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DRUNK

HOW WE SIPPED, DANCED, AND STUMBLED OUR WAY TO CIVILIZATION

A hyperbolic but entertaining defense of intoxication via alcohol.

A spirited look at drinking.

A professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia, Slingerland draws on archaeology, anthropology, history, neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, poetry, and genetics to argue—insistently and repetitively— for the social, cultural, and psychological benefits of getting drunk. “Far from being an evolutionary mistake,” he writes, “chemical intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers.” He expounds at length on humans’ need for creativity, culture, and cooperation, which, he claims, alcohol enhances. “In many ways,” he writes, alcohol “is the perfect drug. It is easy to dose, and its cognitive effects stable across individuals. Best of all, these effects wax and wane predictably and are relatively short-lived.” Alcohol consumption, he asserts, preceded agriculture and, in fact, “provided the spark that allowed us to form truly large-scale groups, domesticate increasing numbers of plants and animals, accumulate new technologies, and thereby create the sprawling civilizations that have made us the dominant mega-fauna on the planet.” While Slingerland concedes that alcohol may have detrimental physical effects, such as liver damage, he asserts that such costs must be weighed against its “venerable role as an aid to creativity, contentment, and social solidarity.” The author acknowledges, however, that this solidarity excludes those who do not drink for health or religious reasons and often excludes women, as well. As far as the role of alcohol in sexual assault and rape, Slingerland writes that these unsavory behaviors are “driven by patriarchal or misogynist social norms rather than the ethanol molecule itself.” In the final chapter, the author cautions against imbibing distilled spirits and drinking “outside of the traditional context of ritual and social controls,” contradicting his earlier assertion that many artists and writers “unleashed” their creativity by drinking hard liquor, alone.

A hyperbolic but entertaining defense of intoxication via alcohol.

Pub Date: June 1, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-316-45338-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Little, Brown Spark

Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021

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ELON MUSK

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

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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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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

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