Korea: The Impossible Country

Korea: The Impossible Country by Daniel Tudor

There are surprisingly few histories of South Korea in English. Most of those that do exist focus on the Korean war of North Korea. South Korea meanwhile has grown from almost nothing to be a significant economic power. Korea has been occupied by various other powers, with Japan and China both exerting influence. Japan was in the process of wiping out Korean language and culture, and may have wiped out "Korea" had it won World War II. In the Korean war, Korea was a proxy in the West vs. Communism cold war. At the end of the cold war, the country was torn apart and extremely poor. South Korea successfully used import substitution and built up a significant economy. Seoul became a great city. The tight knit, hard working Korean culture has helped to build up the economy. The big conglomerates such as Samsung have been able to compete on the global market. They would often copy, but do things better. Today, Korean media is another popular export. There are still challenges. Korea has a high suicide rate. People work and study for long hours. The outcomes may be good, but other places have achieved similar outcomes with significantly less effort.  The book is a good introduction to Korea and their history from ancient times to today.

The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens

The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens by Philip Ball

This book takes a long balanced exploration of the mind, sentience and freewill. What does separate humans from other animals? Do we have freewill? What does the mind do? Where does artificial intelligence fit into this? There are more questions than answers. For AI, it does seem that it is great at analyzing patterns and making logical responses, but this does still seem a far cry from the true intelligence. It also requires vastly greater computing power. Can we really attempt to have a single measure for intelligence? Computer are great at solving certain types of problems. Different animals are great at computing what they need to compute. Bees have a jiggle dance that shows others where to go, birds fly, animals identify prey. They all have intelligence optimized for their purpose. They all process the environment in different ways, with differing sensitivities to smell, colors and more. We have a tendency to try to anthropomorphize, but we can learn a lot from others. As for freewill? As far as human interaction is concerned, it doesn't really matter, the law will still need to act the same. It will also be difficult to come to a definitive conclusion. Similarly with extraterrestrials. Are we a backwater not worth exploring? Or perhaps we are so different that we don't realize we have been in contact. There is likely more diversity in minds than we can comprehend.