#freaknomics

Freakonomics: la sociedad de los incentivos

by juan re crivello

  -Keola. –dijo una voz.

-Lehua! ¿Eres tú? –gritó él. Miró a su alrededor pero no pudo verla.

-Antes te vi pasar –respondió la voz-, pero no me podías oír. Rápido, coge las hojas y las hierbas. Vámonos de este lugar […]

¡Rápido! Las hojas y las hierbas, ¡antes de que mi padre regrese! (1)

En una guardería israelí, según un libro de actualidad, “los padres llegaban siempre…

Freakonomics: la sociedad de los incentivos

by juan re crivello

  -Keola. –dijo una voz.

-Lehua! ¿Eres tú? –gritó él. Miró a su alrededor pero no pudo verla.

-Antes te vi pasar –respondió la voz-, pero no me podías oír. Rápido, coge las hojas y las hierbas. Vámonos de este lugar […]

¡Rápido! Las hojas y las hierbas, ¡antes de que mi padre regrese! (1)

En una guardería israelí, según un libro de actualidad, “los padres llegaban siempre…

I Won't Be a Liar #readingchallenge2015 @Goodreads #notgonnaquit

Dramatic? Yes. Click-bait? Yes, guilty as charged.

But now that you are here, by the end of the year, I won’t be a liar. At the beginning of 2015, I had set myself up with the lofty goal to read 30 books before the end of the year. What was a I thinking/smoking/drinking?

During the first few months I read quite a bit, but then somewhere between then and a little over a month ago I forgot all…

*Aviso: todas las recomendaciones son en inglés, así que si no estás dispuesto a escuchar radio en el idioma de Shakespeare, ni sigas leyendo (en general quien participa en una emisión de este tipo tiene bastante buena dicción, así que se entienden todos…

I read a review of Ridley Scott's Prometheus in The Guardian and I'm excited. Also, with Michael Fassbender there, I already have the promise of good acting in the film.

Alien and its sequel were great action/sci-fi films, and I'm excited about this prequel.

Now, back to Isaac Asimov.

Reading Nightfall, I was struck by how robust his writing is. It has energy, clarity and boldness. There's also a freshness to his writing. He has no fear, no equivocation in imagining different worlds and ideas. Yet, at the center, though cloaked in technology or theory, his stories offer keen insight to our humanity.

I love his concept in the Foundation series of psychohistory or mathematical sociology that allows for the prediction of the future though in grand scale or mass terms rather than in small scale or individual terms.

I like behavioral studies. I'm not a big non-fiction fan but the little non-fiction I do read mainly concerns studies on human behavior. For example, I like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and The Tipping Point, Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, and Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics.

I like the idea that one can use mathematics to predict mass behavior. It may take a lot of computing power, but I think it can probably be done to some extent.

Now, getting back to sci-fi writing. I think a lot of the old-school sci-fi writers are so compelling in their works because many things were still mysteries to them. There isn't that cynicism that comes from knowing so much.

Decades ago, we hadn't yet the powerful telescopes that have stripped many of the mysteries of the solar system. It was an age of expansion, discovery, when people wanted to fly to the moon.

Now you have 7 billion people in the world. No place is a mystery. Air travel is easy and you can reach the other side of the globe within a day. Everything is mapped on the internet and satellites can show you what far off places look like or what your mother may be doing in the yard.

Powerful telescopes have revealed the vast landscapes and character of the planets (and the realization that Pluto isn't really one).

Evolution and the big bang theory are more or less accepted (though a poll in the U.S. says about half of the people in America still believe in creationism).

Just as air travel has shortened travel, the internet has narrowed the gap in our understanding of the world, of cultures and events and, well, realities.

Maybe, unless we find some hints of alien life nothing is really ever going to spark the kind of sense of wonder and imagination that we used to have when we didn't know so much (okay that might be a little too over the top).

But then again, we can't even count on that. :).