“The value of another’s experience is to give us hope, not to tell us how or whether to proceed.” - Peter Block (through Woody Zuill in the beginning of his talk on “Mob Programming”)
NOTE: Many of my readings here are what Mortimer Adler calls Inspectional Reading . You cannot expect me to have already mastered all the materials presented in the books listed below. I will have to reread them (or even apply them consistently in my life or at work) to master them. 
“Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design” by Scott Millett with Nick Tune
“Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis
One of the greatest books ever written! You have to read this book!
If you are a Christian, you will be reminded of what you believe.
If you are not a Christian, this book will help you understand what Christianity is all about, and what Christians believe.
“Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt
A recommended reading in a satirical article from Babylon Bee.
… the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
… when we study the effects of various proposals, not merely on special groups in the short run, but on all groups in the long run, the conclusions we arrive at usually correspond with those of unsophisticated common sense.
Related materials are “I, Pencil” and “It’s a Wonderful Loaf”
(not book) Some videos on Spiritual Beings in the Bible
Frank Turek’s interview with Michael Heiser: “EP33: The Unseen Realm w/ Dr. Michael Heiser” (recommended by an officemate):
Summary:
Why is the world in such a mess?
It’s the fall
But if you asked that question to an Israelite who had a bible in a second temple period, intertestamental period Jew, that’s not the answer you would get. The answer is… there are 3 reasons why the world just went haywire… why we have supernatural entities that are hostile to their creator.
- The fall - gives a death problem
- he is called the god of this world not because he is bigger or better than the true God but because everything dies, he owns it
- You have another rebellion - you have the sons of God of Genesis 6
- We’ve been taught since the 4th century AD that there is nothing supernatural going on here, even though all of the ancients took it the same way, that the sons of God were divine beings… they have this cohabitation language with women, they produced the Nephilims which become lethal enemies to the Israelites.
- The third rebellion - what happens at Babel
- Deuteronomy 32:8-9
Psalm 82 - the lesser gods are being judged
There are no demon possessions in the OT but when Jesus came they all showed up… where does that all come from?
Why does Paul hardly use the word demon ever but instead he uses principalities, powers, rulers… - Because of Deuteronomy 32
Not every power of darkness is a demon
Not every member of the heavenly host is an angel. Angel is a job description.
The Gentiles that Paul is talking to had the Deuteronomy 32 worldview in their head. Plato said exactly the same thing hundreds of years BC
At Babel God disinherited the nations and assigned these lesser elohims, these lesser gods, to these other nations, and then at Pentecost (which in this year is May 31, Sunday) God reinherits the nations and this is why all is so interested in going to the other nations because…
“Spiritual Beings” series from Bible Project:
“Forward Tilt: An Almanac for Personal Growth” by Isaac Morehouse with Hannah Frankman
A book written by one of my heroes, Isaac Morehouse, the founder of Praxis
You are not late.
Don’t pressure yourself to accomplish X by Y time. Don’t compare what you’ve done to the accomplishments of others at Z age. None of that matters.
Focus instead on becoming a better version of yourself every day…
(not book) The Deadly Isms, Seasons 1 & 2 by Matt Kibbe
(1:50)
“The more men know, the smaller the percentage that any single man can know.” - Friedrich Hayek
This is a common mistake made by socialists and other advocates of central planning: They think that as society evolves and humans learn more it becomes easier to centralize that knowledge and use it to plan institutions. In fact, the opposite is true. While a central planner might have been able to grasp most of what was known a thousand years ago, no one today could ever hope to come close.
(11:45)
… the guy who invented Wikipedia, the pioneer, was Jimmy Wales. He got the idea from reading F.A. Hayek who saw and spent his life to this difficult, almost mysterious, sometimes even magical, observation that order comes about through liberty and not through imposition. That was his theme. And it’s a hard thing to learn: that the more you let go, the better things work.
(12:00)
… top down control fails because those at the top can never have enough knowledge to coordinate the activities of millions of people, not even with all the supercomputers in the world. And even when they try, the results have been some of the worst cases of human suffering in history. The only other option is to let people plan their own lives as long as they don’t hurt people or take their stuff. Trust that these individual plans will come together into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, and that none of us knows as much as all of us.
etc.
