Because of the Corona Virus “Shelter in Place” situation, we are holding our meeting online via Zoom. If you wish to join us, please send an email to carl@angotti.com and request the link.
New Book
Survive: Why We Do What We Do, by Jerry Pannone, 2022, 178 Pages (Michael, Carl, Oded, Scott, Steve)
Although the concept of survival is evident in a biological sense, it expands far beyond simple physical survival for the human being. The questions of psychological, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual survival, as well as the overriding question of identity all play a role. Who is the “me” that is fighting to survive? That is the existential question we struggle consciously or unconsciously to address.
We’re coming to understand that life on this world is that of an extended family, not just from a human perspective, but from all manner and form of sentient organisms. The purpose of Survive is not to enumerate the processes of every kind of life up the evolutionary tree, from bacteria to humans, but to look for the common denominators on that tree and to explore what motivators of all life forms share with greater emphasis placed on primates in general, but humans in particular throughout the journey of this book.
Readings this week:
22 Mar – Chapt. 1 Through to Page 30 ““reed as a Biological drive” 30 pages over one week.
5 Apr – Freethought Discussion, Bring topics you wish to discuss
=============
Past Books we have Read
o Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, Robert M. Sapolsky, 2017
o “Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy”, 2021, by Thomas M. Nichols
o “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity”, March 24, 2020 by Toby Ord
o “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It” by Robert Reich
o “The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life”, by Anu Partanen,
o “It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis
o “Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody”, by by Helen Pluckrose (Author), James Lindsay (Author), Hardcover – August 25, 2020
o “Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do” by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, PhD, 2019
o“The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good” by Michael J. Sandel, 2020
o “Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know” by Malcolm Gladwell, 2019
o “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, 2009
o “I, Robot” by Isaac Asimov, 1950, 1977
o “A Confession” by Leon Tolstoy, 2011
o “Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World and Why Things Are Better than You Think” by Hans Rosling, 2018
o “The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley” by Malcolm X, Alex Haley, and Attallah Shabazz, 1992
o “The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy” by Stephanie Kelton, 2020
o “Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and other Animals” by John Gray, 2007
o “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny” by Robert Wright, 2000
o “Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion” by Paul Bloom, 2016
o “Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts” by Stanislas Dehaene, 2014
o “The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm” by Lewis Dartnell, 2015
o “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, 2013
o “The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins, 2016
o “The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning” by Daniel Bor, 2012
o “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake” by Dr. Steven Novella & 4 more, 2018
o “Creating Change though Humanism” by Roy Speckhardt, 2015
o “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe, 2009
o “The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History” by J. R. McNeill & William H. McNeill, 2003
o “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Picketty, 2017
o “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hanna Arendt, 1973
o “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari, 2015
o “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom” by Jonathan Haidt, 2006
o “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” by Jonathan Haidt, 2013
o “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do” by Michael J. Sandel, 2009
o “Listen Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?” by Thomas Frank, 2017
o “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away” by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 2014
o “Intuition Pumps and other Tools for Thinking” by Daniel C. Dennett, 2014
o “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” by Stephen Greenblatt, 2012