor John Issac's " I wore it around work for awhile as a joke before it broke and another card behind the one that said "Pastor John" spilled out. It said "Elizabeth Jensen . Why did Pastor John have Elizabeth Jensen's name tag? Duel-Identities perhaps? You make up the story. The same goes with many of the finds in this book.

For those of you who might find the first Found book or this second one offensive in its content -- guess what? -- life is offensive. And for that matter, life is also often tragic, poignant, ironic, hysterically funny, random, and sometimes all of these things at once... the "Found" books and the magazines reflect all of these aspects of everyday life. That's what makes it so remarkable. Indeed, how many books can cause you to giggle and feel emotionally vulnerable within two pages? This work by Davy Rothbart, co-editor Jason Bitner, and all the Found crew deserves praise because this is a cross-section of humanity stripped down to its beautiful bare essentials. If, several thousand years from now, (android? zombie?) archaeologists study our current century, they might go through our trash. Think of "Found" as giving them a head start.

I highly recommend purchasing both FOUND and FOUND II.