Bob's Books

Why this book: I continue to be inspired and fascinated by Alaska – especially remote areas.  I saw this book in a used book store in Florida, and picked it up.

Summary in 3 Sentences: As Tom Sims was finishing up his medical internship in 1971 on his way to becoming a practicing physician, he got a letter from the draft board telling him to report to his local recruiter, which he knew would probably mean being sent to Vietnam.  Recently married with a child, he accepted as an alternative an offer to join the Public Health Service in Alaska (part of the Uniformed Services of the US) and after reporting, learned that he would be the lone doctor in Nome and a radius of close to 150 miles. He spent just short of 2 years there and this book is him telling his story in the first person, chronicling his challenges, adventures, life and other amazing experiences as the only doctor in a small town on the Bering Sea above he arctic circle, 50 years ago.   

My Impressions: This was a fascinating memoir of about 2 years in the authors life. The book is written in a first-person, conversational and personal style, as if he were sitting with the reader and telling the stories.  The chapters are short, the print is easy to read, and these 307 pages were fun and went by quickly.  

He begins with a little bit of background on himself and his life, and the series of events that led to him finding himself in Anchorage, getting a very brief indoctrination into being in Alaska, the Public Health Service and his role in it.   In very short order, he, his very pregnant wife Pat and their daughter were on a plane to Nome, where they would live for the next 20 months.  Sims is humorous in describing his introduction to government military bureaucracy -very different from being an intern in a civilian hospital in California. 

His introduction to his new life in Nome was not auspicious.  His home was temporary, he had very little support, his personal goods wouldn’t get there for months, his wife was soon to give birth – and he was quickly thrust into the breach of being the only doctor in that entire region.  The nurses and assistants in what passed for a “hospital” were hard working and resilient, but from day one, he was on- call, largely on his own, and expected to respond to cases 24/7/365.  

He shares with us the challenges of adapting to an austere life in Nome which indeed was a good sized town by remote Alaskan standards.  But the meat of the book is the author relating stories of medical emergencies he had to deal with, for which he had little to no training, and very little support. He was on his own to improvise and trust his instincts to save people’s lives, under very austere conditions, and he shares numerous such incidents – some in Nome itself, and some in remote villages where he had to fly in to deal with a crisis which demanded immediate personal attention.

The remote Eskimo villages each had a health and medical advisor who could contact the hospital in Nome for guidance or counsel,  or to report serious incidents that might require the doctor’s presence. In emergency cases, Dr Sims would call on one of the bush pilots to fly him out to the village, where he could treat the patient in person, and occasionally, a patient would have to be flown to Anchorage if the problem required advanced care or facilities. In one case, he was flown to a village, saved a patient’s life, and then a storm came in and it took him 9 days to get back to Nome. And just getting back to Nome proved to be an edge-of-the-seat adventure in its own right. 

During the winter, Nome only got a few hours of daylight per day, and then total darkness. Sims became depressed and struggled with the lack of daylight, experiencing a condition known as SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder.  He describes how slowly after 21 Dec, they got a few more minutes of daylight per day and slowly he recovered.  He also described the breaking up of the ice in the Bering Sea in the spring as a remarkable and dramatic event, with what sounded like explosions and the crashing of the huge ice blocks against each other.  

Sims and his wife established close relationships with the local community and made many friends.  They were’n’t always welcomed though – there was jealousy on the part of one of the other senior government officials in Nome, who was jealous of Sim’s close ties and credibility with the locals and he sought to make Sims’ life difficult.  One of the older local indigenous women resented that Sims and his family had integrated so well with the indigenous community; she didn’t like that their popularity lent credibility to some of their “white culture” practices and many of the locals enjoyed participating in such things as a fourth of July parade. 

The book concludes with Sims being offered another position in Anchorage, which would give him and his family access to many of the comforts of the lower forty-eight, as well as a position that gave him regular hours, and thus more time to be with his family. He was happy to leave the harassment from the other senior official in Nome, and being on-call round the clock 365 days a year, but he knew he would miss the intimacy of small town living. The final chapter is an epilogue which shares that Sims and his family then moved to a small town in Oregon with many of the charms of Nome, but without the many inconveniences. 

This is short and fun book provides insights not only into life in remote towns in northern Alaska, but also the tribulations of medical doctors treating people in remote areas with little support. This is a great book for people like me who are fascinated with Alaska, its culture and people and how intrepid men support people living on the edges of civilization.  

Why this book:  I loved An Immense World which gives a lot of attention to the octopus,  and I had really enjoyed the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher. My wife had read The Soul of an Octopus twice and highly recommended it.  The author has written several successful and highly regarded books on the natural world.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This book is Sy Montgomery’s personal exploration into how octopuses live, behave and have many human-like abilities and emotions. She writes in the first person, full of fascination and energy as she tells of her experiences and in fact relationships with several octopuses in the New England aquarium, as well as digressing to describe research and the experiences of many others who’ve made octopus research their life’s passion.

My Impressions:  What a fun and fascinating book, full of joy, new insights, the wonder of learning about a species so very different from humans, but with abilities that in some cases put us to shame. A large source of her information and experience comes from becoming a part of the Octopus team at the New England Aquarium in Boston, and we get to know the various members of that “team” of octopus followers and how their relationships with different octopuses have affected them.

Additionally, she visits and spends time at other aquariums that have octopus tanks. and shares what she learns from them that adds to what she experiences in Boston. And finally, she learns how to SCUBA dive, a process which didn’t come easy to her, but which she also describes. As  then as a certified SCUBA diver, she takes us on diving expeditions to other parts of the world with researchers in octopus behavior and biology and she shares those experiences with us.

A few things about the octopus that people may not know:

1. They recognize individual people and can be affectionate and playful
2. Every octopus has a different personality -some are reserved, others outgoing and social, others aggressive.
3. They display emotions in their behavior as well as in how their coloring changes.
4. They have 3 central brains, but each of their tentacle receptors also has neurological decision making, brain-like abilities. The central brain(s) is more like a federal governor.
5. Different species of octopus which live in different parts of the world can behave very differently. Fore example most octopuses are solitary creatures, but there are species which live and work together. 
6. When octopuses mate and lay their eggs, they have fulfilled their biological function and (in most octopus species) when male octopuses mate, they die soon after.  When a female octopus lays its egg, she protects them until they hatch and then dies soon after.  

Montgomery concludes her book with a chapter entitled ‘Consciousness’ and raises the question of whether octopuses have self-consciousness and to what degree can we compare their consciousness with ours. 

She writes, “But what is the soul? Some say it is the self, the ‘I’ that inhabits the body…..Others say that soul is our innermost being…..One calls soul ‘the indwelling consciousness that watches the mind come and go, that watches the world pass.’  Perhaps none of these definitions is true. Perhaps all of them are.  But I am certain of one thing as I sit in my pew: If I have a soul – and I think I do – an octopus has a soul, too.”  (p 227-8)

This is not only a fascinating book, it is a fun read as we explore this very different world – not only of the octopus but also other marine life in the world in which they live – from the joyful and fascinating perspective of a woman who is in love with her subject.  It is uplifting and enlightening. The big message one takes from this book is that the world of marine life is much more complex and fascinating than most of us realize, and the octopus is a prime example of that.  It is humbling.  There is SO much we don’t know, understand, or appreciate in the world, and especially in marine life.  

Why this book:  Selected by my Science Fiction Reading Group which has decided to focus on how AI plays out in Sci Fi especially with the possibilities of AI and humanoid robots.

Summary in 4 Sentences: Klara is an Artificial Friend (AF)  who has been purchased to serve as a friend and companion to a young girl who is afflicted with a long term disease.  The book is written in the first person  through Klara’s eyes in her role as a friend and companion to a young girl, and Klara in this role becomes engaged not only in the young girl’s life, but also in the lives of those around her – her family and friends, and their close friends – not acting as a mere machine, but not as a human being either.  We experience drama that is common in the relationships people have with close friends and family in their lives, but as experienced through the perspective of a very perceptive non-human AI robot.  The novel concludes with some fundamental questions about the interface between humans and extremely intelligent and human-like AI robots. 

My Impressions: An interesting and provocative book telling a story that brings to the surface issues that our culture is now beginning to face.  As we begin to wrestle with the rapidly increasing capabilities of AI and ChatGPT, Ishiguro writes a novel in the voice of a robot who was serving as an Artificial Friend (AF) for a young girl who is struggling with an illness. The story is told entirely from the perspective of Klara, the AF, and we experience the world through “her” eyes.  It  takes a while to adjust to her AI perspective when she describes the world and the people in it, but how Klara perceives the world (definitely differently from most of us) is an important part of the story

The story begins in the store which sells Artificial Friends and as we are reading Klara’s voice, it is initially not clear who she is or what is happening.  But slowly Ishiguro gives us clues and the story starts falling into place.  The first part of the story takes place in the AF store and we get to know Klara, how she sees the world, some of the dynamics in a store which sells robotic AFs.  We get a clue regarding the title when we learn that AFs are energized by solar power and need to be recharged by sunlight.   We learn that AFs seem to have their own personalities and character qualities – each one different.  My own opinitos is that Ishiguro made them a bit too similar to people, but Klara’s personality and character ,and her detached AF perspective are an important part of the book.  Eventually Klara is selected and purchased to be a friend and companion to Josie, a young girl about 13 years old who is not well.  . 

Klara goes home with Josie and her mother, and in the next portion of the book, we get to know Josie, her mother, the housekeeper, and Josie’s boy friend Rick through Klara’s eyes.  And we begin sensing that  something uncomfortable is going on.  We learn that Josie has an undetermined long term, debilitating  illness and her mother is very stressed about that.  But we are not only getting to know Josie and her home environment, but we are also getting to know Klara, as she serves Josie as a friend and helper. Klara shares with us her observations, what she perceives is going on, without judgment.  At this point in the book, I was beginning to wonder where this was going.  But as I suspected, it was building to something more interesting, and dramatic, which I’d prefer not to reveal without a spoiler alert. 

Josie and her mother connect with an artist doing a “portrait” of Josie and in that process, we meet Josie’s father, divorced from the mother, and we get insights into their fractured relationship. Klara observes the tension between the two of them, and Josie’s reaction, and we learn of tensions in the household of Josie’s boyfriend Rick, between him and his mother.  Klara gets pulled into all of these complicated relationships as a dispassionate observer, asked for her advice and perspective. Again, her dispassionate and selfless perspective and insights are interesting and provocative, as she is drawn into very contentious and emotional interpersonal issues.  .

Klara is very intelligent, very observant, curious and thoughtful, has been programmed to behave in accordance with values of service and compassion. She is very human-like, with a couple of caveats – she doesn’t get bored, she doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or have any of the other biological functions of humans, but she can be sad,  disappointed, or pleased,  and she seems to be completely selfless.  In many way Klara is moving toward an ideal – it occurred  to me that she resembles in many ways my image of a Zen Master – compassionate, caring, constantly observing, acknowledging,  but not judging. 

But she also has some flaws in her reasoning based on an incomplete perspective and inadequate background or programming. For example, she assumed that since she gets energized by he sun, and sunlight cures whatever ails her and other AFs, she believes that these powers of the sun extend to humans as well.  She also assumed that because AFs exist to keep humans company, there is nothing more important to humans than avoiding loneliness.

In the end I see the following issues that Ishiguro novel brings up

1. Is there something unreachable, un-programable deep inside a human that can’t be replicated in a superbly competent AI Robot, well-programmed to be as human-like as possible?
2. Does a human-like AI have rights?  Klara is sometimes treated as if she were human, other times as if she were a piece of practical machinery, like a vacuum cleaner, to be ignored or discarded when convenient.
3. What does it do to a human to treat an almost-human AI as a mere servant, a mere means to one’s ends and ultimately disposable?
4. The emotional and personal issues that Klara observed in the tense relationships between Josie and her mother, between Josie’s mother and her ex husband, between Rick and Josie, between Rick and his mother, between Rick’s mother and her former lover contrast starkly with Klara’s life and perspective.  Are THESE the essence of being human – compared to the dispassionate reasonableness of Klara? 

I felt that Ishiguro made Klara a bit too human – with feelings such as fear, sadness, anticipation and excitement, pleasure and disappointment that are not currently considered part of the AI robotic portfolio.  Klara didn’t simply express and exhibit these emotions – the way Ishiguro wrote the story, in the first person from HER perspective, she actually seemed to “feel” these emotions as she expressed them to us the readers, and she seemed to be indeed “self” conscious.  In my mind those are huge steps from being a smart computer toward being near-human.   But if I’m correct in assuming that the above four issues were Ishiguro’s main points, her near-humanity helps make those points and highlights those issues. 

Klara and the Sun is not a difficult read, but it takes a bit of faith in Ishiguro to hang with it.  It moves along slowly at first, as he sets the scene, introduces us to Klara, the AI perspective and the environment in which she is serving her role. About 2/3 of the way through the book, the drama begins which was for me worth waiting for.  The ultimate drama delivered to the reader the issues I think Ishiguro wrote the book to highlight.  It will be a good discussion in my Sci Fi reading group.  

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group as an appropriate shorter female oriented follow- up to the much longer and very male-oriented previous  book we’d read, The Count of Monte Cristo.

Summary in 3 Sentences: An autobiographical novel written in the first person by a woman living in biblical, pre-Judaic times telling her life’s story.   The author chose Dinah, an obscure person in The Book of Genesis, a great granddaughter of Abraham, and gives her a voice to tell a novelized version of her life’s story, which reveals much about life in the Near East several thousand years ago. The first half of the book Dinah coming of age as the daughter of Jacob and one of his  wives, but since polygamy was normal in those times, Dinah had several other “mothers” – other wives of Jacob, who lived in the red tent who took care of each each other as sisters, and each other’s children. As Dinah matures into womanhood – which in that day meant child bearing age – her life changes rather surprisingly and dramatically, and the remainder of the book is about her transition into becoming a woman and a mother and her later adult life, which includes trauma and several unexpected turns of events, as she has to move to Egypt. 

My Impressions: Powerful book.  Fascinating context and glimpse into life in an era so much different from our own.  Dinah, the narrator and protagonist in this book, is a quiet and precocious young girl who shares with us her feelings and impressions of the world in which she lives and the extended family of which she is a part. She is believable and likable.  Most of the key characters in the book are women; her father Jacob is described in affectionate terms, but he is distant and busy with the work required to care and feed his large family.  

Dinah is the only daughter of the four wives of Jacob and as such she has a special status in the red tent of Jacob’s wives. As she grows up she becomes close with one of Jacob’s other wives who is a midwife. Dinah eventually accompanies her “auntie” in delivering babies, and over the years, she becomes skilled in midwifery herself.   She has favorites among Jacob’s other wives – her other “mothers,” as well as favorites among her many male siblings.   Her “milk-brother” Joseph was her close pal growing up – milk brother meaning they both nursed from the same woman at the same time frame.  A couple of her half-brothers tormented her, others she was indifferent and not particularly close to her.  As soon as the boys were old enough to follow adult guidance, they were out with their father helping with the sheep and goats, while Dinah helped the women in women’s work.

The first third to half of the book is Dinah describing her child hood and life in and around the red tent.  We follow Jacob’s large family as they move to another area to reconnect with Jacob’s brother Esau, and we are exposed to a different culture, a number of new characters in Esau’s family, and the challenges of travel in those days.  Here we meet another strong figure, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother, Isaac’s wife, a stern and shamanistic old woman known as The Grandmother.  She was the keeper of traditional values, possessed para-normal powers of healing and clairvoyance, and had a retinue of women servants known as ‘the Deborahs’ – as they all had the same name, and were virgins, committed only to her service.   

The Red Tent refers to the women’s tent and the menstrual cycle that is required to be a full fledged member of that tent. Pre-menstrual girls were only rarely allowed in, and the red tent was where the society of women kept secrets from men, and it was a major breach of trust for a woman to share with men what she’d heard and learned in the red tent.  A sense of mystery was cultivated. 

When Dinah finally has her first menstrual cycle, there are rituals and ceremonies that go with that key transition, and she becomes a full fledged member of the red tent.  A woman’s monthly cycle gave her the privilege of three days of being idle in the tent, to relax, and celebrate.  Naturally all the women’s cycles synchronized, so this was a special period of communion among the women.

Soon after Dinah’s first menstrual cycle, the book takes a sharp turn as Dinah falls in love, becomes pregnant and tragedy ensues which forces Dinah to move to Egypt.  The next phase of the book is her life in Egypt – a very different culture and life than she had lived in Canaan.   She joins a different family group, and her experiences as an adult woman and mother take a number of different turns.   This is a fascinating period and Dinah indeed lives the rest of her life in Egypt, but we see some of the earlier characters reappear.  In order to avoid a spoiler alert, I’ll leave it at that.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the Dinah character and immersing myself in the culture of that part of pre-western history,  well before Christian times.  As different as those times, customs and cultures were from our own, one of the key takeaways was how the humanity of the people of that time shines through as not so different from our own. Most of the key characters of the book – Dinah, her mothers, her mentors, close friends women;  men did not play a major role in the story, except for a few key scenes and incidents that indeed drove the story.  The author noted in her notes at the end of the book, that though most of the feedback she’d gotten on the novel had been from women, she had also gotten positive feedback from men, one of whom she quoted as saying he “enjoyed a sense of getting ‘fly-on-the-wall’ insights into women’s hearts.”  That describes my response as well.  I believe I got some important insights into women’s perspectives on a number of things that surprised me.  

I think men and women both would enjoy this book, but will get different lessons and takeaways.  

Why  this book:  I’ve had this book on my shelf for years, had never gotten around to reading it, but have always been fascinated by Benjamin Franklin.  So I decided to listen to it on audible.  I find biographies easy and enjoyable to listen to on long bike rides or car trips.  But listening doesn’t allow me to underline nor make notes in the margins, so I have to rely on my memory and impressions to write a review.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This is the story of Benjamin Franklin’s life from his birth in 1706 to his death in 1790. It is also a fascinating lens through which to look at the founding of not only the American experiment in government, but also a key period in the formation of American culture and values.  We learn in this biography not only the facts of Franklin’s life, but also what shaped his character, his strengths and weaknesses, and the great impact he had on the forming of the American government and American culture. 

My Impressions:  A great biography of a fascinating man, which deserves its reputation as one of the best. This book confirms what I had always heard and understood –  that Franklin was one the most fascinating of our founding fathers.  A thoroughly enjoyable personality and a fascinating life described in a bio that is beautifully written by a Pulitzer prize winning biographer.  

Isaacson’s bio begins with Franklin’s family ancestors living in England.  His father emigrated to the Colonies where Benjamin was born in 1706 as the 15th of 17 children his father Josiah had by two wives.   The book roughly outlines his childhood and development as a young man.  From early on Franklin was a gifted communicator – writer, essayist and satirist.  As 15 or 16 year old teenager, he began writing his first newspapaer columns as letters to the editor from the perspective of a middle class, middle-aged widow under the pseudonym of “Silence Dogood” commenting on issues of the day, and concerns of normal middle class people, based largely on his own personal perspectives and what he’d heard from friends and neighbors. These letters were well received, and were cleverly enough written that few suspected that they were from the pen of a teenaged boy. He stayed in the newspaper printing business for much of his life, writing satirical social commentary and political criticism under various pseudonyms, eventually graduating to writing the still popular Poor Richard’s Almanack. 

As a young man Franklin was resourceful, charming and always seemed to land on his feet. He made people comfortable and people liked him – except when they were competing with him, and found that his cleverness and ability to charm others and make friends easily made him a formidable opponent.  When work became hard to find in the colonies, at the age of 18 he found his way to England where he lived and worked as a typesetter and printer for 3 years before returning to the colonies and becoming a successful printer and newspaper publisher.  

This bio covers what Isaacson believed were not only those things that developed his character, but also so much that revealed his character as well.  He was a natural organizer and a subtle leader; he was able to take a stand on controversial issues without alienating too many people in the process, including those who disagreed with him.  He frequently found himself serving as a bridge between competing factions as he grew up, and which eventually led him into that role as the colonies grew apart from Mother England and tensions mounted.  He loved England and English culture, while also loving America and the middle class culture that was blossoming in the colonies.  He had a lot of influence with reasonable people on both sides of the tension between the colonies and England, but was not trusted by the most extreme advocates of either side.   In fact Franklin initially opposed separation from England – he wanted to maintain a relationship akin to what England eventually developed with its commonwealth partners. 

As tensions mounted, Franklin spent a number of years representing the colonies in England, but failed to soften Parliament’s over-bearing attitude toward the colonies – and his moderating influence and position cost him credibility with both the English aristocracy, as well as the colonial firebrands.  During the Revolutionary War, he represented the colonies to France and played a key role in winning their support which was crucial to the eventual success in the War of Independence.

Throughout Franklin’s story Isaacson describes his love for but neglect of his wife, Deborah who refused to travel and join him in England where he spent much of his life while married to her, or in France during the Revolutionary War.  But Deborah remained loyal to him and effectively managed his home and affairs in Philadelphia while he was gone.  We learn of Franklin’s many platonic romances –  which Isaacson believes remained mostly Platonic – though that’s hard to say.  If they were   consummated, this would have been difficult to determine in this pre-Victorian age, as discretion was one of Franklin’s strong points.  But many hundreds of Franklin’s letters survive – those he wrote and those he received, including from the many women he was close to, including his wife Deborah, and they are quoted from liberally in this biography.

While still single, Franklin had an illegitimate son William by a woman who is still unknown, but believed to have been a “woman of the street,” who gave the child up to Franklin and later, he and Deborah raised him as their own.  Franklin and Deborah had a son who died of small pox, and then later a daughter.  Franklin gave his son William all the advantages of being the son of a famous father, but they were later estranged when William, having became the Royal Governor of New Jersey, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.   William was imprisoned during the revolution by the colonial government, and after being released in a prisoner exchange, moved to England. Even after the war, Franklin and William never reconciled. 

We also get to know Franklin the scientist.   Though lacking formal education, he was one of the best known practical scientists in the world;  his groundbreaking work with electricity made him famous throughout Europe and whenever he travelled, he was feted by the great minds and scientists of his day.  Electricity was only one of his many scientific interests – his natural curiosity and his desire to understand the natural world inspired experiments that broke ground in ocean currents and refrigeration, and other natural phenomena. He invented the lightening rod, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, among other things.   He was granted an honorary doctorate in 1762 by Oxford University and afterwards was often addressed or referred to as Doctor Franklin

Franklin always saw himself as a member of and advocate for the middle class. He felt himself a part of what he called “the leather apron crowd” – those who worked with their hands to produce something.  He signed his papers “Benjamin Franklin, printer.”  He had little time for those who put on airs of elitism, and aristocracy – he had great faith in the wisdom and values of working people – whose interests and values he felt it his calling to represent.   

Franklin possessed what we would today call “practical wisdom” – he was not a theoretical philosopher, rather was a thinker who sought what worked – an early American pragmatist, and his Poor Richard’s Almanack was full of practical wisdom and insights that were meant to be useful in living a successful and happy life – for most people of modest means.  Isaacson at the conclusion of the book relates how such “practical wisdom” was looked down upon by many elites, who saw his insights as small minded advice for small minded people – how to save money, save time, be more efficient in simple day-to-day living.   Franklin’s virtues compare well to Aristotle’s “virtues “- seeking the Golden Mean as a means to succeed in a social world – the Greek word is Phronesis -“a type of wisdom or intelligence relevant to practical action in particular situations. It implies both good judgment and excellence of character and habits.” (wikipeida).  

After serving as an elder statesman in the writing of the Declaration of Independence, Franklin spent most of the revolutionary war in France representing the interests of the colonies to the French government, and cultivated and gladly played the role of the wise and charming backwoodsman to the effete aristocracy of pre-revolutionary France. He was respected and adored by much of the French aristocracy, but despised by some of his fellow Americans – especially John Adams – who saw him as lazy and self-indulgent.  Adams’ intensity and self-righteousness on the other hand alienated many of the French and made Franklin their much preferred interlocutor.  His successful efforts to win the affection and support of the French Crown and parliament for the colonial cause were arguably essential to the colonies’ eventual success at winning their independence.

By the end of the war, Franklin was into his late 70s and returned to a new America where he was nearly as well known as George Washington as one of the heroes of the new country.  But by now his health and energy were beginning to fail.  He reluctantly accepted a key leadership role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, struggling with gout and other ailments, but again, his ability to build bridges between parties on contentious issues played a key role in bringing that effort to fruition.   He was a much admired mentor of Thomas Jefferson who was one of the last people outside his family to communicate with him. He died at home in Philadelphia in 1790 at age 84, fortunately before learning of the atrocities of the French Revolution in his beloved France.

Isaacson’s biography concludes with interesting comments on Franklin’s legacy.  He includes critiques of his life, character, and philosophy by notable figures over the last two centuries, based on what Isaacson implies are rather elitist condescension toward his espousing of middle class values, his willingness to compromise to find solutions, and his advocacy for practical rather than the theoretical ideals.  

In reading this book, I became an even greater admirer of Franklin than I was before.  He had a perennially positive attitude, sought and played to the good, rather than the angry or selfish in people, and created a life and a philosophy which were his own and unique to his time.  These qualities have led to him being called by some the first “real” American.   He disdained fanaticism of any kind, uncompromising religious belief and values, and narrow views of right and wrong as taught by conventional thinkers.  He believed in and lived by his own spiritual beliefs without demeaning Christian or other more conventional religious values and beliefs.   He was a practical utilitarian in that he indeed sought the path which created the greatest good for the greatest number, which usually meant compromising with the ideals of opposing sides.  He was his own man who sought and effectively did improve the lives of his community and society.  He did not take personally the often vicious criticism from his critics. 

One can read the key facts of Franklin’s life in Wikipedia’s article on him, but Walter Isaacson’s biography does a superb job of creating a sense of the man himself, his strengths and flaws, and the times in which he not only lived, but thrived and also made a long term positive impact. 

Why this book: A controversial book about the culture of the Navy SEALs. I’d heard a lot about it from several who’d read it, and I volunteered to host a discussion of the book amongst a group of SEALs, active and retired. 

Summary in 3 Sentences:  Cole looks at Navy SEAL culture primarily beginning with the post-Vietnam era with Dick Marcinko, the founder and first Commander  of SEAL Team Six.  He investigates and describes a litany of crimes and bad behavior by SEALs beginning in the 1970s, through the 80s, 90s and 2000s to provide a picture of the shadow side of the heroic image that SEALs enjoy in America and around the world.  His conclusions, elaborated below, are that these instances of war crimes, and other unethical behavior have been covered up, that leaders have not held perpetrators accountable, nor have leaders been held accountable, and that there is a culture of looking the other way to protect comrades when such incidents and bad behavior might damage the SEAL brand, or the careers of senior officers.  

My Impressions: This book was difficult for me to read, as I know most of the people he talks about and accuses in the book.  While most of us in the SEAL community recognize that most of the unsavory incidents he describes did actually take place, I and my colleagues in the SEAL Teams object to his approach, which we believe, makes an inadequate effort to include mitigating factors or context to the incidents he describes.  These mitigating factors are not excuses, but I and my colleagues believe that describing the environment, context  and other factors would provide a clearer picture of the incidents he describes, and a more accurate assessment of the shortcomings in the SEAL culture.  We also believe his listing of the worst behavior of SEALs over 5 decades deliberately leaves an unfairly negative impression of SEAL culture overall.

Cole has cherry picked some of the worst things that SEALs have been accused of and chronicles them in this book. It is a litany of bad judgment and criminal behavior that has gone un-recognized and unknown outside the small circle of the SEAL community. I was aware of or had heard about most of the incidents he describes – some had been reported in the press, and others were new to me. I’d heard rumors of those that took place in SEAL Team SIX during the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; his book fills in details which he got from other operators who were unhappy that these incidents had gone unpunished, and who were willing to share their perspectives with him. 

It is clear that Cole tapped into a vein of dissatisfaction in SEAL Team SIX and was able to get a number of experienced operators to share their stories and disillusionment.  One must always be a bit careful taking such stories at face value – that said, I have little doubt that most of the stories are true, and that the disillusionment by other operators that these incidents were ignored or not punished may be justified.  That said, the SEAL community and SEAL Team Six certainly have issues that need addressing, but Cole doesn’t balance them with other factors that would put them in context, and indeed, in some cases may make them less egregious than Cole makes them out to be.  But I’m certainly biased.

Additionally, several friends of mine point out parts of the book that based on their personal experience are inaccurate, and skewed to support Cole’s point about the corrupt culture of the SEALs. And some of what he described relied on accounts by individuals who probably had a personal ax to grind. That said, Cole says that he only included incidents that were corroborated by several people, noting that he’d heard of several incidents even worse than those he reported,  but which he did not include in the book because he could not corroborate the stories he’d heard with several different people.   I’ve spoken to no one who disputes that the major incidents he describes in the book happened, though most argue that he does not give a complete accounting, and that he chooses to tell the story in a way that fits his narrative – that SEAL leadership did not take appropriate action, and in many cases, looked the other way. 

I DO think this book needed to be written – to bring to the surface and the awareness not only of the American people but also the SEALs that there is a shadow side to the media generated hero myth that surrounds the SEALs.  And I believe it needed to be written by an outsider – it would have been very difficult for a SEAL to be fair in writing this book, largely because of what Cole accuses the SEALs of – namely putting protecting the brand above full disclosure.  This book would have been better had Cole provided more context and perspective that would help explain and perhaps make understandable, if not forgivable, the incidents he describes. He could have gotten that perspective from a number of reputable SEALs.

The book begins by going back to the early 70s when I came into the SEAL Teams and makes Dick Marcinko out to be the progenitor of the “all things excusable” mindset of SEAL Team machismo and operational success.  In my mind, Marcinko simply amplified and exaggerated what was already there.  Though most of the book focuses on SEAL Team Six since 2001, Cole does point out how the culture that created these incidents already existed and was fertile ground for aggressive young men going beyond the bounds of what is acceptable in the execution of their craft.  Most would realize that that is  to be expected in war, especially a war against such a brutal and vicious foe as we had in Al Qaeda and ISIS.  His point was that while excesses may be expected or understood, they shouldn’t have been excused, and were in some cases even encouraged by leaders, and that no one was held accountable.  I believe that there is some legitimacy to that position.

He makes the case that this is not just a SEAL Team Six problem, but he believes that the SEAL Team Six ethos has infected the other teams.  In addition to how Marcinko formed and created the culture and ethos of SEAL Team Six, he recounts other incidents that were not part of SEAL Team Six, making the point that the issues are community-wide and not confined to that one organization.  He unveils the ugliness that the public doesn’t know, but that most SEALs do, of Chris Kyle’s service as a sniper for SEAL Team 3, and  of Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor story, the murder of Special Forces Sargeant Logan Melgar by two SEALs.   He also provides a detailed look at the Eddie Gallagher fiasco that was revealed in Alpha by Dave Philipps.  The things he shares are not widely known, but ARE well known in the SEAL community – and he notes that the Navy and the SEAL Teams are content to let the popular narrative stand, and not to dredge up old wounds, because the Navy and the Teams benefit from the heroic mythology that surrounds Navy SEALs, and the public enjoys it.

Cole has several key take-aways from his book. These are the ones I gleaned:

1. Navy SEAL leadership has been unwilling to hold their friends and good operators publicly accountable for acts which transgress the laws of armed conflict, or common sense boundaries of ethical behavior in combat, especially if these acts are otherwise unknown to the public.  There has been a conspiracy of silence to protect not only individuals, but also the SEAL brand.
2. That officers who have been part of this “conspiracy” to protect the brand have been rewarded with promotions, all the way to flag officer.
3. Protecting the SEAL brand has been important not only to SEALs but also to the Navy, which uses SEALs as a major recruiting tool. The SEAL brand has likewise been useful for politicians who strive to be associated with SEAL heroism and success.
4. Protecting the SEAL brand has taken priority over integrity and upholding standards of behavior and ethics on the battlefield.  Similarly, within the ranks, protecting the “brotherhood” has also taken priority over enforcing standards and holding people accountable. 
5. Enlisted operators are held accountable for and punished for actions that senior officers are not. 
6. Many of the worst behaviors are a result of operators being at war for nearly 20 years straight – that politicians and military leaders have aggressively used SEALs in the Global War on Terrorism without sufficient consideration given to protecting these elite operators from the psychological costs and damage caused by being at war for nearly two decades.  Some of this has resulted (naturally) in a numbness to violence and killing that is in part responsible for the crimes he describes. The SEALs themselves have colluded in this, as their brand and ethos as the nation’s toughest warriors is to never say “enough.” 

I’ve listened twice to a very well done podcast interview former SEAL Team Six operator Andy Stumpf had with author Matthew Cole about this book (“Cleared Hot” podcast episode 227) .   Stumpf basically does not argue with the facts, nor with most of the conclusions that Cole comes to in his book, but notes that the environment Cole describes about SEAL Team Six does not align with Stumpf’s own experience there.  He challenges Cole on some of the overall impressions he leaves, arguing that Cole paints an overly negative picture of the culture of the SEAL Teams.  While not arguing with him about the incidents he describes nor his conclusions, Stumpf does argue that the good and moral members  and actions of the SEAL community deserved more attention than Cole gave them. That said, I do agree with both Cole and Stumpf that the rogue or “pirate” element in the SEAL community is there, and that not enough has been done to keep this element in its box, nor to make clear that “going rogue” will not be tolerated by SEAL leaders nor by the rest of the SEAL community. 

The analogy that comes to mind is describing America and US Culture in terms of the many cases of immoral behavior and poor judgment in how American people and leaders have behaved in America’s past, eg, our early ambivalence about slavery, how we have treated Native Americans, discrimination against minorities and people of color, special privileges to the wealthy and the well-connected, the many examples of arrogant and even criminal behavior by our government.  A book that indeed tells the truth about the many ways in which the US has not lived up to its ideals would not in my opinion, give a fair picture of America or of US culture.  Similarly Cole’s picture of the SEAL community is a distortion.  Cole’s response to that objection was that enough books have been written about the virtues and heroism of the SEALs – he wanted to show the shadow side. But primarily describing the shadow side is also not a fair picture. 

THE SEAL DISCUSSION:  It began with a number of those present noting where Cole got some of it wrong – “facts” that he cited that individuals on the call knew from their personal experience were simply inaccurate, or flat out wrong.  Many of those who Cole names in his book would not agree to be interviewed, because of his articles in Politico about SEALs exclusively pointed out flaws in the SEAL community.  One of those present said that he’d spent well over an hour being interviewed by Cole, providing mitigating information and context which Cole did not include in his book – the retired SEAL believed because his input didn’t fit  Cole’s narrative.   One of those present  was actually talking to lawyers about suing Cole for deliberately giving an inaccurate account of a story in which he was involved.  Many felt that Cole clearly intended to cast aspersions on the honor of the SEAL community, based on the actions of a few bad actors, and that he did not adequately provide context, nor balance these bad events with the very many positives.  That said, in the end, most of us agreed that better leadership would have prevented the many of the most egregious events he described, and that indeed the SEALs had fallen short of their outstanding reputation in some areas, especially in exercising moral courage in leadership.  We generally agreed that SEAL leaders should do more to prevent these things in the future- with better leadership, better screening, and more emphasis on moral courage and ethics-in-warfare training. 

The book clearly touched a nerve. For several days after the zoom session, the discussion continued with a series of emails among participants.   Because of Cole’s reputation as a SEAL Team muck-raker, many SEAL leaders still refuse to read the book, and indeed my impression is that many SEAL leaders have indeed chosen to look the other way.  But I believe it should be read, and should generate an open discussion within the ranks of the SEAL community.   I personally would prefer to keep this discussion out of the public eye – though Cole argues that these incidents and bad behavior should be acknowledged to American taxpayers, and should serve as a warning about giving politicians a blank check to send Special Operators into extended wars. He argues with justification, that not just SEAL leaders but also politicians and the public have chosen to look the other way. 

Why this book: Selected by my SEAL book club for our May 2023 session. I had proposed it, having read it maybe 10 years ago – and I was thoroughly engrossed reading it for a second time. 

Summary in 3 Sentences: Many of the world’s top scientists believed that there was a navigable passage that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the polar regions and the US as well as European nations sponsored exploratory trips to discover it  – this is the story of a US effort with a US Navy vessel in the late 19th century. The USS Jeannette headed through the Bering Straits and eventually became icebound and never broke out, and after two years, the crew were forced to abandon ship and head hundreds of miles south over the ice to Siberia.  This book covers this voyage from its inception until the surviving crew made contact with Siberian natives. 

My Impressions: Powerful story which tells not only a story of heroism and heroic performance under great stress and life-threatening conditions, but also a lens to look at America of the 1870s abnd 80s.  It is also a powerful leadership book in that the protagonist, Lt George De Long was pretty close to a model leader as the Commanding Officer of the USS Jeannette making numerous very tough decisions under life and death pressure.  If you found the Shackleton story powerful and inspiring, you’ll love this one as well – though it doesn’t have the same fairy tale ending.

For much of the 19th century there was conjecture of a warm water polar region which would permit shipping to travel from Europe to the Far East or to California without having to round the cape.  The first quarter of the book outlines how and why some of the best minds believed in a warm-water Polar sea, and how that inspired not only this expedition but previous failed efforts to find a way thru the Arctic to reach the Pacific Ocean.  The US government had funded a disastrously failed effort to find that route up the west coast of Greenland, and Hampton Sides opens Kingdom of Ice with a brief account of that effort – in which De Long played a part- leading a bold effort to find and rescue those who had never returned.  (That story is well told in the book Trial by Ice, which offers an example that contrasts sharply with both De Long’s and Shackleton’s expeditions.)  De Long and the Jeannette would attempt to find that Northwest Passage by going through the Bering Straights and heading to the North Pole.

The book then continues by providing biographical sketches of the two main characters in the book – George De Long and his wife Emma – how they met, courted and married, and then their lives during the 2+ year preparation for beginning the expedition. That included finding, purchasing and refurbishing a ship that would be sturdy enough to withstand the ice and the conditions in the most Northern latitudes, putting together the right crew, lobbying for support and money, though the vast majority of the financial support would come from Gordon Bennett, the mercurial owner and editor of the NY Herald Tribune.  Through this period, we see his process in selecting the key players for his expedition and we get to know many of them.  Gordon Bennett plays a large part in the beginning of the book, as it was his intent that sponsoring this expedition would provide stories and fame for his newspapers which would increase his own power, wealth and influence. 

The expedition got underway from San Francisco Bay in 1879 headed to Alaska stopping at several small ports to replenish coal and supplies before heading to the East Coast of Siberia, making contact with natives and then into the Arctic Sea, where much sooner then they expected, they were frozen into the ice pack and would stay that way for nearly 2 years. Then in June 1881,  the ice finally crushed the Jeannette, and De Long and the crew abandoned the ship onto the ice, bringing with them all that they thought they could use.  At this point we are about half way through the book.

Hamptons Sides also gave us some insights as to how the rest of the world was waiting for news of the Jeannette’s great mission and adventure.  Much of that was in how Emma DeLong was thinking as he quotes some of her many letters, but he also describes several rescue attempts as authorities were concerned at not having heard anything from the Jeannette for two years.  One of those rescue attempts included John Muir, the famous naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, who wrote a book about his experience in the far north looking for the Jeannette.  

The second half of the book is divided into two parts: First the efforts and incidents of Jeannette’s crew to cover the 500+ miles from where they abandoned ship, over the ice and freezing water to reach the northern coast of Siberia, where they hoped to contact civilization. This experience compares well with Shackleton’s experience on the ice pack after abandoning the Endurance.  The final quarter of the book is about the experience of those who made it to the northern coast of Siberia just as winter was setting in, and their efforts to connect with natives and eventually civilization to rescue them.

De Long kept a thorough personal journal as well as ship’s log, and Emma De Long also kept her many letters which she described as “letters to nowhere” since she had no idea whether they would reach her husband.  Hampton Sides had access to all of this in painting a powerful picture of heroism, determination, suffering, privation, rising above and defeating the most inauspicious bad luck.  Each of the chapters began with excerpts from a letter written by Emma to her husband, reminding us that while the men on the Jeannette were suffering, their families likewise suffered, not knowing anything of the fate of their husbands, sons, friends.  

The suffering and perseverance of those who reached Siberia was intense.  Spoiler alert: not all of them survived but some did, barely, and they then did all they could to rescue or find those who had not turned up.  Those who did survive, made it very small subsistence villages in the farthest north regions of Siberia – and they had to contend with communication and culture gaps to convince the natives to head back into the regions where no one lived during the winter, to search for survivors of an American Navy ship.

This book was worth reading twice, especially for an aficionado of survival stories by the toughest of men in the most austere and demanding of circumstances.  A classic of the trials and tribulations of Arctic exploration in the 19th century. 

Why this book: I’m fascinated by the idea of humans developing a parallel virtual “world” in which they can act out, or try out lives that they don’t live in the physical, or “real” world.  That is happening, and this book comes highly recommended as an explanation as to the status of the ongoing development of the Metaverse. 

Summary in 3 Sentences: The author outlines for techies and non-techies (like me) alike, the origins of the idea of the Metaverse, offers a working definition,  what is happening today (as of 2022) and the many challenges that must be faced to develop the Metaverse as many envision it.  He talks a lot about the world of computer gaming which he notes is breaking trail and incrementally solving many of the problems that must be overcome for the Metaverse to evolve and become a reality. And he concludes with how he envisions a Metaverse changing much of how we live and spend our time, challenges in sorting through the pros and cons, and making a few tentative predictions for the future.   

My Impressions:  Extremely well written book which covers a lot of territory in this very complex issue. I can’t say that I understood all of it – since much of how the Metaverse will evolve will be built upon the technologies and lessons learned in the current world of advanced computer gaming – and I have not participated in that world. But it is a world that is evolving rapidly, and the evolution of computer gaming is bringing the Metaverse to us more quickly.  Many believe that the Metaverse is the next evolutionary step.  Some will say that we are already in the early stages of the Metaverse, but it will take a decade or more for us to get to the next large step, and that will be in increments as well – also probably tied to gaming. 

The author is not only articulate, but also (from my perspective) well versed and informed in the world of computers, gaming, tech business, and the digital economy.  All of those are key pieces of the puzzle that will become “the” Metaverse.   He begins by giving us his definition of the Metaverse and what the idea represents, which also  is somewhat controversial. The term itself came from Neal Stephenson’s  science fiction futuristic novel  Snow Crash, which the author claims provides the inspirational ideal for the Metaverse.   

He divides the book into three  parts and below, I offer a few thoughts about each:

Part 1: What is the Metaverse which includes chapters entitled A brief History of the Future, Confusion and Uncertainty, a Definition (Finally,) and The Next Internet.

His chapter entitled “A Definition (finally)” offers his contribution to the controversy of what the idea of Metaverse represents.  At present it is more than simply an ideal – the rest of the book makes the case how indeed the world of tech and gaming is rapidly moving in this direction, though in the conclusion of the book, he notes that the future is almost impossible to predict.   He notes that the Metaverse and Web3 (he claims they are not the same) are “successor states” to the internet that we know it today.  He states “…the principles of Web3 are likely critical to establishing a thriving Metaverse.”

His working definition is:   A massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments.   In that chapter, he has sections about each of the these aspects of the metaverse and some of the challenges associated with each of them – sections with titles like:Virtual Worlds, 3D, Real-time rendered, Interoperable Network, Massively Scaled, Persistence, Synchronous, Unlimited Users and Individual Presence.  

He explains why gaming companies are in the lead in developing that future thriving Metaverse – they have the developers, they are making huge amounts of money that is needed to develop the technology to drive the Metaverse, they are already fully engaged in creating and rendering realistic 3D online environments in which people will want to synchronously engage with others, and where they want and choose to spend time. 

Part 2 Building the Metaverse includes chapters entitled Networking, Computing, Virtual World Engines, Interoperability, Hardware, Payment Rails, Blockchains.   This section of the book examines the many challenges of building a Metaverse, and was a challenge for me to follow because I am so new to this world, which demands a greater understanding of computer networking, gaming, and hardware than I have. But I give the author credit for regularly stopping to provide metaphors for some of his arguments that helped me to understand how this world relates to the world that I know.  He addresses bandwidth issues, technical challenges with “latency” – how long it takes for a computer to receive, load and render information it gets from another source – and he goes into some depth on the challenges of real-time rendered virtual 3D worlds, especially when one is measuring time in tiny fractions of a second.  He notes that “latency is the greatest networking obstacle on the way to the Metaverse” and that “Every single additional user to a virtual world only compounds synchronization challenges.”

The chapter on Computing lays out pretty clearly the technical challenges of creating a Metaverse that people envision, that would be accessible and interactive with people all over the world.  The animation rendered in the Metaverse would need to be created every .016 seconds, and would require a supercomputer to serve concurrent users all over the world. To create the Metaverse that is envisioned, “…accessible to billions of humans in real time will require a 1000 times increase in computational efficiency from today’s state of the art.” 

We are also dealing with the variety and limitations in the personal computational devices used by those accessing the internet, and eventually the Metaverse.  Likewise the capacities of the networks will be a  limitation.  Really smart people are working on these problems and possible solutions are being explored, such as renting enterprise grade equipment for finite windows,  accessing and using the unused computational capacity of millions of personal and commercial computers when they are not being used. This option is already being explored by UC Berkeley (SETI@HOME) in their search for alien life.   Blockchains also provide both the technological mechanism for decentralized computing as well as an economic model.  One thing is certain he says, “The availability and limitations to compute will shape which Metaverse experiences are possible, for whom, when, and where.” 

He describes how eventually the huge challenge will be developing the means for different “universes” to interact and for changes and experiences in one, to carry over into another.  But he says that these different platforms, with their own rules and competing standards are not a Metaverse, rather they are multiple meta-galaxies, and until standards and competing 3D formats and exchanges become interoperable, people will have to choose between platforms and technologies – like  between Android and Apple, between a variety of email platforms, video sharing tools, Mac or Windows,  etc  That is essentially what gamers have to do today.    The book points out that “As the global economy continues to shift to virtual worlds, these cross-platform and cross-developer technologies will become a core part of global society.” 

The chapter on Payment Rails was fascinating.  The business side of gaming that is and will continue to fuel the Metaverse has many challenges which he describes.  Competing companies create firewalls and some have developed key services and price structures that inhibit innovation in software and other new technologies.   As he tells it, this payment rails dimension has been very frustrating and inhibiting to the most creative and innovative game and technology developers. “The policies of Apple and Google limit the growth potential not only of virtual world platforms, but also the internet at large.” 

“The concept, history, and future of the Metaverse are all intimately tied to gaming, as we’ve seen, and this fact is perhaps most obvious when we look at the basic code of the virtual worlds.”

The chapter on Blockchains is complicated, but he concludes with five very different and competing views of the role of Blockchains as it might affect the Metaverse. These competing views are: 

1. Blockchains are a wasteful technology propped up by scams and fads.
2. Blockchains are inferior to most, if not all alternative databases, contracts and computing structures, but have some value.
3. Though Blockchains will not become dominant for storing data, they will become key to many experiences, application, and business models.
4. Blockchains are not just critical technology, but also key to disrupting today’s platform paradigm.
5. Blockchains are essentially a requirement for the Metaverse that we imagine.

The author seems to lean toward views 4 and 5.  After describing so many challenges and obstacles to creating the Metaverse, he says: “So why am I optimistic that, given all these complications, there will be a Metaverse?  Economics.” p127

Part 3: How the Metaverse will Revolutionize Everything.  This was the most fun section to read. It includes chapters entitled: “When will the Metaverse Arrive?” “Meta-Business,” “Metaverse Winners and Losers,” and “Metaverse existence,” concluding with a chapter “Spectators All. “

The author notes that though as much as 70% of app store revenue comes from gamers, the virtual world is still not part of the lives of the vast majority of people. Fewer that 1 in 14 people routinely engage with the virtual world, and these are almost exclusively gamers, and these people at this point have only marginal influence over society at large.  But as we know, this stuff can move pretty quickly when it gets traction and reaches exit velocity. He notes that cross-platform interoperability remains a huge obstacle and will be essential to the development of the Metaverse.  He also notes what he calls ‘the ongoing destigmatization of time spent in virtual worlds, ” and how gaming and virtual reality involvement is gaining broader acceptance. 

He points to two key factors: 1. how the “underlying technologies required for the metaverse are improving on an annual basis, and  2. there is an ongoing march of generational change – more than 75% of American children game on a single platform – Roblox. (including my own grandchildren) and with these two factors – the idea and the reality of the Metaverse is gaining increasing, almost unstoppable momentum.

In this section he addresses a number of fascinating ways that increasing use of virtual reality tools and links to the Metaverse will impact so much of what we do and how we live, including education, dating, mindfulness, meditation and physio and psycho – theraby, sex work, movies and interactive entertainment, fashion and advertising, industry, urban planning, medical diagnosis and surgery.  

In his chapter on “Metaverse Winners and Losers” he addresses the so-called GAFAM tech giants (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) who are already positioning themselves to compete well in the new world.  and how their competition is in some ways actually slowing down the momentum toward the Metaverse “ideal.”  But there are new disruptors out there who are not well known today, but who, in the near future, could be the new change agents in this realm and tech giants of the future  – and they include the gaming companies such as Epic Games, Unity and Roblox and other players such as Intel and Nvidia.   He notes that the real battle will be between centralization and decentralization.  Centralization involves control and stability, but it hampers creativity and progress. 

He points to how the tech landscape and power structures will need to change for Web 3.0 (a term frequently conflated with the Metaverse) to be an overall positive force in society and peoples lives. He describes how most of us look to the future to improve on many of the disappointments of Web 2.0 which provides us free services in exchange for our data, which the tech behemoths use to manipulate us and to serve their ends (buy products from their advertisers.)

In his chapter “Metaversal Existence” the author points to many of the concerns that the future Metaverse poses for those of us who want less tracking, manipulation,  misinformation, unsolicited advertisement, harassment and abuse from unknown tech manipulators in our digital and non-digital lives.  And he foresees some interesting moral and cultural challenges that the Metaverse will pose, for example, asking whether it will be acceptable for a white man’s avatar to be that of an Aboriginal woman.

And he addresses the likelihood that the Metaverse will widen the “digital divide,” in that more affluent countries will have access to the joys, sorrows and advantages of the Metaverse, but most of the developing world will not, and will be relegated to supporting those countries which are rapidly moving into a whole new cultural dimension, thereby widening the gap between the developed and developing worlds.  

On the positive side, he comments:  “Few among us dreamed of retirement and a long life in order to spend half of each of our remaining days watching TV.  The Metaverse may offer no substitute for actually sailing in the Caribbean, but manning a virtual sailboat alongside old friends is likely to come pretty close and offer all sorts of digital-only perks – and beat watching midday Fox News or MSNBC.”  

He addresses the role of government in regulating the Metaverse, and preventing the worst abuses. He proposes that “government take on a more serious approach to data collection, usage, rights and penalties.”  As an interim step to a single Metaverse, he sees multiple national Metaverses, given that different governments will have different protocols for the rights of individuals and corporations, and the role of government oversight. He notes that “It’s a good bet that China’s Metaverse will be even more different from and centrally controlled compared to that of Western nations.” 

He concludes with “I am certain about much of the future.  It will be increasingly centered around real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds.  Network bandwidth, latency, and reliability will improve. The amount of computing power will increase, thus enabling higher concurrency, greater persistency, more sophisticated simulations, and altogether new experiences…. By the end of the decade, we’ll agree the Metaverse has arrived and it will be worth many trillions.”

But he reminds us of a quote by Tim Sweeney: “If one central company gains control of the Metaverse, they will become more powerful than any government and be a god on Earth.”  

He concludes his book by noting that the trajectory of the Metaverse will be similar to the trajectory of smart phones and social media.  “Eventually, a thing that seems trivial – a mobile phone, a touch screen, a video game – becomes essential, and ends up changing the world in ways both predicted and never even considered.”

Why this Book: Selected by my Sci-Fi reading group because it is THE source of the term “Metaverse” and the vision of the Metaverse in this book continues to guide big tech in moving in that direction to this day. It is a classic in techie circles. 

Summary in 3 Sentences: The story is built around the idea of people experiencing two versions of reality – one in our standard “Reality,” and one in the Metaverse – an online world with its own rules in which each person has a single Avatar which has attributes and experiences in the world of the Metaverse.  In Snow Crash there are a few “good guys” and a few “bad guys” and they interact in reality and in the metaverse.  The good guys are young people who are comfortable going back and forth between Reality and the Metaverse and stumble upon a group who have found a way to turn people into automaton zombies with a religion-like pitch and to disable the computer “nerds” who won’t fall for the new religion by changing their brain chemistry through a computer program.  

My Impressions:  After the meeting with my Sci Fi reading group to discuss Snow Crash, I described it as “… something of a hodge-podge of fascinating ideas, great imagination and foresight, interesting but rather shallow characters, great satire and biting social commentary, a dystopian look at America’s future, a somewhat disjointed plot, an intriguing look at coming prospects of living in multiple realities, and a crazy, surreal, and unresolved ending.”  

The plot seems to be an afterthought and an excuse to imagine and create a world in which people interact on two levels – Reality and in the Metaverse.  The idea of the Metaverse itself is the true star of this book.

It begins with a crazy scene taking place in the Metaverse, which has different rules than reality – the rules of physics are suspended a bit – and frankly I couldn’t figure out what was going on – I was in a sort of culture shock.  After the first couple of chapters, the author introduces us to the characters in Reality who I’d been confusedly trying to follow in their Metaverse adventure in the first two chapters. 

The hero of the story is not-very-subtly named “Hiro Protagonist” a late 20s something computer hacker who lives in a storage shelter with a buddy near LAX and gets paid to upload information into the successor to the CIA, called the CIC -Central Intelligence Corporation which, after the economic collapse of America, merged with the Library of Congress to become the repository of all knowledge and information.   The book’s female heroine is named “YT” for Yours Truly  – a 15 year old white, blond, precocious skateboarder who gets paid as a Kourier – delivering information or other things. Kouriers serve as successors to FedEx or the Postal system which no longer function in disaggregated and disorganized America.  Important things get delivered by Kourier.  In addition to his work for the CIC, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza on the side for the Mafia. 

Throughout the first two thirds of the book, we get to know these two characters and a few others, as the plot slowly evolves to let us know that there are indeed bad guys with a lot of power in the semi-anarchic world that has succeeded the US of A as we know it.  

Initially, it’s all pretty confusing – random characters doing bad things, Hiro being a CIC agent as well as a Pizza delivery boy, and YT being a Kourier, bold, brash, getting into trouble. and I’m not following it all too well.  Then we start getting more clues about the evil that is occurring below the surface and Hiro, with his CIC agent hat on, gets some clues from his former girl friend, and he starts digging deeper into certain anomalies and his intuitions.  He goes into his Metaverse reality and calls on his librarian, who is a ChatGPT-like AI  robot who has access to all knowledge that  has been uploaded into the CIC/Library of Congress data base.   Hiro asks the librarian questions and we start learning about some of the origins of religion, culture and language, going back 5,000 years to what he refers to as the “pre-rational religion.” We learn of very smart Southern Preacher Business man with plans to establish a pre-eminent power base in the world by tapping into a primal impulse that most people have – especially those not particularly well educated – to become religious zealots – Hari Krishna-types.  The book calls this later version of the primal religious impulse “post-rational religion.” And he has a separate tool to lure the more educated into his web through a computer program tied to what he calls “Snow Crash”  

The book culminates in a battle between our megalomaniac Religious leader and the Mafia leader who ran the organization for whom Hiro delivered pizzas.   The Religious leader and his army of religious automatons and killer thugs is doing all it can to take out his competition – the Mafia with whom Hiro and YT are aligned.  Hi tech stuff going aback and forth between Reality and the Metaverse and pretty crazy.  It appears at the end that the not-so-bad guys defeat the Religious Manipulator and then it’s over.  

WHAT WAS POSITIVE AND INTERESTING IN THIS CRAZY STORY?

1. The idea of putting on VR glasses and entering another universe where one can interact with the avatars of other people in a variety of settings.  People “own” property in the Metaverse, create stores and businesses, have relationships, fights, disputes most of hte same things we have in reality, but the rules are somewhat different. 
2. The Metaverse is 3 dimensional but there is one “Street” that is thousands of miles long and communities are built up on that street – kind of like how the trans-continental railroad spawned towns all along the railroad.  Avatars buy property and build communities along the Street, and move from community to community along a metro rail that can go as fast as you want.  The communities spread out into “burbclaves” away from The Street. 
3. People can interact in Reality and in the Metaverse simultaneously – on VR glasses in the Metaverse, on the phone in Reality.
4. There is a lot of satire of US culture in the book, some of it very clever, and often not at all politically correct. 
5. YT’s mother works for the FED – what is left of the US government bureaucracy – and describes her workplace as a Dilbert-like hell.   The bureaucracy lumbers along becoming ever more absurd and inefficient, and is the target of much satire and ridicule (deservedly so). The best example is the 2 page required reading memo on the proper use of toilet paper.  

Some interesting quotes from the book: 

The Metaverse has now become a place where you can get killed.  

“Meta-virus” – an informational entity that causes information systems to infect themselves with customized viruses.   Culture itself is seen as having virus like qualities. 

It takes as much computing power realistically to model the smoke coming out of Ng’s mouth as it does to model the weather system of the entire planet. 

Everything that you see in the Metaverse, no matter how lifelike and beautiful and three dimensional, reduces to a simple text file: a series of letters on an electronic p417

The US has become paranoid. YT has to sign a document certifying that she is not a terrorist, communist, homosexual, national-symbol desecrator, pornography merchant, welfare parasite, racially insensitive, a carrier of any infections disease, or advocate of any ideology intending to impugn traditional family values.  

Hiro’s favorite band:  “Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns”  Their hit:  My heart is a smoking hole p361

A guard’s Question to Hiro:  “Are you a lazy shiftless watermelon-eating black-ass nigger, or a sneaky little VD infected gook? Hiro Protagonist’s response. “Is that some kind of trick question?”

America is wonderful because you can get anything on a drive-thru basis. Oil change, liquor, banking, car wash, funerals – anything you want. p269

The social structure of any nationstate is ultimately determined by its security arrangements.  p266

All Feds go to work early and stay late. It’s a loyalty thing with them. The Feds have a fetish for loyalty – since they don’t make a lot of money nor get a lot of respect, you have to prove you’re personally committed and that you don’t care about those trappings.  p209

Snow Crash has been one of the most influential Sci Fi books written in the last several decades, in that in it,  Stephenson created the vision of the Metaverse which continues to inspire research and development into the 2020s. Not great literature, but an amazingly creative and influential vision, whatever one might think of the idea of a “Metaverse.”  

Why this book: Selected by the SEAL reading group I’m in – suggested by my friend Jay.  I also listened to a podcast discussion with the author and was impressed.

Summary in 3 Sentences: The author takes a neurologists look at our DNA and the role it plays in how a leader influences others to work together to perform at their best at a common mission.  There are certain aspects of being human that impacts how we are motivated, and how we respond to others – especially leaders – in driving our behavior.  He covers the social dimension, communications, team building, decision making, creativity, and concludes with a look at the future of how brain science will affect business and leadership.

My Impressions:  Very interesting perspective on Leadership – from the perspective of a neurologist who is looking at the role that human DNA and our basic humanity play in what we would call good leadership.  This book could also be a companion volume to The Extended Mind – it’s shorter, but its conclusions are very much in harmony.  While he notes that some people have genetic advantages in some of these positive influencers that seem to lead to effective leadership, he notes that we can pay attention to them and improve how we interact with and influence others.

Of course, much of the book is about our genetically driven social impulses – what he calls our social brain network –  and many of the unconscious behaviors that affect how people respond to us.  Much of the reseearch upon which he bases his findings was done not just with humans, but also with monkeys and other animals – to help identify how our shared DNA drives certain behaviors, and he provides some fascinating examples of how our distant cousins in the animal world reflect similar behaviors as we  humans.  All of us – humans and animals – are trying to succeed in the environments we find our selves, socially as well as biologically – all in the interest of survival and reproduction..

His point that most resonated with the SEALs was the importance of how we relate to people as a key component of effective leadership.  He offers neuro-hacks and techniques for getting people to believe you follow you, connect with you – all key components of leadership.  The book gives techniques for winning “hearts and minds” of subordinates with cues and techniques that are related to our innate neurological responses and our “social brain network.”   He also talks about the “group identification effect” and the implicit bias we all have against members of outside groups.  If we believe someone is not part of our group, we tend to distrust them and find it more challenging to collaborate with them.

He also discusses the “mirror neuron system” – an instinctive impulse to copy or do what we see others are doing and how such physical synchrony develops a bond with the person we are copying. Subtly copying the movements of other people is wired into our brains to support establishment of rapport and connection – a nonverbal signal of trust and support.  Also, eye contact activates our social brain network – people naturally respond (often unconsciously) to eye contact – and depending on context,  eye contact can bring people together, or drive them away.

His research indicates that “the more power (real or perceived) you have, the less attention you pay to others, especially those of lower status….it turns down the activity in your social brain, making you less attentive and thereby, less likely to take the perspective of others. We all recognized this as something that leaders need to be aware of and combat against.

The book includes a great chapter on team building and how to create a team identity – to hack into the brain’s natural impulses to build trust and alignment. He offers different tactics and strategies to get people aligned and collaborating.   He notes that when we have a strong connection to people around us, patterns of neuronal activity become aligned as we naturally get into physical synchrony.  Physical synchrony is an indicator of a strong team.  Synchronized heart rates strongly are associated with group flow.

The book includes a whole chapter on how to communicate in such a way that prime’s the listener or audience to accept and respond to the speaker’s message.  Methods such as story telling, simplicity of message, linking your message to “high arousal” and voice pitch are important. He explains how and why in-person speaking is more effective than online, text, or zoom.  He notes that feedback is always more impactful if the person asks for it, than when it is offered unsolicited.

His chapter on Innovation and creativity was particularly interesting.  He noted that we reflect a similar tendency he’s seen in animals. Some animals will tend to look for food in the same area, optimizing their exploitation of the area they are in and familiar with. Others of the same species are more ready to explore other areas – he calls these foragers.  The foragers represent the most innovative and creative, the optimizers/exploiters are the more stable and predictable. These have there analogs with humans – those who prefer to stay with and exploit the familiar; those who get bored quickly and are anxious to try new things – the innovators.

The chapter on innovation also notes that we can’t be very creative if we are task-focussed.  He gives us a new word: “frontoparietal attention network” that supports focus and routine task performance.  This is in contrast to the “default mode network” which we are in when we are relaxed, and in this mode, our minds wander and allow new ideas to emerge, and giving room for new ideas and creative impulses to arise.

HIs chapter “Decision Making” offers a simple five step taxonomy of decision making;

1. Sense your options
2. Weigh the evidence
3. Consider the value of the options
4. Make a choice and take action
5. Evaluate the outcome – and this includes evaluating what another decision might have rendered.

He states that accurate decisions typically require more time, that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy in decision making  – which is not completely supported by Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. He also discusses the paradox of choice – more and more options to choose from, can frequently paralyze us.  Easy to choose between chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but give us a choice of 55 different flavors of ice cream and our decision making process can get overwhelmed.

He concludes the book with a fascinating chapter “The Future of Brain Science in Business” and looks at how Brain-Computer Interface mechanisms are being developed to enhance our access to knowledge and other interesting applications of neuroscience to how well we think and interact with each other.

This short book (106 pages) is a different perspective, and a valuable one, for anyone trying to better understand leadership – what works, what doesn’t, and why.

——–

POST SCRIPT Michael Platt spoke on a Cleveland Guardians Speakers series and the show notes are a useful addendum to my book review;

Make time for social interaction – Leadership is about connections and relationships.

• Google’s Project Oxygen reinforces the value of relationships in their study of what made great managers. 
  • The 10 Oxygen behaviors of Google’s best managers (behaviors 3 and 6 have been updated and behaviors 9 and 10 are new):
    • Is a good coach
    • Empowers team and does not micromanage
    • Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being
    • Is productive and results-oriented
    • Is a good communicator — listens and shares information
    • Supports career development and discusses performance
    • Has a clear vision/strategy for the team
    • Has key technical skills to help advise the team
    • Collaborates across Google
    • Is a strong decision maker

https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/the-evolution-of-project-oxygen/

• MIT study looking at the Top Predictors of Attrition During the Great Resignation found culture  to be 10x more important than money
  • Drivers of toxic culture are bad leaders and social norms
  • https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/toxic-culture-is-driving-the-great-resignation/
• Social Connections also leads to wellbeing
  • Chronic loneliness is more harmful than a pack a day of smokes or obesity

Human Brains wired to connect

• •  Unlike any other animal; humans are able to create and build together – cooperate
  • Social Brain Network is tasked with connecting
  • Facial muscles enable us to connect and show emotions
  • Connection leads to resonance => Empathy
  •  People who have more friends have a bigger social brain network
  •  The more you use it, the better (use of lose)
    • So whether it is at the farmers market or coffee shop – even small talk can strengthen your Social Brain Network
  •  Clear msg, if you want to get the most out of any interaction, you need to devote your attention and presence to your team

• Looking at your phone under table (texting)….is like having a bag on your head

• Consider a phone jail / basket – give your team, family, friend, 100% of your attention

Our Brains need breaks 

• Taking breaks allows your brain to return to the Default-Mode Network – aka, the innovation engine.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion depends on social brains

• Opportunities and challenges in MLB
• Color can lead to implicit bias
  • Unfortunately, the research on the benefit of Implicit Bias Training concludes that there has been very little improvement
  • The research demonstrates that there seems to be a disconnect with what we report and what is actually happening in the brain
• Videos “Needle to face”.  Michael shared the research of a study that asked participants to view needles injected into the faces of both Caucasian and Chinese individuals
  • Contrary to self-reporting, FMRI study demonstrates a high empathy for watching the video of people of the same race; and extremely low empathy for other race.
  • Similar studies demonstrate the same behavior in rats

GOOD NEWS – How to Hack the brain for Brain Empathy

•  Being the same team boosted empathy
• Whenever we can, leaders need to find ways to emphasize “on same team”
• Counterpart to empathy is perspective taking – mental model
  • Putting yourself in someone else’s’ shoes
•  Lamp commercial.  Why do we feel bad for the lamp?
  •  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg
• Taking perspective makes you more effective in sales, coaching, etc
•  Flatten the hierarchy can also lead to increased empathy 

Teams and synchrony

•  Heart beat together; breathing together => increase in productivity
• Tools to build synchrony in Teams
  •  Story telling synchronizes
  • Mirroring – Builds trust
  • Eye contact
  • 1 on 1 conversations with 100% focus (not distracted by phone)

Breakout Questions

Breakout Gems

• Case Western Professor, Ellen VanOosten shared her “1 – hour of mandatory Fun” exercise” where students in her MBA class are partnered up and part of their assignment is to spend 1 hour together on something fun.  The only runes are that they can’t have any discussion of work / school 
  • So, while the students usually roll their eyes and grumble with the assignment, by the end of the course, the course reviews tell a far different story.  Students share how impactful the exercise was in building a strong team.
• UPENN Professor Charline Russo shared one of here favorite “empathy exercises” with her question, “…tell me about your shoes; where they have been, why you picked them today?”