Books

Based on how many references to books I've read and loved, it seemed almost inevitable that I would find Crossings by Ben Goldfarb engaging and compelling. And with such fantastic phrases as "the ungulate panopticon," it was a delightful read as well, despite the often dire messages of the book.

Diving deep into road ecology, a discipline I'd never have imagined existed, provided a fascinating view into how humans have constructed boundaries that impact nearly all other animals on the planet. In the western world roads are so ubiquitous as to be nearly invisible, especially in reference to their impact on the natural world. Paved roads cover about one percent of the land area of the United States, but the ecological effect zone around them covers something closer to twenty. They divide the land into unnatural parcels, and it's the division that matters most.

What I didn't expect was how far the effect reaches past the roadbed itself. Traffic noise degrades habitat for animals that never go near the pavement—songbirds that can't hear each other over the drone, prey species that can't hear what's coming. The barrier directly harms, but the noise reaches much farther.

On a personal level, the chapter about forest roads was especially fascinating given how much time I've spent riding bikes on them. I had assumed (incorrectly) that because they weren't paved the impact would be somewhat lessened, but those negative impacts were just different.

I would have liked a section about the impact of roads on plants, but perhaps that's just because I recently read The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, which I recommend strongly.

I would also recommend the following books as accompaniments to Crossings: An Immense World by Ed Yong to help provide context for the impact of road sounds, and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which Goldfarb cites directly, for its case that our obligation to land runs toward reciprocity rather than management.

Reading other reviews of this book, I was struck by several reviews stating that the novel was the wrong format for what is, effectively, a technical management book. I disagree with that perspective. The novel allows the reader to see the human impact of those situations and decisions because people matter. The narrative approach helps everyone remember that while the principles and perspectives around processes are critical to a successful project or business, they are only important to the extent that they help the employees or customers of that business succeed.

The first third of The Phoenix Project was an exercise in re-living chaotic work experiences. For example, during my second week as VP of Product Management our entire payments system went down, mimicking the crucible Bill is subjected to immediately after his promotion. We sorted out the payment issue quickly, not because of heroics, but because I'd been in that situation enough times to stay calm. That recognition was the same thing the first few chapters kept dredging up.

Two things really stuck with me. The way Bill treats and interacts with his subordinates, peers, and superiors is an ideal textbook for someone at any managerial level in any organization: understand the business needs, understand the people and technology issues involved, be a good ancestor to those who will come after you by being a good steward of process.

And, the enumeration of the types of work and modes of process improvement is a valuable formalization that I'll use going forward. It is certainly valuable regardless of the business vertical (the conversations with Erik should make it apparent that the authors didn't want to consider IT exclusively). Sure, the technology issues they experience in the book are a decade out of date, but the disruption and the resulting disorganization are timeless. So is cleaning up the messes they make.

While I enjoyed the nature of this book (survey-style books that explore a thorny question are some of my favorites), Pollan brushes by a major tension that's extremely relevant today: can AI truly be conscious? He states several times that the answer to that question is "no" or at least "not any time soon," but does so in a way that feels a bit disingenuous to a book otherwise intentionally critical of most theories. While he and the various scientists and philosophers he cites are willing to extend the possibility of consciousness, or at least sentience, along a broad biological spectrum (plants and single-celled organisms) and across several substrates (not just brains can be conscious), his prevailing conclusion is that a machine could still not be conscious. If the substrate doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter at all. Saying otherwise creates an arbitrary line that carbon-based systems can have consciousness, but silicon-based systems can't. Following those arguments to their logical conclusion, we end up committing to biological essentialism, property dualism, some story about why this particular arrangement of carbon is special in a way silicon can't replicate.

I recognize that this is the "hard problem" of consciousness, and that as a metaphysical phenomenon it may be structurally unsolvable given that we can only evaluate others' consciousness via subjective inference. Pollan's relative lack of criticality on this point is a low point in an otherwise solid book.

Three threads I'm pulling on next: William James on the philosophical limits of studying a stream from inside it; Damasio on feelings and the body as constitutive of consciousness and how it relates to trauma and experiences as somatic memory per van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score; and Kuhn's A Landscape of Consciousness.

I read a lot of science fiction and horror, but this twist was excellent — strongly foreshadowed and yet a complete surprise. And I am not just saying that because I'm an Expanse diehard (though, admittedly, I am).

Part geology book, part memoir that talks about one of my favorite meta themes: how we can learn about something from something (seemingly) entirely unrelated. In this case, Bjornerud uses geology as a complex metaphor for the trials and triumphs of life, and how deep study allows us to build connections that we could never otherwise construct.