Cameron Boyd | Public figure

Cameron Boyd

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23.01.2022 Isolation getting to you? Then get some new books. Always makes me feel better.

12.01.2022 "Dr Space Junk Vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future" by Alice Gorman (April 2019) It is great to see more books on Australian space activities and especially a different perspective to the normal military-industrial complex views. What I loved about this book was the way Alice wove her own personal history into the discussion of a variety of key issues relevant to Australian space activities today and into the future.... As with all my favourite books, this has a detailed reference section for further reading and an index. ... And it smells good! I have met Alice at space conferences over the years and I have always loved that she stands out from the crowd. She is an historian, an archaeologist, among the engineers, entrepreneurs, and fan-peeps. The book just adds more to the conversations we have had and the conversations we should have (could have) had over the years. I have been in discussions with young aerospace engineers or defence professionals as Alice (Dr. Gorman) tries to explain the cultural significance of various space artefacts. The easiest one to explain and justify is the Moon landing locations, but it gets harder to try to justify making a heritage orbit for a specific spacecraft of historical importance. This book takes the time to articulate these arguments and the cultural importance of thinking about future controls to protect our space history. I've also been out to places like Woomera's LA6 and seen the marker on the WRESAT launch site (launched 29 November 1967, making Australia the 3rd country to build and launch its own satellite after Russia and the USA). I've also seen the damage these locations have suffered through years of neglect. It is important to protect these sites, not just for Australian history, but also for humanities history. I highly recommend reading this book. It is a good story and it is awesome to see both international and Australian space history from Alice's unique perspective. I hope this perspective is strengthened into the future to protect our history for future generations.

11.01.2022 "The Edge of Reality: A Progress Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" by J. Allen Hyneck and Jacques Vallee (December 1975) I was both impressed and disappointed by this book. I was impressed by the very real intent to apply scientific principles to the study of the phenomena that has been tagged as UFO. ... I was disappointed by the attempt to link the phenomena attributed to paranormal and the over use (in my opinion) of hypnosis as evidence. That being said, after watching Project Blue Book recently and already being familiar with Condon and Blue Book reports, it was interesting to see the attempt to apply some scientific analysis to data gathered. This was especially true for some of the trends, environmental factors, and witness demographics that were plotted based on a sanitised (perhaps cleaned is a better word) case set. Looking forward 45 years, I wonder how much further this sort of research has come. Is there a follow up of this sort of analysis with an extra 45 years of data, or has it all slipped into paranormal "research"... thinking Bill Murray in Ghostbusters here. I suspect if I looked there might be some very serious scientific methods being applied to paranormal phenomena, too. All in all, it was an interesting read with the traditional set of camp fire stories.

08.01.2022 "War! What Is It Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots" by Ian Morris. (April 2014) This book has had the most impact on me of any other book in many years. I would absolutely recommend it. For me, it opened my eyes to the larger journey of violence as a civilisation. The book takes us on an historical journey of war over 15000 years from the brutality of Stone Age combat with a 1-in-5 chance of a violent death to the wars of the 20th Cen...tury (including Hiroshima, the Holocaust and 2 World Wars) with a 1-in-100 chance of violent death. Morris argues that war has generated more robust governments that have managed to control internal violence to greater and greater degrees. He is not a war monger, however, and uses this analysis to show a path from war, despite the great risks of 21st Century warfare. As with all my favourite books, it has copious notes and nearly 50 pages of bibliography for further reading, which I will be mining for further books to read on the subject, including Thomas Hobbes "Leviathan" which I have never read but subsequently acquired. In summary, although I have been very much anti-war, this book has shown me empirical evidence to support the value of warfare across our history to build safer governments. This doesn't change my desire to stop war, but it puts it into a better framework to understand it from an increasing spiral of civilisational growth from chaos. It is important to understand something if you intend to change it radically and our generation or the next has a great opportunity to build safer and more robust governments without passing through the human meat grinder of war. Let's take advantage of this opportunity.

04.01.2022 "The Middle East: 2000 Years Of History From The Rise Of Christianity to the Present Day" by Bernard Lewis (1996) This book was a detailed analysis of the history of this region over the last 2000 years, but the 1996 edition misses out on the chaos of the last 20+ years. I find it is useful to read history and analysis of this region prior to 1991, and especially American analysis before 2001. Much of it after this time is coloured. Although it discusses Islam, the book tries...Continue reading

02.01.2022 Looking for some hopeful books? Try these.