Interesting things I have read

Minimum Viable Self

Discussion of the projection of our self, our personal "brand" - in the physical world vs the online world. Quotes:

• Offline we exist by default; online we have to post our way into selfhood. Reality, as Philip K. Dick said, is that which doesn’t go away when you stop believing in it
• Our own sustained presence as individuals is the quality that distinguishes [our physical self from our online self].
• [Online] silence is effectively impossible on the contemporary internet, where “voids are just filled by other people’s content, and thus vanish instantly.”

He sees that the social media machines treat people who are not producing fresh content as if they are homeless because they are marginalized and pushed out of sight.

Why You Are Christian

Quotes:

• "Human rights is self-evident only if God says so."
• "One reason we underestimate how much Christianity has influenced our thinking is that we’ve removed religious education from our schools."
• "I have a problem with the ignorance caused by the blind dismissal of religion, and the way they mock the assumptions that underpin their [own] worldview."

(written by an agnostic from a Jewish background)

 

Return of the God Hypothesis

Steven Meyer’s book and my review of it.

 

The Scholar's Stage: On Laws and Gods

Where does human society historically base the authority of laws and rulers? Consistently in gods and spirits. Those that do not, do not last.

 

The Great Unsettling - The Abbey of Misrule

The uprootedness of being of the culture (the Machine), of western society. Root yourself in good spiritually to enrich your own life against it.

 

The Age of the Essay

What are essays and their history? Why are they interesting? Why write them?

 

Thirty-six Thousand Feet Under the Sea

An independently successful guy wanted to do exploration that had not already been done. So he hired a submarine company to make a submersible for him that could go the bottom of the ocean. His goal was to go to deepest places in all the oceans. He got a team (of misfits) together that overcame great challenges and accomplished the goal. A riveting read.

 

This Plane Accidentally Flew Around the World

After Pearl Harbor, a Pan American "Clipper" (a Boeing 314) on its way to Auckland, NZ was stranded because it could not return by its established route across the Pacific. So, amazingly the crew circumnavigated the world to get home!