What a rat. Recommends his own book over two others. This is exactly what is wrong with University textbook selection. They're often just picking their friends, or someone who picked their textbook. Crooked and corrupt.
0: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-t...
Edit: I have not read this book or any others in the domain, just wanted to add some context I did not already see in this thread.
I mean, if I thought someone had written a better book on a subject than I could, I doubt I'd bother writing the book!
Or, if better books existed after they wrote theirs, why would they bother mentioning theirs at all?
If you write your own textbook, you had better be prepared to explain why your book is better than other books on the same subject.
The real value of it, at least for me, is inspiration. I read a small chapter (which is often just a page or half) and think how it relates to my actual situation. This gives me some food for thought, and very often for action, for a couple of days. Then I go back to the book, read the next piece, and so on. I sometimes disagree with the author, but it's a positive experience overall.
> "I'm the author, so feel free to discount appropriately."
The process of consolidating all the recommendations into a list didn't leave room to say that sort of thing, though.
It’s like the process of a journalist writing a book on a topic they have only the vaguest idea about, there’s a lot of reading and at some stage hopefully some understanding slips in. Except Josh has a business degree and worked at Procter & Gamble so he actually knew what he was on about before he started writing.
My professor for Political Science recommended his own book.
He also donated all of the money he would have made on it for our class into the general fund for the students. Which meant that he lost money because not everybody in the class bought the book.
Textbooks are a racket. Especially the "rental" model which effectively admits that the textbook has zero utility beyond the class.
However, the professors are neither the cause nor gaining the profits from that racket. The act of writing a textbook takes so much time and effort, that it really isn't profitable for the vast majority of professors.
I mean this in general, this example here where an author is promoting his own book without hiding his name is borderline. Says more about the site's reliability than the author's honesty to me.
The Personal MBA is also great, but I do agree that it's poor form for Josh to recommend his own book.
It's just business. Every business does it. Get used to it. Have an iPhone are forced to buy things from the App Store? Crooked and corrupt...? Bought a Tesla and cant use it for independent ride sharing? Crooked and corrupt? It's just business.
> It's just business. Every business does it. Get used to it.
No, that's how you get endemic corruption, which eventually leads to things like people dying from deliberately tainted food and shoddy medicine.
Widespread intolerance of corruption and scams eventually builds a trustworthy environment that's better for everyone.
Sometimes "business" must bow down to things like ethics, otherwise it tends towards corruption and exploitation.
Hocking your own book in a list of the "best textbooks on every subject" is definitely a kind of corruption. It may get you some sales but it abuses the list and any trust placed in it. Recommendations like that should be made without such conflicts of interest.
Also, repeating "it's just business" a bunch of times isn't a very good argument in favor of anything, it's nearly totally free of any content.
That's if you get caught. On paper I completely agree with you, but in reality I think you'll find many many many businesses and industry that skirt ethically and moral behavior to cement their bottom line.
I keep repeating its just business because it is, ultimately everything comes down to money especially in business. Is it inappropriate to charge people a higher price for an airline ticket because they browse your website with a macbook? It happens. What about amazon raising the price for an item because you've browsed it several times in the past already? Recommending your own book because you believe in its contents but also helps to put a roof over your head? It's all just business.
> That's if you get caught. On paper I completely agree with you, but in reality I think you'll find many many many businesses and industry that skirt ethically and moral behavior to cement their bottom line.
No, businesses, and the people who they're composed of, must bow down to things like ethics, even when they wouldn't get "caught" behaving unethically.
> I keep repeating its just business because it is, ultimately everything comes down to money especially in business.
That's a morally bankrupt sentiment. Don't hold up a descriptive model of sociopathic behavior as a normative model of social behavior.
Simple models can be intellectually compelling, but neither correct nor complete. Simple economic theories, especially not the ones laymen read, do not represent the bedrock principles of society or human behavior. There's much they leave out and more that's orthogonal to them.
Do you use Uber, Apple, Github or Amazon? Because if you do you are accepting these principals as just being part of business and it comes down to money. Most CEOs and/or founders exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior and it's clearly accepted (evidenced by the support seen in HN discussions). Yes simple models can be neither 100% or complete but do show a general trend. Move fast and break things, easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, all is fair in love andwar (and business). Im not saying its right, Im saying Im not surprised and expect this behavior from most companies and also expect some sort of insane justification when caught.
Not that tired pseudoargument again. "Don't you exist in the imperfect world? Therefore you must be OK with its deficiencies." With few exceptions, the inhabitants of Earth are unable to conjure bubbles perfectly isolated from contact with any of the world's imperfections. That doesn't mean we're unjustified or hypocritical for criticizing those flaws or using our limited influence to try to smooth out those we can.
Also, there's that misleading blurring between the normative, circumstantial, and explanatory again.
> Most CEOs and/or founders exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior and it's clearly accepted (evidenced by the support seen in HN discussions).
It's really odd how adamant you are that we should accept corrupt or sociopathic behavior as normal, and how resistant you are to criticism of it or calls for its curtailment.
> Move fast and break things, easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, all is fair in love andwar (and business).
For the most part, those are shitty ideas used to justify shitty actions.
>> The textbook industry is well known for its shady practices that go beyond "just doing business."
> Most industries have practices that can be considered shady. It's not unique to the text book industry is my point.
Ah, the famous "I claim everyone's doing it without proof, so it's OK" argument.
Being OK, and something happening all the time are different arguments. Im just saying it happens everywhere, not OK but also unavoidable.
You're saying such behavior should be accepted and left without comment, because you claim "everyone's doing it." At best, that's and argument for apathy that rejects the idea that progress is possible.
What are you trying to accomplish by saying stuff like this? The subject of your sentence is "corruption and shady behavior." It's false that corruption and shady behavior are "accepted everyday by people everywhere now" without extraordinary evidence that you fail to provide.
That is, unless when you say "accepted" you mean "endured," and you just chose your words poorly.
Even in your further explanations of your repeated use of the phrase, you continue to say things like "it's not corrupt, it's just business". That makes no sense. Something can be both. These are not the same thing. Business is not always corrupt, and corruption isn't always "just business"
A view that "much of business is corrupt" may be true but there is no nuance in your (confusing) statements.
Come again?