Reagans White House was better at communication than any other in the modern era partly because they did not rely on normal political staff but brought people in from Hollywood. I wish there was something similar on the history of the LMB at Cambridge, one of our crown jewels which Whitehall (and the VC office) has gradually buried with stupid regulation. Ditto for the Johnson volumes (Ive not read) when Caro publishes the last. (Ive recently read some of the media commentary about 2019 that I ignored at the time and its amazing how many hacks thought I was trying to use vNs game theory. E.g Introduction to Strategic History, Modern Strategy, Strategy and Defence Planning (reading now). Looks at the bigshots of modern military thinking. The Federalist Papers. Steve has a startup that is a leading player in this emerging field. (general reader). Keynes essay on Newton is great: He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than10,000years ago Why do I call him a magician? Rationality, Vernon Smith. Ditto for the Johnson volumes (Ive not read) when Caro publishes the last. Classic text, university level. Sun Tzu. Almost no MPs or senior officials study him or are even midly interested. This by Fields Medallist Terry Tao, maybe the greatest mathematician alive, is brilliant and incredibly useful for someone like me explaining a lot of fundamental concepts in non-technical language. The Quark and the Jaguar, Murray Gell Mann. His boss and predecessor was Kelly Johnson who wrote this short list of principles. Also you cant understand our world unless you have a sense of Nietzsches profound influence on 20th Century artists, thinkers, and politics. Please post questions below. Reckoning With Risk, Gigerenzer. On prediction. Then nationalism became generally despised by educated liberals, and so on We cant, how our own ideas will appear in the future but its fascinating how little we, to imagine how foolish our own views will inevitably appear to those looking back on us. Sept. 7, 2019 Dominic Cummings, special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of . Youll understand more of how SW1 really works than from all PM memoirs of the last 30 years combined (PMs never face why they dont control much of Whitehall even after theyve gone). Although Nietzsche despised nothing more than the radical left, he became extremely influential on it, perhaps because nobody else so thoroughly demolishes the foundations of liberal democracy, although, in a further twist, few of the left realise the extent to which they are influenced by him. Calculus, Spivak (2008 edition). The Book of Why (general reader). Producers didnt want to make a Renoir picture even if it was a success. I should have read this, havent, will. For us its often seen as high level political philosophy but it was bashed out by Hamilton et al as part of a brutal political struggle including many dirty tricks on both sides. Many who used them went on to the famous Kolmogorov schools.). , von Neumann, 1955. ), genetics, expert judgement, finance and many other topics with the focus on how education policy has to cope in order to train problem solvers for the coming challenges. , Terence Tao. No doubt about that Nietzsche produced the climate in which Fascism and Hitlerism could emerge. Blurb endorsement by Einstein. Re Clintons 1992 campaign which influenced the Blair 1997 campaign. LKY, Boyd, Groves all say the same). The Snippets format doesnt work well and Im rethinking how to do it. *Come and See ( , Russian). Cowen & Collison handed out fast grants to researchers during covid and at my request advised UKRI on how to speed up in spring 2020. Yudkowskys Sequences, the core document of the rationalist movement. NB. (I knew Mark, a professor at Cambridge, who spent a huge amount of time over the past decade helping state school pupils get hold of great physics material via Isaac Physics. What does it say about the West that their newspaper propaganda was much higher class than most elite philosophy now? 19 Apr 2023 07:47:58 is extraordinary, e.g his secret search for the truth about Leibniz. This is not true of blogs like Marginal Revolution. The resignation of Dominic Raab. Perhaps America has elections every four years, power supply is ~100% reliable in the First World, Europe wont see millions killed in wars again, nobody lives happily/normally to 200, robots cant escape control and kill vast numbers of humans, children should study curricula controlled by the state, I support policies that undermine traditional ideas about the family will seem as quaint in 2052 as Bertrand Russell being taught by a grandfather whod met Napoleon that British naval dominance is a fact of life. If youre in Georgia, visit her house in Milledgeville. The United Kingdom parliamentary second jobs controversy of 2021 began with Owen Paterson and his lobbying and breach of Commons advocacy rules, which led to his resignation on 5 November, and this was followed by extensive press coverage and debate about the second jobs of other MPs, particularly Geoffrey Cox.Cox, a former Attorney General, registered a total income of 970,000 in 2020, for . It is, therefore, practically unknown in SW1. one of my terrorist demands when Boris asked me to go to No10, 21 July 2019). On digital fabrication. , Dantzig (1930, updated 1953; new edition 2007). The cynicism/realism remains shocking. Six Easy Pieces, Feynman. , Scott Aaronson (2013) is a brilliant introduction to many ideas about computation, physics and quantum information. , Gigerenzer. A classic non-specialist introduction to reasoning. , George Dyson (son of Freeman). I was not. Someone should run a prize for the best 10,000 word essay summarising the fundamental lessons of this book (which I havent read in full, just skimmed, because of time not a judgement). Also the club of those who write about UK politics a) are rarely interested in how power really works, b) are almost never interested in management, how to get hard things done, or how organisations work, c) think theyre an expert on communication but are not a general problem for hacks who confuse understanding journalism with understanding communication. was the fundamental reason I think Brexit is the right idea and the EU is doomed to fail in important ways. On the 50th anniversary Munger reflected on why his partnership with Buffett had been so successful and Buffetts personality. Vast amounts of what you read on this is rubbish. The best modern subject for those interested in how political decisions are taken and effective action in politics/government is, . Re George Mueller, the man who managed the Apollo program. Next week I'll write something for subscribers only on 'Some basics of how to do regime change'. Physics for Future Presidents, and Energy for Future Presidents, Richard Muller. You and your research, Hamming. Most economists cant synthesise worth a damn. *Chaplin City Lights, The Gold Rush, Modern Times, Great Dictator. I'm working on a Reading List as requested by many, coming in the next 2-3 weeks , Courant. All ideas welcome. The media laughed and many said its so boring. Ive only read a few excerpts of these but reading them all is a project for later this year. (I knew Mark, a professor at Cambridge, who spent a huge amount of time over the past decade helping state school pupils get hold of great physics material via Isaac Physics. , Nietzsche. Blurb endorsement by Einstein. Also cf. Histories of the Standard Model: The Second Creation, Crease & Mann (1996) and The Infinity Puzzle, Frank Close (2011). You can learn from him about how to get very hard things done without admiring his character. Dominic Cummings Offers a Sorry-Not-Sorry for U.K. Lockdown Breach The top adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson caused a furor after it was learned he had driven 260 miles to his parents'. are great. (A great highlight of Oxford for me was four-hour tutorials with RLF on Athenian democracy, Thucydides, Alexander etc.). ): how much was the effectiveness bound up with the dangerousness the failure of alignment and/or the inherent drive of high intelligence to escape constraints/control/alignment with others goals? Its often found in terrorist safe houses when raided. I like reading stuff about people where incentives and feedback work, from used car salesmen to fortune tellers. Popular intro to network theory. A classic on the 1972 campaign. Interesting on the psychology of selling and marketing. No question, it's Dominic Cummings. The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande. ), here are some books and a few papers I recommend. , Carville & Matalin. I really liked this classic but a lot was beyond me. RT @zebulgar: Step aside Andy Grove, I believe @chughesjohnson has written the new bible for managers Took me a while to work through my reading list so I could start this, but the writing is phenomenal, let alone the content Must-read for any founder, but especially after your Series A . A modern version of Polya for children, by aFields Medalist. A reader with no more than GCSE Maths can read this introduction to maths from Greece through the birth of calculus. summarising responses to this. Many interesting developments and the launch of the 2024 campaign may be only a few weeks away, if Trump announces on 4 July as is being discussed in Mar-a-Lago. If you really are interested in policy and how someone tries to bring principles of high performance to government, this is essential. (Some confusion about his ideas is a result of his sister who, a Nazi supporter and edited things he wrote to distort his actual views. He also wrote a book on neural networks. , John Allen Paulos (1988). I don't like to say it in front of my wife, but I did sort of neglect her sometimes; I needed to study. In the search I came across Boyd. Rosen on military innovation, very relevant to discussions on things like drones and AI in Ukraine. As Strauss said, Nietzsche despised anti-semites and the sort of characters who controlled the Nazi party but it also cannot be ignored that in attacking ideas and clearing the ground for new values, he also prepared the ground for communism and fascism: Nietzsche did not mean it in the way people like Hitler and Mussolini meant it, but through his negations, he prepares it. Six months later tens of thousands died for the lack of such skills. , Plouffe. The best biography in English (probably any language) is, . As Strauss said, Nietzsche despised anti-semites and the sort of characters who controlled the Nazi party but it also cannot be ignored that in attacking ideas and clearing the ground for new values, he also prepared the ground for communism and fascism: Nietzsche did not mean it in the way people like Hitler and Mussolini meant it, but through his negations, he prepares it. There's a big bad enemy out there, possibly with superior weaponry but. Please, . Autocracy has wide variance in performance one minute you have Bismarck in charge, the next you have Wilhelm II firing him and trying to govern himself in an appalling disaster that took the best educated country in the world towards Nazism. On typical problems dealing with statistics, Bayes Theory, and how to improve understanding of probability. Non-fiction books on politics fail to give you this crucial sense. You can learn from him about how to get very hard things done without admiring his character. I blogged a series on this great book starting. 121. For the beginner, by a Fields Medallist. I'll answer some over the next 48 hours, on Friday I'll focus on live questions/discussion, then tidy up after. And a very recent post, AGI Ruin, summarising the arguments on why artificial general intelligence is so dangerous and why controlling these dangers is so very hard. Zvi reviews Tyler Cowens new book, Talent. Alan Kay, one of those present at the creation, says its by far the best history. I don't like to say it in front of my wife, but I did sort of neglect her sometimes; I needed to study. Dyson, Hawking) is wrong. Makers of Modern Strategy, Paret et al. , and let non-player characters stumble into a set of critical decisions in November? In general Colin Grays work. On Renoir and Hollywood: It would be ridiculous to be bitter about Hollywood. Click repeat), , Hamming. ), Notes from the Underground, Dostoyevsky. I've read at least some of (almost) all of them and (almost) all of most titles I refer to (not all the textbooks). Although some other officials and senior figures had also broken the lockdown rules, this transgression was the first to . A classic book on mathematical problem solving. Dominic Cummings told Parliament that his ex-boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was "unfit for the job" and that government incompetence lead to thousands of excess Covid-19 deaths. Los Alamos was crucial but it was part of a much vaster infrastructure of engineering projects, intelligence, planning and so on. What is mathematics?, Courant. , Leonard Susskind (2013). Remember that approxmitately no MPs and few in Congress are aware of these facts or ideas yet they speculate confidently about Putins thinking on nuclear weapons. Now, perhaps, they have some idea of what that. Rohls multivolume biography on Wilhelm II is brilliant and, like Pflanze, a whole political education in itself. He replied to Yudkowskys AGI ruin, . How Roger Ailes packaged Nixon with actual campaign memos reproduced at the back. , Kahneman. Likes. Hard question (relevant to AGI safety debates! Cited by many professional mathematicians as an inspiration. Book accompanying an OU course. He was a mathematician who got interested in how markets work. This is false. My essay on an 'Odyssean' Education - Dominic Cummings's Blog My essay on an 'Odyssean' Education On the evening of Friday 11 October 2013, the Guardian published a draft essay of mine - ' Some thoughts on education and political priorities ' (links here and here ). Our impression was there is valuable low hanging fruit for governments, hedge funds, campaigns, Thucydides. and I suspect it would be one of the most useful things to force politicians and senior officials to read. People who climb to the top of the science system tend to defend the system rather than support change, even when they realise how bad it is. Ive flicked through books on post-Thatcher UK general elections but never found them interesting enough to read in full. Now It Can Be Told, General Groves. The replication disaster means you have to be careful about what you believe but its still a good book. How to Solve It, Polya. British political writing depends hugely on assuming that much of the newspaper coverage is roughly true, so given much is actually invented it means the books repeat a lot of fake news and miss the point. Brexit and VL in No10 (original official advice was to go with the useless bureaucratic EU scheme. . True of Bismarck (only appointed because of meltdown in royal circles), true of the likes of SpaceX (an explosion away from bankruptcy) and Steve Jobs (tried to sell early and was turned down), true of Brexit We just dont see all the stories of very able people trying really hard who get taken out by bad luck early in the story. On digital fabrication. (This series was written for the Russian correspondence school a way of giving talented maths pupils a useful curriculum in such a vast country. While No 10 was trying to get a grip on the pandemic, news came in . , in contrast to most professional economists who influence media debate on regulation who have no idea of how government really works and how destructive it is to make simple things take years, how it drives people away, rewards the worst people and companies etc. People dont realise that nobody in movies is interested in money Theyre really interested in its all an ego trip, status, You can replace Hollywood with Westminster, picture/movie with political strategy, producers with MPs, and money with the public. The vaccine taskforce a) created huge value for the UK and the world, b) would, have happened without [typo original!] Will. In the search I came across Boyd. Steve Jobs advised Obama to do the same but it didnt happen. This will also show you why high performance is so hard it is totally hostile to normal bureaucracies dominated by large numbers of middle managers. Gawande. One of the most critical lessons? I should have read this, havent, will. The peacetime bureaucracy knew what it valued. My wild Westminster Dubbed 'The Gazelle' by the press, she was a trusted aide who babysat Boris, chauffeured Dominic Cummings and chaperoned Carrie Johnson when the PM was ill. As a new television drama depicts Downing Street during the pandemic, Cleo Watson describes her whirlwind year at No 10 Dress to thrill Feeling gilty? From Third World to First World by Lee Kuan Yew. Partly accessible to a non-specialist with some maths already, though very challenging for most including me. The difficulty comes from the fact its psychologically very hard to stick to and almost all bureaucracies operate with incentives and culture that push in opposite directions. In War and Peace, you see a world historical genius skip between vast scales of time and space, connecting tiny things happening this moment to the biggest things affecting decades or centuries to come. 406. , Marcus du Sautoy. E.g his few pages on, which few economists seem to know about! Hes a very unusual thinker and much more right much more often than just about anybody, partly because of how he thinks. Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos (1988). Professor Sides Dominic Cummings Nov 22, 2022 59 134 Ask Me Anything Monday 28 November, 1900-2100 Dominic Cummings Nov 21, 2022 57 310 The best book about Gdels Theorem (according to the editor of Gdels Collected Works) which explains why almost everything one reads about it including by some famous scientists (e.g. Essential companion (and very much ignored by most Americans) to The Federalist Papers - the so-called Anti-Federalist Papers (AFP): http://resources.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/Constitutional/AntiFederalist/antifed.htm, https://history.nycourts.gov/about_period/antifederalist-papers/, Re Monnet ~ https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/october-2020/the-eu-godfathers-wall-street-roots/ and Draghi ~ https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2021/the-sphinx-who-reshaped-europe/, This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Boris Johnson has backed his top aide Dominic Cummings, saying he "acted responsibly, legally and with integrity" when he drove 260 miles to County Durham to isolate with his family. Two of the most important documents on the computer revolution by two of the critical figures in ARPA/PARC. The basic arguments remain critical today. I applied his basic ideas in the euro campaign, in the 2004 North East referendum, in thinking through education reform and trying to get the Department for Education to do what I wanted, in the Brexit referendum, in solving the 2019 impasse, in No10, and to removing this PM since spring 2021. Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher's treasure hunt to the esoteric brotherhood. People who havent studied it often mock Fukuyamas. Review of the disintegration of the Tories in the context of Brexit, SW1 vs, perspectives on risks of Brexit/Remain, and, and save the trolley to Get Brexit Done despite our reservations. A good biography of Dirac, The Strangest Man, Farmelo. It would be ridiculous to be bitter about Hollywood. I advised spads and officials to read this in 2019 and ignore the media. (Also note that the oversight for Groves was a group of just four who met with no secretariat and no formal records.) The main biography of Buffett, , is also interesting. Then I realised the truth. Anyone interested in terrorism and counter-terrorism should watch Pontecorvos movie The Battle of Algiers, one of the best movies ever made. E.g his few pages on maths and economics which few economists seem to know about! High Output Management, Andy Grove, ex-founder/CEO of Intel. Complexity Economics, Beinhocker. The peacetime bureaucracy knew what it valued. (I spent ~2 years reading a lot of books on this ~2005-15. Useful introduction to some fundamentals, from Pythagoras to Newton to e and complex numbers. On May 22, 2020, The Guardian and Daily Mirror newspapers in the UK published details of how Dominic Cummings, senior aide to the British prime minister, had broken lockdown rules by travelling 420 km to a family estate with his wife (who had suspected COVID-19) and child. NB. Im reading this summer. In Pursuit of the Travelling Salesman, Cook. Some of the. W hen Dominic Cummings arrived in Downing Street, some of his new colleagues were puzzled by one of his mantras: "Get Brexit done, then Arpa". They have insurgent energy and feed on grievance. , Gertner. Newton biography and its brilliantly done with intense love and care for its extraordinary subject. And notice that despite their vast success Buffett & Munger have had almost zero success in persuading anybody to run their companies the way they run Berkshire! If you want to understand the modern intellectual classes media, academia and politics this plugs you straight into their psychology.
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