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The inhabitants of Mesopotamia were ethnically diverse.  Various peoples wanted control of Mesopotamia which generated conflict.  Ancient conflict reflected in contemporary events.  Conflicts that devastated cities.  After various disasters, military power was changed.  Concentrated to protect, but also for conquest.  To prevent being conquered, they had become conquerors.  The political system contained citizen assemblies that were needed to approve decisions, no matter who the leader was.  The political system changed from city-states to centralized power, with formalized laws. 

The culture was based on continuous change, to continuously improve on what was.  Change everything from physical structures to belief systems.  There were even references to the flood that were used to explain the changing times.  When various aspects of society had been disintegrating, many had given up on the social system.  The flood symbolized rejection of what was before.  That power, culture, and ideology have changed. 

 

Understanding Mesopotamian history is made difficult by a lack of sources, and challenges in translating the language. 

History is useful when applied to contemporary events.  Showcased in this book by the connection of the various related historic and contemporary events.  The connections have mixed qualities, as the references can be interesting, but also distracting.   

 Is This An Overview?

A looming fortune is within reach, only to be taken away by tragic events.  Tragic events can seem hopeless, only to stumble into a new fortune.  This book follows the oscillating fortune and misfortune of primarily Candide, and many other characters.  Many who had everything, became those with nothing.  While those who appear to have nothing, have a fortune.  Not just fortune that has reversals, but also social values.  Written as a critique on society, on how social perception of groups does not mean that the members behave in the manner they are expected to.  Those who are supposed to represent the civilized behave in a barbarous manner, while those who are supposed to be barbarian behave in a civilized manner. 

 

This is a fast-paced adventure.  Each chapter is short, without many details given.  Lack of details, but filled with meaning.

Transitions have mixed qualities.  There are antediluvian references, which would be better understood by those who know the various historic aspects of the era. 

In an efficient market, in an efficient civilization, the individual cannot do better than the collective power of the many who have a lot more available information.  Even if the individual has information that others do not, the individual cannot make an improvement, gain any benefits by fixing the problem, and cannot exploit the system.  Common problems within adequate systems are supposed to be resolved by the community, as good ideas have already been tried by the community.  The collective might not get the exact answer, but no individual can predict the average value of the error, the average value of the change.   

Alternatively, there are inadequate systems in which individuals can do better that the community, as problems exist but do not get resolved.  Civilization gets stuck with inadequate equilibria as they are systemically unfixable.  There are various reasons for how an inadequate system, an inadequate civilization can develop. 

Central decision makers can prevent others from fixing the problem.  Decisions makers are not the beneficiaries.  There is asymmetric information as decision makers cannot know what or whose information to trust.  Systems might be inadequate, but that does not make them exploitable as there are many competitors trying to benefit from available opportunities, a competitive equilibrium.  To improve the system would require large scale coordination action, but they are difficult to facilitate.

 

Wrong guesses and false cynicism do exist.  Different systems are dysfunctional in different ways.  No individual is better at everything, but individuals can be better at somethings and worse at others.  There is a lot of variation in expert views.

Although there are inadequate systems, just assuming inadequacy can make people see inadequacy in everything with a lot of arguments.  Concluding inadequacy from a problem is not an adequate rule.  Even though systems have inadequate equilibria, a blanket distrust of inadequacy arguments does not get far.  Civilization cannot be beat all the time, but its good to be skeptical and check for inadequacy. 

 

The explanations can be improved.  The organizational quality is mixed.  There are practical examples and abstract reasoning.  The abstract reasoning and conversations can become confusing.  There are parts that would be better understood with prerequisite knowledge.   

This book is based on the dichotomy of perfect and imperfect information theory, an improvement on them.  Tailored to reduce the strictness of perfect information.  

People have different experiences, values, and priorities.  Differences that cause division and conflict.  With tribes formed by those who agree and share the same values.  A method to overcome the division and conflict would be to change how to think about the ideas.  To think about the ideas from above, a cosmic perspective.  Science and rational thinking provides that perspective.  Many disagreements disappear when data about the ideas is introduced.  Scientists are after the data, rather than opinions.

While scientific tools overcome human sensory frailties, scientists are taught to think rationally rather than emotionally.  Truth comes from repeated and consistent results, not based on authority nor on a single research paper.  Changing how ideas are interpreted based on tests and experiments.  Knowledge grows exponentially as previous research is used to develop new understanding.  While science seeks to change behavior through voluntary consensus, behavior on social media tends to coerce agreement.   

 

This book is on applications of science across diverse topics.  Various topics that include those that are socially sensitive.  Some topics have been developed further by specialists within the topics, who have different interpretations of the claims. 

There is an idealism about science and scientists.  There is a recognition that scientists can corrupt research, but that the community can self-regulate.  The problem in thinking of the community as an ideal, can prevent scientists from considering how science can be corrupted, which exacerbates the corruption.  Ideally, scientists remove their emotions from their claims, but emotions provide logic with value.  Scientists are people, who have emotions.  Emotions that influence how data is interpreted.  The want to remove emotions, does not prevent emotions, but rather hides them.  Creating the hidden biases that the author recognizes corrupt science.

The subtitle is a bit deceptive.  The cosmic reference is not about astrophysics, but about science.  Science is the cosmic perspective.  There are some references on astrophysics, but that is not the purpose of this book. 

Everything in nature is interconnected.  A species effects the ecosystem around them.  A cycle of life as nutrients from the dead feed the living.  Many animals fight for nutrients provided by other dead animals.  Nitrogen is a reactive compound that enables the growth of vegetation, but is rare in nature.  Nitrogen can be provided by dead animals around them, or alternatively, the winds can carry it.  Nitrogen is a by-product of burning fossil fuels that can be carried long distances on the wind, to come down when it rains.  Trees have been aware of the emissions as they have been growing faster when emissions rose.  But growing too fast makes them vulnerable to fungi and other predators.  Fires have been a way to recycle dead biomass, but that also incinerates the natural sanitation army of animals that decompose and release nutrients.  Rain can provide sustenance, but heavy rain can carry away valuable soil and nutrients.

Animals communicate, between their own species and other animals.  Even vegetation has a communication method, a wood wide web.  Much like animals have defenses against predators, vegetation has defenses on those that prey on them.  Reproduction is attuned to winter losses, but humans can intervene to feed animals and prevent losses, which means more animals available after winter.  Increased population of a species effects how they compete with other animals, and how much vegetation there is.  Hunters have participated in feeding animals, to have more animals to hunt.  People can also protect animals, a desire usually fostered when people engage and connect with animals, such as through zoos. 

 

The ecosystem is complex.  Complexity that makes it difficult to understand how everything is interconnected.  This book shares some connections that are known, with different interpretations.  There are many connections not yet known or understood. 

Death is the outcome of a concentration camp.  A prison that sorts people based on their ability to work.  If a person could not be forced to work under the harsh conditions, or lack of food, they were sent to death.  A concentration camp is about suffering, but there are those who survived.  Those who had higher chances of survival found moments to overcome the suffering, and find mental habits to keep themselves from despair.  Those who survived found ways to imbue meaning in their life.  Finding meaning even in the tragic human experience of the concentration camp.

There were those who died from giving up hope, from a lack of a potential future.  Died from nothing to live for.  A physiological response, as those who deteriorated mentally, also deteriorated physically which made them vulnerable to every other threat.  To survive, to prevent despair, the prisoners found ways to imbue meaning into their experience.  Prisoners found momentary solace in retrospective thought.  Momentary bliss from thinking about loved ones.  Even some humor was used as a self-preservation mechanism. 

Finding meaning is the basis of logotherapy.  Meaning can be found through work, love, or even courage in difficult times.  There is much that is beyond the control of the individual, but the individual has the freedom to choose how to respond.  Cannot control what happens, but can control how the individual feels. 

 

Initially, the prisoners had some hope that they would keep their items.  But became apathetic, as a self-defense mechanism.  Everything began to be about self-preservation.  The prisoners crowed together for self-preservation, to not be conspicuous.  Alternatively, prisoners wanted time along with their thoughts. 

Prisoners who were chosen for death, had a delusion of reprieve.  An illusion of being spared in the last moment.  Those who were chosen for death were those who could not work.  In response, the prisoners tried to make themselves look younger, fit for work.  Viktor E. Frankl used psychological tools to become useful to the Capo, who saved Frankl from death.  Capos were prisoners who worked for the guards.  There were some really bad guards, in all can be found human kindness.

After the camp experience, former prisoners depersonalize their experience, as if they had been deceived and it did not happen.  Even though they wanted liberation, they also could not believe it happened.

 

Logotherapy is about the future, how people finding meaning.  By finding fulfillment in the future.  A tension between what was achieved, and has yet to be achieved.  People have the ability to change, and change the world.

Retrospective thought can be help, but can also be dangerous.  Retrospective thought can prevent people from seeing the opportunities of reality.  To not see opportunities to become better.

There is a survivorship bias in those who survived by using the methods.  As mentioned in the book, many of those who used the methods still died.  Without mentioning how many survived without using the methods. 

In the 1970s, a skeleton is found in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.  The skeleton has a pendant that leads to The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store.  The tale takes the form of a backstory of how the skeleton came to be there, a mystery that is set in the 1920s-1930s.  During the time, The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store, along with theaters are owned by Moshe and Chona.  Moshe manages the theater, while the disabled Chona manages the store. 

The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store acts like a sanctuary for many.  A central community gathering place that is recognized for how they help the community.  In an era of various forms of persecution, the store and theaters transformed the community into an inclusive region.  A region where diverse people who struggle are able to find people who can help them.  Diverse people from different ethnicities, cultures, religions, and disabilities. 

As a sanctuary, Moshe and Chona are willing to hide a nephew of a friend and colleague.  The nephew is a 12-year-old boy called Dodo, who needs to avoid a government agent who is set to take Dodo to a special school for people like Dodo.  Dodo became disabled after a kitchen accident.  Dodo became deaf, but is able to read lips and be athletic.  The request to hide Dodo was due to the poor conditions of the intended school.  Dodo is hidden at The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store.  Although Moshe and Chona did not have a child, Dodo has become part of the family.  Can they keep Dodo hidden?  How is this event tied to the skeleton found many years later?

 

The book covers various socially tense situations, using the language of the era.  Ideas and language that are no longer appropriate.  The situations are meant to represent the values of people during the time.  What they thought and how they reflect on contemporary values. 

Islam has a diverse community, formed by diverse views.  There are those who seek peace and friendly relations with others, but there are also those who seek to justify conflict.  This book is focused on explaining why there are those who want conflict, on the justifications.  The Islamic community had been a leading civilization in military power, commerce, and science.  But since at least the 17th century, Islamic communities have been falling behind.  Without an effective resolution to the gap.  There are those who place the fault on Western imperialism.  Some sources of material support came from foreign sponsors who also provided a philosophy to express anti-Western sentiments.  Although foreign influence did not cause the sentiments, many Islamic states were receptive to the sentiments.

 

Those who seek conflict, need an enemy to retain power.  Even creating conflict to prevent cooperation and diplomatic relations.  In Muslim states, there is no separation of government and religion.  Islam has a devote population with high participation, and deference to the community that is no longer found in the West.  Giving people an identity, and obtaining loyalty.  There are those who seek a pure and authentic Islam.  A piousness that restricts behavior, with those who commit inappropriate behavior seen as legitimate targets of conflict. 

 

As this book focuses on understanding those seeking conflict, there is not much on those seeking cooperation.  There is a lot of Islamic history, with this book covering relatively few events that focus on explaining the claims. 

Knowledge is a communal process, a journey, rather than a destination.  To find each other’s errors, then correct them.  To discard ideas that have been disconfirmed.  The constitution of knowledge is meant to provide guidance on how to handle differences of perspectives.  Viewpoint diversity is needed, with each claim going through challenges and accommodation to enable a social convergence.  To hear different viewpoints, requires tolerance of a contentious intellectual culture.  Making claims and validating ideas without personal attacks, and without anyone having a final say.  Not even personal authority can validate claims, as everyone is fallible.  The constitution of knowledge creates an epistemic environment where people are protected, but their ideas are not.

While the constitution of knowledge is meant to enable society to have better information, society can face an epistemic crisis in which the quality and sources of information have been degraded.  As people are not able to tell the difference between truth and falsehood.  Some ways that information can be degraded is through ideological tribalism, trolling, and canceling.  An epistemic crisis comes about when people attack the informational environment, not just people or facts.

Humans are social animals that depend not on forming true beliefs, but beliefs that lead to social success.  What matters is what the group believes.  As people want to belong to a tribe, there is a willingness to purposefully interpret information incorrectly, to protect the tribe.  Internet trolls confuse and disrupt, while cancelers coerce.  Rather than seek to improve the knowledge base, trolls weaponize outrage to capture attention which demobilizes people through demoralization.  Cancelers signal tribal support, by expressing public outrage that is meant to isolate and intimidate the opposition rather than provide fair criticism.  Through attacks on epistemic sources, viewpoint diversity has become endangered.

 

Certainty might be sought after, but certainty is not compatible with knowledge.  Alternatively there is fallibilism, that any belief is to be discarded when there is experience against them.  With fallibilism, uncertainty is ubiquitous but obtaining knowledge is still possible.  Knowledge is always provisional.  Fallibilist search for errors, as disconfirmation can be found.  What remains by removing the errors, is the best available knowledge.

It is through the communal process of error correction that each scientist’s biases can be limited.  Scientists are biased, and they might not recognize their own biases, but they can spot other people’s biases.  By having different biases, each scientist can see the mistakes of the others. 

 

The constitution of knowledge is meant to compel and organize social negotiation.  To accept challenges to claims, and seek to compromise or accommodate.  To be resilient and innovate without the system breaking down.  Competition with belief systems provides a need to compromise them. 

Constitution of knowledge does not require people to agree on facts.  It requires people with different views towards social convergence.  Real intellectual pluralism and viewpoint diversity need to be actively sought for.  Agreement on ideas is not viewpoint diversity. 

Reality-based (error-seeking) communities are accountable to each other, not a higher authority.  There is a separation between the idea and the person.  Ideas can be attacked, but not the character of the person. 

The constitution of knowledge has commitments to fallibilism, objectivity, exclusivity, disconfirmation, and accountability.  There is also an internal value of epistemic conscience of not selecting favorable data or hiding unfavorable data.  Fallibilism is about accepting being wrong.  Objectivity is about the empirical rule, that people are interchangeable.  Exclusivity is about using the constitutions rules for objectivity.  Disconfirmation is needed to challenge claims rather than just confirm already accepted claims.  Accountability is about making mistakes acceptable, not to punish them too harshly.

 

People defer to their tribes for beliefs and attitudes.  Groups establish a shared perception of reality.  People are tribal and change their belief system to the tribe’s views, to prevent a loss of social reputation and group identity.  Evolutionary habituated to defend the group’s ideas, to prevent alienation from the group.  When the group’s values are threatened, people interpret evidence incorrectly to protect the group.

Reason does not override group identity.  Group solidarity creates ideological conflict.  Creating epistemic tribalism.  People publicly conform to information they privately know is false.  Totalitarian regimes require everyone to pretend to believe ideas, that they know privately to be false.  Ideological tribes believe that only one side can prevail, requiring the destruction of the other side’s political force.

With neutral data that is not part of an ideological background, a person can interpret data well.  But when data is shown to be about a passionate topic attached to an ideological background, the person interprets the data based on ideological background.  Emotionally charged issues enable the exploitation and manipulation of people.  Although emotions rationalize political loyalties, people claim that policy views were formed through reason. 

More intelligent people were better able to interpret neutral data, but had more biased interpretations for the passionate topics.  Intelligence enables people to better rationalize false beliefs.  Intelligence does not necessarily make people open-minded, or self-critical thinking.  Motivated reasoning weaponized intelligence against reality.  Seeing others as a wrong, while not seeing the individual as biased. 

 

Journalists are meant to seek accuracy, obtain a comment from the target, consider varied viewpoints, among other factors to avoid a conflict of interest.  There are times when the news are wrong and therefore retract the entries.  Errors are meant to signal integrity, but those attacking information see error correction as proof of corruption.

Digital media reverses the social incentives of the reality-based community.  Rather than slowing down information flow by reviewing and testing before sharing, digital media favors instantaneity and impulsivity.  Anonymity makes people lose accountability and become sociopathic.  Misinformation tends to be more inflammatory and shared then boring reality.  Digital media promotes ad hominem attacks rather than marginalizes them.  Digital media attacks the person rather than the idea. 

For internet trolls, the point is capturing attention, rather than the quality of the content.  Troll epistemology is destructive.  It does not create knowledge, trust, or settle disagreements.  What troll epistemology does is reduce the information environment of reality-based communities.  Propaganda creates the condition in which people cannot tell the difference between truth and falsehood, or even methods of distinguishing between them.  Demoralization is a source of political power, as it demobilizes people.  Demotivating people to feel helpless, that they cannot change anything, that there is no alternative to the totalitarian regime.

Cancelers do not even read the content that they are canceling.  What canceling is about is signaling support for their group rather than any targeted idea or person.  Cancel campaigns are meant to isolate, intimidate, and demoralize rather than provide fair criticism.  While criticism wants to influence through rational persuasion.  Canceling is propaganda warfare that shapes the informational battlefield against knowledge.

Emotional safetyism is problematic as it prevents having conversations about ideas that makes people feel unsafe.  Turing all experiences into threats.  Creates conflict through perpetual anger.  While reality-based community rewards challenging claims, safety-based community rewards emotional demonstrations that hinder challengers.  Rather than preventing harmful ideas, they enabling harmful ideas.  Enabling a censorship of every idea and person.  Creating conditions for self-censorship through norm police, has the consequence of building resentment that becomes expressed by voting for a demagogue. 

 

There is an idealism about science, about error correcting systems.  As error correcting is a community function, there is a conflict between the ideal outcomes and group dynamics.  The referenced tribal biases, and weaponizing intelligence against reality.  The focus is on the ideal outcomes, the benefits of error correcting, while not referencing the potential consequences of error correcting.  Skepticism about information is needed for error correcting, but skepticism can be misused.  Troll epistemic attacks leverage uncertainty and turn it against the community.  Creating the referenced epistemic crisis of not knowing what information to trust.

The author’s claims about tribal biases, causing people to confirm ideas favorable to the tribe while disregard ideas unfavorable to the tribe.  Tribal biases effect the author as well.  The author is a journalist, and in this book fought for journalistic integrity.  The author and many journalists might have integrity, but not every journalist.  The author defends news making retractions after an error, and how journalists are fact based.  The problem is that published news tend to be viewed way more than the retractions, therefore the errors are not actually corrected for the public.  Journalists might be fact based, but they can deliver some facts while avoiding other facts which changes how the information is interpretated. 

The author blames social media with quick spread of information, and misinformation.  Being quick to spread means not being able to check and validate the information as much as the slower news mediums.  The problem is that the slower news are not ideal either. 

In part, the author makes the case that personal authority is antagonistic to knowledge development.  But then the author wants professionalism and institutionalism which enable an authority, even as they are described as being without.  Disapproves of amateurs, but that is contradictory to the claims of error correcting.  People start as amateurs and then improve themselves through error correcting.  

Jews were settling in the Middle East since the 19th century, but Israel was made possible by early 20th mass immigration due to persecution, consequences of war, and anti-immigration policies of other states.  Ideas of settling Palestine were a 19th century Christian Zionist invention.  Supported by the British as a way to overcome colonialization limitations in the area, which would have given the British access to the area along with allies. 

To take territory that would become Israel, a historic claim was made on the land.  That the people owned the land who did not live on it for over two millennia, while denying the right to the land to those who lived on the land continuously for centuries.  That the local people did not claim self-determination. 

Sovereign ownership of the land was justified by a myth, that the land was the ancestral land in possession of the Jewish people.  An exile was part of the myth, an exile that never happened.  A myth of a people having a desire to return to the ancestral land, but when Jewish groups were expelled from other regions due to religious persecution, they did not historically want to seek refuge in the sacred land.  Jews relocated to other locations.

 

Myths were created by disregarding history.  To avoid the history of Judaism as a dynamic and proselytizing religion.  To pretend that history does not contain various Judaized kingdoms that flourished.  To forget the converted Jews by the Judaized kingdoms.  Myths meant to disregard the territory’s local peasants.

There was no exile, nor was there yearning to return.  Faithful Jews spread across the world.  Jews were not limited to a small territory, but where to be found everywhere.  Believers not through punishment.   

The myth was developed to get Western sympathy, particularly Protestant Christian community who preceded Zionists ideas.

 

The term Land of Israel came after the destruction of the Temple.  With the area being defined as Palestina by the Roman Empire.  It was during the 20th century that the Land of Israel became a theological concept due to the Protestants.  It was the Puritans which interested the Bible as historical text before the Jewish Zionists.  That was when the geonational concept was refined.  Israel as a homeland came after nationalism, making sacrificing for the sake of homeland a much later interpretation and myth.

 

Founded on fluid borders, which had the option of expanding.  And did expand.  Founded on ideas that Jews were persecuted who had nowhere else to go, but the territorial expansion and military victory that were not related to Jewish suffering.

 

Jews had been powerless and persecuted, but had become powerful and abused their power.  The persecuted had become the persecutors.

They portrayed themselves as saviors rather than conquerors of foreign lands.  There is debate whether Palestinians left willingly or because of the bombings.  Many have justified Zionist colonization by the ancestral lands claim.  Israel controls a large Palestinian population who have no sovereignty.

 

The focus is on how the concept of Israel came to be.  The myths involved in making Israel, and breaking the myths.  The practical reason for how Israel came to be.  This is not a detailed political or social history of Israel.