Beyond Religion - Came out after the Dalai Lama spoke at the MIT (Oct. 14, 2012) with special guest James Taylor. The topic "Beyond Religion: Ethics, Values, and Wellbeing". He made the comment that he was not pleased with the title of the book and it was the work of his publisher. His point is summarized by a friend's notes: Saying "beyond" implied that it was better than religion or that religion was now inferior but it was more about being broader than religion - about having human values. I got that those were love, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.
He said that affection and compassion are not religious factors. They are biological values because we want to help others so that we have happier months and days. He said there is a secular ethics that does not have to be the negative of religion. Secular means respecting all religious and non-believers (he used Indian usage of secular as the example of that). He talked about how the French and Bolshevik revolutions were about going against religion as an institution that was very powerful and was too aligned with the elite ruling class that supported them. This corruption, cheating others, hypocrisy, pretension was against basic human values of sisterhood and brotherhood and that's what those revolutions were about. The key was that we all value compassion and human affection. This was what is broader than religion - human biological and social values. He went on to talk about the social values around having happy lives and ensuring our own survival because we need help and are "entirely" dependent on our community."
Officer Collier - "He loved us, and we loved him"
Article: Data as the New Currency - directed to this by William Eggers after he spoke at Sloan regarding his new book, "The Solution Revolution"
The Three Rules - another Deloitte speaker on campus. This time, the message was about three rules for exceptional preformance based on statistically "exxceptional" performance. The rules: