Courage to Grow

Courage to Grow is personally relevant because I'm part of the story. Laura Sandefer shares her experience along her husband, Jeff, in founding and moving Acton Academy from an idea to an international success. As she clearly discloses the book is not a how-to or a treatise of Educational theory. It is a beautiful personal story full of challenges, successes, discoveries and hard moments, but overall it is an inspiring story for those willing to do something to change how kids are educated and raise these days.

Laura shares how they decided not to sign their kids in a traditional school after attending a Montessori school. The Sandefer's dilemma echoes with our own of not accepting the fact that the only option was putting our kids in a traditional school. 

In opposition of the traditional approach of Education where results, grades, titles and degrees are what matter, the Sandefer's wondered "Can a vision of school rationally encounter the power of love and claim it?" and they didn't stop at the question and moved forward and made Acton Academy a reality.

Acton Academy was quickly recognized as an alternative to the traditional system. It's differentiation is "Our biggest point of separation is the upside-down power structure that pushes control and decision making to the children." Indeed what I value the most about Acton Academy is that children became responsible of their own Education and life. 

"A month after their visit, Juan had already found families (we were one of them) who would enroll their children. And with that Acton Academy Guatemala City began to take shape."

Acton Academy is an evolving community that has extended world-wide. It is not a simple franchise system but a sharing of values and principles that anchor a joined effort to improve the education of our kids.

Thanks to Jeff and Laura, Juanma and Analu for trusting the children and taking the lead.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Considering the complexity of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, it is amazing that Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote it in the trenches during WWI. The only book published while he was alive, depicts a young philosopher's concern with the problem of the science. Although he later dismissed this work, Tractatus remains an important text in its field. Even though I don't agree with Wittgenstein nihilism, but his ideas in this book are important for the discussion about psychology, epistemology, ethics, language and philosophy.

This text is Wittgenstein's critique of philosophy 

"Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences.... Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity". 

In Tractatus Wittgenstein makes an equivalence of reason and symbolic logic - no errors. "Though can never be of anything illogical, since, if it were, we should have to think illogically." This follows that if language follows the same rules of symbolic logic, reasoning would be error free.

Later, Wittgenstein establishes an analogy between language and pictures as representations of reality, "A picture is a model of reality". A reality that is comprised of facts, not things. The world is made of facts, events, not things. 

For the young Wittgenstein what counts is a thorough logical construct of propositions and operators, a general form of truth-function as he called it. 

"The proof of logical propositions consists in the following process: we produce them out of another logical proposition by successively applying certain operations that always generate further tautologies out of the initial ones." 

It doesn't need to be validated with reality. How could one validate a proposition with reality if we can't know reality? We just can check their logical soundness. The problem why we seem to make mistakes is that our languages are not solid enough. 

"In order to avoid such errors (one sign with multiple significations) we must make use of a sign-language that excludes them by not using the same sign for different symbols and not using in a superficially similar way signs that have different modes of signification: that is to say, a sign-language that is governed by logical grammar"

The conclusion is that we must thrive to use coherent, unequivocal language to represent reality. If sign-language is complete, all the world can be coded.

Did I understood Wittgenstein? I don't know. But as he says in his opening paragraph and close to the end:

"Perhaps this book will be understood only by someone who has himself already had the thoughts that are expressed in it."

"My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them - as steps - to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, trow away the ladder after he has climbed up it). He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright."

Later in life Wittgenstein seems to recognize and accept the limitations of language and gives up the ideal of such perfect code in exchange of an ordinary language philosophy. 

What we can all take from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is his very last proposition 

"What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence." 

In today's world so many people pretend to be experts that we need more silence, more reflexion, more reason.

Time Machine

A few days ago I saw a video of an interview between Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers at the Independent women's forum may 16, 2017. In it Paglia discusses with Hoff Sommers the current debacle of feminism in western world. In the conversation Paglia makes reference to one of her favorite movies as teen, "The Time Machine (1960)". After watching the movie I decided to go for more and read the whole book.

H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895, twenty years before Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Although not a formal scientific treaty but a science fiction novel, The Time Machine plot is rich in modern science ideas that popularized traveling in time.

As many book made movies there are important differences in the plot yet both share some of the key ideas.

In Time Machine, H. G. Wells narrates the story of a Time Traveler from the point of view of his curious friend, probably named Hillyer. The Time Traveler is an inventor and adventurer who has an interesting theory about time.

"There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it."

For him time travel is possible if one moves in that dimension, thus no change of Space position. As an inventor he shows a scale prototype to his visitors and most of them leave skeptically, Hillyer curiosity makes him go back just to find that the Time Traveler had a full scale device he later used to travel to the future.

In a later scene the Time Traveler returns beaten and in rags finding his friends sitting at the dinner table. After having some food he start telling the story of what happened during his trip to the future.

The most relevant part, adapted by the movie, is his stay in C.E. 802,701 when he faces two human descendant species, the Eloi and the Morlocks. The later are ape like carnivorous who live Under-world, while the first are "beautiful and graceful creatures, but indescribably frail" who lived Upper-world without major worries but who end up being a sort of cattle for the Morlocks.

The Time Traveler was optimist before his trip "I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything." but after meeting the Eloi "For a moment I felt that I had built the Time Machine in vain." There are more similar references, like his poor preparation with tools thinking that in the future technology would be much better.

Wells description of the Eloi resembles the critique of Paglia and Hoff Sommers

"where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the state; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity - indeed there is no necessity - for and efficient family, and the specialization of the sexes with reference of their children's needs disappears. We see some beginnings of thi even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete."

Although the Time Traveler was wrong in his theory his description of the dystopian future resembles what extreme groups are aiming for.

Should we be pessimists as the Time Traveler and Paglia or optimists as the narrator?

He, I know thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its maker in the end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so.

El Federalista (The Federalist Papers)

Thomas Jefferson pensaba que los niños debían aprender a leer con libros de Historia. El Federalista o “The Federalist Papers” cómo se les conoce en inglés son una colección de artículos publicados en New York previo a la ratificación de la nueva constitución de EUA en 1789, la mejor y más duradera constitución del mundo moderno. Escritos por James Madison, Alexander Hamilton y John Jay estos artículos explican con claridad el razonamiento detrás de la constitución. Dentro de los artículos los de Madison destacan por su claridad filosófica. Hamilton es hoy más popular y tiene una posición más inclinada a favorecer un gobierno federal fuerte. 

No todas las ideas prosperaron y no todas eran igual de buenas para establecer las bases de una República. Sin embargo, siguiendo el consejo de Jefferson, El Federalista es una lectura obligada hoy que muchos de los valores que la Constitución defienden se han puesto en duda y tergiversado. 

Un buen cierre de la lectura sería la advertencia de Benjamin Franklin cuando le preguntaron que habían hecho “una República si la pueden conservar”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Thomas Jefferson thought that kids should learn to read reading History books. The Federalist Papers is a collection of articles published in a New York newspaper before the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789, the best and longer lived constitution in the modern world. Written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay this columns explain with clarity the rationale behind the Constitution. Within the articles, Madison's outstand thanks to his philosophical clarity. Hamilton is currently the most popular of the three and has a position more incline in favor of a strong central government.

Not all the proposals thrived and not all were equally good to set the foundation of a Republic. However, following Jefferson's advice, The Federalist Papers are a must read today that many of the values that the Constitution defend are questioned and distorted.

A good closing for the book would be Benjamin Franklin's answer when he was inquired of what they did "A Republic if you can keep"

Vida y mentira de Ernesto Che Guevara

Ante el 50 aniversario de la muerte del Che y el nacimiento de un mito esta biografía revisada de Fernando Díaz Villanueva es muy oportuna. Con "Vida y mentira de Ernesto Che Guevara" Díaz Villanueva contribuye a desenmascarar la imagen fantasiosa del joven revolucionario inmortalizada en la fotografía de Alberto Díaz en camisetas, banderas, tatuajes y más medios de expresión modernos.

Desde el inicio el autor nos advierte el esfuerzo por elaborar un relato objetivo, algo difícil cuando se trata de un tipo que genera muchas emociones de un lado y del otro.

"El Che Guevara merecía ser biografiado, pero no para hablar bien de él, tampoco mal, simplemente para contar su vida de una manera apasionada y escéptica. Eso es, en definitiva, lo que pretende el presente libro."

Mi versión del Che
(hecho con imágenes de dominio púbico)

Creo que Díaz Villanueva con un relato bien hilvanado, con toques de ironía que si no fuera por la seriedad de las historias podría llegar a ser divertido, logra su cometido. Poco a poco la historia desempaca el perfil de un jóven oportunista y acomplejado que se creía más de lo que realmente era, el inconforme que saltando entre la adversidad y la suerte llegó a ser uno de los hombres más nefastos de la historia reciente de América Latina. 

El mito del Che ha multiplicado la malignidad del hombre al justificar las acciones de miles de hombres y mujeres. Ojalá la obra Fernando Díaz Villanueva llegue a las personas, sobre todo jóvenes, que viven en contradicción creyendo que defienden causas justas pero portan logotipos del Che. 

Deep Thinking

In a world of pessimism a word of optimism is always welcome. This is what Garry Kasparov has to tell in his new book, "Deep Thinking, where machine intelligence ends and human creativity begins".

Garry Kasparov is a Russian born chess world champion and maybe the best grand master in history. After living in the soviet Azerbaijan he and his family escaped during the collapse of the Soviet Union. A democratic leader and opponent to the Putin regime he had to move to the US in 2013. He is the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and has worked in defense of human rights and freedom for a long time.

This combination of chess master, computer geek and freedom lover permeates in his new book. He is a believer in the potential of humanity under a free systems despite its natural paradoxes.

"Even the most disciplined human mind wanders in the heat of competition. This is both a weakness and a strength of human cognition. Sometimes these undisciplined wanderings only weaken your analysis. Other times they lead to inspiration, to beautiful or paradoxical moves that were not on your initial list of candidates."

In Deep Thinking, Kasparov narrates his experience loosing against Deep Blue, IBM's supercomputer in a chess match in 1997. When a computer beat the world chess champion it became a tipping point for media and the public in the race of machine against humans.  Beyond a historic recollection of the events and some inside details that were not made public back then, Kasparov's book is a call for hope. Having experienced in person the overwhelming brute power of a computer he is not naïve in being optimist.

"Few people in the world know better than I do what it’s like to have your life’s work threatened by a machine. No one was sure what would happen if and when a chess machine beat the world champion."

The main thesis of Kasparov is that we can't know what is going to happen in the future but we should start from accepting that progress is unstoppable and desirable, therefore we shouldn't pretend to defend ourselves by holding it back.

"We don’t get to pick and choose when technological progress stops, or where. Companies are globalized and labor is becoming nearly as fluid as capital. People whose jobs are on the chopping block of automation are afraid that the current wave of tech will impoverish them, but they also depend on the next wave of technology to generate the economic growth that is the only way to create sustainable new jobs. Even if it were possible to mandate slowing down the development and implementation of intelligent machines (how?), it would only ease the pain for a few for a little while and make the situations worse for everyone in the long run."

Instead we should embrace change and formulate tougher and deeper questions. The combination of human creativity and machine brute power is super powerful, instead of fear of Artificial Intelligence - AI (machines replacing humans) we need Intelligence Amplification - IA (machines enhancing humans)

"We aren’t competing against our machines, no matter how many human jobs they can do. We are competing with ourselves to create new challenges and to extend our capabilities and to improve our lives. In turn, these challenges will require even more capable machines and people to build them and train them and maintain them—until we can make machines that do those things too, and the cycle continues. If we feel like we are being surpassed by our own technology it’s because we aren’t pushing ourselves hard enough, aren’t being ambitious enough in our goals and dreams. Instead of worrying about what machines can do, we should worry more about what they still cannot do." 

It is in the proper combination of humans and machines that we can reach our full potential.

"A clever process beat superior knowledge and superior technology. It didn’t render knowledge and technology obsolete, of course, but it illustrated the power of efficiency and coordination to dramatically improve results. I represented my conclusion like this: weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process."

But Kasparov positive vision has a caveat. It won't occur unless we have ambitious projects to pursuit and make important changes in politics, R&D, international cooperation and education.

"America still possesses the unique potential to innovate on a scale that can push the entire world economy forward. A world in which America is content with mediocrity is, literally, a much poorer world. 

R&D budgets have been slashed over the years as investors take a skeptical view of anything that doesn't feed the bottom line. Government-backed research tends to favor specific budgets to fit an existing need, not ambitious, open-ended mission to answer big questions. 

Trade wars and restrictive immigration regulations will limit America’s ability to attract the best and brightest minds, minds needed for this and every forthcoming Sputnik moment.

That our classrooms still mostly look like they did a hundred years ago isn’t quaint; it’s absurd. How can a teacher or even a stack of books be the sole source of information for kids who can access the sum of all human knowledge in seconds from a device in their pockets."

Kasparov's book is recommended to those worried about the future. I rate 4 stars because the book is a little repetitive and circular which makes the message less powerful and the reading a little weary.

As an additional reference, Tyler Cowen made an interesting interview to Garry Kasparov short ago(see transcript here) here is the audio.

How to Be Everything

From "What do you want to be when you grow up?" to "What are you up to these days?"

Emilie Wapnick rose to fame after her TED talk "Why some of us don't have one true calling" that has almost 4M views. Emilie has devoted to help people who are "multipotentialites" or someone with many interests and creative pursuits. This book is an extension of her talk giving anecdotal support to what multipotentialites are, and what they do to be more effective in spite of their multiple interests and lack of consistency.

The book is a good intro for multipotentialites, a feel good, "Welcome to the tribe" (as the title of one the chapters) book. It provides some tools to assess if one is indeed a multipotentialite and its kind. Finally it offers some tools to improve effectiveness. However the books is somehow soft, in a way it is expected since the core idea of multipotentialites is that they don't follow social norms on how to live ones lives. Nonetheless, that lightness seems like a rationalization, an excuse to fail on delivering. Like it or not multipotentialites live in the real world where people expect results on time, on cost and on quality, no excuses.

Hope Wapnick work gets the attention in academic circles to become a research subject and thus future books and papers. Meanwhile you can find more about Wapnick and multipotentialites in her site Puttylike.com

Shoe Dog

Bill Gates recommended Phil Knight's book Shoe Dog in his 2015 annual blog. After reading Knight's story I can't but agree with Gates.

Shoe Dog is a very honest memoir of Knight and Nike (NYSE:NKE), full of business wisdom but also the challenges and setbacks. He didn't sugarcoated his story like many entrepreneurial books. Reading Shoe Dog is an emotional rollercoaster, from stories of adventure, success, failure, doubts, despair, sorrow, pride and joy.

Things I found amazing about Phil Knight:

1. He prepared ahead for the adventure. From the very early pages he tells the story of how he wanted to travel around the world. With near $0 budget yet "I spent weeks, reading, planning, preparing for my trip." similar stories are prefaces to his first trip to Japan, to Taiwan and China. 
2. He cared for his team, having hired very odd people at the beginning mainly trying to help them to his support for the athletes they sponsored.
3. He recognized his business journey very honestly, from making money, to dominate the market to contribute to the human drama. "I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great businesses do, to create, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud."
4. His almost devotion to his coach and cofounder, Bill Bowerman, as well as to other people who contribute to Nike success. Constantly not letting Bowerman behind, naming the buildings after supporters, his appreciation for Tiger Woods, etc. 
5. His connection with his family could be omitted but it helps to appreciate Knight's humanity. The struggle between a growing business and his family, his regret for not having spend enough time with his kids, his apologies to his wife, Penny, for having to waited and waited, 

The book has some pearls of business wisdom too, not as a recipe but as a testimony.

1. Cash management is crucial specially for a fast growing business.
2. Plans have a short life, specially when conditions change.
3. Tell people what you want and let them surprise you with their results
4. When you believe in something being stubborn pays off, but if you have doubts trust your team.
5. An IPO may be necessary but the timing is important.

For those interested in entrepreneurship this book is a must. 

An interesting conversation with HBR Ideacast.

Fight Club

The first rule about Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club. The second rule about Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club. Thus, should I write a book review in the first place? 

Usually book lovers agree that books are better than their movie version. Popularized by the 1999 movie featuring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton  Fight Club is not the exception, despite I saw the movie years before reading the book. A recent interview to Chuck Palahniuk reported in Clash Daily brought up my interest in the story but this time I decided to go for the book. The story of a franchise of clandestine fight clubs were otherwise peaceful people vent their frustrations,  Fight Club illustrates what Kierkegaard wrote about Irony.

"Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do. He who does not understand irony and has no ear for its whispering lacks of what might called the absolute beginning of the personal life. He lacks what at moments is indispensable for the personal life, lacks both the regeneration and rejuvenation, the cleaning baptism of irony that redeems the soul from having its life in finitude though living boldly and energetically in finitude". - Soren Kierkegaard

The irony of a life without major risks but no meaning, a life so boring as to join a number of support groups trying to find novelty. The irony that "the first step to eternal life is you have to die".

Palahniuk tells the story between a regular Joe, the narrator, and his alter-ego, Tyler Durden. A permanent conflict between a typical, boring, uneventful lives and what we would like them to be. We find in their relationship with Marla the struggle between a platonic love and a lusty lover. Or the complex contrast between the beautiful and the ugly as in manufacturing an expensive soap out of human fat.

"Our goal is the big red bags of liposuctioned fat we'll haul back to Paper Street and render and mix with lye and rosemary and sell back to the very people who paid to have it sucked out. At twenty bucks a bar, these are the only folks who can afford it."

A constant battle to be different but as the narrator says:

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile."

Fight Club evolves into a larger goal, Project Mayhem, a project so secret that the first rule about Project Mayhem was not to ask questions about Project Mayhem. 

"The goal was to teach each man in the project that he had the power to control history. We, each of us, can take control of the world."

The power to control the world was the power to "complete and rightaway destroy civilization to make something better out of this world".

Palahniuk leaves us with a reflection about our own reality.

We are not special.

We are not crap or trash, either.

We just are.

We just are, and what happens just happens.

How do you find meaning in life? Do you need to destroy in order to be? Can we instead learn from our mistakes and grow creating?

Playborhood

Mike Lanza is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with whom I identified, not because his professional career but his devotion to his children and family. Like me, and many parents, Mike was concerned by the few opportunities children have to freely play this days. 

Mike's story came to me after reading an article in the New York Times by Melanie Thernstrom. The story was interesting but had a feeling of critique that I couldn't understand. Mike is not a play expert but a father who is not sitting in his couch whining and waiting for the government to fix his problem, he honestly is trying to provide a safe and fun environment for his kids to play. It was a relief to read play experts like Tim Gill, Peter Gray or  Lenore Skenazy, appreciate what Lanza is doing. 

But Mike didn't stop at doing something for his kids, he wrote Playbordhood. He researched about other initiatives all over the US of people acting and not just complaining. People of different socioeconomic backgrounds, in different setting, with different approaches. His book is not only a collection of stories but a guide for those who want to do something; from selecting the right neighborhood, to creating attractions for kids, to building a community, and more. He lays out a plan on how to create a playborhood. He is not naive in pretending that this is a magic potion that will fix the problem, kids outgrow the attractions, there is fierce competition from electronics, other parents have their own fears and preferences, etc. His message can be summarized as don't give up and keep trying. 

"My approach has been to stay the course as long as the positive response outnumber positive responses outnumber the negative ones. When I do get a specific negative reaction, I try to accommodate whatever complaint the neighbor might have."

Some of the critiques to Mike's solution are that he is an affluent Silicon Valley entrepreneur and thus he can spend lots of money on his playground. Mike challenges this idea not only by recognizing other initiatives with fewer resources but invites people to put their money in their priorities.

"I hope readers of this book will re-evaluate the relative budgets for the inside and outside of their homes. When weather is OK, a great yard is far more important to kids than the inside of the house. Moreover, even in bad weather months, kids don't appreciate expensive decor at all..... Having a great home entertainment system inside the house is attractive for them, but they will benefit far more from a great yard"

One of the key concepts of Playborhood is they are right were children live. Other alternatives like playgrounds and city parks are places where kids can't go on their own at the time they please. Going to those places become a planned activity. People come from different locations making it hard to create a culture of play and a community. Playborhoods have their issues, Mike may have done things differently from suggested by experts but the big picture is that this is an idea to stimulate others to act and improve.

Monica and me visiting Mike's playborhood

A Sharia London

A Romantic novel or a Fundamentalist thriller, or both? A Sharia London is the new novel by Vinay Kolhatkar that brings in an insiders view of radical Islam and the people's struggle to break free from it.

Raw in details, rich with cliff hangers and plot twists this is an "Un-put-down-able" book. 

The narrative takes the reader through London and other parts of the Europe, the Middle East and India, as the love story between Marlon Stone, a middle age history professor, and Jamila Kahn, a young beautiful "Muslim apostate" student, evolves. What started as a confronting student who challenged Dr. Stone's politically-correct stand and uneventful life ends in a thriller of terrorism, assassination, mafia fightback and intense love.

"- ....That is your world, Marlon.
- What is your world?
- A Sharia London, and I don't want to be in it."

Marlon Stone is an idealist who thinks that the good side of Islam just needs to gain critical mass to win over the fundamentalists. Jamila, who was raised a devout muslim knows better. She has seen how extremists kidnap and trade young girls for ISIS, how they rape and assault apostate muslims and kafirs. Jamila contends that extremists can't be defeated with patients and time, but with positive actions. She was involved with Azaadi, a secret organization who saves young girls who want to escape Islam.

As Stone starts falling in love with Jamila he recognizes the truth. He gets in the middle of Azaadi and while helping Jamila escape gets himself in danger. The climax of his discovery is when he returns to his class, no longer willing to watch history from the sidelines:

"The epochal moments of a society’s history arise from a clash of values so intense that no politically correct dialogue can even begin to touch it, let alone resolve it."
"In the long narrative of human history, these are the turning points, the twists and turns of the story as it unfolds. Identify these epochal moments ... remember, they are always caused by an intense value clash .. study these pivotal moments, and you understand humanity itself."

What is fascinating about Sharia London are the contrasting values. An middle-age professor who suffers from anhedonia and an intense young idealist student, a submissive mother willing to give her life for a rebel daughter, the Mafia helping fight terrorism when the government failed, living in danger or dying in peace.

However the core moral of the story is an increasing sense of life as danger becomes real and present. Living a life without meaning is closer to being dead while living the life you choose despite the risk and dangers is intense and meaningful.

"Suddenly, he knew. She lived. She lived every day anew like it was her last, extracting every residue of purpose and cheer from whatever life threw at her. Every day."

For the reader the question is "Am I living a life of meaning? Can we find meaning in life as if nothing is happening in the world around us? Do you actually need to be in danger to enjoy life or just live intensively as if everything can abruptly end?