The Watchman's Rattle: Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction

by Rebecca D. Costa

Why can't we solve our problems anymore? Why do threats such as the Gulf oil spill, worldwide recession, terrorism, and global warming suddenly seem unstoppable? Are there limits to the kinds of problems humans can solve?

Rebecca Costa confronts--and offers a solution to--these questions in her highly anticipated and game-changing book, The Watchman's Rattle.

Costa pulls headlines from today's news to demonstrate how accelerating complexity quickly outpaces that rate at which the human brain can develop new capabilities. With compelling evidenced based on research in the rise and fall of Mayan, Khmer, and Roman empires, Costa shows how the tendency to find a quick solution leads to frightening long-term consequence: Society's ability to solve its most challenging, intractable problems becomes gridlocked, progress slows, and collapse ensues.

A provocative new voice in the tradition of thought leaders Thomas Friedman, Jared Diamond and Malcolm Gladwell, Costa reveals how we can reverse the downward spiral. Part history, part social science, part biology, The Watchman's Rattle is sure to provoke, engage, and incite change.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Psychology, Sociology, Society, Philosophy, Politics

347 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2009

About the author

Rebecca D. Costa is an American sociobiologist and futurist. She is the preeminent global expert on the subject of “fast adaptation” and recipient of the prestigious Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Award. Her career spans four decades of working with founders, key executives and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Costa’s first book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, was an international bestseller. Her follow‐on book, titled On the Verge was introduced in 2017 to critical acclaim, shooting to the top of Amazon’s #1 New Business Releases. Costa’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, SF Chronicle, The Guardian, and other leading publications. For more information visit www.rebeccacosta.com

Reviews

[David Rubenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca Costa is a sociobiologist, and she clearly follows in the footsteps of the founder of the field, Edward O. Wilson, who wrote the forward to this book. In the first chapter, Costa mentions a wonderful quote by Wilson,

"The real problem of humanity is the following: We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology."

Costa advances a hypothesis for the reason that civilizations fail; as a society grows, life and the structure of the society grows in complexity. Humans have evolved brains that are capable of handling complexity, but there is a limit to this ability. At some point, the problems of the society surpass the capability of the inhabitants to solve them, and the civilization starts to unravel.

In five chapters, Costa describes each of five "supermemes" that are responsible for a society's downfall. The first is Irrational Opposition. It is so easy to "be against" something, without really having a practical substitute in mind. I personally see this everywhere, every day in the news. People stage protests against some policy without a real alternative in mind. The protesters have not thought out the issue very well.

The second supermeme is the personalization of blame. If something goes wrong in a society, there is a strong desire to pin the blame on an individual, or a small group of people. Costa calls this "Accountability run amuck". Usually, in a complicated situation, responsibility for a problem cannot be put on a single person or small number of people--usually it is a systemic problem. The bankruptcy of the automobile industry, the failure of AIG, the problem of Al Qaeda, depletion of natural resources, and obesity are all examples of the personalization of blame.

The third supermeme is counterfeit correlation. This is our quick jumping to conclusions, based on correlations that do not necessarily imply causation. These correlations substitute beliefs for legitimate scientific facts. As an absurd example, Costa mentions that the rise in the number of people owning handguns is correlated with the increase of global warming. Therefore, one might conclude that owning handguns causes global warming. Another example that has been in the news lately, is the supposed correlation between vaccines and autism. Costa lists many such correlations that have taken on a life of their own.

The fourth supermeme is silo thinking. This is the natural tendency for organizations to form impenetrable divisions, departments, academic disciplines, and religious sects. This encourages compartmentalized thinking, and "behaviors that prohibit the collaboration needed to address highly complex problems." Instead of helping to solve problems, silo thinking causes unnecessary competition, secrecy, and divisiveness. There are plenty of examples of this sort of behavior, for example the culture of non-collaboration between the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Homeland Security, or, NASA and the Department of Energy.

The fifth supermeme is extreme economics. This results when companies base their success on simplistic metrics, like the financial "bottom line", or profit/loss in the last quarter. We have mixed feelings about extreme economics. A little bit is good, but too much is bad.

After presenting these supermemes, which Costa claims are responsible for much of society's ills, she advances some interesting ideas for correcting them. She shows how short-term mitigations often mask an underlying problem, and can even prevent a long-term, lasting solution from being implemented. For example, energy conservation can help defer an energy shortage--but it cannot solve the problem forever. The Mayans suffered from water shortages, but instead of implementing long-term strategies, they implemented short-term mitigations, like sacrificing children to their gods, in the belief that this would help.

In fact, Costa shows again and again, how supplanting beliefs with true, scientific understanding can go very far in fixing problems. In the last few chapters, she suggests ways to improve brain function, so as to help improve our understanding of complex situations. Unfortunately, these last chapters start to remind me of self-help books, the very thing that Costa excoriates in an earlier chapter.

Costa has weaved together a very broad synthesis from a wide range of concepts. The entire book is fascinating; the framework of the supermemes is a useful structure for understanding some of the root problems of our society, and why they are so difficult to solve. I highly recommend this book.

[Paul Guthrie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, not actually "read" in it's entirety...I made it to page 45 before I threw it against the wall. This is not a serious book, it is an infomercial. Lots of emotionally freighted statements with little to back them up, and Ms. Costa frankly does not know whereof she writes in a number of instances. I'm not even sure she understands how evolution works; has she read "The Beak of the Finch?"

Let's take the example that made me throw the book. She asserts that US energy policy is aimed at increasing the use of failed-technology sodium-cooled breeder reactors. Really? Why has that not appeared in the scientific literature which I read every day? Then she goes on to say that in the book "Superfreakonomics" the authors, Dubner and Levitt,(labeled "experts")propose a supposedly simple scheme to combat global warming by injecting sulfur into the atmosphere to "shade the earth." This I do know something about. Dubner and Levitt are economists. They did not make this proposal, somebody else did, and real physicists and climatologists are pretty skeptical about it. Experts?

Costa appears to be in the grip of exactly the malady she describes: she thinks she sees an explanation for something and abandons rationality in its pursuit, in favor of blind belief. She might be right in her thesis, but you can't tell from her book.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for Costa's book and, although those hopes were disappointed, I think the book is worth reading. She proposes that the collapses of civilizations are due to the complexity of the problems facing peoples who lack the information and problem-solving skills necessary to overcome them. She attributes the disparity between the complexity of our problems and our abilities to solve them to the slow pace of biological evolution, which cannot keep pace with the speed of cultural change. Her proposals to resolve the disparity include recognizing erroneous patterns of thinking (including substituting beliefs for facts), simplifying our lives, and developing our mental abilities to solve problems through insight. While her recommendations may be sound for individuals, there are some major problems with applying them to civilizations. The number of people who would have to change their lifestyles and adopt radically new Weltanschauungen in order to affect the course of an entire civilization would be enormous. Unless there were a clear and present danger or unless a small group of enlightened individuals had absolute authority to make the necessary changes, no civilization would interrupt business as usual, even with a Cassandra trying to direct traffic at every intersection. Most troubling of all is that Costa seems to have a very rudimentary understanding of biological evolution, and she does not seem able to comprehend that cultural changes (including technological innovations) have made humans exceptional in the natural order. Technological innovations in agriculture and medicine have shielded us from the operation of natural selection except in the most extreme circumstances. Although we, as individuals, have the ability to increase the capabilities of our brains to process complex information and arrive at creative solutions through mental exercises, physical activity, and proper nutrition, we cannot accelerate human evolution by such techniques. I think she is right that civilizations fail because they are unable to solve complex problems. She has pointed out a number of pitfalls that we face when we encounter complex conditions beyond our abilities to comprehend. She has, unfortunately, failed to convince me that we can think our way out of the handbasket in which we find ourselves or that we can change our destination through developing our capacity for insight.

[Maria Dobos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un studiu destul de interesant, nu atat prin prisma raspunsurilor oferite cat prin cea a intrebarilor pe care le ridica.
Pornind de la premisa ca, in momentul de fata, capacitatea de adaptare a creierului uman nu poate face fata vitezei cu care evolueaza tehnologia, prima parte a cartii analizeaza ascensiunea si prabusirea catorva din marile civilizatii ale lumii (mayasii, romanii si imperiul Kmer), aratand ca declinul acestora a fost cauzat in mare parte de incapacitatea de a gestiona progresul realizat si complexitatea mediului in care traiau.
Pe scurt, iata cateva idei interesante:
- Lenta evolutie biologica a omului nu poate tine pasul cu avantul tehnologiei, nu mai stim de ce sau cum se intampla anumite lucruri, pur si simplu le acceptam ca atare; informatiile sunt transmise de la generatie la generatie ca bagaj cognitiv fara a fi analizate;
- Conceptul de "prag cognitiv";
- Cand oamenii ating un anumit prag cognitiv, locul ratiunii este luat de cele mai multe ori de credinta, ignorand solutiile logice si alegand sa se increada in niste forte superioare care vor remedia situatia[exemplul civilizatiei mayase];
- Transmiterea problemelor de la generatie la generatie si accentuarea acestora;
- Notiunea de "supermema"; supermemele care guverneaza civilizatia actuala: opozitia nejustificata, personalizarea vinei, axarea pe economie, gandirea pe sertare si corelatiile fortate;
- Evolutia continua - modalitati prin care ne putem imbunatati capacitatile cognitive si intuitia pentru a face fata complexitatii unui mediu in continua schimbare.
Unele premise ale argumentarii mi s-au parut oarecum fortate - cum ar fi lipsa responsabilitatii individuale, asa zisele probleme de "sistem" (ce este SISTEMUL?) dar si accentul excesiv pe latura biologica, instinctuala a fiintei umane.
Asadar, trecand peste limbajul colocvial si argumentarea uneori deficitara, studiul Rebeccai D. Costa atinge o arie vasta a provocarilor economice, sociale si ecologice cu care ne confruntam in prezent, constituind un punct de plecare pentru oricine interesat sa patrunda dincolo de aparentele lumii in care traim.

[Naftoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca Costa offers a plethora of new insights regarding the gridlock in our culture and the role that evolution plays in our brains' inability to understand the complexity of modern society. She offers a number of solutions and, better yet, ways that we can improve our brains for the purpose of arriving at new solutions to pressing problems. If you are interested in the survival of our species, this is the book for you!

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, I couldn't make it halfway with this one without quitting it to save my sanity.

The profound lack of nuanced thought is jaw-dropping. As one example, the author unironically supports geoengineering because it's "evidence-based". The evidence she cites is the existence of the last Ice Age. This level of crude, teenager-esque thinking is prevalent throughout the text. Her hat-tip to the idea of painting roads and roofs white to reflect back more sunlight, with zero discussion about the amount of oil-based paint that would require, nevermind the upkeep in doing so to keep the roads white(???), is bizarre and could practically be considered satirical.

These examples are not alone. The author jumps from point to point successively without the required level of nuance to be taken seriously. All the pieces of her arguments are used to build on each other to make her points, without ever really proving them in the first place.

I read a handful of chapters and will not be completing this book. Absolutely 0 stars, if I could rate it in the negative, with oil-based white paint, I would.

[Emma Sea]

e book avail in auckland library

[E. C. Koch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a lot more impactful on me the first time I read it in 2010, though Costa's argument - that civilizations fail when they face cognitive thresholds which are insurmountable due to humanity's biological (evolutionary) limits which thresholds humanity tries to deal with by over-relying on supermemes (Lyotardian grand narratives) to contend with the mounting complexity represented by these same thresholds - remains very interesting. She details the five supermemes - irrational opposition, the personalization of blame, counterfeit correlation, silo thinking, and extreme economics - she considers common to all societies that come up against their cognitive thresholds and elaborates on how each leads to destructive singularities. It's no surprise, of course, that the reader discovers that America faces the same problems as the Mayans, Romans, and Khmer when their respective thriving empires stopped thriving. The solution? Overcome the singular thinking imposed by supermemes. This is best done via insight-thinking which Costa believes is the next evolutionary leap to come in homo sapiens' evolution (which insight happens for us occasionally today, but not on command). This insight can be aided by certain activities - exercise, a healthy diet, brain-training activities, etc. - which are outlined in the final third of the book (which third really slows the whole thing down). Why am I not as convinced seven years on? Costa, for my taste, over-privileges the lessons she's learned though her experience in Silicon Valley (she doesn't say anything as egregious as "all problems can be solved with business acumen" (in fact she takes a few moments to point out the problems that that kind of thinking leads to) but does use venture capital as an example for how to employ parallel mitigations when facing complexity and then also Donald Trump wrote an endorsement quote for the jacket) and one of the things I think this occludes is her ability to concede that neo-liberal capitalism partly composes and partly drives the extreme economics supermeme. (I feel like she comes close to writing that capitalism is the problem in need of solving in chapter eight, but backs off.) Too, I'm not getting any discussion of how art/lit. fits into her theorization of complex societies and how art/lit. serves as a means of competing with social problems and supermemes. So, I guess, in the end I want the book to be more aesthetic and less material (which isn't fair to the book, but is, nonetheless, what I want) but is also, all the same, well worth reading.

[Dan Schiff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rebecca Costa has written An Important Book. How do I know it's Important? Her editor says so in a note at the beginning. Apparently, it was too Important to thoroughly edit, as The Watchman's Rattle contains many typos, inconsistencies, repetitions and just plain clumsy writing. And perhaps worst of all, Costa doesn't trust us to get what's Important, so she constantly italicizes entire paragraphs, just so we get the point.

For what it's worth, Costa is right in her main argument, that life has become overly complex for our still-primitive brains and social organizations to handle. This is hampering our ability as a nation and as a civilization to solve economic and ecological problems, which themselves are exceedingly complex. Costa does provide something of a "solution," and it has something to do with deploying all possible solutions to a problem at once (which she calls, superfluously, "incremental parallelism"). It also involves treating our brains better via cognitive exercise and brain foods, so we can have more moments of insight and cut through the complexity.

Unfortunately, Costa neglects to mention that we're all invested in the complexity around us. Jobs and areas of study have become more specific over the years because the population has grown exponentially and the only way to employee everyone is to create smaller and smaller niches of specialization. I personally try to simplify my life as much as possible, but if everyone were to do that, the global economy would grind to a halt. I don't blame Costa for giving her book a hopeful ending and a recipe for survival. But I do think she's being rather disingenuous in positing simple solutions to unbelievably complex problems.

[John Vibber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Costa’s range of knowledge is impressive; her thesis is provocative, but this is a book to argue with. She claims societies fail due to self-limiting patterns of thought provoked by complexity. Human evolution does not prepare us for the avalanche of change racing around us and we will need to revolutionize how we think in order to survive.

Costa supports her claims with information about failed civilizations. Her evidence is sparse and speculative, but worthy of consideration. For me, “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley has a more persuasive argument. Still, Costa’s arguments were engaging.

There is wisdom and wonder to be found in Costa’s discussion of brain function and supermemes. The latter are mental processes commonly substituted for logical thinking. In contrast, Costa’s explanations distort human evolution. Whole populations do not evolve. (It would be most unpleasant, but collapse would promote far more evolution than stasis. Evolution yields many losers and a few winners.)

With all this said, I still recommend Costa’s book. Her ideas should be considered and discussed. The problems she describes are potentially cataclysmic and she is one of the very few to offer global solutions.

[Joan Colby · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the writing is rather dry and academic, Costa’s ideas, particularly the relationship of facts to beliefs, how elementary processes control our brains which evolve more slowly than current technology and how that impacts numerous socioeconomic and biological issues, are interesting. Of particular note is the chapter on extreme economics. Her propositions are not new nor unique, yet they confirm the difficulties of humans being able to solve long-range problems.

[Patty Apostolides · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I opened the book, I learned something new. The author takes complex issues and simplifies them for the layman, which shows how deep her understanding is. We are living in a complex world with complex problems, and the author shows how we are connected to our past and how they solved their problems. The civilizations that could not solve their problems became extinct.

[Carter Jefferson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most important book I've read in years. It might help solve our current apparently insoluble problems.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about our inability to solve complex problems and how to overcome it. It gives the reader a way to understand gridlock in thinking.

[Margaret Langstaff]

OK, my finger slipped and don't know how to correct this. I HAVEN'T read this interesting book yet, but PLAN to read it soon.

[Peg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! All sorts of new ways to think about civilization, humanity, and the problems we face. Now if we could just do it!

[Chris Snook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally one of the most important books of our modern time!

[Rebecca Bracamontes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a MUST book to read, just to understand where we are standing.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be quite useful. It examines the relationship between complexity and collapse, which is something we should all give some thought to. The main focus of the book is fairly wide - civilisational collapse - but there is a method tucked in there that we could adopt for much smaller situations.

The basic thesis is that when we have a systemic problem, we cannot do with simple solutions. Further more, as complexity increases, the chances of a system wide problem increases. In many ways, this is a matter of matching the right responses to individual problems. According to the author, one of our biggest problems at the moment is that we are overwhelmed by beliefs, as opposed to facts. The facts are too complex and too difficult to understand, which means that we resort to emotional responses to any given problem. The author may have a point.

To support the argument, the author identifies five key supermemes:
1. The irrational opposition - opposing anything which we don't understand or which s new.
2. The personalisation of blame - someone has to be personally responsible for all of our ills.
3. Counterfeit correlations - associating correlation with causation and finding false correlations where none exist.
4. Silo thinking - the opposite to holistic thinking.
5. Extreme economics - seeing all issues in monetary terms or terms easily quantifiable.
These five supermemes, taken together, act to blind us. They prevent us from seeing the problem as it is and induce us to see problems as we want them to be.

The way out of this trap that the author identifies is through the application of insight. The author advocates the development of our ability to generate insight through appropriate brain training - mental exercises, well being exercises, and nutrition to feed the brain. I felt that this was where the book was a little bit thin. The author makes a good case to identify the problem, but doesn't really come up with too many practical solutions. I was left wondering what I should do, other that exercise more and eat more fruit and veg. I was left feeling that surely there has to be more to it than that?

Perhaps I was expecting too much from the book? Perhaps all I could have hoped for was to identify the problem? Perhaps I need to dig deeper into sourcing a solution? It is certainly an interesting research line that I may take up in the future. In the meantime, I would be looking for a book that not only identifies the problem but also sources some of the solutions.

[William Crosby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presents various "supermemes" (unproven hard-core beliefs which trump all reason) which inhibit dealing with problems. The solutions are already available for these problems (e.g. pollution, energy, climate change), but systematic changes must be made in our society, not mere mitigation (e.g. recycling) which often only gives a false sense of solving the problems and people stop there because they feel good about their (meager, temporary) solution.

For those who are looking for an exact list or program about what we must do, you will be disappointed because the author does not so much tell us what to do specifically, but provides research and background on how to solve the problems. This book has many good ideas and strategies.

[Bec · Rating 3 out of 5]

So basically the premise of this book is that human societies fail when we can no longer think our way out of our problems as we have never encountered these problems before so have no evolutionary tools to work with. However, we can no learn from the examples of the Romans & Mayans etc to solve our societal problems as passing them down to the next generation is signing a death warrant for our graet grand kids. But I already knew that, even if i couldn't put it in such an intelligent, rational way. I kind of felt like it was preaching to the converted, though I should've skimmed the last chapter at least. She probably would've had some genuinely workable solutions but I felt it was ground I'd covered before. I used to read a lot of environmental books. Bill Mckibberson is the best.

[Emet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great foundational intro into the the ques which lead up to the and as well as the transformations following the collapse of a society. Eloquently put together, fun and light despite being a grim reality on the pattern of self destruction humanity seems to repeat.

[Yuan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dry book did not provide many out-of-box thoughts. Brain exercise and learning new stuff sound interesting though.

[Logan Streondj · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly excellent book, lots of great little explanatory narratives to bring various points home. Very cute for the topics it covers.

I like it, worth archival certainly.

[Tanya Ehlert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the other reviews after I completed this book. I can only say that to only read the first half is to miss the point. Getting mad at reality is a useless endeavor. It took me a while to finish reading the entire thing, mostly because it was so "spot on" to current events even though it was published in 2010. I had to go a chapter at a time because the information could be overwhelming and sometimes made me frustrated. (Ex. we already have solutions that could mitigate global warming but they are not considered financially beneficial- in other words, people won't be able to become millionaires from these ideas/projects so funding will never arrive.)

Why should you read this book? Because it makes you think. Because the author offers viable options for solving our world's most difficult issues. Because choosing to stay in your safe place and not open your eyes to the problems that exist, does not make them go away.

You don't need to agree with everything she says, I didn't, yet The Watchman's Rattle provided some ideas about how we as citizens in our own countries can utilize the science that is already available and possibly reverse the course for future generations.

[R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book that my Professor recommended as some additional optional reading and I'm glad that she did. I shelved this on Goodreads through my own shelves as Science, and Zoology & Conservation. I think the connection between cognitive thresholds as Rebecca Costa calls them in this book and Climate Change is clear. Cognitive thresholds are actually one of the best explanations for societal and civilizational collapse that I've ever heard. Everything else sort of becomes the details and footnotes about the particular form that the cognitive threshold took in individual cases as it overtook the Mayans, Romans, Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, etc.

This is a book that I'd recommend for students of history, ancient civilizations, military history, conservation, climate change, and other related subjects. I think there are things of value and lessons to be learned in here for people wanting to learn more about all of those subjects and more.

[Srikanth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very important book with lot of flaws, errors & assumptions that you should read. This book will make you think for sure.

In a short, this book talks about the reason for the present global issues, complexity and problems that we face and were faced by earlier civilizations that resulted in their collapse. It analyzes the reasons with possible and probable solution.

The first 3 chapters form the crux as well as the best part of the book. It talks about the following

Complexity, civilizations & their inability to deal with it. Their slow collapse due to their inability to deal with it.
An evolutionary solution that may be the answer to all our problem. (i found this a bit too easy and escapist in the end)
The concept of super-memes. Their similarity with genes, how they evolve and capture our imagination.

A small primer on what a meme is. http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/26/446...

After the first 3 chapters, the focus goes on the to the memes or things or levers that result in our inability to solve problems or face the complex issues that we face today. E.g. global warming, terrorism & poverty

I will list out the things/memes/levers that the author talks about.

A. Irrational opposition: I would call this an old wine in a new bottle. It is the ultimate human trait to oppose any change or something new. There is an evolutionary reason to this, but still i can appreciate it.

B. The personalization of blame: Basically what this meme talks about it is how we as a society first try to shift or point fingers at others to blame, instead of trying to solve the problem. There are a few examples given. This is a point which has lot of angles to it. You can neither agree with it a 100% nor disagree with it a 100%.

C. Counterfeit correlation: again a very typical issue that we all face. If i have to put it in a simple manner, it is linking 2 very different things without logic. I smoked today hence i did well in the interview is one that comes to mind.

D. Silo thinking: Is this quite obvious and the bane of every company, relationship, intelligence agencies in the whole wide world. Infact in corporate if people could just talk half the so called management books by gurus wont be published at all.

E. Extreme economics: Not at all convincing. What this lever talks about is, how economics spoils everything. The e.g given also is pretty weird!! It talks about a lab experiment with chimps & money. How the chimps even turned to prostitution to earn money etc etc. Not at all logical.

The next few chapters talk about mitigation as well as going to the root cause of the problem. I really loved the 10th chapter, it is called as awareness and action A tactical approach. It makes a lot of sense, as it is simple and works well.

The rest of the chapters are ok, but refers to a lot of things that are bordering on the wacky to the outrageous. But this is the exact reason why this book makes you think.

what i didn't like about the book

A. Talks about brain exercises/mind gymnastics & food for brain which i am not sure about.

B. Insight by itself can't be the answer to all our problems right? What about our inhibitions, biases and hatreds? These important points have been overlooked by the author.

What i liked about the book

If you really read it patiently you will be rewarded. It really really makes you think deeply logically. It was a pleasure in the end.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a just fine book-- I've been doing a lot of end of semester grading, and if I were forced to give a grade to this, I'd give it a C.

Costa has an interesting thesis-- that the complexity of our civilization has outstripped out evolutionary ability to think smartly about that complexity. We're facing problems, she thinks, that are too complex for us to (mostly) find solutions to. It's a provocative thesis, and one that I think the book fitfully does a good job of developing, though there are limits to her answers to the question she poses.

First, she drinks the Gladwell kool aid and comes up with a catch-all, poorly defined solution, insight, and says that's the solution. She uses a certain amount of brain studies to back up what areas of the brain are involved in insight, but I'm not sure that's enough to really define insight-- or rather, enough to describe what most of us mean when we mean insight. It's not a fatal flaw-- there are interesting ideas here, and I think if she'd used some less loaded term, she'd be better off.

But I think her book really goes off the rails for five chapters in the middle when she identifies the "supermemes" that make it hard for us to have insights, the ideologies that make it hard for us to see the problems in front of us. I'm sure this is a highpoint of her lectures, but really, this is a lot of garbage and hokum-- there's really nothing evidentiary in what she talks about here, aside from anecdotes, and she herself falls prey to exactly the kind of logical fallacies (because that's what these supermemes are, for the most part) that she decries. So in the correlation is not causation section, she herself confuses the two with her arguments. More strikingly, she really leans heavily on anecdote here, with a disturbing level of breeziness (in other words, if you don't already interpret the anecdote the way she does, you'll wonder what she's getting at). And her range of references seems frightfully limited-- it's like things before 2000 never happened, and also, if it wasn't in the paper, it never happened. She's a scold, and not a very interesting one, and her venture capitalist gunslinger pose is sometimes hard to overlook.

It's also true that she never talks, or barely ever, talks about the situation elsewhere. She just doesn't seem interested in much, which maybe is a result of decisions concerning marketing, but man, she's talking about global problems and never once talks about unequal development? About other models beside two party democracy? Other mindsets that Christianity? It felt like her field of reference was really really narrow, and in a book that aims to explain as much as this one did, that was kind of a disappointment.

As far as argumentative books go, I wasn't totally bowled over by this one. It's got interesting ideas, but it's also a little too breezy for what it wants to say.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The overarching thesis of this ambitious book is that when human problems reach a certain high degree of complexity, we hit a cognitive threshold, beyond which is a closed door. Most people turn from that door and react to the problem by embracing irrational beliefs, which she refers to as Supermemes. Once the Supermeme takes hold, it becomes difficult for the society to believe otherwise and we continue to believe in it even if there is evidence to the contrary. We become susceptible to unproven ideologies and begin acquiescing to a dangerous herd mentality. The Supermeme suppresses variety in what we known, what we believe, and how we act. Costa identifies five: irrational opposition (“just say no” and unilaterally reject data, ideas, and solutions in a misguided attempt to make complexity manageable), personalization of blame (a search for the guilty, to the exclusion of examining systemic faults), counterfeit correlation (accepting correlation as a substitute for causation, reverse engineering to manipulate evidence, and relying on consensus to determine basic facts), silo thinking (compartmentalized thinking and behaviors that prohibit collaboration), and extreme economics (when economic considerations overwhelm other values and become the sole barometer of legitimacy).

Her solutions come in two main forms. One is that we should restore the balance between knowledge and beliefs, pursuing those things that would promote the greater acquisition of knowledge. The second is finding solutions by insight. She identifies insight as an objective brain function distinct from left and right brain thinking, and that derives correct solutions by some process that she fails to fully describe. Despite claiming that insight is not “weird science” or some mystical experience, her explanation is unsatisfactory to me. While I acknowledge that insight of some sort exists and is a powerful tool, I can’t accede to its authority, and Costa seems all too willing to grant it a nearly divine status, saying that insight is always correct. In a sense, she seems to hit a cognitive threshold with this concept and injects it with the full faith of belief. There are a few other areas in the book where she makes claims or observations that are deserving of skepticism. Nonetheless, the shortcomings of this book don’t distract significantly from the contributions. I found it to offer many keen observations, powerful concepts, daring intellectual explorations, and useful thinking tools. But there is nothing presented that is a universal “fix” or silver insight bullet, only better understanding of the way we humans respond to difficult problems. And that alone is a major triumph.

[Linda Tosetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professional wrestling can be exciting, even intriguing at times (especially after a few beers); such notwithstanding, I actually prefer the fine art of ikebana. Analogue: submission versus freedom; mindlessness versus mindfulness; lobotomizing versus honing. One teases; the other teases out.

The aforementioned set of comparisons applies, respectively, to literary works that shock or stroke to those that challenge and provoke. Rebecca Costa’s The Watchman’s Rattle definitely pertains to the latter category. Amidst the cacophony of dogmatic, melodramatic voices currently pervading the media, a whisper of reason does beckon the profoundest and noblest in our species, and does so for the purpose of our very continuance.

Now the play in three acts: the issue, the obstacle, and the (re)solution. The issue is, in Costa’s own words— “the gap between the uneven rate at which the human brain can evolve and the rapid pace at which we generate and discover complexity.” The obstacle consists of “supermemes”—“pervasive and embedded beliefs, thoughts, or behaviors that contaminate or suppress all other beliefs, thoughts, or behaviors”—and includes the following five (“supermemes”): “irrational opposition”; “personalization of blame”; “counterfeit correlation”; “silo thinking”; and, “extreme economics.” (For the details, please read the book; it’s well worth it!) The solution—it’s in the brain, stupid—is called insight, which fortunately can be cultivated and which needs to be developed on both an individual and collective basis to insure not only our survival but moreover our overall well-being and prosperity.

The only caveat I posit comes in the form of the following perennial philosophical question—Does insight pertain to becoming or being, or some strange combination thereof? In other words, is insight a recent discovery that must be deliberately cultivated (as Costa seems to suggest)? Or is insight a latent, fixed phenomenon inhering our species that is elicited or “discovered” at crucial stages of human evolution?

Whatever the matter, The Watchman’s Rattle constitutes a crucial reminder of our role and responsibility to shun complacency and to embrace its challenging invocation to think—not to follow, but to wander/wonder. It’s certainly not an easy task, but one with which we can, should, and must live.

The challenge is that in this harried, frenetic—not to mention complicated and complex—environment in which we dwell and move (and spoil our being)—one prefers to chill out with professional wrestling (and perhaps drink a few beers). Nevertheless, we should indeed strive to change the channel, and sooner than later. Costa certainly provides us the impetus with which to extract ourselves from the La-Z-Boy and do so.