dominic cummings reading list
While some lessons are specific to time/place (e.g how the Senate works in 1950) the most important lessons from all such books are quite abstract and common and I assume this will be true of these classics. The Nazis did indeed think they were creating a new world beyond good and evil, so did Stalin. It was a direct inspiration for my terrorist demand to Boris, July 2019: we must create an ARPA. Blurb endorsement by Einstein. Almost anything good you read on strategy and conflict is based on ideas you see here. , John Allen Paulos (1988). , Gertner. The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides. If one could observe a discussion between Bismarck and one politician from the 20th Century, he might be the most interesting choice. What does it say about the West that their newspaper propaganda was much higher class than most elite philosophy now? Dominic Cummings on Twitter: "Reading List https://t.co/ZKDXNCltbH Like Hoskyns (below) genuine rare insight and almost totally ignored. Mathematics: Its content, methods and meaning, Kolmogorov et al. The river was also burning. It is by far the best insider book Ive read on modern UK politics and the only one that realistically and honestly faces a) the failures of MPs as managers and systems thinkers, and b) the failures of the civil service. Those who think very fast timetables are plausible, because (partly) they worry about the effects of their comments. You can learn from him about how to get very hard things done without admiring his character. Re George Mueller, the man who managed the Apollo program. His point about the fundamental importance of error-correction in political institutions was the fundamental reason I think Brexit is the right idea and the EU is doomed to fail in important ways. There's a big bad enemy out there, possibly with superior weaponry but. You can learn from him about how to get very hard things done without admiring his character. It was a direct inspiration for my terrorist demand to Boris, July 2019: we must create an ARPA. So a philosopher simultaneously prepared the ground for Hitler, deeply influenced todays Left, and personally hated Bismarck and anti-semites. The philosophising Tolstoy fought against the picture of an infinitely complex system in which most thoughts and actions fade to zero significance quickly but a few connect to others with highly non-linear effects. Im reading this summer. A history of ARPA-IPTO and Xerox PARC: how the internet and PC revolution was created. The brutal truth about Dominic Cummings | Letters There are fields like professional mathematics and equity investing where institutions mean the best people are recognised over time. Dominic Cummings has hit back at Boris Johnson's partygate defence, accusing him of spreading "further misinformation". Perhaps America has elections every four years, power supply is ~100% reliable in the First World, Europe wont see millions killed in wars again, nobody lives happily/normally to 200, robots cant escape control and kill vast numbers of humans, children should study curricula controlled by the state, I support policies that undermine traditional ideas about the family will seem as quaint in 2052 as Bertrand Russell being taught by a grandfather whod met Napoleon that British naval dominance is a fact of life. Some supported this approach but as youd expect the worst hated it. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith. On the 50th anniversary Munger reflected on why his partnership with Buffett had been so successful and Buffetts personality. What is moral behaviour is not the same question as what are the principles of high performance in politics! Tyler Cowen, Patrick Collison and others have been trying to push some of the principles of how to do hard things into economics and government, in similar ways to some of my arguments over the years. Causality, Judea Pearl (advanced). Dominic Cummings: look closely to see the traps he is setting ), genetics, expert judgement, finance and many other topics with the focus on how education policy has to cope in order to train problem solvers for the coming challenges. Cowen & Collison handed out fast grants to researchers during covid and at my request advised UKRI on how to speed up in spring 2020. , Charlie Munger. There are fields like professional mathematics and equity investing where institutions mean the best people are recognised over time. They have insurgent energy and feed on grievance. In particular read. You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done. Most of the world is not like this! If you read Boyd youll see how lessons recur across Alexander, Nelson, Groves et al. Review of the disintegration of the Tories in the context of Brexit, SW1 vs, perspectives on risks of Brexit/Remain, and, and save the trolley to Get Brexit Done despite our reservations. I know some of them. A remarkable 19th Century book about propaganda and politics that influenced Lenin, Hitler and PR pioneers like Bernays. Newton biography and its brilliantly done with intense love and care for its extraordinary subject. The river was also burning. why some of the VL team decided to go to No10 in 2019, Thoughts on past and future of the Buffett system, , Scott Aaronson (Scientific American, 2008), Orson Welles thought Renoir the greatest director, https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/october-2020/the-eu-godfathers-wall-street-roots/, https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2021/the-sphinx-who-reshaped-europe/. Had I included everything I knew and shown the whole truth, even I could not have watched it. If theres one film to show Nietzsche brought back from the dead, maybe this is it. The Nazis did indeed think they were creating a new world beyond good and evil, so did Stalin. If interested in how a government could take seriously accelerating progress, follow these debates. When you read this you realise that UK parties are something like 50-60 years behind understanding TV so its no surprise theyre bad at new technology. Reading List Dominic Cummings Jun 26, 2022 80 This thread is only visible to paid subscribers of Dominic Cummings substack Subscribe to view Keep reading with a 7-day free trial Subscribe to Dominic Cummings substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. Again the meta-lesson: the media often obsesses with specific horrific stories which for a few days absorb SW1 attention, but there is no interest in actually solving the institutional problems and the institutions will successfully resist change during a media panic then go back to business as usual. Some supported this approach but as youd expect the worst hated it. In Pursuit of the Travelling Salesman, Cook. Anybody who goes to Hollywood can see right away what the setup is Hollywood is Hollywood, theres nothing you can say about it that isnt true, good or bad. , Gershenfeld (MIT). Partly accessible to a non-specialist with some maths already, though very challenging for most including me. Youll see its very similar to Grovess principles (above). High Output Management, Andy Grove, ex-founder/CEO of Intel. The insider account of the Manhattan Project by its legendary leader. In the search I came across Boyd. Sources of Power, Klein. With Bismarck you can follow the twists and turns of a true (and monstrous) genius in great detail and learn an extraordinary amount about how politics, government, war and diplomacy truly work. (Also note that the oversight for Groves was a group of just four who met with no secretariat and no formal records.) Functions and Graphs, Gelfand and Glagoleva. This shows the critical meta-lesson again: those in power have no interest in high performance. Dominic Cummings's Odyssean reading list might make you smarter. One of the most critical lessons? Also cf. You and your research, Hamming. A great textbook by the worlds leading scholar on the subject. (I knew Mark, a professor at Cambridge, who spent a huge amount of time over the past decade helping state school pupils get hold of great physics material via Isaac Physics. This excellent short book introduces quantum mechanics using A Level maths. Thames Valley Police have confirmed that her corpse was discovered on Friday, April 21, just before midnight. Two of the most important documents on the computer revolution by two of the critical figures in ARPA/PARC. Interesting on the psychology of selling and marketing. Yudkowskys Sequences, the core document of the rationalist movement. Someone should run a prize for the best 10,000 word essay summarising the fundamental lessons of this book (which I havent read in full, just skimmed, because of time not a judgement). Sign in A classic book on mathematical problem solving. If interested in how a government could take seriously, , follow these debates. I searched for explanations. Keynes essay on Newton is great: He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than10,000years ago Why do I call him a magician? . A big problem for UK political discussion is people focus obsessively on the immediate interest of the London media rather than trying to think about whats really important. summarising responses to this. Cummings was his most senior adviser his de facto chief of staff and the architect of the Tories' 2019 landslide victory in the general election. Although Nietzsche despised nothing more than the radical left, he became extremely influential on it, perhaps because nobody else so thoroughly demolishes the foundations of liberal democracy, although, in a further twist, few of the left realise the extent to which they are influenced by him. Thoughts on past and future of the Buffett system, Charlie Munger. (NB. Want to Get Smarter? Read Something on This List , Adam Smith. Like all the best political advice you dont need to be clever to understand it. A classic book on calculus / analysis designed for undergraduates. Nobel-winner, Feynman sparring partner, co-founder of Santa Fe Institute, wrote a book on complex systems for the general reader. (I used this to argue for checklists and transparency over the repeated failures of social services with child abuse when in the Department for Education 2011-14. , Terence Tao. ): how much was the effectiveness bound up with the dangerousness the failure of alignment and/or the inherent drive of high intelligence to escape constraints/control/alignment with others goals? A history of ARPA-IPTO and Xerox PARC: how the internet and PC revolution was created. He opted out of the traditional science funding system early. With Bismarck you can follow the twists and turns of a true (and monstrous) genius in great detail and learn an extraordinary amount about how politics, government, war and diplomacy truly work.
dominic cummings reading list