The book This Explains Everything is an eclectic
assortment of chapters which converge to highlight the nature of humanity by
exploring topics in various fields such as psychology, astronomy, physics,
sociology, etc. My favorite chapters typically abstained from empirical studies
and offered up thought experiments and questions.
A chapter that I enjoyed quite a bit was the one entitled Commitment
by Richard H. Thaler. The chapter was short and sweet – a theme among my favorites
– and explored the conundrum of choice and indirectly invoked the concept of
agency. Thaler claims that with a strict commitment to a future course, that
course can be taken instead of a pondering paralysis. He cites the prisoner’s
dilemma, which I find to be a gross oversimplification in its employment as Thaler
later goes on to claim that this decisiveness and adherence would solve society’s
thorniest problems. This reductionistic critique is shallow when applied to conflicts
of this magnitude and should be reserved to the man vs self conflicts of the
world as opposed to one entrenched in governments and their agendas.
Another particularly interesting chapter in the book was one
titled Group Polarization written by David G. Myers. The chapter is
particularly important with the political election coming up and the presence
of echo chambers. While the right has already become deeply entrenched in a
sycophantic, mob mentality in support of Donald Trump, liberals and moderates are
reactionarily creating an echo chamber in their defense of the DNC and Joe
Biden against credible rape allegations levied against the latter. A group which
once championed – rightly so – the Me Too movement has been dismissing its
intentions for the past months by suppressing the story of Tara Reade. These
liberals and moderates rallying together in defense of Biden abandoning their
once claimed principles is an example of the group polarization Myers writes about.
Another poignant chapter is titled Everything is the way
it is because it got that way written by PZ Myers. Myers implores people to
first examine the history and mechanics of a system as a prerequisite to
understanding said system. To go beyond and apply this logic, I assume that an
understanding of a system is also a prerequisite to manipulating or changing
the system. In this case, I would say that an understanding of the history is
not necessary. We see this in the act of rebellion – more closely, teenage
rebellion. Rather than conforming to an ideology from a past generation, teens
rebel against this system without understanding the history of it, but with a
knowledge that the system pushed upon them is not a functional system for the
reality they exist and function within. Nor does it matter the history of the
system, all that one needs to know is that the system is not working and a new
one is needed.
I would recommend this book because it is an easy read. The
chapters are indirectly connected and skipping out a few – or just jumping
around – doesn’t impact the aim of the book. I would like for the book to dive
deeper into seemingly simple concepts and cut back on the summaries of technical
concepts as its unrealistic to expect the concepts would be understood by
people who know nothing about it and that the people who know the mechanics of
the concept are reading this book.
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