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1. My opinion of #ColumbusDay changed when I read the first chapter of Zinn's The People's History of America. It's just devastating. The book has its problems but just that one chapter is enough to raise dozens of good questions for any reader.
2. The natural next thing to read, even if you don't like Zinn, is Lies My Teacher Told Me. It's shorter, more direct and each page is a "holy shit" of recognizing how much you took for granted from teachers when you were a child.

amazon.com/dp/B0041OT8EK/…
3. It's true history has many perspectives - but basic historiography explains this can be made transparent. To teach readers/students to ask more questions. What is History? By Carr is a great short and smart book about the traps of reading history. amazon.com/What-History-E…
4. History is always uphill as people prefer stories that make them feel good to hard truths. It's human nature.

The people most inspired by a story are the least interested in challenging it.

And it's rampant in the business and tech worlds too:

scottberkun.com/2013/truths-my…
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More from @berkun see all

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Scott Berkun
@berkun
1. The architecture world has this term *starchitecture* - meaning a focus on an individual as a lone genius creator - to the exclusion of reality.

#Design and most fields have the same problem. It's in our romanticized history of what creativity means. And how stories work.
2. Our brains really like stories - and simple stories are easy to learn, remember and share. Hero myths (insert fav. Campbell reference here) work because our brains like them...

...but not necessarily because the (creative) world works the way these stories tell us it does.
3. Shows like Netflix's Abstract (Art of Design) focus on individuals - why? it's a "better" story. We can focus on ONE person and ONE point of view. All of the good things about whatever gets made we can attribute to a singular identity.

This is much simpler than the reality..
Read 10 tweets
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Scott Berkun
@berkun
16 years ago I quit a perfectly nice tech management career to try and become a writer and speaker.

1000+ blog posts, 100s of talks and 7 books later I'm still here - thanks to all who have followed along, helped me pay the bills and encouraged me along the way. #grateful
This personal essay from 2005, when my first book was published explains how I felt about quitting then:

scottberkun.com/essays/41-why-…
An embarrassing side story: the day of my exit interview for @Microsoft, which I was well prepared for with fdbk, I showed up to the HR building and was told... they'd forgotten about me! The person scheduled to do it quit the prior week and I fell through the cracks :)
Read 4 tweets
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Scott Berkun
@berkun
A *parti* or *parti pris* is the central idea or concept of a design. Often represented by a simple sketch or drawing.

(Source: 101 things I learned in architecture school, Frederick. Image source at link).

#design #designmtw mgerwingarch.com/m-gerwing/2011…
From the architecture books I've been reading, the #ux world is underread: likely because "it's not tech" which dodges fundamental similarities - architects design things that require engineers.

There's a 2000+ year history we can learn from. I'll keep sharing salient gems.
"An architect knows something about everything, an engineer knows everything about one thing." - Frederick (101 things)

Which is reminiscent of all the unicorn / t-shape / specialist vs. generalist discussions that often happen in the #ux world.
Read 6 tweets

Related threads

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Stu Cvrk
@STUinSD
Thread: Why Don’t Americans Know about Russian Spying in the US over the Years?

1. It’s a puzzling question, especially given the Democrat and legacy media focus on Russia for the past couple of years.
2. One would think that every aspect of Russian perfidy in the US would have been examined by our intrepid legacy media, right? Well, of course that didn’t happen, or we would have seen a lot of articles about past Russian spying in the US, among other things.
3. Yet, Americans are pretty much ignorant of past Russian spying although many learned part of the Rosenberg story – although not the spying part! This article explains why:

<quote>
Read 47 tweets
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Eugene
@e_earns
Going to read “The Right Side of History”. This will be some mixture of enlightening, been there done that, and hate-read dunkathon. Let’s see.

No idea what Shapiro’s background is outside trolling libs, but I maybe he’s sort of Straussian? The ‘Jerusalem plus Athens’ thing.
So the thesis is ‘things have never been better, but we’re fucking it up now.’ Pinker + angst.
‘We’ in the book is Americans, natch.
Read 249 tweets
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Ayman Hossam Fadel
@aymanfadel
I sometimes feel @georgialibs don't get enough high quality, academic press #history & #sociology books. Using the GA Pines automated system, people who are members of participating libraries can get a number of very good books which have recently come to my attention.
"The oldest living things in the world" by Rachel Sussman gapines.org/eg/opac/record…. This photo essay book is a beautiful, mind-expanding paean to our biosphere. (I realize this is a #science #ecology book)
"Talking to my daughter about the economy, or, how capitalism works-- and how it fails" by Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis gapines.org/eg/opac/record…
Read 23 tweets
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#PoorPeoplesCampaign
@billyjoecain
At dinner, I learned more about corruption + racism built into society by our masters. A book we discussed (Zinn) was used as part of this "Left" resource's bibliography. I had to share. [A thread]

@BlackSocialists - thoughts on this resource?

historyisaweapon.com/indextrue.html
It very simply lays out the case that we are all being controlled. It covers hidden history of the United States including their (and, due to the systems created by our masters, our) racism. 

#racism #systemicracism #history
If you haven't been in school for a while (or are in a terrible school), some of the words might trip you up. Dictionary.com and Wikipedia.org are two good resources to help you.
Read 39 tweets
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Millennial Macro
@MillennialMacro
#demographics #militaries #economies #currencies
#USA
- Best demographics
- Largest military
- Largest economy
- Most used currency
- Liquid financial markets
- Open capital account
- Rule of law
- Best geography
- Can be self sufficient if required
- Not trade dependent
#USA
Top trade partners as of 30 June 2018:
- China: 15.2% (strategic competitor)
- Canada: 15.1%
- Mexico: 14.6%
- Japan: 5.1%
- Germany: 4.4%

The next 10 years could result in the below:
- Mexico (25%)
- Canada (20%
- Japan (7%)
- South Korea (5%)
- Great Britain (4%)
#USA
Bring the manufacturing (jobs) home while negatively impacting China's economy.
forbes.com/sites/kenrapoz…
cebglobal.com/talentdaily/au…
irishtimes.com/business/econo…
Read 338 tweets
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Zach Everson
@Z_Everson
Trump Hotels' website still lists Trump SoHo New York among its properties in the Our Hotels menu. Select its name though to access its page and there's a message about it being renamed

bit.ly/2EPCSy1
National politics correspondent for Newsweek, Nina Burleigh, with a fun find on a TV above the bar at the Trump Hotel DC bit.ly/2E37QRR
Two errors in the 2nd graf of Breitbart's Trump Hotel DC article:
-holdings aren't out of @realDonaldTrump's hands: trust isn't blind & he can profit from it
-Trump Org told Congress it was estimating foreign receipts—not auto donating in full
bit.ly/2CpL7z2
Read 1562 tweets

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