Joshua's Updates

Joshua is currently reading 'Abundance'

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 20:17:15 -0700

Joshua is currently reading Abundance by Ezra Klein

Joshua added 'The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI'

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 08:48:00 -0700

Joshua gave 2 stars to The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI (Kindle Edition) by Ray Kurzweil
Lots of interesting ideas, but really devolves by the end. This feels like an elaborate way for Ray Kurzweil to rationalize his own fear of death by saying he's never going to die. There's a section where he has a convo with a ChatGPT version of his dead father and claims it's just like he's talking to his real dad. By the end he was seriously considering our possible defenses against a hoard of "grey goo" nanobots consuming the entire biosphere.

For every prediction outside of artificial intelligence it was clear he didn't know what he was talking about and just spitballing. He claimed we're already gaining 4 months of life for every year we age and that by 2029(???) we'll gain more than a year, becoming immortal. Not sure he understands that the 4 months of life figure comes from a reduction in infant mortality and not from us massively raising the max lifespan. The entire fifth chapter was an even worse version of "The Better Angels of Our Nature" and I don't know how half his claims got past an editor.

I dunno. Interesting discussion of artificial consciousness at the start, but mostly a good read as a case study of a man who would rather create a techno singularity cult than go to therapy.

Joshua is currently reading 'Ohio'

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 05:13:42 -0700

Joshua is currently reading Ohio by Stephen Markley

Joshua is currently reading 'It Can't Happen Here'

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 05:13:23 -0700

Joshua is currently reading It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Joshua is 79% done with How to Be Yourself

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 05:12:45 -0700

Joshua Benjamin is 79% done with How to Be Yourself.

Joshua is currently reading 'The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI'

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 05:11:52 -0700

Joshua is currently reading The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil

Joshua is currently reading 'How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety'

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 09:44:34 -0700

Joshua is currently reading How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by Ellen Hendriksen

Joshua has read 'Martyr!'

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 09:36:31 -0700

Joshua has read Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Joshua added 'The Nix'

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 06:30:59 -0800

Joshua gave 3 stars to The Nix (Hardcover) by Nathan Hill
Closer to 4 stars than 3. A lot of really great sections of this book, but even more than in Wellness it seems like Nathan Hill has a lot of things he wants to write about that are tangentially related and he stitched them together. I'm fine with non linear storytelling, but there were so many sections of this that were well written in their own right but that didn't add much to the overall flow of the story. It felt like Nathan Hill loves writing short stories but knew the best way to get to read them would to sneak them into a novel.

That said, he's still a fantastic writer. All the individual scenes are great and thought provoking, and even when sections felt like Nathan was just pontificating on his own philosophy of capitalism it was interesting to hear his thoughts. Didn't like this as much as Wellness, but I like the trajectory his books are taking. Maybe I'll love his third book.

Joshua added 'Wellness'

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 22:01:53 -0800

Joshua gave 5 stars to Wellness (Hardcover) by Nathan Hill
More like 4.5 but that's okay. Lots of really great ideas in this book! Loved the discussion of placebo/self delusion more broadly, social media, parenthood, change—so many topics covered in this book and they're generally covered extremely well. My main issue is that sometimes these sections, while well done individually, can be pretty jarring. Like we're taking a sharp right turn from the story to talk about Facebook algorithms for an hour. Still, really well done overall and extremely well developed leads. The writing made me jealous in parts