February nonfiction: Stealing Fire

I finished one nonfiction book so far in February. I have a couple more in pile for February, but one is my minimum requirement for 19 for 2019.

I chose Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal.

There are no official book notes because there is nothing I wanted to remember about this book.  I hated this book.

I bought it last year or so after hearing these guys on a podcast. It must have been a really fascinating podcast to get me to spend my money on this. It was bugging me that I hadn't read it yet, so I put it on my list, which was basically the purpose of the 19 for 2019 resolution.

The book is basically about what normal people call flow state, but more like an extreme version of flow state they call ecstasis.

They begin with a very interesting chapter about the SEALs and how their most critical requirement is the ability to achieve hive mind or group think or whatever you want to call it. And how this (mostly, so far) has been nearly impossible to screen for (which they then disprove in later chapter, ref: AI Ellie). I liked that they did not take one second even explaining what hive mind or group think is. Although I must say, if I had never experienced it myself (exactly one time that I can remember) I might have been skeptical right from chapter one.

They also go on to state right away that this ecstasis is also historically achieved through religious experience, psychedelic drugs, meditation, extreme sports, and dancing. I liked that they included "dancing" (they don't define it further) because my mind meld experience happened at a ballroom dance. They did also separately reference playing music and listening to music as anecdotal sources of ecstasis. I don't recall if they actually referred to any studies confirming this, I suppose because that would make it too "normal", as we see in the later chapters. I can personally confirm the "playing music" source, as something else I witnessed once. Though I wasn't part of it, I did once see a large group (30+) of strangers playing drums together in an impromptu jam, and it was really something to be seen and heard. No one was speaking, and they sounded amazing.

The following chapters reference a huge amount of research, books, etc on technology that is not available to us, drugs that are illegal, neurobiology, church, state, etc. I thought at some point they would describe a "try this at home" scenario that actually applies to home-schooling mothers who also have 3 other jobs. But the closest thing comes on page 137: But for the rest (of) us? Those with lives and wives and things that matter? Are we shut out of these "alternate universes"? Do we have to make an impossible choice between dedicating decades to practice or accepting intolerable risks to get there faster? 

And then sadly, they go on to answer their own question by suggesting that we book an appointment at iFly.

That's it. That's the answer. Book an appointment at iFly.

They don't actually go back and revisit their own statements about music (playing it or listening to it), dancing, meditation, even seeing a movie.

The research and "facts" are fraught with confirmation bias, and every page is dripping with Burning Man elitism. They actually acknowledge this in the last section of the book which must have been required by their editor or publisher, which is sort of a brief apology that their book has the tone that it does.  Unfortunately you have to read all the way to the end to even get this half-hearted apology.

I'm not really sure who the intended audience is for this book. If not Silicon Valley, who is already aware of the tech/neurobiology described, then who? I would assume it would be for more of the layperson like myself. However, it's not really cool to make a big show of showing us behind the curtain, when all that's back there is stuff that still doesn't apply to us. And for experienced biohackers, there's actually nothing in the book that I didn't already know. It is a good list of resources for further research, but if you're already in this field of study, you wouldn't be starting with this book. Perhaps this is meant to be recruiting type of book for someone just starting to study, someone at least 20 years younger than myself.