C Gockel Writes

Book Reviews: Seeing Like a State – How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

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This was one of the best books I’ve ever read, and yet I’ve hesitated to write a review. It’s a difficult book to the describe, it’s a book that goes beyond being anti-Communist or anti-Capitalist to something much deeper.

States, whether capitalist or communist, want things that are orderly and commodifiable. They want to be able to count things, take those numbers, plug them into an equation and compute worker productivity, GDP, tax rates, or how many grains of food stuff can be grown on one acre of land. They want to know how much each acre of land is worth, each house, each tree, each plot of land, and each person.

This book is a fascinating study of how countries, communist, capitalist, and in the middle try to make things more easily countable–and how that results in famines, environmental destruction, and emotional misery.

It isn’t boring. The book is told with anecdotes of grand failures that result when planners, far away from their planning in both consequence and space really Fuck Things Up–whilst thinking they’re being very smart and scientific. It’s entertaining and troubling. It’s also actionable and can help us build better cities, help our farmers, foresters, and natural habitats.

It’s not exactly hopeful to realize your state sees you as a widget in a giant machine.

But society isn’t a machine and we’re not a widgets. Society is much more like an ecosystem, constantly evolving in response to the environment, and we’re the organisms within it, flowing through the ecosystem based on our needs and wants, and we’re smarter together as a collective than any central planner.

If you know your state wants to widgefy you, you can work with that knowledge, and fight plans that attempt to cement you into widget status and make you poorer, less healthy, and miserable.

I highly recommend this book. It will help you identify the “widgetification” of you, animals, and natural resources. You cannot fight something if you don’t know it is happening.

Other essential readings include: The Intelligence Trap, Free Speech – A History from Socrates to Social Media, and The True Believer

Book Review: Captain of the Guard (The Second Son Book 1) by Ron C. Nieto

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99¢ in US & UK as of January 18, 2024
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom (Also available at: Canada, Germany, Australia)

This was the best fantasy I read in 2022. It’s a secondary world adventure. There is no magic in this world, but there is action and adventure—some of the best hand to hand combat scenes I’ve read—adventure, realistic romance, and characters who jump off the page and are feel real. If you buy the first one you’ll want to buy the second. It’s even better than the first.

To protect the kingdom, he must prove his worth . . .

Oren Trevaine has never shaken the feeling that he’s not good enough, but he’s determined to avoid the same fate for his men. Oren’s first task as Captain of the Guard is to transform his unruly, undisciplined soldiers into a formidable army—if only they would cooperate.

But Oren will need to act fast because the snow is melting with the budding of spring. Soon, the enemy will be able to traverse the main pass through the imposing Sansford Range and his men must be ready to patrol the mountain.

When Oren rescues Lady Joan and her traveling party from a band of Mirdoni raiders, his worst fears are realized. The enemy has utilized less accessible routes to infiltrate their territory, and an attack is imminent.

Now Oren must not only think like the enemy, but he will need to be one step ahead. With the kingdom relying on him and Lady Joan promising her favor if he returns alive, Oren will need to prove to her and his men that he truly is good enough. Or at the very least, die trying . . .

Book Review: Portrait of a Scotsman (A League of Extraordinary Women Book 3) by Evie Dunmore

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Available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

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I like romance! But I’m horribly picky, and I toss aside more romances than I finish. I tend to like romances that are historical or sci-fi, with the history or the sci-fi elements integral to the story. Portrait of a Scotsman fits! It takes place in the U.K. during the Victorian era, as women’s rights activists are just starting to make gains.

What I really liked about this book is that it showed how much of the things striven for by the activists were so out of step with actual women. Upper class ladies wanted rights to their property and suffrage–but even poor women’s husbands didn’t have property or suffrage. Also, they were already working, many outside the home, and they often wanted more hours–while upper class women were sometimes actively working to restrict their hours.

I thought the hero and heroine were well-done, even when they did things I didn’t like. The heroine has a lot more sympathy for a mine owner who had been negligent than I liked. My grandfather, the first person who really encouraged me to write was a coal miner. I know about mining accidents, and the terror they cause for the people in coal towns. If the hero had pushed said negligent owner down a shaft I would have rooted for him.

But the mine owner is a member of the heroine’s class, and she really hates seeing him financially destroyed. I was annoyed with her. It was probably realistic though.

The final thing that sold this book for me was the format. It didn’t follow the traditional romance plot line, and the ending was different than most romances. However, romance fans, there is a HEA.

I picked this up at the library because it was on the Staff Picks shelf. It is traditionally published, and on the newish side, so it isn’t yet on Scribd, but your library may have it!

Book Review: Whatever You Do, Don’t Run by Peter Allison

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Book Review: Whatever You Do, Don't Run by Peter Allison

Run and get this book at: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo (audibook in KoboPlus), GooglePlay, and Scribd in Audiobook which is how I listened to it. The narration is great. (also check your local library!)

This was just loads of fun, written by a nerdy Australian animal lover from the Sydney suburbs (apparently they aren’t all action heroes, who knew?) If you love animals, and want to go on a book escape to Africa, with a charming narrator, get this. It’s a love letter to the African animals, and to the people of Botswana. It also offers a chapter that is a moving biography of Seretse Khama, the once king, later prime minister, later president of Botswana, who is largely responsible for making a land-locked country in Southern Africa a success story. This book is funny and poignant by turns.

Book Review: The Intelligence Trap – Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David Robson

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Book Review: The Intelligence Trap - Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes by David Robson

The Intelligence Trap is available at  Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay and Scribd as an Audiobook

Sometimes you read (or listen to) books that you wish were required reading in high school because they should be required reading for the whole human race … and then you realize that in high school you’re limited to textbooks and literature and you get annoyed that the categories of study are so narrow.

I’m not sure what category of non-fiction the Intelligence Trap should be inserted into, but I do think everyone should read it. Especially people who consider themselves smart.

The Intelligence Trap is a healthy reminder to those of us who use The Dunning Krueger Effect as a punchline. Yes, I’m guilty. (For those who don’t know, the Dunning Krueger Effect is how the incompetent and unknowledgeable tend to overestimate their competence and knowledge. It’s often used to make fun of people less gifted on the IQ spectrum.)

Much fewer people know about the Curse of Expertise and how experts, when faced with a challenge in their field, still manage to royally Fuck Things Up. The Intelligence Trap explains the neuroscience behind the cognitive blind spots of those with high IQ–and how devastating the blindness can be for them, and the human race.

The book introduces concepts like “Faschidiots,” people who have no knowledge outside a particular field (thank you, Germans for that word), and the bandwagon affect. It discusses Functional Stupidity, group think, motivated reasoning, and emotional reasoning–all of which can blindside high IQ people even more severely than the less intellectually gifted, perhaps because their high IQ makes them think they are immune. All of these concepts are discussed with illuminating anecdotes, which aren’t proof–but make the concepts much easier to remember.

Best of all, the books teaches strategies for how individuals can get out themselves out of intellectual ruts. It also describes how organizations can set up processes that will shield them from group think, functional stupidity, and band wagon thinking.

I highly recommend it.

As a side note … Other books I wish more people would read (or listen to–it’s a great way to get your steps in) are: Free Speech a History From Socrates to Social Media by Jacob McHangama (For my review of Free Speech and a defense of Flat Earthers click here). Also, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed is also another fantastic read. I could best break Seeing down as “How central planning fails.” but that makes it come off as a diatribe against collectivist states, ignoring how much Western governments and supposedly “free market” economies have dismal records with “central planning” schemes–and how often they try to impose them.

Book Review: Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton

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Mickey7 is the only clone on a deep space colonization mission. He has a very important job–to die, whenever a suicidal mission presents itself. This happens a lot. Fortunately, for Mickey, he’s got his consciousness and body backed up on the colony mainframe. He doesn’t really die. Or does he?

Mickey 7 asks deep questions and explores the attitudes that non-clones might have towards him, but it does it with a light touch. At times Mickey 7 borders on satire, but never crosses so far over the line that you wind up not feeling for it’s main character.

Highly recommended.

Traditionally published and probably available at your public library.