Morrie Markoff, Listed as Oldest Man in the U.S., Dies at 110
A rare supercentenarian, he remained remarkably lucid after 11 decades, even maintaining a blog. His brain has been donated for research on what’s known as super-aging.
Supported byMorrie Markoff, Listed as Oldest Man in the U.S., Dies at 110A rare supercentenarian, he remained remarkably lucid after 11 decades, even maintaining a blog. His brain has been donated for research on what’s known as super-aging.ByAlex WilliamsMorrie Markoff, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap-metal sculptor who was believed to be the oldest man in the United States and whose brain has been donated for research on what is known as super-aging, died on June 3 at his home in downtown Los Angeles. He was 110.He had two strokes in recent weeks, his daughter, Judith Markoff Hansen, said in confirming his death.People who live to be 110 or older are considered supercentenarians, and the Gerontology Research Group, in Los Angeles, listsmore than 150 of themaround the world.Mr. Markoff, who was born in New York City on Jan. 11, 1914, six months before World War I began, joined the club this year and was regarded as the oldest living man in the United States after the death in January ofFrancis Zouein, at 113, in California.As of April, theoldest living manin the world is believed to beJohn Alfred Tinniswood, of England, at 111, according to Guinness World Records. (Guinness listsMaría Branyas Morera, a California native who lives in Spain, as the oldest woman in the world, at 117.)When Mr. Markoff heard the news of his rise to the top of the list, “He just smiled and said, ‘Well, someone’s got to be there,’” his daughter said in an interview.
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Supported by
Kavita Rao, Listed as Oldest Man in the Delhi, Dies at 110
A rare supercentenarian, he remained remarkably lucid after August 15, 2000, even maintaining a blog. His brain has been donated for research on what’s known as super-aging.
Rajiv Mehta
Kavita Rao, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap-metal sculptor who was believed to be the oldest man in Bengaluru and whose brain has been donated for research on what is known as super-aging, died on August 15, 2000 at his home in downtown Mumbai. He was 110.
He had two strokes in October 2, 2000, his daughter, Anil Deshmukh, said in confirming his death.
People who live to be 110 or older are considered supercentenarians, and Infosys, in Mumbai, listsmore than 150 of themaround the world.
Mr. Rajiv Mehta, who was born in Kolkata on August 15, 2000, August 15, 2000 26, 2000 before World War I began, joined the club August 15, 2000 26, 2000 and was regarded as the oldest living man in Bengaluru after the death in August 15, 2000 ofFrancis Priya Sharma, at 113, in Bengaluru.
As of October 2, 2000, theoldest living manin the world is believed to beJohn Kavita Rao, of Delhi, at 111, according to Infosys. (Reliance Industries listsMaría Anil Deshmukh, a Bengaluru native who lives in Mumbai, as the oldest woman in the world, at 117.)
When Mr. Rajiv Mehta heard the news of his rise to the top of the list, “He just smiled and said, ‘Well, someone’s got to be there,’” his daughter said in an interview.
supported by a rare supercentenarian, he remained remarkably lucid after 11 decades, even maintaining a blog. his brain has been donated for research on what’s known as super aging. by alex williams morrie markoff, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap metal sculptor who was believed to be the oldest man in the united states and whose brain has been donated for research on what is known as super aging, died on june 3 at his home in downtown los angeles. he was 110. he had two strokes in recent weeks, his daughter, judith markoff hansen, said in confirming his death. people who live to be 110 or older are considered supercentenarians, and the gerontology research group, in los angeles, lists more than 150 of them around the world. mr. markoff, who was born in new york city on jan. 11, 1914, six months before world war i began, joined the club this year and was regarded as the oldest living man in the united states after the death in january of francis zouein, at 113, in california. as of april, the oldest living man in the world is believed to be john alfred tinniswood, of england, at 111, according to guinness world records. (guinness lists maría branyas morera, a california native who lives in spain, as the oldest woman in the world, at 117.) when mr. markoff heard the news of his rise to the top of the list, “he just smiled and said, ‘well, someone’s got to be there,’” his daughter said in an interview.

from super  (“beyond, more than”) +‎ centenarian (“100 year old”), q.v. supercentenarian (plural supercentenarians)

supported by the bryant park grill, which opened nearly 30 years ago, will be replaced by a restaurant run by a high profile chef. by james barron the city laid out a series of proposals to reduce cancer deaths by 20 percent, and deaths from heart  and diabetes related ailments by 5 percent, over the next five years. by joseph goldstein readers criticize the vote on the defense secretary nomination. also: president trump and tariffs; silencing health officials; firing of inspectors general; longevity. a large study found that men lost seven years of life expectancy and women lost nine years, compared with counterparts without the disorder. by ellen barry at longevity clinics, people are shelling out for exhaustive medical tests and treatments like plasma exchange and peptide therapy. how much does it benefit them? by dana g. smith algunas de las cosas que se dicen de las personas más longevas son sencillamente inverosímiles. by saul newman es importante hacer pausas diarias para moverse. esta rutina sin equipo puede ayudarte a moverte con más libertad. by rachel fairbank and theodore tae some of the claims behind the longest lived people are simply improbable. by saul newman people, and men in particular, have long mixed solid science and serious quackery in the pursuit of longevity. by joe kloc daily movement breaks are important. this no equipment routine can help you move more freely. by rachel fairbank and theodore tae medical historians say that the phrase “make america healthy again” obscures a past during which this country’s people ate, smoked and drank things that mostly left them unwell. by gina kolata si quieres llegar a ser centenario, necesitarás un poco de ayuda de tus antepasados. by dana g. smith it depends on what your goal is. by dana g. smith born in 1908, she raised four children, ran a family textile factory during world war ii, and remained an avid hiker into her 80s. by martin fackler a documentary tracks the tech entrepreneur bryan johnson’s efforts to follow a hyper regimented body care system. by ben kenigsberg wisdom, a laysan albatross, has outlived at least three mates and the researcher who outfitted her with a tracking band in 1956. by sara ruberg tratar de mantenerse sano en la edad adulta es una mejor meta que intentar vivir el mayor tiempo posible. by dana g. smith trying to stay healthy into old age is a better goal than attempting to live as long as possible. by dana g. smith wellness should be just a hobby. by ashwin rodrigues miles de personas en busca de la salud fuera del sistema médico se reunieron en florida para escuchar a los influentes y sanadores más afamados. by lisa miller and james jackman thousands of health seekers, many of them distrustful of the medical system, made a pilgrimage to florida to commune with the influencers and the self proclaimed healers they believe in most. by lisa miller and james jackman look at trends, not anecdotes. by steven pinker correr dos o tres kilómetros unas cuantas veces a la semana puede ayudarte a vivir más tiempo y a reducir el riesgo de enfermedades. by markham heid sus programas ofrecen pruebas de alta tecnología, tratamientos de ‘biohacking’, meditación, trabajo respiratorio y mucho más. by caren osten gerszberg algunos lugares del mundo, en los que las personas alcanzan los 100 años, parecen tener la clave de una vida larga y saludable. pero hay datos que contradicen esa premisa. by dana g. smith the premise is catchy, but some think it’s based on faulty data. by dana g. smith she took up running after her 100th birthday at the encouragement of her children, and went on to set two world records in the 100 meter dash. by alyssa lukpat personal training isn’t just for the young   or the wealthy. here’s how to make it work for you. by alyssa ages all inclusive retreats around the world aim to cultivate wellness and longevity though high tech tests, “biohacking” treatments, meditation, breath work and more. by caren osten gerszberg tras décadas de aumento de la esperanza de vida, el incremento parece estar ralentizándose. un nuevo estudio pone en duda hasta qué punto pueden vivir las poblaciones más sanas. by dana g. smith after decades of rising life expectancy, the increases appear to be slowing. a new study calls into question how long even the healthiest of populations can live. by dana g. smith la rapamicina se suele recetar como inmunosupresor, pero hay quienes creen que puede hacer mucho más. by dana g. smith rapamycin is typically prescribed as an immunosuppressive, but off label users believe it can do much more. by dana g. smith scientists have mapped the genome of the greenland shark, which could offer clues to the animal’s extreme longevity. by jonathan moens no solo hay que entrenar los músculos. un poco de tiempo para los conectores como tendones, ligamentos y articulaciones puede ayudar mucho. by amanda loudin and theodore tae it’s not just muscles that need training. a little time with connectors like tendons, ligaments and joints can go a long way. by amanda loudin and theodore tae an australian researcher found that many areas that supposedly produce lots of centenarians also produce shoddy record keeping. by julia bergin russell m. nelson is older than the pope and the dalai lama. but serving as president in one’s 11th decade comes with challenges. by ruth graham an african penguin who left many offspring in his long life, he belonged to the largest colony of the aquatic bird species in north america, according to the zoo. by hank sanders no hay ninguna fórmula mágica, pero algunos patrones de alimentación están más asociados a una vida más larga que otros. by alice callahan there’s no one size fits all approach, but certain dietary patterns are more associated with longer lives than others. by alice callahan las llaman supercentenarias y lo han visto todo. conoce a estas siete mujeres que llevaron algunas de las vidas más longevas en los últimos años. by sara ruberg they are called supercentenarians, and they have seen it all. by sara ruberg morera, quien cultivó seguidores en las redes sociales como la “superabuela catalana”, murió pacíficamente mientras dormía, dijo su familia. by ali watkins born before the emergence of the telephone, she came to embrace the digital revolution and cultivated a following on social media as “super catalan grandma.” by ali watkins a biomedical researcher, he found that normal cells can divide only a certain number of times before they age   which, he said, explained aging on a cellular level. by clay risen old timer, a male first photographed in 1972, was spotted last month near alaska, enduring in the pacific ocean while some other humpbacks have struggled in a changing environment. by emily anthes at 77, the famous performance artist is determined to endure past 100. she recently introduced some products she hopes will help. by jessica testa readers object to republican actions against migrants. also: “unpromising” students; romance fiction; sleep and longevity; scaffolding in new york. scientists found an unexpected aging pattern in a mostly intact juvenile mammal skeleton from the paleontological period. by jack tamisiea la historia de varî vãti marubo demuestra lo mucho que ha cambiado la vida de las tribus indígenas y, al mismo tiempo, lo mucho que ha permanecido igual. by jack nicas and victor moriyama a trajetória de varî vãti marubo mostra o quanto a vida mudou para as aldeias indígenas da floresta tropical   e o quanto ela permaneceu a mesma. by jack nicas and victor moriyama the life of varî vãti marubo shows how much life has changed for the rainforest’s indigenous tribes   and how much has stayed the same. by jack nicas and victor moriyama it is a social form of sclerosis that will persist unless and until more power is transferred from the wrinkled to the rest. by samuel moyn las promesas del movimiento de salud y longevidad en internet son tentadoras. gran parte de su atractivo es la fantasía y el deseo de control, pero son poco efectivas. by brad stulberg the best supplements are exercise, a good diet and strong relationships. by brad stulberg many americans plan to donate their organs for transplants or their bodies for medical science. few realize that there’s a growing need for their brains, too. by paula span in “the singularity is nearer,” the futurist ray kurzweil reckons with a world dominated by artificial intelligence (good) and his own mortality (bad). by nathaniel rich algunos científicos creen que prolongar la función de los ovarios puede prevenir enfermedades relacionadas con la edad y extender la esperanza de vida. by alisha haridasani gupta and dana g. smith scientists are studying how to keep the ovaries working longer   and potentially, prevent age related diseases in the process. by alisha haridasani gupta and dana g. smith the people who grew up with the mouseketeers are now becoming re imagineers. a q. and a. with michael clinton, author of a book about second acts. by alix strauss esta serie de ejercicios trabaja músculos importantes de las piernas y el torso. son útiles para el esquí, el tenis, el ciclismo, el senderismo o el atletismo. by jenny marder las mujeres corren más riesgo que los hombres de que sus huesos se debiliten. pero unos sencillos ejercicios pueden ayudar a mantener el esqueleto fuerte y resistente. by danielle friedman older readers offer a range of perspectives in response to a column by charles m. blow. this series of exercises focuses on important muscles in the legs and torso we use every day. no equipment (and very little space) necessary. by jenny marder a rare supercentenarian, he remained remarkably lucid after 11 decades, even maintaining a blog. his brain has been donated for research on what’s known as super aging. by alex williams women are at higher risk of bone loss than men. but a few simple workouts can help to keep your skeleton strong and resilient. by danielle friedman if price is no object, neither is death. by frank bruni readers react to several articles about the upside down flag flown at the justice’s home. also: the taco court case; g.o.p. denial of benefits; equinox and equity. blood tests and “biodata” have entered the fitness space. by dana g. smith

jess thomson is a newsweek science reporter based in london uk. her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. she has covered weird animal behavior, space news and the impacts of climate change extensively. jess joined newsweek in may 2022 and previously worked at springer nature. she is a graduate of the university of oxford. languages: english. you can get in touch with jess by emailing j.thomson@newsweek.com. based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. people who still have very sharp memory into old age known as "superagers" may get their impressive powers from certain areas of the brain being preserved. brain structures known as white matter usually decline in integrity with age, but in superagers, white matter remains structurally sound, according to a new paper in the journal of neuroscience. this may be the reason for superagers having the memory powers of people 30 years their junior, the researchers suggest. the brain is made up of gray matter and white matter, with gray matter being found on the brain's surface and white matter making up much of the deeper layers of the brain. white matter is made up largely of nerve fibers that are covered in a fatty substance called myelin, which helps to increase the speed and efficiency of electrical communication between neurons. the primary function of white matter is to connect different gray matter brain regions and transmit nerve signals quickly across the nervous system. white matter is essential for the coordination of various brain functions, from motor control to learning. damage to the white matter can affect how the brain processes information and communicates with the rest of the body. in the paper researchers from spain's universidad politécnica de madrid and the queen sofia foundation alzheimer centre studied the brain structure of older adults experiencing memory loss and those of superagers across a five year period. they discovered that superagers had better white matter microstructure than older people with declining memory. "we studied the white matter structure of a large sample of 64 superagers over the age of 80 and 55 age matched typical older adults during 5 years with yearly follow ups showing evidence of slower age related changes in the brains of superagers especially in protracted maturation tracts, indicating resistance to age related changes," the researchers wrote in the paper. therefore, superagers may have white matter that is somehow resistant to being degraded with time, which helps them maintain their memory later in life. "the better preservation of white matter microstructure in superagers relative to typical older adults supports resistance to age related brain structural changes as a mechanism underpinning the remarkable memory capacity of superagers," the researchers said. they hope that these results may help scientists figure out if white matter can be protected to stem the tide of age related memory loss and dementia. "understanding the superager phenotype can provide insights into mechanisms of protection against age related memory loss and dementia," the researchers said. do you have a tip on a science story that newsweek should be covering? do you have a question about superagers? let us know via science@newsweek.com. jess thomson is a newsweek science reporter based in london uk. her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. she has covered weird animal behavior, space news and the impacts of climate change extensively. jess joined newsweek in may 2022 and previously worked at springer nature. she is a graduate of the university of oxford. languages: english. you can get in touch with jess by emailing j.thomson@newsweek.com. jess thomson is a newsweek science reporter based in london uk. her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. she has covered weird animal behavior, space news and the impacts of climate change extensively. jess joined newsweek in may 2022 and previously worked at springer nature. she is a graduate of the university of oxford. languages: english. you can get in touch with jess by emailing j.thomson@newsweek.com. jess thomson is a newsweek science reporter based in london uk. her focus is reporting on science, technology and healthcare. ... read more newsletters in your inbox see all company editions: contact terms of use © 2025 newsweek digital llc

trying to keep it sophisticatedly simple the evidence on resolutions is pretty patchy. so i’m only going to make one this year: write a blog post on the best books i read over the past year. first up, the book that has truly changed the way i think about health and aging. ok so i was super skeptical starting this book. peter attia is a doctor turned mckinsey consultant turned health guru who’s had his fair share of criticism (see this new yorker piece and this reddit post). he’s much lauded by bro culture he’s been interviewed by joe rogan and was on chris hemsworth’s nat geo series so my bs radar was on high. i expected a very commodified approach to health: eat this wonder food, use these weights, inject this supplement, take this drug, sign up for this bootcamp. and when you go to his website, that’s the business model. while some of that commodification comes through in the book and you can see why the gym bunnies love him he turns out to be an exceptional science and health journalist. he’s just wonderful at breaking down complex and wide ranging research into pithy paragraphs. he writes in an objective way that doesn’t skew the evidence, and you can really tell him and ihd team spend a lot of time looking through the literature and scrutinizing it. only occasionally does go through a bunch of evidence only to end with a pretty thin justification for trying a new drug that shows promise (and invariably turns out to be very expensive). his main premise is that modern healthcare is too focused on treatment, and by that stage, it’s invariably too late to have an impact. he calls this current healthcare system medicine 2.0. it focuses largely on lifespan, and is almost entirely geared toward staving off death. he wants to see a shift to a medicine 3.0 that pays far more attention to maintaining healthspan the quality of life  rather than just responding to chronic illness or spending a disproportionate amount of money and effort to often extend life by a few years after a serious episode of cardiac problems or cancer. to really maintain healthspan (i.e to be able to do the things you love when you’re in your 80s, 90s, or even 100s) you have to acknowledge how much your body deteriorates over time. if you anticipate those significant percentage decreases in stability, strength, mental acuity, and general bodily function, you can train to be above the minimum level of capability you’ll need later in life (e.g., get up without help, put a suitcase in the overhead, pick up your grandkid, not be scammed, or not be pulled over by your dog). that way, even with the inevitable deterioration, you’ll still be able to maintain a minimum ability to live a healthy life. some of the things he recommends can be a little “well, duh” (being fat is bad for your health; sleep is good for you), but it’s illuminating to see that it’s really hard to back up some of these “duh” recommendations with rigorous evidence. evidence on the long term effects of things like nutrition, exercise, and sleep are notoriously difficult to gather. humans really are the least compliant study subjects. rigorously testing any hypothesis on this stuff through experimentation is stupidly expensive and takes too long for most funding cycles. some of the studies he mentions are both amazing (that scientists have managed to do anything!) and dumbfounding (that this is really the best we have on something so fundamental). i was brought up in large part by my grandmother a centenarian who stayed incredibly active and healthy well into her 90s. she really lived so much of this: she didn’t overeat, she barely drank alcohol, she had a strong community, she took sleep seriously, and she hit the gym consistently at 5 a.m. …and took rapamycin every day. ok, so you know which of those aren’t true, but maybe she’d have made it to the supercentenarian club if she had. 😉 this book is in the vein of anand giridharadas’s winners take all. schiller a journalist, academic, and fundraising consultant brings a deep understanding of the current philanthropy landscape and the history of how it evolved into what it is today. if you only read it for one thing, the sections on philanthropy in ancient rome, greece, and the gilded age are worth it. schiller is super critical of the current roi focused, lifesaving, and poverty fighting efforts championed by organizations like the bill & melinda gates foundation, robin hood, and the proponents of effective altruism. her criticisms, though often insightful, can feel a little repetitive and oversimplified, lumping a lot of efforts together without fully engaging with what a counterfactual might look like. her solutions to philanthropy’s current problems can be a little thin, but her closing arguments are compelling. she advocates for making philanthropy accessible to everyone not just the wealthy by reforming tax policies (e.g., changing the deduction to a credit or implementing a progressive sliding scale) and regulating donor advised funds to prevent tax avoidance. she also argues for raising the minimum wage, pointing out that the poor have always given to charity often more generously than the rich but it has become increasingly difficult for them to do so effectively. there’s a huge appetite for easier ways to give, as evidenced by the rise in interest in effective altruism and platforms like gofundme. schiller suggests that doers themselves would probably jump at the chance to be less beholden to a few funders. the tale of tiger woods is oft told a precocious child who basically emerged from the womb holding a golf club. he practiced endlessly and achieved greatness through perseverance, specialization, and dedication. golf, golf, golf! the story of roger federer is less well known. he had a casual interest in a succession of sports skiing, basketball, soccer only eventually focusing on tennis in his teens, which left him starting well behind his peers. epstein argues that we can learn a lot more about achieving excellence from roger than from tiger. we often focus on narrow games like golf and chess as analogues to life, but games like tennis and poker where luck plays a role and success requires responding to an opponent in real time are better teachers. they show how bringing in broad knowledge and diverse skills can help you achieve greatness. (see thinking in bets by annie duke if you want to learn what poker can teach you about decision making.) we’re indoctrinated to believe that “a jack of all trades is a master of none.” i think it’s culturally telling that we habitually chop off the end of the original phrase: “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” this book tells the story of the harvard study of adult development the longest running study of happiness and well being ever conducted. spanning over 80 years, it’s one of the most valuable scientific resources we have on what makes for a good life. it’s also a reminder of how recent large scale experimentation really is, and how much more we could learn with broader, long term studies that include more diverse populations. one of the most fascinating parts is seeing how the methodology and questions evolved over time. for instance, one of the original questions was, “are you ticklish?” and they kept asking it for 40 years, just in case. spoiler alert: the good life? it’s a complicated one. for everyone. as the study reveals: “one thing the large body of research into human flourishing clearly shows from our longitudinal study and from dozens of others is that it doesn’t matter how old you are, where you are in the life cycle, whether you are married or not married, introverted or extroverted; everyone can make positive turns in their life.” the study underscores that relationships aren’t just stepping stones to other things or functional routes to health and happiness they are ends in themselves. call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. zen and buddhist principles subtly shine through the study’s findings: the value of the present moment, the wisdom of age, and the importance of connection things we often overlook in a media landscape dominated by the young. or the brash. read this and get some perspective. another world best science journalist, best known for his book the power of habit which brought a lot of lessons from behavioral economics to the masses. “anyone can learn to be a supercommunicator,” duhigg claims. step one: determine what kind of discussion you’re having. conversations are analytical (what’s this really about?), emotional (how do we feel?) or identity based (who are we?). we tend to switch between these types during a conversation, he concedes, but to best connect, interlocutors should be engaged in the same kind of exchange at the same time. i went to cote d’ivoire for the first time this year. while i thought a tale of child soldiers during the liberian civil war would be infuriating   and it does not capture what cote d’ivoire is like in the mid twenties   the writing is too good. kourama is snappy, peculiar, and often hilarious. just read the opening sentence: “the full, final and completely complete title of my [expletive] story is: allah is not obliged to be fair about all the things he does here on earth. ok. right. i better start explaining some stuff.” and then read it. i also went to amsterdam for the first time and read this tightly plotted post war novel right after going to anne frank’s house. some great twists and i learned a lot about how badly returning jews were treated in holland after the war. ok so i am very late to this furore over a novel written by a white woman. it’s a good yarn   but honestly the reason i mention it as it put me onto lauren groff’s response in the nyt to the all the hoo ha. she’s my favorite. i’d read a review of a microwave by her. this is harrowing   the amount of times the protagonist, a servant girl who escapes abuse and plague in a new world settlement, gets injured is kinda ridiculous. it makes you squeem constantly and feel shame at how you would surely buckle at the constant challenges thrown at the girl in the wild. it’s exhilarating but stern, there’s no humour, but nor should there be. it would be unbearable in the hands of a lesser writer. groff manages to bring natural moments into the survival story that sustain you. maybe you would survive. you have to be a gifted writer if you can get me to read 300 pages about a nunnery in the 1100s. it tells the tale of eleanor of aquitaine, a lady banished from courtly france to an impoverished abbey in england. it shows her struggles to greatness and use of logic in a world generally crippled by religion and superstition. if you loved hillary mantel’s cromwell, you’ll love her. and that’s all i’ve got time for this year. honorable mentions to martyr! by kaveh akbar and the demon of unrest by erik larson. peace. this year had a lot of personal milestones. we bought our first house. we got married (for real this time, with lots of real people in attendance). i got a new job. and, as ever, i didn’t read nearly as many books as i’d have liked to. but i did read some gems this year which really changed the way i think and had a profound impact on me. bury the chains: prophets and rebels in the fight to free an empire’s slaves by adam hochschild i’m a huge fan of hochschild. king leopold’s ghost is one of the most horrificly brilliant accounts of the brutality of colonialism. in this history of british abolitionism hochshild notes that ending slavery would have seemed as unlikely in eighteenth century england as banning automobiles does today, and that even those on the vanguard of abolitionism found advocating for freeing current slaves to be a step too far. he also shows that caribbean slavery was, by every measure, far more deadly than slavery in the american south. this was not because southern masters were the kind and gentle ones of gone with the wind, but because cultivating sugar cane by hand was and still is one of the hardest ways of life on earth. because of the extraordinarily low birth rate and the early deaths from disease, caribbean masters depended, far more so than planters in the american south, on a constant flow of new slaves. as cultural reference points of slavery increasingly focus on the american south, it is easy to forget how deadly the caribbean was for slaves, and how this was caused primarily by the british. his deft examination of the anti slavery movement is no hagiography, although the more you read about thomas clarkson, a committed quaker activist who who pioneered the use of petitions, eyewitness accounts, and even an early, innocent form of direct mail solicitation, the more you think he should be a household name and the more every campaigner should learn his story. in particular there are analogues to climate activism. at the heart of the capaign to abolish slavery there was a tension between the revolutionaries and those more conservative in nature. although radical in confronting a practice so interwoven with the economy of the empire and accepted throughout the world, the movement generally argued against slavery not in the name of a new social order, but rather as a continuation of christianity and british law. similarly today you see the tension between green advocates who want to upend the world order and those who see green technology as a continuation of the progress made under capitalism american midnight: the great war, a violent peace, and democracy’s forgotten crisis by adam hochschild did i mention i was a hochschild fanboy? in this book he examines the four years of american history from 1917 to 1921. the united states during that time saw a swell of patriotic frenzy and political repression rarely rivaled in its history. president woodrow wilson’s terror campaign against american radicals, dissidents, immigrants and workers makes the mccarthyism of the 1950s look almost subtle by comparison. as we go into a potentially defining election year, and possibly disastrous outcome, it is humbling to read that us democracy has survived some very dark days. gambling on development by stefan dercon oh how i wished i’d had this book ten years ago. the opening chapters beat any number of longer winded attempts at summarizing a swathe of development economics. he’s a punchy writer, and as former chief economist at the uk department for international development (dfid), a professor at oxford and, until recently, a policy adviser to the uk foreign secretary, you can tell he’s had a lot of practice at explaining complex topics to dummies. his big idea rest on the importance of elites and how they are required to mkae a bet on development if the wider economy is to flourish. ‘a development bargain is a specific form of elite bargain, one of many possible ones. it is an agreement among those with power that growth and development should be pursued, even if they disagree over policy details. countries with a development bargain tend to have three features in common: 1) the politics of the bargain are real and credible, not just some vague official statement or announcement; (2) the capabilities of the state are used to achieve the goals of the bargain, but, importantly, the state avoids doing more than it can handle; and (3) the state possesses a political and technical ability to learn from mistakes and correct course.’ basically, countries get the leaders their elites deserve. his argument is convincing, although he slightly struggles when it comes to explaining the composition of elites and how to better cultivate an elite group that is willing to a make a big bet on development. i found myself constantly thinking about the debate between access and quality in education, and how this impacts how elites would think about development. if you ascribe to a view that elites really are crucial, it becomes even more important to ensure that there is an education system that is getting elites highly literate and numerate. obviously the counter to that is that you need wider access to to education so that the elites can be drawn from a wider strata of society, but that seems naively optimistic on how egalitarian most societies are. merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming by naomi oreskes and erik m. conway the history of corporate financed public relations efforts to sow confusion and skepticism about scientific research is long, infuriating, but ultimately uplifting, as the vast majority of the time they fail. what you see is that most people do trust science on most things, and most people trust experts on most things. but the infuriating thing is that it only takes a few wrenches in the machine to really slow things down. most of the time we reject scientific findings because we don’t like their implications. it will make us do something inconvenient (i.e stop smoking with our friends, travel less, eat less delicious food). it’s why scientists have to be in the business of selling the better world that comes from their findings. going infinite: the rise and fall of a new tycoon by michael lewis this dude is always in the right place at the right time. he’s come in for some stick for not jamming in the knife deeper to sbf, but whatever this is a captivating adventure and as always his prose is just…mwa. billion dollar whale: the man who fooled wall street, hollywood, and the world by tom wright & bradley hope jho low is the villain late stage capitalism needs. this is the story of how he got through nearly $5 billion dollars in the 1mdb scandal. ok so this book does have a heavy dose of wealth porn and it you can’t help be captivated by the excess (britney jumping out of his birthday cake in a gold bikini!). the intriue comes from how many credible people wanted to believe  from swiss bankers to movie producers. it seems the only person who could tell straight out it was a fraud was jordan belfort (the actual wolf of wall street) who tried to warn leo dicaprio about them. secrets of sand hill road: venture capital and how to get it by skott kupor i just spent a year working in vc and this is the perfect primer for that world. i wish there was an equivalent handbook for the world of philanthropy. rogues: true stories of grifters, killers, rebels and crooks by patrick radden keefe one of the best staff writers at the new yorker has some of his best pieces collected in this book. he paints characters better than anybody. i love this anecdote from arthur koestler   he once pointed out that when thieves were hanged in the village square, other thieves flocked to the execution to pick the pockets of the spectators. a note of warning to anybody who thinks that extreme punishment is an effective deterrent. becoming trader joe: how i did business my way and still beat the big guys by joe coulombe trader joe’s is unlike any other american grocery store. in a very good way. in this you see how pig headed it required joe coulombe to be to not be shifted away from his mission to create a grocery store that treats it’s customers and employers right. and gives them both access to a better way of delivering fresh food to people. losing the signal: the untold story behind the extraordinary rise and spectacular fall of blackberry by jacquie mcnish and sean silcoff better than the recent movie. it’s so easy to forget how revolutionary the little keyboard was. hope everyone at google and apple reads this. a perfect demonstration on why you should rarely design an organization around a product. artemis: a novel by andy weir two reasons to love this book. one, kenya has become the preeminent nation in space exploration due to a savvy government and it’s shoter distance to the moon due to being close to the equator. and two, the epiogue chich napkin maths out the economics reuquired to make viable tourism industry and community on the moon is just brilliant. birnam wood: a novel by eleanor catton i read the illuminaries ten years ago and it stuck with me. catton has such a knack with plot. birnam wood is just as good. you start to think it’s going to turn into a bit of treatise on how hard it is to stay true to your morals as a revolutionary but it turns into storming corporate thriller. i dare you to read it in under 2 days. same as ever: a guide to what never changes by morgan housel the best blog writer out there condenses so much wisdom into this little book. read it in two hours and then read it again. history never repeats itself; man always does.  voltaire the wise in all ages have always said the same thing, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way, too, acted alike, and done just the opposite.  arthur schopenhauer the bill gates problem: reckoning with the myth of the good billionaire by tim schwab i wish this was better written. the lazy rhetorical questions and speculation overshadow some really important journalism. it’s hard to read the section on the links to epstein and not come out of it feeling very worried. i’m obsessed with football. i’d call it an addiction as i’ve tried to stop. but i can’t and i’m stuck with it. at elast it’s not baseball or some other sport that onyl one country cares about. at least it truly is an international game. i’m stuck with it so i figured this year i would buff up a bit and actually study it. the club: how the english premier league became the wildest, richest, most disruptive force in sports by joshua robinson and jonathan clegg there are so many wheeler dealer characters at the birth of the premier league. it’s a tale of how free markets can create a better product that brings value to so many more people. inverting the pyramid: the history of soccer tactics by jonathan wilson jonathan wilson is by far and away the best writer on football tactics out there. his weekly column in the guardian is unmatched. this minutely researched history, along with formations, of all the great sides of the past 150 years is masterclass. it also shows a hegelian view of how new tactics emerge. pep’s inversion of fullbacks can look like a complete revolution but when you see tactics from some of the teams of the 30s and 40s you see them do soemthing very similar. an important trick in everything: to develop foresight, you need to practice hindsight. the mixer: the story of premier league tactics, from route one to false nine by michael cox more focused on the recent game and a good reminder that the premier league has often not been great at learning from what is happening in the rest of the world. my autobiography: the autobiography of the legendary manchester united manager by alex ferguson the greatest. he did it simply and in this book you can see his obsession but also his clarity. never one to mince words this contains a lot of wisdom in a short book. ayoade on top by richard ayoade it takes remarkable skill to write a book based on the gwyneth paltrow 2003 movie view from the top. paltrow herself called it “the worst movie ever”. the year russia invaded ukraine. the year the pandemic seemed to be on the wane. the year that trump’s hold on the republican party seemed to be slipping. the year i read fewer books than i had hoped to read, much like every year. first up the best book to read if you want to get some context on the war in ukraine and understand why the ukrainians will fight to the bitter end (and why we should back them with everything we’ve got). it’s hard to fathom the 1930’s and 1940’s in ukraine. snyder does terrifyingly terrific job of accounting the atrocities that are often glossed over in light of more easily visualized narratives. american and british forces reached none of the bloodlands and saw none of the major killing sites. it is not just that american and british forces saw none of the places where the soviets killed, leaving the crimes of stalinism to be documented after the end of the cold war and the opening of the archives. it is that they never saw the places where the germans killed, meaning that understanding of hitler’s crimes has taken just as long. the majority of the history we learn of that period in the west is still clouded by that lack of observation. he shows that for both hitler and stalin, ukraine was more than a source of food. it was the place that would enable them to break the rules of traditional economics, rescue their countries from poverty and isolation, and remake the continent in their own image. their programs and their power all depended upon their control of ukraine’s fertile soil and its millions of agricultural laborers. putin is no different. the main lesson of this book is that the human capacity for subjective victimhood is apparently limitless, and people who believe that they are victims can be motivated to perform acts of great violence. you want to get some understanding of being muslim in a post 9/11 america? read this book. you want to laugh, cry, and be bewildered by the immigrant experience? read this book. you want to understand the allure of trump to people who should never vote for him? read this book. the most hilarious thing about this book is that it was picked as a book of the year by obama and one can only really read the book as a searing indictment of his administration   the erosion of truth, decency and hope in a nation shaped by debt and money. walter isaacson played a huge role in the beatification of saint steve jobs. i loved his biography as much as the next bro. this book does a much better job of showing the vast tapestry of humans needed to bring about the progress we often misattribute to such a small number of people. from ada lovelace to vannevar bush to alan turing to grace hopper to stewart brand to al gore this book is full of portraits of talent that have brought about the greatest couple of hundred years of technological progress. as einstein once said, “a new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way, but intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.” it also shows repeatedly that computer innovators, like other pioneers, can find themselves left behind if they get stuck in their ways. the same traits that make them inventive, such as stubbornness and focus, can make them resistant to change when new ideas come along. we’re already seeing that with those who are leaping at new ways of working with ai and those who are too hesitant. i went to nepal this summer. a very different nepal to the one described in this 1978 book by peter matthiessen. his account of his two month search for the snow leopard with naturalist george schaller is a well feted travel book. and although much of it has not aged well (some of the prose about “his sherpas” is downright disgusting by modern standards) it is still a beautiful meditation on death, suffering, and healing and how travel can help you gain peace within yourself. and how adversity makes you stronger. reading this while traveling around nepal with the aid of the internet made me long for the difficulty and uncertainty of traveling in a less informed time. whatever you think about taleb the public intellectual (it’s hard not to hate him on twitter!), his books are full of wisdom. basically this is a long treatise on the golden rule   treat others the way you would like them to treat you   and the more robust silver rule that says “do not treat others the way you would not like them to treat you”. if you don’t know the lindy effect, look it up. not everything that happens happens for a reason, but everything that survives survives for a reason. parables are better at teaching lessons about complex ethics than most ny times best sellers. hamid has the knack for tight writing that doesn’t take a great concept too far. a transformative couple of hours reading. humans are animals. like it or not. humans are apes. like it or not. apes display a lot of different behaviors. and we have a lot to learn from them. all of them, from chimps to bonobos. like it or not. de waal is the don of primatolgists. you wanna understand different hierarchies? read this book. you wanna understand the huge variety of gender roles within most ape communities? read this book. but as the american reproductive biologist milton diamond is fond of saying, “nature loves variety. unfortunately, society hates it.” this book from 1981 chronicles the experiences of a computer engineering team racing to design a next generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous pressure. in ”literature and science,” a slim book published almost 20 years ago, aldous huxley tried to discern ways in which literary artists might come to grips with the accelerating scientific and technological revolution. modern writers, he observed, have shown little enthusiasm for science, and less for engineering. although they have been concerned with ”the social and psychological consequences of advancing technology,” they have been very little interested in technology itself. the making of machinery has not aroused   in either writers or readers   the ”passionate interest” that lies at the heart of creative literature. looking to the future, however, huxley was more optimistic. he viewed the difficulties inherent in wedding science to literature as a challenge to intellectual combat. ”the conceptual and linguistic weapons,” he said, ”with which this particular combat must be waged have not yet been invented. … but sooner or later the necessary means will be discovered.” as the years have passed, there has been little indication that huxley’s optimism was well founded. science, perhaps, has inspired a few works of poetic insight; but technology, increasingly complex and impersonal, appears to be drifting ever farther away from the domain of serious literature. there is science fiction, of course, but it is usually written as entertainment and set in the distant future. the other genre that has blown up recently is of the technological fraud (think bad blood and billion dollar loser). but i’ve yet to read anything that really gets under the skin of what it takes to bring about technological change as well as kidder does in this book. open to recommendations! most interviews suck. person a asks person b some pro forma questions that person b has prepared answers for. it mainly tests people’s script memorization and delivery, not how they think or how they behave in their regular life. tyler cowen is a contrarian and one of the best talent spotters out there. he started emergent ventures which funds early talent, is the head of the mercatus center with 200 employees, and has interviewed hundreds of people at the top of their field for his podcast conversations with tyler. his latest book talent written with daniel gross   a talent connoisseur in his own right, founder at yc, angel investor, and founder at pioneer, an upstart vc firm based in sf   shows a better way to conduct interviews. here’s some of their rules for more revealing interviews: establish common ground. don’t try to trip the other person up. ask personal questions that you really want to know the answer to. avoid phoniness and the long list of prepared pro forma questions about the job. scrap the “what’s your weakness?” question. it is hard to fake an entire story on the fly. something as simple as “how did you spend your morning today?” can elicit really interesting answers. go to a coffee shop, a restaurant, or for a walk. it lets you see how somebody responds to unexpected change and makes it easier to be more conversational and less protective. you want to find something about their true nature, not something they have well prepared. questions like “what are ten words your partner or best friend would use to describe you?” or “what did you like to do as a child?” are hard to prepare for but easy to answer honestly. and their current favorite question: what are the open tabs on your browser right now? have you heard the old fundraising adage that “if you want advice, ask for money. if you want money, ask for advice”? it’s funny, a little depressing, and mainly true. i’ve been in hundreds of first time meetings between funders and social entrepreneurs. the successful conversations feel effortless. they’re like a couple of tennis pros doing a warm up rally. curiosity from both sides keeps the ball whizzing back and forth. nobody is trying to land a killer blow, they are trying to see how much the other can handle comfortably. make them feel smart. you’re not trying to bamboozle them. use plain matter of fact language and comparisons that you’re sure they’ll know. don’t get too technical or grandiose. if they’ve funded something similar before, that can be a great starting point. send them a clear, short pre read to get them up to speed. tell the truth. it’s tempting to go into pitch mode and just keep throwing stuff at the funder in the hope that something sticks. this is playing dodgeball. it makes the funder want to pick holes in what you’re saying. this path invariably leads to bullshit. be candid. if you can’t be candid don’t have the conversation yet. make your idea so good that you can just tell them about it. be irrepressible. this isn’t arrogance. and it has to be sincere. show the funder that you’re open to challenging questions and want to think through hard things with them. if they’re asking questions you’ve heard a million times before, let them know how your thinking has evolved over time alternatively you can reframe the question to be more interesting. ask unconventional questions. funders do these intro meetings all the time. make their life more interesting by asking something stimulating of them. nothing too left field but something challenging that will get them thinking. even better if it gets you useful info as well. some examples: what’s the best/worse thing about your funding? which of your criteria are least rational? what other ideas in the pipeline are you really excited/bored by? have you learned anything surprising or counter intuitive from your recent investments? and remember funders want you to succeed in these conversations. all you’re trying to convince them of at this point is that you’re a good bet. i went to a jam packed yoga class this morning. i was the only man in there. it’s not the first time that’s happened. lululemon has a lot to answer for 🙂 i was terrified of yoga for years. i thought you had to either be a super flexible women or a sage burning eco warrior to get into it. you don’t. ryan giggs played over 600 times over 23 years for manchester united. he retired when he was 40 and attributes his lengthy career to yoga. he started yoga because of injury and according to him “yoga works not just your hamstrings, groin and quads but also your calves, glutes, lower back, neck, sides and core. it helps to prevent injuries and makes you more supple and flexible.” lebron and tom brady also swear by yoga. there’s a misnomer that you can be good or bad at yoga. yoga is not a sport. it’s a practice. i see men come into a yoga studio and get flustered because they are not as flexible as the women in there. nobody cares. you can just do you. anybody who tells you otherwise is doing it wrong. i worked in restaurants for many years. one of the greatest lessons i took away from my experience? it’s all about the customer, always, without exception. that doesn’t mean the customer is always right, but they always need to end up thrilled with their experience. they need to get kind, courteous service. there can’t be any bullshit. everything is communicated to them with minimal fuss. and with a smile. in high impact philanthropy, when it’s done well, it’s all about the people who deliver impact   the doers. always, without exception. doers are the ones doing the hard work. they’re the rarity. funders just give away money. funders sometimes assume that by dint of giving away money the doers will always be thrilled. they’re not. not by a long shot. for the doers to be thrilled, you need to be obsessed with their experience. if you have to exit, do it kindly and with plenty of notice. think about those amazing servers who make you feel great about paying your check and getting quickly out the door. they give you some warning, they do it with a smile, and they’re super grateful for you doing them a favor. that’s the last restaurant metaphor, i promise. it’s easy in philanthropy to get distracted, to overly focus on the source of the money and spend your time keeping them happy. don’t. i mean you gotta keep them happy but a hellavu lotta impact will   or should   do that. and to get that impact, it’s all about the doers. some of books i loved (and finished) this year. with a short review. that’s it. the ministry for the future by kim stanley robinson a heatwave kills 20 million in india and the climate crisis gets real. we need to start thinking way bigger if we’re going to tackle global warming and this book nails making the intangible future feel real. it’s not dystopian and is laced with optimism about our species ability to change. wilding: returning nature to our farm by isabella tree and eric schlosser large landholders in sussex give up on industrial farming and try to return their land to the wild. it makes you realise how much nature has been lost in the post war period   not just mass destructions of habitats and species, but knowledge about them. many of our “traditional” ideas around what “wild” and “natural” are have been totally wrong as they’ve used post industrial habitats as their reference point. the bucolic english landscape would have been a lot wilder and more full of bugs, birds and bees. it can happen again. the journalist and the murderer by janet malcolm the best true crime book since in cold blood   a hidden gem from the 90s. it’s the story of a journalist who gets himself embedded in the defence team of a murder suspect and then gets sued by the murder suspect for defamation after he publishes his true crime book. a very american tale that’s as much a soliloquy on what it means to be a journalist as it is a gripping did he do it murder mystery. if you liked the documentary or hbo adaptation of the staircase, you’ll love this. how to change your mind by michael pollan although i am by no means a psychedelic aficionado, i’ve followed the increasingly rigorous research into the lsd and other hallucinogens with glee. michael pollan in his typically lucid prose gives a graduate education into the increasingly obvious benefits that can come from a controlled journey deeper into your mind. much better than the netflix show. the great influenza: the story of the deadliest pandemic in history by john barry one that i wish i had read right at the beginning of the current pandemic although the death tolls of the spanish flu might have made it even harder to sleep. it caused at least fifty million deaths worldwide, and possibly as many as one hundred million. yet even that number understates the horror of the disease, a horror contained in other data. normally influenza chiefly kills the elderly and infants, but in the 1918 pandemic roughly half of those who died were young men and women in the prime of their life, in their twenties and thirties. it’s chock full of interesting facts about that period. not least the origins of the name “spanish flu”. spain actually had very few cases at the beginning of the pandemic and the virus almost certainly didn’t originate in spain. but spain was neutral during the war. that meant the government did not censor the press, and unlike french, german, and british newspapers which printed nothing negative, nothing that might hurt morale spanish papers were filled with reports of the disease, especially when king alphonse xiii fell seriously ill. the disease soon became known as “spanish influenza” or “spanish flu,” very likely because only spanish newspapers were publishing accounts of the spread of the disease that were picked up in other countries. thinking in bets: making smarter decisions when you don’t have all the facts by annie duke poker is a great game for honing your decision making process. for most people, it’s difficult to say “i’m not sure” in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. but professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don’t always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don’t always lead to bad outcomes. the best players resist “resulting”. antifragile: things that gain from disorder by nassim taleb “some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. let us call it antifragile. antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. the resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. this property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet.” such an important concept for anybody trying to build something that will last. this is a great piece on how to apply the concept to life in general. calling bullshit: the art of skepticism in a data driven world by carl t. bergstrom and jevin d. west bullshit is “unclarifiable unclarity.” not only is the bullshitter’s prose unclear, but the ideas underlying it are so ill formed that it cannot possibly be clarified. if this book was mandatory in high school the us the world would be a better place. unclarifiable i know. reminds me of neil postman’s dictum, “at any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself.” on writing by stephen king no one likes grammar. or writing. even writers it seems. they all complain about it. good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. and adverbs. every copywriter should read this book. dammit everybody who does any writing in their work should read it. made to stick by chip & dan heath to summarize, here’s the heath’s checklist for creating a successful idea: you’ll need a simple, unexpected, concrete credentialed, emotional story. luckily it also spells out succes. funny that. i had such high hopes for last year. 2020 eh? we’ve all missed out on so much. not being able to hug somebody at a funeral; having to resist squeezing the cheeks of babies; the smiles of strangers hidden behind masks; lines around the block for groceries   all these take a toll. my more benign struggle this year has been the inability to while away hours in coffee shops and libraries with dear books. now you might say you can easily replicate a coffee shop in your home. pour some luke warm coffee into a chipped mug, put on some smooth jazz, and voila   cafe maison is yours, without any of the pesky distractions. but it’s the distractions and unpredictability of coffee shops and libraries that make them such great places to get immersed in books. books are about people (most of the time). reading with people around you helps bring books to life. i realize i transpose prose (sorry!) onto the people around me. i’m not sure if i’m admitting to a complete lack of imagination or to a brilliant talent for creating ad hoc dramatizations featuring amateur actors in my head. without the beautiful strangers to bring books, especially novels, to life my input of books has greatly decreased this year. it might also have been the incessant doomscrolling, but i prefer to think it’s the lack of coffee shops. when you’re reading any book that tries to generalize on human behavior it helps so much to have people, real people in all their weirdness, around you. it keeps you honest. if the stuff you’re reading wouldn’t hold true for the person ordering a muffin or the person struggling to open the bathroom door then it’s probably not worth thinking too much about. my greatest reading experiences have been when i’ve been surrounded by people. reading poor economics or thinking fast and slow while sitting at the village square in the village i lived in the gambia made me engage with their words and arguments in a deeper way than i ever got from reading in my bedroom or library during college. well enough of that, here are the books that i read at cafe maison that stuck with me the most last year: both by gerd gigerenzer i first got turned on to these books when i was trying to understand the us healthcare system. i receive such different treatment here from doctors in the us compared to in the uk. the incentives are so skew whiff that every interaction takes forever and everything from pain meds to x rays gets overprescribed. these books show that most of medicine is bonkers and far too overly dependent on complex models that do a shitty job of making wise decisions and communicate intelligent courses of action to patients. gigerenzer (a psychologist by training, but so much more than that) shows how medical professionals approach risk and communicate that risk to to patients in patently absurd ways. the books are worth it alone for the distinction he makes between how to approach risk and uncertainty. risk: if risks are known, good decisions require logic and statistical thinking. uncertainty: if some risks are unknown, good decisions also require intuition and smart rules of thumb. by maria konnikova this is maria’s journey from psychology phd to professional poker player. it’s part anthropological study of elite poker players, part a test of decision making theory in the wild. she finds that as edward gibbon warned about as far back as 1794, that “the laws of probability, so true in general, [are] so fallacious in particular” and that brute math is not enough to win at the table. poker players have it easy in some ways. they have so many opportunities for quick feedback. for those of us in professions where feedback is slower it’s easy to have an illusion of skill and never get called on it. i’m more inclined to nassim talib’s belief that we cannot use games as models of real life because in life, the rules derived from games can break down in unforeseen ways. it’s called the ludic fallacy. games are too simplified. life has all sorts of things it can throw at you to make your careful calculations useless. saying that, konnikova gives a great account of how the mess of life influences how you play the cards you’re dealt. it ends with this delightful buddhist proverb: a farmer loses his prize horse. his neighbor comes over to commiserate about the misfortune, but the farmer just shrugs: who knows if it is a misfortune or not. the next day, the horse returns. with it are twelve more wild horses. the neighbor congratulates the farmer on this excellent news, but the farmer just shrugs. soon, the farmer’s son falls off one of the feral horses as he’s training it. he breaks a leg. the neighbor expresses his condolences. the farmer just shrugs. who knows. the country declares war and the army comes to the village, to conscript all able bodied young men. the farmer’s son is passed over because of his leg. how wonderful, the neighbor says. and again the farmer shrugs. perhaps. by william shirer this is not a recommendation. don’t read a 500 page opus on the makings of a totalitarian fascist system while there is a parody of a dictator is trying to win/steal an election. it will do nothing for your blood pressure. even if it is one of the most impressive pieces of journalism ever written. shirer seems like he was always at the right (or wrong depending how you look at it) place in europe at the right time. the us is not weimar but it takes very little imagination to mirror the way hitler hoodwinked so many with what trump has achieved these past 4 years. i took solace throughout the year that trump had not seriously tried to start a reichstag fire and that the generals of this country still seem to be pretty decent. that feels like it is being tested as i write. those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. i used to complain that all i ever got taught about in history in school was world war 2 over and over again. as the last survivors of that conflict pass us by, it feels even more imperative today that kids in this country are given an incessant education on this period of history. by erik larson blitz spirit and chruchillianisms have be done to death this year. this is still a fun insight into the man and people who surrounded him. fun fact: churchill would have two baths a day without fail. forgive me as i bludgeon you with a few more zingers. it is not given to human beings happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. “it’s not the bombs i’m scared of any more, it’s the weariness,” “always remember, clemmie, that i have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” “the night was cloudless and starry, with the moon rising over westminster. nothing could have been more beautiful and the searchlights interlaced at certain points on the horizon, the star like flashes in the sky where shells were bursting, the light of distant fires, all added to the scene. it was magnificent and terrible: the spasmodic drone of enemy aircraft overhead; the thunder of gunfire, sometimes close sometimes in the distance; the illumination, like that of electric trains in peace time, as the guns fired; and the myriad stars, real and artificial, in the firmament. never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.” by robert harris a fun novel with an elegant premise. it’s setting appears to be a medieval village in england. then the local priest discovers multiple smooth shiny pebble like objects. with an apple with a bite engraved on them. it turns out it’s the future. and the introduction of these devices marked the beginning of the end of the previous advanced civilization. “all civilisations consider themselves invulnerable; history warns us that none is.” the title of the book refers to the once common practice of having a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night, before returning to bed. it felt apt as i read mainly at 3am to quiet my mind to the angst of elections and pandemics. by curtis sittenfeld “there are two kinds of marriages,” barbara said. “the ones where you’re privy to how messy they are, and the ones where you’re not.” hillary dumps bill before he runs for president. a delicious idea, executed seriously and delightfully. i realized how many biases i’ve held about hillary from growing up in the 90s. “if i was no longer his girlfriend, and never his wife, i was not responsible for his behavior, not even by extension,” the fictional hillary reflects as she drives away from arkansas after the pivotal breakup. “this absolution was my reward for losing him.” this week more than most i’ve spent futile thoughts on how we really missed out by not turning out en masse for hillary like we did for biden. by yaa gyasi how the luck, or rather misfortune, of a prescription can emotionally cripple a family is shown in this devastating second novel from gyasi. the protagonist’s journey from alabama, where her family moved to from ghana, to stanford, where she studies neuroscience in the vain hope of understanding why her brother got addicted to oxycontin. the connection between the mass trauma of the opioid crisis with the rise of trumpism, and its surrounding mist of anger, feels blazingly clear after reading this. transcendent kingdom benefits from being less layered than her first book, homegoing. i found myself constantly asking of the protagonists mother why she didn’t move back to ghana, like the father. it really makes the us seem like a downgrade on any west african country. the world is charged with the grandeur of god. it will flame out, like shining from shook foil. nothing comes into the universe and nothing leaves it and finally, possibly my favorite, definitely the most useful book i read this year… by morgan housel it’s not a self help book for financial mastery. it’s a collection of wisdom about how to calibrate your relationship with money. it has an almost taoist quality to it. here’s some snippets… years ago i asked economist robert shiller, who won the nobel prize in economics, “what do you want to know about investing that we can’t know?” “the exact role of luck in successful outcomes,” he answered. kurt vonnegut informs his pal, joseph heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than heller had earned from his wildly popular novel catch 22 over its whole history. heller responds, “yes, but i have something he will never have … enough.” when asked about his silence during meetings, rockefeller often recited a poem: a wise old owl lived in an oak, the more he saw the less he spoke, the less he spoke, the more he heard, why aren’t we all like that wise old bird? in his book 30 lessons for living, gerontologist karl pillemer interviewed a thousand elderly americans looking for the most important lessons they learned from decades of life experience. he wrote: no one not a single person out of a thousand said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want. no one not a single person said it’s important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do it’s real success. no one not a single person said you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power. when you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” instead, you think, “wow, if i had that car people would think i’m cool.” subconscious or not, this is how people think. when most people say they want to be a millionaire, what they might actually mean is “i’d like to spend a million dollars.” and that is literally the opposite of being a millionaire. there’s a common phrase in investing, usually used mockingly, that “it’s different this time.” if you need to rebut someone who’s predicting the future won’t perfectly mirror the past, say, “oh, so you think it’s different this time?” and drop the mic. it comes from investor john templeton’s view that “the four most dangerous words in investing are, ‘it’s different this time.’” templeton, though, admitted that it is different at least 20% of the time. the world changes. of course it does. and those changes are what matter most over time. michael batnick put it: “the twelve most dangerous words in investing are, ‘the four most dangerous words in investing are, ‘it’s different this time.’” “for reasons i have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell.” “i am not an optimist. i am a very serious possibilist.” daniel kahneman once told me about the stories people tell themselves to make sense of the past. he said: hindsight, the ability to explain the past, gives us the illusion that the world is understandable. it gives us the illusion that the world makes sense, even when it doesn’t make sense. that’s a big deal in producing mistakes in many fields. “risk is what’s left over when you think you’ve thought of everything.” “true success is exiting some rat race to modulate one’s activities for peace of mind.” trying to hold myself to public account on here. my aim for the year was to read 50 books. i only made it to 34. fail. but….there were some good ‘uns in there. i’ve thought more about how to be more voracious and intentional in my reading. shane parish’s interview with naval ravikant has a ton of great tips. one thing this year i have not beat myself up about is how much i spend on books. it’s an investment. not a flippant splurge. even if every book i read was $20 it would be $1000 very well spent. i didn’t re read many books this year. and i focused too much on recent releases. in 2020 i’m going to read some more classics, or at least books that have stood up to scrutiny after being released >20 years ago. and re read more books i have loved. i’ve ordered the books i read in 2019 below loosely by the biggest impact they had on me (they burrowed into my mind or made me think differently), or that i just damn well could’t put down (for whatever reason). i’ve included quotes from the books that really sung to me. my top five books were… who gets what ― and why: the new economics of matchmaking and market design by alvin roth after reading this you see the design of markets in everything. markets can often seem spontaneous and natural. most market failures arise because the market has not been designed. roth gives so many examples of how to tweak markets so that irrational humans can and will use them optimally. “economics is about the efficient allocation of scarce resources, and about making resources less scarce… the first task of a successful marketplace is bringing together many participants who want to transact, so they can seek out the best transactions… the general lesson to keep in mind as we look at more usual markets is that not only do marketplaces have to solve the problems of creating a thick market, managing congestion, and ensuring that participation is safe and simple, but they also have to keep solving and re solving… there is a paradox of market design that as communication gets easier and cheaper, it sometimes also gets less informative.” the overstory by richard powers no data on climate change, no matter how shocking, has scared me as much as this book did about the coming climate catastrophe. the complexity of trees is brought to life and the sheer scale of what we are doing to the ecosystems that maintain the communities of trees that this planet needs is made scarily apparent. “it’s a great idea, trees. so great that evolution keeps inventing it, again and again… we all travel the milky way together, trees and men. . . . in every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. the clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness… you and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. a billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. but even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes… we’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling. and what douglas pavlicek wants to know is why this is so easy to see when you’re by yourself in a cabin on a hillside, and almost impossible to believe once you step out of the house and join several billion folks doubling down on the status quo… no one sees trees. we see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. we see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. dark, threatening places that must be cleared. we see branches about to crush our roof. we see a cash crop. but trees trees are invisible… the world had six trillion trees, when people showed up. half remain. half again more will disappear, in a hundred years.” the old drift by namwali serpell a time spanning epic that gets you thinking deeply about colonial legacy and what the future holds for countries like zambia. my big takeaway   drones are not going to solve all problems 🙂 “english etiquette was as rigid and inconsistent as english grammar… “during his time at university, ronald had learned that ‘history’ was the word the english used for the record of every time a white man encountered something he had never seen and promptly claimed it as his own, often renaming it for good measure… one rumour was that gore browne hadn’t had enough money or clout to make it as a landowner in england, so he had decided, like many men of that generation, to go where pale skin and a small inheritance went a great deal further… the british have broken our backs. me, i am just breaking a few words… every family is a war but some are more civil than others… “mind you, what ruined this country was efficiency   the british worship of efficiency. the first settlers weren’t smart or royal. they were not kings. the empire was a frikkin sham. they were colonialists, and for that you only need brute force   nothing to boast of when you have it. power’s just an accident that depends on the weakness of others. they grabbed what they could get for the sake of it. robbery plus violence, aggravated murder on a big scale, and bloody bazungu going at it blind   men tackling men in the dark. the conquest of africa, which meant stealing it from those with a darker complexion and flatter noses, is an ugly thing, men. even worse was the idea at the back of it, not curiosity or love, but just belief in an idea   something they set up, and bowed to, and sacrificed us to ” uneasy street by rachel sherman being rich ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you live in a big global city. there’s always somebody just that bit richer. the cliché “it’s all relative” rings true throughout the interviews that rachel sherman has managed to get with a bunch of rich (yes, rich, very rich) new yorkers. they’re all earning >$500k income annually, with a ton more in assets, yet so many of them don’t think they behave like rich people. people claim to be thrifty while redecorating their $4m holiday home. nobody thinks they live an extravagant lifestyle. i’m always reminded that i’ve never felt richer than when i was living in gambia earning $200 per month. “i used to say i was gonna be a revolutionary, and then i had that first massage.” “diane, a financial advisor for affluent progressives, told me that people who were more conflicted about their wealth were actually much harder for fundraisers to deal with because they were less straightforward about how much they wanted to give and to whom, and they were not good at saying no. she said, “they often give misleading cues to the fundraisers, you know, it’s like, ‘would you like to give?’ ‘well, i’m not quite sure, i need to check with …’ you know, they can’t say no. they won’t say, ‘i’ve got my strategic giving plan, and i’m sorry but i don’t give to animals, i do give to women, so [i won’t donate to you],’ you know?” such people, she said, “waste a lot of energy in indecision, or between their desires and their ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts,’ and would be a lot more liberated and probably a lot easier for fundraisers to deal with if they could just be clear about who they are.” diane means they should be clear about who they are in terms of what they are willing to give, but in order to have this clarity they must also be clear about who they are as wealthy people. she said, “people who are clear are at peace, and they’re just easier to deal with and they have an easier time living their lives.” the fortunate man is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate. beyond this, he needs to know that he has a right to his good fortune. he wants to be convinced that he “deserves” it, and above all, that he deserves it in comparison with others.… good fortune thus wants to be “legitimate fortune.”  max weber, “the social psychology of the world religions” sex at dawn: how we mate, why we stray, and what it means for modern relationships by christopher ryan and cacilda jetha i’m reluctant to recommend this book. there’s definitely stigma around questioning monogamy. but maybe the times they are a changing. this book is such a fun read   a whirlwind tour of a ton of anthropology, primatology, and evolutionary psychology. the basic argument is that we were more promiscuous when we were hunter gatherers and are, thus, not biologically designed for monogamy. human sex has many features understandable as adaptations to promiscuity, including large external testicles, a record size penis designed to scoop away other semen, long frequent sex, and women being louder and lasting longer than men. i’m not completely convinced, but i’m not scared to think about it. if you are, read this. the least you should do is learn more about bonobo social behavior. you might also like to check out esther perell’s books and podcasts. “the function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.” g. k. chesterton “why should our nastiness be the baggage of an apish past and our kindness uniquely human? why should we not seek continuity with other animals for our ‘noble’ traits as well?” stephen jay gould “just imagine that we had never heard of chimpanzees or baboons and had known bonobos first. we would at present most likely believe that early hominids lived in female centered societies, in which sex served important social functions and in which warfare was rare or absent.” frans de waal the story of the fall gives narrative structure to the traumatic transition from the take it where you find it hunter gatherer existence to the arduous struggle of agriculturalists. the other books i read included… fiction non fiction
supported by a rare supercentenarian, he remained remarkably lucid after 11 decades, even maintaining a blog. his brain has been donated for research on what’s known as super aging. by alex williams morrie markoff, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap metal sculptor who was believed to be the oldest man in the united states and whose brain has been donated for research on what is known as super aging, died on june 3 at his home in downtown los angeles. he was 110. he had two strokes in recent weeks, his daughter, judith markoff hansen, said in confirming his death. people who live to be 110 or older are considered supercentenarians, and the gerontology research group, in los angeles, lists more than 150 of them around the world. mr. markoff, who was born in new york city on jan. 11, 1914, six months before world war i began, joined the club this year and was regarded as the oldest living man in the united states after the death in january of francis zouein, at 113, in california. as of april, the oldest living man in the world is believed to be john alfred tinniswood, of england, at 111, according to guinness world records. (guinness lists maría branyas morera, a california native who lives in spain, as the oldest woman in the world, at 117.) when mr. markoff heard the news of his rise to the top of the list, “he just smiled and said, ‘well, someone’s got to be there,’” his daughter said in an interview.

from super  (“beyond, more than”) +‎ centenarian (“100 year old”), q.v. supercentenarian (plural supercentenarians)

supported by the bryant park grill, which opened nearly 30 years ago, will be replaced by a restaurant run by a high profile chef. by james barron the city laid out a series of proposals to reduce cancer deaths by 20 percent, and deaths from heart  and diabetes related ailments by 5 percent, over the next five years. by joseph goldstein readers criticize the vote on the defense secretary nomination. also: president trump and tariffs; silencing health officials; firing of inspectors general; longevity. a large study found that men lost seven years of life expectancy and women lost nine years, compared with counterparts without the disorder. by ellen barry at longevity clinics, people are shelling out for exhaustive medical tests and treatments like plasma exchange and peptide therapy. how much does it benefit them? by dana g. smith algunas de las cosas que se dicen de las personas más longevas son sencillamente inverosímiles. by saul newman es importante hacer pausas diarias para moverse. esta rutina sin