Kyle Roth

This book argues that language loss is always bad, but that we can do something to save it. While the stories in the book leave me feeling like every language lost is a terrible cost, I think it’s inevitable as our species merges into a global society due to technology. I think we ought to prioritize the proper treatment and respect of marginalized and alternative cultures, including their languages and how these cultures want to maintain them. But there is a cost to stopping all language loss that is just not worth it once a language has been documented for research purposes.

Better communication doesn’t really solve marriage problems. It has a low success rate, and that makes sense because there are plenty of marriages that yell and dispute. Disputation is not a sign of an unhealthy marriage. You’d have to be really magnanimous to take criticism about you, even if presented as softly as possible. Personality does not make a marriage incompatible. People can be friends but have very distinct personalities. Handle each other’s strange side with caring and respect, as you would a friend.

Spoiler warning: no plot held back in this review. science is at least as beautiful as magic permalink In chapter 7 Harry introduces Draco to the beauty of scientific advancement, and it actually moved me to tears. You should read the whole thing, but here are some of the best quotes: “Anyway,” Harry said, “I’m saying that you don’t seem to have been paying much attention to what goes on in the Muggle world.” Probably because the whole wizarding world seemed to regard the rest of Earth as a slum, deserving around as much news coverage as the Financial Times awarded to the routine agonies of Burundi. “All right. Quick check. Have wizards ever been to the Moon? You know, that thing?” Harry pointed up to that huge and distant globe. “What? " Draco said. It was pretty clear the thought had never occured to the boy. “Go to the - it’s just a -” His finger pointed at the little pale thingy in the sky. “You can’t Apparate to somewhere you’ve never been and how would anyone get to the Moon in the first place?” “Hold on,” Harry said to Draco, “I’d like to show you a book I brought with me, I think I remember what box it’s in.” And Harry stood up and kneeled down and yanked out the stairs to the cavern level of his trunk, then tore down the stairs and heaved a box off another box, coming perilously close to treating his books with disrespect, and snatched off the box cover and quickly but carefully pried out a stack of books - … And Harry raced back up the stairs and shoved the staircase back into the trunk with his heel, and, panting, turned the pages of the book until he found the picture he wanted to show to Draco. The one with the white, dry, cratered land, and the suited people, and the blue-white globe hanging over it all. That picture. The picture, if only one picture in all the world were to survive. “That,” Harry said, his voice trembling because he couldn’t quite keep the pride out, “is what the Earth looks like from the Moon.” Draco slowly leaned over. There was a strange expression on his young face. “If that’s a real picture, why isn’t it moving?” Moving? Oh. “Muggles can do moving pictures but they need a bigger box to show it, they can’t fit them onto single book pages yet.” Draco’s finger moved to one of the suits. “What are those?” His voice starting to waver. “Those are human beings. They are wearing suits that cover their whole bodies to give them air, because there is no air on the Moon.” “That’s impossible,” Draco whispered. There was terror in his eyes, and utter confusion. “No Muggle could ever do that. How…” Harry took back the book, flipped the pages until he found what he saw. “This is a rocket going up. The fire pushes it higher and higher, until it gets to the Moon.” Flipped pages again. “This is a rocket on the ground. That tiny speck next to it is a person.” Draco gasped. “Going to the Moon cost the equivalent of… probably around a thousand million Galleons.” Draco choked. “And it took the efforts of… probably more people than live in all of magical Britain.” And when they arrived, they left a plaque that said, ‘We came in peace, for all mankind.’ Though you’re not yet ready to hear those words, Draco Malfoy… “You’re telling the truth,” Draco said slowly. “You wouldn’t fake a whole book just for this - and I can hear it in your voice. But… but…” “How, without wands or magic? It’s a long story, Draco. Science doesn’t work by waving wands and chanting spells, it works by knowing how the universe works on such a deep level that you know exactly what to do in order to make the universe do what you want. If magic is like casting Imperio on someone to make them do what you want, then science is like knowing them so well that you can convince them it was their own idea all along. It’s a lot more difficult than waving a wand, but it works when wands fail, just like if the Imperius failed you could still try persuading a person. And Science builds from generation to generation. You have to really know what you’re doing to do science - and when you really understand something, you can explain it to someone else. The greatest scientists of one century ago, the brightest names that are still spoken with reverence, their powers are as nothing to the greatest scientists of today. There is no equivalent in science of your lost arts that raised Hogwarts. In science our powers wax by the year. And we are beginning to understand and unravel the secrets of life and inheritance. We’ll be able to look at the very blood of which you spoke, and see what makes you a wizard, and in one or two more generations, we’ll be able to persuade that blood to make all your children powerful wizards too. So you see, your problem isn’t nearly as bad as it looks, because in a few more decades, science will be able to solve it for you.” “But…” Draco said. His voice was trembling. “If Muggles have that kind of power… then… what are we? " “No, Draco, that’s not it, don’t you see? Science taps the power of human understanding to look at the world and figure out how it works. It can’t fail without humanity itself failing. Your magic could turn off, and you would hate that, but you would still be you. You would still be alive to regret it. But because science rests upon my human intelligence, it is the power that cannot be removed from me without removing me. Even if the laws of the universe change on me, so that all my knowledge is void, I’ll just figure out the new laws, as has been done before. It’s not a Muggle thing, it’s a human thing, it just refines and trains the power you use every time you look at something you don’t understand and ask ‘Why?’”

(My own thoughts appear as sidenotes or in italics, to distinguish from the author’s thoughts.) Richard Bushman categorizes those who leave the church into two broad categories: those who feel “switched off”, and those who feel “squeezed out”. Mason summarizes the switched-off group as those who encounter troubling information about church history or doctrine, and as they discover more information they become jaded by it until they can no longer see the good the church does for them or for others. The squeezed-out group “fully embrace[s] the basic principles and ordinances of the gospel. But sometimes they feel alienated by things like the dominant political conservatism among the members … or how the church ministers to our LGBT … brothers and sisters,” (p. 3).

This book was my first real exposure to minimalism, and it completely changed how I feel about the possession of objects. It was super fortunate that my wife and I listened to it together on a road trip, and became equally enthralled with the idea of dumping all of our excess clutter. all at once permalink We have excess clutter because of a fundamental problem with the way we deal with possessions. This is difficult to solve with simple tricks like better organization or getting rid of one thing every day. She argues that the best way to overcome the clutter is by doing a one-time hardcore purge of the entire house. She spends a long time detailing what she calls the KonMari Method (which you can read about on her website). For us, doing this initial purge took us about two weeks. We spent several hours each evening, plus all day on both Saturdays. All told I think we got rid of like 15 garbage bags-worth of things from our two-bedroom apartment.