“
The appeal to the intellectually insecure is also more important than it might seem. Because economics touches so much of life, everyone wants to have an opinion. Yet the kind of economics covered in the textbooks is a technical subject that many people find hard to follow. How reassuring, then, to be told that it is all irrelevant -- that all you really need to know are a few simple ideas! Quite a few supply-siders have created for themselves a wonderful alternative intellectual history in which John Maynard Keynes was a fraud, Paul Samuelson and even Milton Friedman are fools, and the true line of deep economic thought runs from Adam Smith through obscure turn-of-the-century Austrians straight to them.
”
”
Paul Krugman
“
The possible, as it was presented in her Health textbook (a mathematical progression of dating, "career," marriage, and motherhood), did not interest Harriet. Of all the heroes on her list, the greatest of them all was Sherlock Holmes, and he wasn’t even a real person. Then there was Harry Houdini. He was the master of the impossible; more importantly, for Harriet, he was a master of escape. No prison in the world could hold him: he escaped from straitjackets, from locked trunks dropped in fast rivers and from coffins buried six feet underground.
And how had he done it? He wasn’t afraid. Saint Joan had galloped out with the angels on her side but Houdini had mastered fear on his own. No divine aid for him; he’d taught himself the hard way how to beat back panic, the horror of suffocation and drowning and dark. Handcuffed in a locked trunk in the bottom of a river, he squandered not a heartbeat on being afraid, never buckled to the terror of the chains and the dark and the icy water; if he became lightheaded, for even a moment, if he fumbled at the breathless labor before him– somersaulting along a river-bed, head over heels– he would never come up from the water alive.
A training program. This was Houdini’s secret.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Little Friend)
“
Words are important—they can influence, and in some cases rationalize, policy.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
The longer hair lengths for men seen with the rise of marijuana use in the United States in the 1960s were a textbook case of an influx of apparently feminine values accompanying the use of a boundary-dissolving plant. The hysterical reaction to such a minor adjustment in folkways revealed the insecurity and sense of danger felt by the male ego in the presence of any factor that might tend to restore the importance of partnership in human affairs.
”
”
Terrence McKenna
“
There are three great taboos in textbook publishing,” an editor at one of the biggest houses told me, “sex, religion, and social class.” While I had been able to guess the first two, the third floored me. Sociologists know the importance of social class, after all. Reviewing American history textbooks convinced me that this editor was right, however. The notion that opportunity might be unequal in America, that not everyone has “the power to rise in the world,” is anathema to textbook authors, and to many teachers as well.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
When history textbooks leave out the Arawaks, they offend Native Americans. When they omit the possibility of African and Phoenician precursors to Columbus, they offend African Americans. When they glamorize explorers such as de Soto just because they were white, our histories offend all people of color. When they leave out Las Casas, they omit an interesting idealist with whom we all might identify. When they glorify Columbus, our textbooks prod us toward identifying with the oppressor. When textbook authors omit the causes and process of European world domination, they offer us a history whose purpose must be to keep us unaware of the important questions. Perhaps worst of all, when textbooks paint simplistic portraits of a pious, heroic Columbus, they provide feel-good history that bores everyone.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
How people think about the past is an important part of their consciousness.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
Museums tell stories so much better than textbooks do. And that's what history is, isn't it? It's just a really big story. That's what makes it important. And museums get that. Textbooks don't.
”
”
Katherine Locke (Out Now: Queer We Go Again!)
“
Grades are still important, buy they are not the most important things. As clichéd as it is, the things you learn outside class is more important than the textbooks you blindly memorize in time for exams.
”
”
Marcella Purnama (What I Wish I Had Known (And Other Lessons You Learned in Your 20s))
“
Ms. Terwilliger didn’t have a chance to respond to my geological ramblings because someone knocked on the door. I slipped the rocks into my pocket and tried to look studious as she called an entry. I figured Zoe had tracked me down, but surprisingly, Angeline walked in.
"Did you know," she said, "that it’s a lot harder to put organs back in the body than it is to get them out?"
I closed my eyes and silently counted to five before opening them again. “Please tell me you haven’t eviscerated someone.”
She shook her head. “No, no. I left my biology homework in Miss Wentworth’s room, but when I went back to get it, she’d already left and locked the door. But it’s due tomorrow, and I’m already in trouble in there, so I had to get it. So, I went around outside, and her window lock wasn’t that hard to open, and I—”
"Wait," I interrupted. "You broke into a classroom?"
"Yeah, but that’s not the problem."
Behind me, I heard a choking laugh from Ms. Terwilliger’s desk.
"Go on," I said wearily.
"Well, when I climbed through, I didn’t realize there was a bunch of stuff in the way, and I crashed into those plastic models of the human body she has. You know, the life size ones with all the parts inside? And bam!" Angeline held up her arms for effect. "Organs everywhere." She paused and looked at me expectantly. "So what are we going to do? I can’t get in trouble with her."
"We?" I exclaimed.
"Here," said Ms. Terwilliger. I turned around, and she tossed me a set of keys. From the look on her face, it was taking every ounce of self-control not to burst out laughing. "That square one’s a master. I know for a fact she has yoga and won’t be back for the rest of the day. I imagine you can repair the damage—and retrieve the homework—before anyone’s the wiser.”
I knew that the “you” in “you can repair” meant me. With a sigh, I stood up and packed up my things. “Thanks,” I said.
As Angeline and I walked down to the science wing, I told her, “You know, the next time you’ve got a problem, maybe come to me before it becomes an even bigger problem.”
"Oh no," she said nobly. "I didn’t want to be an inconvenience."
Her description of the scene was pretty accurate: organs everywhere. Miss Wentworth had two models, male and female, with carved out torsos that cleverly held removable parts of the body that could be examined in greater detail. Wisely, she had purchased models that were only waist-high. That was still more than enough of a mess for us, especially since it was hard to tell which model the various organs belonged to.
I had a pretty good sense of anatomy but still opened up a textbook for reference as I began sorting. Angeline, realizing her uselessness here, perched on a far counter and swing her legs as she watched me. I’d started reassembling the male when I heard a voice behind me.
"Melbourne, I always knew you’d need to learn about this kind of thing. I’d just kind of hoped you’d learn it on a real guy."
I glanced back at Trey, as he leaned in the doorway with a smug expression. “Ha, ha. If you were a real friend, you’d come help me.” I pointed to the female model. “Let’s see some of your alleged expertise in action.”
"Alleged?" He sounded indignant but strolled in anyways.
I hadn’t really thought much about asking him for help. Mostly I was thinking this was taking much longer than it should, and I had more important things to do with my time. It was only when he came to a sudden halt that I realized my mistake.
"Oh," he said, seeing Angeline. "Hi."
Her swinging feet stopped, and her eyes were as wide as his. “Um, hi.”
The tension ramped up from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, and everyone seemed at a loss for words. Angeline jerked her head toward the models and blurted out. “I had an accident.”
That seemed to snap Trey from his daze, and a smile curved his lips. Whereas Angeline’s antics made me want to pull out my hair sometimes, he found them endearing.
”
”
Richelle Mead (The Fiery Heart (Bloodlines, #4))
“
Hannah Arendt, the political philosopher, coined the phrase “the banality of evil”—that evil is very often “terrifyingly normal.” She knew, as many who have suffered do, that the worst things can happen in the blandest of places—between the lines in a textbook omitting large swaths of history or in the hushing of a child who has something important to say. All these things are done in the name of keeping our worlds safe, consistent, banal.
”
”
Akwaeke Emezi (Pet)
“
Our textbooks were ridiculous propaganda. The first English sentence we learned was "Long live Chairman Mao!" But no one dared to explain the sentence grammatically. In Chinese the term for the optative mood, expressing a wish or desire, means 'something unreal." In 1966 a lecturer at Sichuan University had been beaten up for 'having the audacity to suggest that "Long live Chairman Mao!" was unreal!" One chapter was about a model youth hero who had drowned after jumping into a flood to save an electricity pole because the pole would be used to carry the word of Mao.
With great difficulty, I managed to borrow some English language textbooks published before the Cultural Revolution from lecturers in my department and from Jin-ming, who sent me books from his university by post. These contained extracts from writers like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde, and stories from European and American history. They were a joy to read, but much of my energy went toward finding them and then trying to keep them.
Whenever someone approached, I would quickly cover the books with a newspaper. This was only partly because of their 'bourgeois' content. It was also important not to appear to be studying too conscientiously, and not to arouse my fellow students' jealousy by reading something far beyond them. Although we were studying English, and were paid par fly for our propaganda value by the government to do this, we must not be seen to be too devoted to our subject: that was considered being 'white and expert." In the mad logic of the day, being good at one's profession ('expert') was automatically equated with being politically unreliable ('white').
”
”
Jung Chang (Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China)
“
Another result of the War of 1812 was the loss of part of our history. As historian Bruce Johansen put it, "A century of learning [from Native Americans] was coming to a close. A century and more of forgetting--of calling history into service to rationalize conquest--was beginning." After 1815 American Indians could no longer play what sociologists call the role of conflict partner--an important other who must be taken into account--so Americans forgot that Natives had ever been significant in our history. Even terminology changed: until 1815 the word Americans had generally been used to refer to Native Americans; after 1815 it meant European Americans.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
In tattooing, linework is arguably the most important element. Lines form the basis of our sketches and the stencils used to apply the artwork to the skin.
”
”
Shelly Dax (The Tattoo Textbook: Escape the Grind, Do What You Love, and Launch Your Kick-Ass Tattoo Career)
“
Fridays taught me the French philosophy of the leftover, codified (I later discovered) in my Institut Bocuse textbook and older books, such as the 1899 Art of Using Leftovers. There were rules—never store a leftover in a serving dish or a cooking vessel; never store a warm liquid in a closed container without cooling it first; never reuse a preparation made with raw egg; never keep anything for more than three days; and, the most important of all: Never, under any circumstances, use a leftover twice. A leftover has one chance: to be made even better than the original.
”
”
Bill Buford (Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking)
“
Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans. The black diaspora was not just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself.
Now, the heirs of those Virginia planters could never directly acknowledge this legacy or reckon with its power. And so that beauty that Malcolm pledged us to protect, black beauty, was never celebrated in movies, in television, or in the textbooks I’d seen as a child. Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white. This was all distilled for me in a quote I once read from the novelist Saul Bellow. I can’t remember where I read it, or when—only that I was already at Howard. “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Bellow quipped. Tolstoy was “white,” and so Tolstoy “mattered,” like everything else that was white “mattered.” And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior. And our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West. Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use?
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
“
Another study that winds up in half the textbooks makes the same point, if more subtly. The subjects of the “experiment” were children reared in two different orphanages in Germany after World War II. Both orphanages were run by the government; thus there were important controls in place—the kids in both had the same general diet, the same frequency of doctors’ visits, and so on. The main identifiable difference in their care was the two women who ran the orphanages. The scientists even checked them, and their description sounds like a parable. In one orphanage was Fräulein Grun, the warm, nurturing mother figure who played with the children, comforted them, and spent all day singing and laughing. In the other was Fräulein Schwarz, a woman who was clearly in the wrong profession. She discharged her professional obligations, but minimized her contact with the children; she frequently criticized and berated them, typically among their assembled peers. The growth rates at the two orphanages were entirely different. Fräulein Schwarz’s kids grew in height and weight at a slower pace than the kids in the other orphanage. Then, in an elaboration that couldn’t have been more useful if it had been planned by a scientist, Fräulein Grun moved on to greener pastures and, for some bureaucratic reason, Fräulein Schwarz was transferred to the other orphanage. Growth rates in her former orphanage promptly increased; those in her new one decreased.
”
”
Robert M. Sapolsky (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping)
“
Columbus’s conquest of Haiti can be seen as an amazing feat of courage and imagination by the first of many brave empire builders. It can also be understood as a bloody atrocity that left a legacy of genocide and slavery that endures in some degree to this day. Both views of Columbus are valid; indeed, Columbus’s importance in history owes precisely to his being both a heroic navigator and a great plunderer. If Columbus were only the former, he would merely rival Leif Eriksson. Columbus’s actions exemplify both meanings of the word exploit—a remarkable deed and also a taking advantage of.
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
The textbooks you used in school, the books that opened up your eyes to the world when you were a child, that favorite outfit that once made you shine—memories are wonderful, but you won’t have room to develop if your attachment to the past is too strong. It’s better to cut some of those ties so you can focus on what’s important today.
”
”
Fumio Sasaki (Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism)
“
The fairy tale belongs to the child and ought always to be within his reach, not only because it is his special literary form and his nature craves it, but because it is one of the most vital of the textbooks offered to him in the school of life. In ultimate importance it outranks the arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, the manuals of science; for without the aid of the imagination none of these books is really comprehensible.
”
”
Hamilton Wright Mabie (Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know)
“
If a physics textbook operated on Descriptivist principles, the fact that some Americans believe electricity flows better downhill (based on the observed fact that power lines tend to run high above the homes they serve) would require the Electricity Flows Better Downhill Hypothesis to be included as a “valid” theory in the textbook—just as, for Dr. Fries, if some Americans use infer for imply or aspect for perspective, these usages become ipso facto “valid” parts of the language. The truth is that structural linguists like Gove and Fries are not scientists at all; they’re pollsters who misconstrue the importance of the “facts” they are recording. It isn’t scientific phenomena they’re observing and tabulating, but rather a set of human behaviors, and a lot of human behaviors are—to be blunt—moronic. Try, for instance, to imagine an “authoritative” ethics textbook whose principles were based on what most people actually do. Grammar and usage conventions are, as it happens, a lot more like ethical principles than like scientific theories.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Consider the Lobster and Other Essays)
“
The clinical hallmark of manic-depressive illness is its recurrent, episodic nature. Byron had this in an almost textbook manner, showing frequent and pronounced fluctuations in mood, energy, sleep patterns, sexual behavior, alcohol and other drug use, and weight (Byron also exhibited extremes in dieting, obsession with his weight, eccentric eating patterns, and excessive use of epsom salts). Although these changes in mood and behavior were dramatic and disruptive when they occurred, it is important to note that Byron was clinically normal most of the time; this, too, is highly characteristic of manic-depressive illness. An inordinate amount of confusion about whether someone does or does not have manic-depressive illness stems from the popular misconception that irrationality of mood and reason are stable rather than fluctuating features of the disease. Some assume that because an individual such as Byron was sane and in impressive control of his reason most of the time, that he could not have been "mad" or have suffered from a major mental illness. Lucidity and normal functioning are, however, perfectly consistent with-indeed, characteristic of-the phasic nature of manic-depressive illness. This is in contrast to schizophrenia, which is usually a chronic and relatively unrelenting illness characterized by, among other things, an inability to reason clearly.
”
”
Kay Redfield Jamison (Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament)
“
At the collective level, pride is expressed in the conviction of being superior to others as a nation or a race, of being the guardian of the true values of civilization, and of the need to impose this dominant “model” on “ignorant” peoples by any means available. This attitude often serves as a pretext for “developing” the resources of underdeveloped countries. The conquistadors and their bishops burned the vast Mayan and Aztec libraries of Mexico, of which barely a dozen volumes survive. Chinese textbooks and media continue to describe Tibetans as backward barbarians and the Dalai Lama as a monster. It was pride, above all, that allowed the Chinese to ignore the hundreds of thousands of volumes of philosophy housed in Tibetan monasteries before they demolished six thousand of those centers of learning.
”
”
Matthieu Ricard (The Art of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill)
“
Even male children of affluent white families think that history as taught in high school is “too neat and rosy.” 6 African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn history especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. If you’ll pardon my grammar, nonwhite students do more worse in English and most worse in history.7 Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult for minorities than trigonometry or Faulkner. Students don’t even know they are alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth. Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have a lot of time, light domestic responsibilities, sufficient resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, these teachers withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they end up going through the motions, staying ahead of their students in the textbooks, covering only material that will appear on the next test. College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had significant exposure to the subject before college. Not teachers in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school to make room for more accurate information. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. Professors of English literature don’t presume that Romeo and Juliet was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become. Perhaps I do not need to convince you that American history is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we arrived at this point. Understanding our past is central to our ability to understand ourselves and the world around us. We need to know our history, and according to sociologist C. Wright Mills, we know we do.8
”
”
James W. Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong)
“
It is under the influence of such romantic ideas that individualism is still identified with egoism, as it was by Plato, and altruism with collectivism (i.e. with the substitution of group egoism for the individualist egoism). But this bars the way even to a clear formulation of the main problem, the problem of how to obtain a sane appreciation of one’s own importance in relation to other individuals. Since it is felt, and rightly so, that we have to aim at something beyond our own selves, something to which we can devote ourselves, and for which we may make sacrifices, it is concluded that this must be the collective, with its ‘historical mission’. Thus we are told to make sacrifices, and, at the same time, assured that we shall make an excellent bargain by doing so. We shall make sacrifices, it is said, but we shall thereby obtain honour and fame. We shall become ‘leading actors’, heroes on the Stage of History; for a small risk we shall gain great rewards. This is the dubious morality of a period in which only a tiny minority counted, and in which nobody cared for the common people. It is the morality of those who, being political or intellectual aristocrats, have a chance of getting into the textbooks of history. It cannot possibly be the morality of those who favour justice and equalitarianism; for historical fame cannot be just, and it can be attained only by a very few. The countless number of men who are just as worthy, or worthier, will always be forgotten.
”
”
Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies)
“
Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
The situation gets still more concerning. As Chapter Six argues, two important factors that are frequently assumed to be constants in the traditional security dilemma models are in fact variables in cybersecurity. In most other security dilemma discussions, each actor sees the moves of its potential adversaries and must determine the intentions behind those moves. In cybersecurity, the distribution of information is vastly more asymmetric, which increases risk and uncertainty for decision-makers. With proper tradecraft, many actions, including the development of powerful capabilities and the launching of significant intrusions, often remain out of view to others. Thus, unlike in many historical and theoretical textbook cases, in cyber operations not only must states potentially fear what they see, but they must potentially fear what they do not see as well. Defensive-minded intrusions that resolve this uncertainty thus seem still more appealing. Similarly, in the traditional security dilemma model there is almost always some status quo of shared expectations. This implicit or formal consensus of behavior provides significant guidance about which activities the involved parties consider normal and non-threatening. The potential for escalation in this model occurs only when this shared vision of normalcy breaks. In cybersecurity, however, there is only a nascent status quo. Without a common conception of appropriate national behavior, the probability of dangerous misinterpretation increases. Building on these five steps to the argument, the final two chapters of the book are somewhat different in kind. Chapter Seven pauses to consider three objections to the cybersecurity dilemma logic and how they might constrain the argument.
”
”
Ben Buchanan (The Cybersecurity Dilemma: Hacking, Trust and Fear Between Nations)
“
Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
“
The fact, just noted, that sociology has often won its academic right to existence in opposition to other departments may have increased the necessity for textbooks. Now, textbooks organize facts in order to make them available to youngsters, not around the growing points of research and discovery. Accordingly textbooks readily become a rather mechanical gathering of facts to illustrate more or less settled conceptions. The research possibilities of new ideas, the interplay of ideas and facts, are not usually considered very important in putting accumulated detail into some sort of textbook order.
”
”
C. Wright Mills (The Sociological Imagination)
“
Be good to everyone who becomes attached to us; cherish every friend who is by our side;
카톡✹ ppt33 ✹ 〓 라인 ✹ pxp32 ✹ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요
love everyone who walks into our life.It must be fate to get acquainted in a huge crowd of people...
발기부족으로 삽입시 조루증상 그리고 여성분 오르가즘늦기지 못한다 또한 페니션이 작다고 느끼는분들 이쪽으로 보세요
팔팔정,구구정,비닉스,센트립,네노마정,프릴리지,비맥스,비그알엑스 등 아주 많은 좋은제품들 취급하고 단골님 모시고 있는곳입니다.원하실경우 언제든 연락주세요
I feel, the love that Osho talks about, maybe is a kind of pure love beyond the mundane world, which is full of divinity and caritas, and overflows with Buddhist allegorical words and gestures,
팔팔정구입,팔팔정구매,팔팔정판매,팔팔정처방,팔팔정가격,팔팔정후기,팔팔정파는곳,팔팔정팝니다,팔팔정구입방법,팔팔정구매방법,팔팔정복용법,팔팔정부작용,팔팔정약효,팔팔정효과
but, it seems that I cannot see through its true meaning forever...
You don’t practice in the arena, that’s where your skills and your abilities are evaluated. This also means that you don’t practice solving problems and developing yourself when problems occur, you prepare yourself to face them long before you actually face them.
Talent is good but training is even better. Back in college, one of my classmates in Political Science did not bring any textbook or notebook in our classes; he just listened and participated in discussions. What I didn’t understand was how he became a magna cum laude! Apparently, he was gifted with a great memory and analytical skills. In short, he was talented.
If you are talented, you probably need less preparation and training time in facing life’s challenges. But for people who are endowed with talent, training and learning becomes even important. Avoid the lazy person’s maxim: “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” Why wait for your roof to leak in the rainy season when you can fix it right away.
Maybe, I do not just “absorb” your love; but because the love overpowers me and I am unable to
dispute and refuse it...
Do you know? It’s you who light up my life! And I stubbornly believe that such love can only be experienced once in my life.
Because of love, we won’t be lonely anymore; because of yearning, we taste more loneliness.
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팔팔정구입 cia2.co.to 카톡:ppt33 팔팔정판매 팔팔정처방 팔팔정파는곳 팔팔정구입방법
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stratification is developed and used throughout the book. This strategy has three elements: First, as often as possible, I place data in a historical and cross-national context. This information leads to important questions. For example, if the rate of poverty has fallen
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Leonard Beeghley (The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States, The, CourseSmart eTextbook)
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네노마정구매가격 ✹ 홈피 : via3.co.to ✹ 카톡 : ppt33 ✹ 라인 : pxp32 ✹
The romantic novelist: 'Love drives all great stories'
What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything.
네노마정구입방법 네노마정구매방법 네노마정판매 네노마정복용법
네노마정부작용 네노마정약효 네노마정효과 네노마정후기 네노마정가격
네노마정구입하는곳 네노마정구매하는곳 네노마정판매하는곳
Talent is good but training is even better. Back in college, one of my classmates in Political Science did not bring any textbook or notebook in our classes; he just listened and participated in discussions. What I didn’t understand was how he became a magna cum laude! Apparently, he was gifted with a great memory and analytical skills. In short, he was talented.
If you are talented, you probably need less preparation and training time in facing life’s challenges. But for people who are endowed with talent, training and learning becomes even important. Avoid the lazy person’s maxim: “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?” Why wait for your roof to leak in the rainy season when you can fix it right away.
Training enables you to gain intuition and reflexes. Malcolm Glad well, in his book Outliers, said those artists, athletes and anyone who wants to be successful, need 10,000 hours of practice to become really great. With constant practice and training, you hone your body, your mind and your heart and gain the intuition and reflexes of a champion. Same thing is true in life.
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네노마정처방 네노마정판매 via3.co.to 카톡:ppt33 네노마정가격 네노마정구입방법 네노마정구매방법 네노마정복용법
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For example, Keith Stanovich’s psychology textbook lists paranormal phenomena as “telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, precognition, reincarnation, biorhythms, astral projection, pyramid power, plant communication, and psychic surgery” (page 186).118 All these items are perfectly amenable to scientific inquiry, but so far only a few have been systematically investigated. Education may benefit by teaching students to avoid knee-jerk negative reactions to topics just because they seem peculiar and instead to evaluate what the evidence actually says. If there’s no body of systematic scientific evidence to rely upon (e.g., for the viability of “pyramid power”), then we can’t say much about that topic yet. But when there is evidence (as with several classes of psychic phenomena), then students should learn how to evaluate it. Professors often give lip service to the importance of teaching critical thinking skills, but in practice most of that lip is arrogant and dismissive. Another reason that the paranormal gets a bad rap is that professors are unaware of the evidence because their professors, and their professors before them, kept repeating that there wasn’t anything worth paying attention to.120 When something is repeated often enough, the lie takes on a life of its own. Political propagandists and advertising agencies have long capitalized on this fact.
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Dean Radin (Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities)
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Racism always takes for granted the objective reality of race…so it is important to register their distinctness. The shorthand transforms racism, something an aggressor does, into race, something the target is, in a sleight of hand that is easy to miss.” A statement like “Black Southerners were segregated because of their skin color,” they say, is something students might find in textbooks and never blink an eye at.
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Clint Smith (How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America)
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While it is quite true that the alchemical retort symbolizes the creation, it also has a far more significant meaning concealed under the allegory of the second birth. As regeneration is the key to spiritual existence, they therefore founded their symbolism upon the rose and the cross, which typify the redemption and transmutation of man through the union of his lower temporal nature with his higher eternal nature. The rosy cross is also a hieroglyphic figure representing the formula of the Universal Medicine. [i] The rose is also an Egyptian symbol of rebirth; an attribute of the Hindu Prosperity goddess Lakshmi; and a part of the Rosalia festivals associated with Dionysus who was an important patron of the mysteries of Eleusis.[ii]
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George Mentz (The Rosicrucian Handbook & Hermetic Textbook of Success Secrets: The Original American Illuminati Loge de Parfaits d' Écosse ™- 1764)
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The economics exam at Lucknow University for the bachelor of commerce (BCom) asked students to evaluate schemes launched by Modi, such as Digital India (to develop digitization throughout the country) and Startup India, or to describe job-creation schemes.86 The civil service exam went even further. In Madhya Pradesh, candidates to join the state administration were thus asked in 2016: “The Swachh Bharat campaign led by the honorable Prime Minister has a great impact on the society because 1) People understood the importance of cleanliness, and 2) People across the country like the campaign.”87 The trap was obviously only discernible to Modi supporters: both answers were correct! The nationalist tone of textbook rewriting deliberately extols ancient Indian knowledge systems over contemporary science.88 For instance, the minister of state for human resource development responsible for higher education, Satya Pal Singh, denied the validity of the theory of evolution89 and in one of his speeches claimed that it was an Indian who invented the airplane.90 The deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh maintained that the test-tube baby procedure had existed in ancient India because Ram’s wife, Sita, was born in an earthen pot, while the chief minister of Tripura, Biplab Kumar Deb, explained that the technologies of satellites and the internet existed in ancient India.91 In the same vein, the education minister of Rajasthan claimed that the law of gravity had been discovered in India in the seventh century.92 And along the same lines, another BJP minister—health, education, and finance minister in Assam—claimed that cancer patients were paying for their “sins.”93
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Christophe Jaffrelot (Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy)
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The overviews at the beginning of each of the four parts of the book highlight some of the more important points in the selections and draw connections between them. The overviews end with a small number of suggested films, placed in this way to allow enough time for them to be seen over an interval of a few weeks
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Elizabeth D. Whitaker (Health Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Health, CourseSmart eTextbook)
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An important task in this respect is introducing to Western schools’ curricula and textbooks this understanding of colonialism and strengthening the research on it in universities. If this were to succeed, the media would follow suit. The task is not easy, but if this message were conveyed effectively, we could then hope that every decent person in the West, as in the time of colonialism, would not stand on the side of the oppressive ideology and instead would identify with its victims and seem their struggle as anticolonialist.
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Noam Chomsky
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I loved poring over my biology textbooks, running out of highlighter as I went because everything seemed so important, breaking to clean the room top to bottom whenever I got stuck on an assignment.
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Emily Henry (Happy Place)
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It’s an unfortunate fact but in a number of ways, most social psychology textbooks present a distorted view of our species. Most notably, they focus almost entirely on interactions among strangers, and thus largely ignore the fact that kin occupy a central place in most people’s lives. This is no minor oversight. Kinship is important not only in the West or even only in our species; it’s important right across the living world. In species that live in groups composed of both kin and non-kin, individuals usually favor the former over the latter. This is just as true of our own species as of any other, and yet many psychologists and psychology textbooks overlook that fact.
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Steve Stewart-Williams (The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve)
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I monitor several biomarkers related to metabolism, keeping a watchful eye for things like elevated uric acid, elevated homocysteine, chronic inflammation, and even mildly elevated ALT liver enzymes. Lipoproteins, which we will discuss in detail in the next chapter, are also important, especially triglycerides; I watch the ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol (it should be less than 2:1 or better yet, less than 1:1), as well as levels of VLDL, a lipoprotein that carries triglycerides—all of which may show up many years before a patient would meet the textbook definition of metabolic syndrome. These biomarkers help give us a clearer picture of a patient’s overall metabolic health than HbA1c, which is not
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Peter Attia (Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity)
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Emotions can throw you off in the wrong direction; therefore you need to keep them in check. The role of intelligence is extremely important in controlling your emotions.
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Pratap C. Singhal (Health, Happiness & You: Everything You Need to Know (Cram101 Textbook Outlines))
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The role of meditation in making the mind calm and balanced is more important than any other technique or method. Therefore you must include the practice of meditation on a daily basis. The benefits that you attain from the practice of meditation far outweighs the time spent in meditation.
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Pratap C. Singhal (Health, Happiness & You: Everything You Need to Know (Cram101 Textbook Outlines))
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These effects result in depletion of cellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and potentially severe detrimental effects on cell function. It is important to note that the inflammatory response also causes release of vasoconstrictor substances including thromboxane and endothelins.
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Jean-Louis Vincent (Textbook of Critical Care E-Book: Expert Consult Premium Edition – Enhanced Online Features and Print)
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Putin learned from reading the William King and David Cleland textbook in the 1980s and 1990s, planning for uncertainty is the most important element of strategy.
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Clifford G. Gaddy (Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin)
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Grades are still important, but they are not the most important things. As clichéd as it is, the things you learn outside class is more important than the textbooks you blindly memorize in time for exams.
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Marcella Purnama (What I Wish I Had Known (And Other Lessons You Learned in Your 20s))
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I looked for themes and underlying principles across lectures,” and “I went over mistakes until I was certain I understood them.” They were studying to learn, not just to ace the test. And, actually, this was why they got higher grades—not because they were smarter or had a better background in science. Instead of losing their motivation when the course got dry or difficult, they said: “I maintained my interest in the material.” “I stayed positive about taking chemistry.” “I kept myself motivated to study.” Even if they thought the textbook was boring or the instructor was a stiff, they didn’t let their motivation evaporate. That just made it all the more important to motivate themselves.
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Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success)
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The important works of Al Ghazali were subsequently translated into hebrew, and played an important role in the jewish literature of the middle ages, we shall limit ourselves however mainly to the translation of the Maqasid . the Maqasid served for the jews as a textbook of the peripatetic philosophy according to the version of Ibn sina, and Al Ghazali, whatever his own attitude in writing the maqasid, came to be regarded by the jews, by the virtue of it, as the chief popularizer of philosophy in the jewish community.
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Gershon Chertoff (The Logical Part of Al-Ghazali's Maqasid Al-Falasifa, in an Anonymous Hebrew Translation with the Hebrew Commentary of Moses of Narbonne)
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Article 10: Whether symbolic logic is superior to Aristotelian logic for philosophizing?
Objection 1 : It seems that it is, for it is a modern development, and would not have become popular if it were not superior. In fact, 99% of all formal logic textbooks in print today use symbolic rather than Aristotelian logic.
Objection 2: It is as superior in efficiency to Aristotelian logic as Arabic numerals to Roman numerals, or a computer to an abacus.
Objection 3: Aristotelian logic presupposes metaphysical and epistemological realism, which are no longer universally accepted. Symbolic logic is ideologically neutral. It is like mathematics not only in efficiency but also in that it carries less “philosophical baggage.”
On the contrary , the authority of common sense is still on the side of Aristotelian rather than symbolic logic. But common sense is the origin, basis, and foundation of all further refinements of reason, including symbolic logic; and a branch should not contradict its trunk, an upper story should not contradict its foundation. All philosophical systems, including symbolic logic, since they are refinements of, begin with, and depend on the validity of common sense, even while they greatly refine and expand this foundation, should not contradict it, as symbolic logic does. (See below.)
I answer that at least two essential principles of symbolic logic contradict common sense: (1) the counter-intuitive “paradox of material implication,” according to which a false proposition materially implies any proposition, false as well as true, including contradictories (see Socratic Logic , pp. 266-369); and (2) the assumption that a particular proposition (like “some elves are evil”) claims more, not less, than a universal proposition (like “all elves are evil'’), since it is assumed to have “existential import” while a universal proposition is assumed to lack it, since symbolic logic assumes the metaphysical position (or “metaphysical baggage”) of Nominalism. See Socratic Logic , pp. 179-81, 262-63 and The Two Logics by Henry Veatch. Furthermore, no one ever actually argues in symbolic logic except professional philosophers. Its use coincides with the sudden decline of interest in philosophy among students. If you believe that is a coincidence, I have a nice timeshare in Florida that I would like to sell to you.
Reply to Objection 1: Popularity is no index of truth. If it were, truth would change, and contradict itself, as popularity changed — including the truth of that statement. And thus it is self-contradictory.
Reply to Objection 2: It is not more efficient in dealing with ordinary language. We never hear people actually argue any of the great philosophical questions in symbolic logic, but we hear a syllogism every few sentences.
Reply to Objection 3: Symbolic logic is not philosophically neutral but presupposes Nominalism, as shown by the references in the “/ answer that ” above.
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Peter Kreeft (Summa Philosophica)
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What you study is more important than how you study. Students are subordinate to materials, much like novice cooks are subordinate to recipes. If you select the wrong material, the wrong textbook, the wrong group of words, it doesn't matter how much (or how well) you study. It doesn't matter how good your teacher is. One must find the highest-frequency material. Material beats method.
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Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life)
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Although specific treatments for ALI/ARDS have been slow to emerge, the recent development of new strategies for mechanical ventilation that improve mortality, and fluid management strategies that reduce the length of mechanical ventilation, emphasizes the importance of identifying and appropriately treating all patients with ALI/ARDS. Although this point would seem to be straightforward, in practice, ALI/ARDS remains largely underdiagnosed,
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Jean-Louis Vincent (Textbook of Critical Care E-Book: Expert Consult Premium Edition – Enhanced Online Features and Print)
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Learning a second language entails learning numerous aspects of that language, including vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, composition, reading, culture, and even body language. Unfortunately, traditionally vocabulary has received less attention in second language (L2) pedagogy than any of these other aspects, particularly grammar. Arguably, vocabulary is perhaps the most important component in L2 ability. For more than 2,000 years, the study of a foreign language primarily entailed grammatical analysis, which was practiced through translation of written work (Hinkel & Fotos, 2002). As a result, vocabulary has been academically excluded from or at best limited within L2 curricula and classroom teaching. A perusal of ESL textbooks quickly reveals a lack of focus on vocabulary. Unlike books in French, Spanish, or other foreign languages, there are no vocabulary lists in the lessons/units or vocabulary index at the back of the book. Exercises practicing vocabulary may be found in reading books, but such exercises are rarely found in grammar books, speaking books, listening books, or writing books in spite of the importance of vocabulary in these areas.
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Keith S. Folse (Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching)
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We’re all cheaters as educators. We cheat every day—every one of us—when we plan, when we grade, when we teach. We cheat. To an extent, we have to because there are only twenty-four hours in the day and one hundred sixty-eight hours in the week. When our list of really good, really important to-do items extends well beyond the slots in our hourly planners or calendar apps, we cheat.
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Matt Miiller (Ditch That Textbook: Free Your Teaching and Revolutionize Your Classroom)
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Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy. One of the benefits of the sequence of five-year plans written and administered by Gosplan was supposed to have been the long time horizon necessary for rational investment and innovation. In reality, what got implemented in Soviet industry had little to do with the five-year plans, which were frequently revised and rewritten or simply ignored. The development of industry took place on the basis of commands by Stalin and the Politburo, who changed their minds frequently and often completely revised their previous decisions. All plans were labeled “draft” or “preliminary.” Only one copy of a plan labeled “final”—that for light industry in 1939—has ever come to light. Stalin himself said in 1937 that “only bureaucrats can think that planning work ends with the creation of the plan. The creation of the plan is just the beginning. The real direction of the plan develops only after the putting together of the plan.” Stalin wanted to maximize his discretion to reward people or groups who were politically loyal, and punish those who were not. As for Gosplan, its main role was to provide Stalin with information so he could better monitor his friends and enemies. It actually tried to avoid making decisions. If you made a decision that turned out badly, you might get shot. Better to avoid all responsibility. An example of what could happen
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Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
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one of our most important roles might not be answering questions, but helping students discover the right questions and showing them where and how to find the answers themselves.
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Matt Miiller (Ditch That Textbook: Free Your Teaching and Revolutionize Your Classroom)
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The Panchatantra is a niti-shastra, or textbook of niti. The word niti means roughly “the wise conduct of life.” Western cvilization must endure a certain shame in realizing that no precise equivalent of the term is found in English, French, Latin, or Greek. Many words are therefore necessary to explain what niti is, though the idea, once grasped, is clear, important, and satisfying.
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Sunita Parasuraman (The Panchatantra)
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The situation was similar in the Soviet Union, with industry playing the role of sugar in the Caribbean. Industrial growth in the Soviet Union was further facilitated because its technology was so backward relative to what was available in Europe and the United States, so large gains could be reaped by reallocating resources to the industrial sector, even if all this was done inefficiently and by force. Before 1928 most Russians lived in the countryside. The technology used by peasants was primitive, and there were few incentives to be productive. Indeed, the last vestiges of Russian feudalism were eradicated only shortly before the First World War. There was thus huge unrealized economic potential from reallocating this labor from agriculture to industry. Stalinist industrialization was one brutal way of unlocking this potential. By fiat, Stalin moved these very poorly used resources into industry, where they could be employed more productively, even if industry itself was very inefficiently organized relative to what could have been achieved. In fact, between 1928 and 1960 national income grew at 6 percent a year, probably the most rapid spurt of economic growth in history up until then. This quick economic growth was not created by technological change, but by reallocating labor and by capital accumulation through the creation of new tools and factories. Growth was so rapid that it took in generations of Westerners, not just Lincoln Steffens. It took in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. It even took in the Soviet Union’s own leaders, such as Nikita Khrushchev, who famously boasted in a speech to Western diplomats in 1956 that “we will bury you [the West].” As late as 1977, a leading academic textbook by an English economist argued that Soviet-style economies were superior to capitalist ones in terms of economic growth, providing full employment and price stability and even in producing people with altruistic motivation. Poor old Western capitalism did better only at providing political freedom. Indeed, the most widely used university textbook in economics, written by Nobel Prize–winner Paul Samuelson, repeatedly predicted the coming economic dominance of the Soviet Union. In the 1961 edition, Samuelson predicted that Soviet national income would overtake that of the United States possibly by 1984, but probably by 1997. In the 1980 edition there was little change in the analysis, though the two dates were delayed to 2002 and 2012. Though the policies of Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders could produce rapid economic growth, they could not do so in a sustained way. By the 1970s, economic growth had all but stopped. The most important lesson is that extractive institutions cannot generate sustained technological change for two reasons: the lack of economic incentives and resistance by the elites. In addition, once all the very inefficiently used resources had been reallocated to industry, there were few economic gains to be had by fiat. Then the Soviet system hit a roadblock, with lack of innovation and poor economic incentives preventing any further progress. The only area in which the Soviets did manage to sustain some innovation was through enormous efforts in military and aerospace technology. As a result they managed to put the first dog, Leika, and the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space. They also left the world the AK-47 as one of their legacies. Gosplan was the supposedly all-powerful planning agency in charge of the central planning of the Soviet economy.
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Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: FROM THE WINNERS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty)
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Why do national reform priorities keep getting misinterpreted on the ground? The federal Department of Education has no power over state legislatures or education departments. There are no federal inspectors of local schools to make sure principals, superintendents, and school boards understand how to use complex new tools like value-added measurement of teachers. Unique among Western nations, our national government does not produce or select high-quality tests, textbooks, or reading lists for teachers to use. Lastly—and perhaps most importantly—we consistently expect teachers and schools to close achievement gaps and panic when they fail to do so. But we do not provide families with the full range of social supports children need to thrive academically, including living-wage employment and stable and affordable child care, housing, higher education, and vocational training, in addition to decent nutrition and health care.
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Dana Goldstein (The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession)
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It is not enough for a surgeon to have the textbook knowledge of how to treat trauma victims—to understand the science of penetrating wounds, the damage they cause, the different approaches to diagnosis and treatment, the importance of acting quickly. One must also grasp the clinical reality, with its nuances of timing and sequence. One needs practice to achieve mastery, a body of experience before one achieves real success. And if what we are missing when we fail is individual skill, then what is needed is simply more training and practice.
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Atul Gawande (The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right)
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gave rise to a selection process in which the survivors were predominantly those with greater capacity to retain sodium in their system, while those with lower capacity perished. The selection mechanism was dehydration. Wilson and Grim hold that the black populations that grew out of the slave imports came to be dominated, through genetic inheritance, by people with extra capacity to retain salt in their system. And this, they conclude, is the main factor that explains the phenomenon in question. This explanation is disputed by other medical scientists. The conflicting views of the contending scientists were summarized recently by Daniel Goleman (1990). According to Goleman, Elijah Saunders, a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical School and coauthor of a leading textbook on the subject, Hypertension in Blacks, holds that anger against racism is the principal cause of hypertension among blacks in the United States. Shirley Brown of the University
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Joseph E. Inikori (The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe)
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I monitor several biomarkers related to metabolism, keeping a watchful eye for things like elevated uric acid, elevated homocysteine, chronic inflammation, and even mildly elevated ALT liver enzymes. Lipoproteins, which we will discuss in detail in the next chapter, are also important, especially triglycerides; I watch the ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol (it should be less than 2:1 or better yet, less than 1:1), as well as levels of VLDL, a lipoprotein that carries triglycerides—all of which may show up many years before a patient would meet the textbook definition of metabolic syndrome. These biomarkers help give us a clearer picture of a patient’s overall metabolic health than HbA1c, which is not very specific by itself.
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Peter Attia (Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity)
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Every statistic you come across, everything you read in a textbook, everything you learn from parents or teachers, everything you see or read in the news or on social media, every tenet of conventional wisdom—it’s all indirect knowledge. That’s why perhaps the most important skill of a skilled thinker is knowing when to trust.
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Tim Urban (What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies)
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[The Phaenomena of Aratus of Soli] became the fundamental textbook of medieval astronomy, a science of everyday importance, because correct observance of the Church's feast-days depended upon an accurate understanding of the movements of the heavenly bodies.
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Janet Backhouse (The illuminated manuscript)
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Arrhythmias are additional common causes of problems and death, and the heart can also be damaged by infections, birth defects, drugs, and faulty wiring. But atherosclerosis is by far the leading culprit, and chronically high blood pressure, hypertension, is a close second. Hypertension is a silent condition that relentlessly strains the heart, arteries, and various organs. At least 100,000 times a day, the heart forces about five liters of blood through thousands of miles of arteries that resist each squeeze, generating pressure. When we exercise, blood pressure rises temporarily, causing the heart’s muscular chambers to adapt, mostly by becoming stronger, larger, and more elastic so it can pump more blood with each stroke.30 Just as important, arteries also adapt to exercise to keep blood pressure low, primarily by expanding, multiplying, and staying elastic.31 However, when blood pressure is chronically high, the heart defends itself by developing thicker muscular walls. These thicker walls stiffen and fill with scar tissue, and eventually the heart weakens. A vicious cycle then ensues. As the heart’s ability to pump blood declines, it becomes harder to exercise and thus control high blood pressure. Blood pressure may rise as the heart progressively weakens until the failing heart cannot support or sustain a normal blood pressure. Death usually ensues. Coronary artery disease is ancient and has even been diagnosed in mummies.32 But research on nonindustrial populations provides powerful evidence that coronary artery disease and hypertension are largely evolutionary mismatches. Although many medical textbooks teach doctors that it’s normal for blood pressure to rise with age, we have known since the 1970s this is not true among hunter-gatherer populations like the San and the Hadza.33 The average blood pressure in a seventy-year-old San hunter-gatherer is 120/67, no different from a twenty-year-old. Lifelong low blood pressure also characterizes many subsistence farming populations. My colleagues Rob Shave and Aaron Baggish and I measured more than a hundred Tarahumara farmers of every age and found no difference in blood pressure between teenagers and octogenarians.34 By the same token, blood pressure can also stay normal into old age among industrialized people who eat sensibly and stay active.35
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Daniel E. Lieberman (Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding)
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important financial decisions are not made in spreadsheets or in textbooks. They are made at the dinner table. They often aren’t made with the intention of maximizing returns, but minimizing the chance of disappointing a spouse or child. Those kinds of things are difficult to summarize in charts or formulas, and they vary widely from person to person. What works for one person may not work for another. You have to find what works for you. Here’s what works for me.
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Morgan Housel (The Psychology of Money)
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education C.S. Lewis makes many references to education in his fiction. Experiment House*, for instance, in The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader”*, embodies his dislike of modern educational methods. In his opinion Mark Studdock*, in That Hideous Strength*, is characteristic of many of Lewis’s contemporary intelligensia – uneducated by classical standards. Judged only by his satire, however, Lewis would seem intensely prejudiced. This is misleading. His powerful essay The Abolition of Man* suggested that anti-human values were being unwittingly embodied in some typical school textbooks of his time. Lewis nowhere more clearly put forward his vision of education than in his early essay “Our English Syllabus” in Rehabilitations and Other Essays*. He confesses: “Human life means to me the life of beings for whom the leisured activities of thought, art, literature, conversation are the end, and the preservation and propagation of life merely the means. That is why education seems to me so important: it actualizes that potentiality for leisure, if you like for amateurishness, which is man’s prerogative... Man is the only amateur animal; all the others are professionals… The lion cannot stop hunting, nor the beaver building dams… When God made the beasts dumb He saved the world from infinite boredom…
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Colin Duriez (The A-Z of C.S. Lewis: An encyclopaedia of his life, thought, and writings)
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LV-14 Chinese Point name: Qi Men;8 English translation: “Cycle Gate;” Special Attributes: It is an intersection point for the Liver Meridian, the Spleen Meridian, and the Yin Linking Vessel. It is also the alarm point of the Liver. This point is bilateral; Location: Two ribs below the center of the nipple; Western Anatomy: The sixth intercostal artery, vein, and nerve are present; Comments: This point is of considerable value to the martial artist. Strikes to this point should be toward the center of the body on a downward 45-degree angle. Forceful strikes can shock or damage the liver. An interruption of the energy core of the body can result. The additional benefits to strikes to this location are the serious implications of the intersection with the Yin Linking Vessel at the sensitive Alarm point of the Liver. Strikes to this point can inhibit the ability to correct energy imbalances of the Liver caused by martial attacks. CV-22 Chinese Point name: Tian Tu;9 English translation: “Celestial Chimney;” Special Attributes: this is an Intersection Point of the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel. It is listed as a Vital Point in the Bubishi; Location: On the centerline of the body at the center of the suprasternal notch. That structure is the commonly referred to the “horseshoe notch” at the base of the throat; Western Anatomy: the jugular arch and a branch of the inferior thyroid artery are superficially represented. The trachea, or windpipe, is found deeper and the posterior aspect of the sternum, the innominate vein and aortic arch are also present; Comments: This point is of particular importance the martial artist as it is the intersection point of the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel. The interrelationship between these two vessels will be covered in detail later in the book. Additionally, the structure of the suprasternal notch is an excellent “touch point” for situations when sight is reduced and you find yourself at extremely close range with your opponent. CV-23 Chinese Point name: Lian Quan;10 English translation: “Ridge Spring;” Special Attributes: Some Traditional Chinese Medicine textbooks state that this location is an intersection point for the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel; Location: On the centerline of the throat just above the Adam’s apple; Western Anatomy: the anterior jugular vein, a branch of cutaneous cervical nerve, the hypoglossal nerve, and branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve are present; Comments: Strikes to this point should directly inward, or slightly upward, to bust the structure of the Adam’s apple and disrupt the energy flow to the head. Generally, any strike to the throat area will activate a number of sensitive acupuncture points and attacks the structural weakness of this part of the human body.
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Rand Cardwell (36 Deadly Bubishi Points: The Science and Technique of Pressure Point Fighting - Defend Yourself Against Pressure Point Attacks!)
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CV-22 Chinese Point name: Tian Tu;25 English translation: “Celestial Chimney;” Special Attributes: this is an Intersection Point of the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel. It is listed as a Vital Point in the Bubishi; Location: On the centerline of the body at the center of the suprasternal notch. That structure is the commonly referred to the “horseshoe notch” at the base of the throat; Western Anatomy: the jugular arch and a branch of the inferior thyroid artery are superficially represented. The trachea, or windpipe, is found deeper and the posterior aspect of the sternum, the innominate vein and aortic arch are also present; Comments: This point is of particular importance the martial artist as it is the intersection point of the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel. The interrelationship between these two vessels will be covered in detail later in the book. Additionally, the structure of the suprasternal notch is an excellent “touch point” for situations when sight is reduced and you find yourself at extremely close range with your opponent. CV-23 Chinese Point name: Lian Quan;26 English translation: “Ridge Spring;” Special Attributes: Some Traditional Chinese Medicine textbooks state that this location is an intersection point for the Yin Linking Vessel and the Conception Vessel; Location: On the centerline of the throat just above the Adam’s apple; Western Anatomy: the anterior jugular vein, a branch of cutaneous cervical nerve, the hypoglossal nerve, and branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve are present; Comments: Strikes to this point should directly inward, or slightly upward, to bust the structure of the Adam’s apple and disrupt the energy flow to the head. Generally, any strike to the throat area will activate a number of sensitive acupuncture points and attacks the structural weakness of this part of the human body. CV-24 Chinese Point name: Cheng Jiang;27 English translation: “Sauce Receptacle;” Special Attributes: It is the intersection point of the Stomach and Large Intestine Meridians. Some sources state that the Governing and Conception Vessels intersect at this location. It is one of the 36 Vital Points listed in the Bubishi; Location: On the centerline of the head at the slight depression on the upper aspect of the chin; Western Anatomy: Branches of the inferior labial artery and vein are found with a branch of the facial nerve. Comments: The translation of the Chinese term for the point, “Sauce Receptacle,” is illustrative in that if one were to drip sauce from their mouth while eating it would accumulate at this point of their chin. This point is another interesting point for the martial artist. Strikes to this point are generally most effective when aimed downward at a 45-degree angle. A hammerfist strike to this point, with enough force, will not only cause an instant knockout, but can dislocate the jaw.
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Rand Cardwell (36 Deadly Bubishi Points: The Science and Technique of Pressure Point Fighting - Defend Yourself Against Pressure Point Attacks!)
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A teacher, for instance, seems to be an active agent-correcting papers, preparing exams and submitting grades. While these functions are important, they do not make the teacher a person. Such activities may make her a teacher, but we have known too many who have moved the students from one textbook to the next but could not be a person to students, igniting in them a desire to indwell the content of the class by sharing in the life and passion of the teacher.
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Andrew Root (The Relational Pastor: Sharing in Christ by Sharing Ourselves)