Ask HN: Reccomend essays to a young, inquiring mind | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Reccomend essays to a young, inquiring mind

15 pointsBeanblabber15 comments

I am looking to expand my views and knowledge and want to know what essays YC recommends. As well as learn different essay styles of individual writers.

Varying views on the same subject, or similar views on different subjects. Anything is welcome.

Just looking for knowledge.

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Politics and The English Language by George Orwell.

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/decline/orwell1.htm

"Computing Machinery and Intelligence", A.M. Turing, 1950. This is where the Turing Test comes from. Technically a journal paper, but reads more like an essay.

If you're into computers at all, this is a must read. Alan Turing not only gave us modern computer science, he also kicked off the field of Artificial Intelligence with this groundbreaking paper. He opens it with the question "Can machines think?", and then proceeds to examine it from every conceivable angle. Not only does he predict strong AI, but Turing also provides methods of development and a robust framework for testing it.

This paper's massively important, but it's also a pretty good read. It's about 20 pages long, written in reasonably accessible style, and requires no serious mathematical background. Turing was an amazingly clear thinker, and that really comes through. There's also a lot of sly humor embedded in there. If you're looking for brain candy, this one's a gem.

There's a copy at http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges is a must read. Especially ``The South'' at the end of the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones

Mandatory upvote for Borges, the three versions of Judas is also quite interesting.

The Apology by Plato talks of the trial of Socrates and the Phaedo of his subsequent death:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html

I really like Douglas Hofstadter.

Metamagical Themas is a good collection of his essays.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamagical_Themas

As We May Think, Vannevar Bush, July 1945. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think

"As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare."

The Computers of Tomorrow, Martin Greenberger, May 1964. http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/greenbf...

"By achieving reliability along with capability, computers have won broad commercial acceptance. But what of the future? What can we expect as computers enter their third decade? Some conservatives have been predicting a deceleration of computer growth for at least five years now. Is there a plateau just over the horizon?

"Not if a recent turn in computer research is as significant as many of us believe it to be. General economic and political conditions permitting, this work will nourish a new wave of computer expansion. Computing services and establishments will begin to spread throughout every sector of American life, reaching into homes, offices, classrooms, laboratories, factories, and businesses of all kinds."

An essay about essays: http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html

Clay Shirky "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable"... the invention of the internet has destroyed the cultural standard bearer's authority (NYT, MSM, etc) just like the invention of the printing press destroyed the Catholic Church's authority. It is impossible to say how it will play out because no one knows what institutions will form to replace the old institutions, i.e., we are in the early stages of the greatest social/cultural revolution in the history of western civ. Most people don't seem to grasp the import of Shirky's theme, they think its about the death of the newspapers.

Ayn Rand... many, many articles but three favorites of mine are "Egalitarianism and Inflation" and "Art and Moral Treason" and "The Anatomy of Compromise".

Try Asimov's nonfiction works. He has a number of decent essay collections, if you can find them.

Seems odd to suggest Paul Graham's essays on Paul Graham's site but his essays are worth reading.

http://paulgraham.com/articles.html

Both inspiring:

Doug Engelbart's 1962 "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework"

http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/engelbart/62_paper_top.ht...

Herbert Simon's "The Sciences of the Artificial"

http://www.amazon.com/Sciences-Artificial-Herbert-Simon/dp/0...

Francis Bacon - Of Studies. Then read Samuel Johnson essay of the same name.

Edit: haha - wanted to flick you a link and discover about.com says more or less the same thing: http://grammar.about.com/od/60essays/a/studiesessay.htm

The Use of Knowledge in Society by Friedrich Hayek

http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

http://ycombinator.com/lib.html

Most anything from Noam Chomsky should be good.

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