Life Lessons from the Great Books by professor J. Rufus Fears

The Great Course, The Great Courses: Life Lessons from the Great Books,  provides historical background from some of the Greatest literature ever written.  I appreciate getting to know the background of the authors and the historical context for the literature.  The lecturer, J. Rufus Fears is a master story teller often putting these historical novels into a modern context to improve comprehension.

Professor Fears skillfully links Seneca's philosophical text with the Gospel of John.  He provides some background behind why the Gospel of John is so different than the synoptic gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke.  This gospel is written from the perspective of a Greek philosopher.  

The lessons learned from the Great Books surprised me.  Life is often tragic with people of mediocre talent and abilities often working hard to destroy others showing any unique talents or abilities.  The uplifting and destructive power of love has created beauty and havoc throughout recorded history.  History is also filled with countries and individuals balancing freedom with the need for order ( Russia vs. Western democracies).  

J. Rufus Fears - Fall of Rome - 6 min.

The Rational Animal by Douglas T, Kenrick and Vladas Griskevicius

The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter Than We Think by Douglas T. Kenrick and Vladas Griskevicius (U of MN professor)  attempts to describe the underlying evolutionary behaviors that explain why behaviors that first appear irrational have solid reasons for being part of the human and animal responses to environmental stimuli. They authors refer to a wide range of studies and offer these up with tasteful goblet of dry wit served slightly chilled.

The authors suggest that humans do not possess a single character but consist of seven fragmented sub-selves that respond to priming.  The classic marshmallow experiment that predicts future success in life can be be altered easily.  If the person offering up the marshmallows demonstrates unreliable and untrustworthy behavior, the kids will choose to not wait for the next marshmallow.

People who grow up in stable environments will often adopt long term conservative delayed gratification strategies for accumulating and retaining wealth.  See rock star Gene Simmons' book Me INC .  Individuals growing up in unstable environments live fast and burnout quickly.  Many other rock stars, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and others don't even make it to age 30. M.C Hammer went quickly from rags to riches to back again in a very short period of time.

Mating behavior can be deadly and expensive if the male to female ratio is out of balance.  The authors point to a study of credit card balances in two Georgia counties.  In the county with many more males than females, men's credit card balances were significantly higher as they spent money attempting to woo females.  The risky showing off behavior results in male death rates at 5 times those of females in Spain for those in their 20's.

In a section on parasites, the authors explain how the advertising slogan, "A diamond is forever", now successfully extracts approximately 2 month's salary from the proposing fiance.  Prior to the early 30's there was no strong tradition of exchanging diamonds. The diamond company has also penetrated the Japanese market where the exchange of diamonds had previously not been part of the wedding ritual.  

Rational Animal - 3.5 minutes

Why Do We Put Diamonds on Engagement Rings -Brain Stuff -  2.5 min.

Platform Revolution by G.G. Parker, M.W. Van Alstyne and S.P. Choudary

The Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy--And How to Make Them Work for You describes how network markets differ from traditional pipeline markets.   Markets that rely on the ability to connect customers with products often don't need heavy investment in brick and mortar infrastructure.  The Uber transportation service relies on cars provided by other individuals.  Airbnb relies on other people's homes instead of large hotels for lodging.

The authors predict that platform revolution will have a disruptive effect on higher education.  Once the certificates from Coursera or other platforms become accepted by employers as evidence of competency, the monopoly of access to higher education by gatekeepers and economic condition will be broken.  Some higher education institutions are moving into this area.  Language acquisition, traditional social science, mathematics and liberal arts degrees will be the first to transition.  I predict that research areas that require extensive laboratory work will not translate well into the platform environment.

Energy, transportation and labor markets will also be disrupted.  A society of freelancers will be built up and displace the centralized industries that are unionized.  Decentralized power generation for home owners and small businesses will increase as battery storage (Tesla and Panasonic) is centrally integrated into intermittent power generation.

I've read that Walmart will be cooperating with Uber and Lift to set up home delivery networks for groceries and other items.  Walmart will taken advantage of an existing platform system and not have to invest in the cost of transport vehicles or the cost of employees with benefit packages.  Both Target and Walmart have been laying off people as computer algorithms are replacing the knowledge base of back office workers.

The platform revolution has the potential to transform consumers into producers.  Readers of Amazon Kindles can now be authors without having to go through the publishing world where gatekeepers make bets on which books will be popular.  J.K Rowling has a long list of rejection letters as proof that the current crop of publishing gatekeepers is far from infallible.

Platform Revolution - Geoffrey Parker - 52 min.

Data Driven Business - Sangeet Paul Choudary - 61 min.

Nutrition Made Clear by Roberta H. Blanding

The 36 half hour lecture series Nutrition Made Clear by Professor Roberta H. Anding provides a comprehensive understanding of the current state of knowledge on nutrition for a lay person.  Professor Anding is a registered clinical dietician focusing on pediatric and sports nutrition in the state of Texas.

She emphasizes eating whole foods over specific nutritional supplements.  There is more nutrition in foods than simply the vitamins and minerals listed. Supplements are not well regulated with respect to purity.  There may be an ingredient that is not on the label or the concentration of the supplement may not be accurate.  She recommends eating foods with a wide variety of colors.  They do not need to be exotic or expensive fruits.  She does urge caution about the consumption of grapefruit as a chemical in the fruit alters the effectiveness of a significant percentage of prescription drugs.

Her guidance on weight loss was very helpful.  You can increase the total daily requirement for calories by increasing you bodies lean muscle mass.  She recommends a combination of 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity per day with twice a week strength training to optimize health benefits.
 

School lunch safety - 3 min.

What are supplements - 1 min.

ME, Inc. by Gene Simmons

The book, Me, Inc.: Build an Army of One, Unleash Your Inner Rock God, Win in Life and Business by Gene Simmons offers a brief biography of his early life.  It describes how his early life circumstances contributed to his growth as an entrepreneur.

Through out his life he has made specific decisions to change who he is to be successful in business.  When he arrived in America from Israel he spoke no English.  Because of his poor grasp of English he was asked, "What are you stupid?" He used this information as motivation to become fluent in English learning perfect diction from television newscasters.  He was a voracious reader and spent as much time as he could in the local library nearly completing the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

He learned how to type and used this to pay for part of his education in college as he typed papers for other students.  He worked for Vogue magazine and as a teacher.  For most of the jobs and businesses he has worked in his experience level when he started was zero. 

He suggest it is fine to celebrate your culture at home but to be successful in business you need to dress, speak and act in ways that model other successful people.  He changed his Jewish name to Gene Simmons for that reason.  He did not want his name to be an impediment to his success.

He recommends seting up many different businesses.  He describes this as many different boats (busineses) loosely attached to one another.  If one of the boats sinks it is not a problem as the others are not affected.

He advocates conservative money management keeping costs low when starting out a business keeping spending well within your means.  He does not advocate drinking, smoking or drug abuse.

The book contains practical information for someone wanting to create their own persona and embrace the spirit of an entrepreneur.

 

Me Inc with Wendy Williams - 12 minutes

  

Me Inc - summary -  1 minutes

Gulp by Mary Roach

The book,Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, by Mary Roach focuses what we eat and why we eat it. She takes us to a pet food taste testing lab where the pet's social interactions are factored into their ability to select pet food.  Chemicals such as putrescine and cadaverine in the right proportion attract dogs to food manufactured to be palatable and nutritious.

She explores the question: "Why do people in America not like organ meats?"  The organ meats have much more nutritional value than the commonly ingested muscle meats.  As a teenager, I gave a demonstration on the nutritional benefits of liver.  Aside from the elevated cholesterol and the toxic levels of vitamin A - if you eat polar bear liver - it is very healthy.

The final chapter of her book is devoted to the terminal end of the digestive tract including a long section devoted to the death of Elvis Presley.  Mary also highlights the fecal transplant research conducted at the University of Minnesota to effectively treat Clostridium difficile infections.  Patients who have lost their normal intestinal microflora usually due to heavy antibiotic treatment are often colonized by Clostridium difficile.  They suffer from chronic diarrhea with thousands of fatalities annually.   The research is now expanding to treat metabolic syndrome and improve tolerance to insulin in diabetics.
 

Saliva collection and other topics - 5 min. 

Brief summary of Gulp - 2 min.

Mayo Clinic C.difficile treatment - 5 min.

A Bridge to the Future - Understanding Nanotechnology - Deborah Gibbs Sauder

The lecture, Understanding nanotechnology a bridge to the future by Professor Deborah G. Sauder provides an introduction to the broad field of nanotechnology.  The content is geared toward non scientists and she explains many of the concepts by anchoring the description to common everyday objects.

Nanotechnology is currently being used to for packaging material keep food fresh longer allowing ethylene and other food spoilage gases to leak out and increase the shelf life of food.  Medical researchers are using it for the delivery of medicines and possibly in the design of nano machines to do nano surgery. 

Liquid armor - 10 minutes

Mixing polyethylene glycol with silica nano particles produces an non-Newtonian fluid that is flexible when moving slowly but firm like a ceramic solid when force is applied.  Combining this with Kevlar produces a flexible relatively lightweight material that is resistant penetration by sharp objects.  Applications include protective vests for law enforcement and protective gloves for hospital and sanitation workers. Commercially a product known as D-30 is also being used for this purpose and to protect cell phones.

Red dye corn starch plus water produces a non-Newtonian fluid.  4 min. Slow Mo Guys