I thought I’d put out another summary of some recent reads. I’ve been mixing it up lately..
Food Fix: Mark Hyman – This is Mark Hyman’s latest book, this time tackling the policy changes that need to be made for our healthcare system to change. Everyone is talking about “flattening the curve” and, yes, that is our most urgent, pressing need at this moment. But imagine if our healthcare system wasn’t already near capacity and less people had the risk factors to turn COVID-19 more lethal? The book also has interesting insights on how factory farmed meat and processed frankenmeats (Beyond/Impossible Burgers) ruin our environment and the lobbying behind the nutrition law today.
An interesting tidbit was that Amy Klobuchar was a big proponent of classifying pizza as a vegetable so that school’s could provide pizza to students and still meet their guidelines. Why? The leading pizza company for schools is from her home state of Minnesota.
AI Superpowers: Kai Fu Lee – Talks about automation first and then gets into the psychological impact of job loss on people and policy changes such as UBI, and how UBI alone would not be enough (hint: more compassion/purpose instead of just throwing someone a check). It looks like we’ve gotten to a similar end-point of job loss and UBI, but for a very different reason, and it will be interesting to see how the economy recovers, how people are affected, and which jobs come back.
- Update: Kai Fu Lee noted that the pace of automation has sped up rapidly due to COVID-19 and the resulting shelter in place. He estimates 2 years worth of progress happened in the first 2 months of SIP.
Feeling Good: David Burns – There are topics in here that are applicable to everyone. Some can be applied to conflict resolution (with coworkers/family/spouse/etc.) and cultivating healthy relationships. Probably the most applicable part to me was the Achievement trap. Just think about how many people were working their way to a major milestone/event, to only have that suddenly cancelled during the shelter in place? And how much of the reward is in the medal, the congratulations, the status and recognition etc. vs in the growth and the love for the process?