It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end. Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time.
The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and it was wonderful to hear his ideas in writing for the first time.
The book is available to read for free online (https://antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/wisdom-of...).
I wish everyone read or watched Alan Watts lectures and books. The world would be a much nicer place if that was the case.
My favorite quote is by him:
‘We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.’
I mean, come on, the devil himself vs the communist party of Russia, sprinkled with loads of humour. What else do you need?
If anyone doesn't have the time or attention span to commit to a full-blown book, The Joyous Cosmology [0] and Become What You Are [1] present some of Watt's ideas in a more condensed format. The former is a ~30 page essay freely available online. The latter is a collection of ~15 very short essays (1-12pg each) - a perfect replacement for smartphone scrolling when confronted with 5-10 minutes of free time.
https://holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content...
https://www.amazon.com/Become-What-You-Alan-Watts/dp/1570629...
Parties would become a lot more insufferable.
wonderful in comic form! :D
Another book similar in spirit and quality to M&M is "Danilov, the violist" by Vladimir Orlov.
But you can recover a lot of understanding even without speaking the language with a bit of work. By say trying to get a feel for what Moscow might be like in the 1920. Political persecution and censorship are major themes. Even things like psychiatric hospitals are important because they were often used as an alternative torture and imprisonment system. Writers are poets were also important. That was before TV, radio was just getting started so writers were sort of like the Youtube celebrities of the day. And controlling what they say, do, and act was critical. In other words things that might seems kind of "meh" or odd carry significance and knowing about it might make it for a richer interpretation and a more interesting read.
Everytime I read it I gain more insights. I absolutely recommend reading this book alongside a readers guide which gives more background and depth, there are many biblical, historical, and author-related references that won't be understood otherwise. The author's own life is massively relevent to the events of the novel. I recommend this guide:
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Critical-Companion-A...
The latter argued that, contrary to a common notion, Woland is emphatically not the Devil. I did not get far in trying to understand it, but this and the similarly non-understandable commentary really took away some fun out of reading the book, because I constantly felt I was too stupid to get it.
Reading commentary is good, but maybe on a way lower level than literature professors trying to make a name.
No idea whether Fagott has some linguistic extravagance in the original, but it works really well on this Master of Ceremonies.
Another book that changed allot about how I look at the world is "The long tail" by Chris Anderson. Maybe too thin of a concept for a whole book, but definitely interesting.
I really liked the book, but mostly because I thought it was funny and had great plot. I fear I missed all the deep wisdom.
(This is Pontius Pilate's response to Yeshua.) To me this is about staying silent when you see evil being committed. But it doesn't even have to be 'Evil with a big E', it's just about speaking up when you see something that doesn't sit right with your morality.
The other big takeaway for me was about how Margarita threw away all the rules of society to save the Master (her beloved). But she did it for more than just his sake, I think; she certainly took her liberation from society's expectations of women.
I think the first example is just some innocent banter of a couple characters from long ago, who had a very naive understanding of the world because they couldn't begin to comprehend its true complexity.
I think the second example is something any cool person would have done, because witches are awesome.
IMHO envy, fanaticism, cruelty also cause more harm than cowardice.
Absence of cowardice (also known as self-preservation) will severely limit what people allow to do to them. This includes limiting all the things that you listed as worse than cowardice.
On the other hand, lack of fear will empower ideologies that employ suicide bombers.
Also it will make nuclear wars much less unthinkable.
In MoM the all 3 main characters have real prototypes. Master is Author (Bulgakov), Margarita is Author's wife Elena, Woland is Stalin. Bulgakov was under assault of Soviet regime, he wanted to emigrate, but Stalin kept him in country. He was in constant fear of being detained for anti-soviet propaganda. Her wife which he loved a lot was forced to became secret informer, she reported periodically to officials against him. Bulgakov knew that, and this theme also in book. This moment is so tragic and central, because her wife was editor of the book. MoM is about exceptional courage of Bulgakov, his personal response to Staling, his sole main reader. At that time, just comparing Stalin to Statan was enough to be executed.
I highly recommend this course to understand better MoM https://arzamas.academy/courses/39 unfortunately it's in Russian.
It was the first time I realized books could be dangerous, subversive, and truly educational as well as simply informative or entertaining.
That is to say, I very rarely find anyone who will agree that the book is anti-capitalist at teh same time that it's opposed to Stalinism.
I see the book continually taken happily anti-communist text. But the text is certainly not _just_ about the Soviet system under Stalin.
Over the years, the big impact of Orwell to me has been how readily people can look at systems that they consider to be Other than their own and critique them while eagerly ignoring the implications for their own situation. That is, everyone here thinks the sheep are dumb, but at least they went through a period of time where they tried to replace the farmer with a different pig... where I live in Texas, all the sheep just think they are the farmer.
I took it as more an anti-authoritarian story than purely anti-capitalist or anti-communist. The anti-capitalist parts are fairly self-evident, at least to me: that's the rather brutal system the farmer has imposed on the animals at the start.
Booting the farmer out and starting again with the animal-owned collective sets the story up for the real message, which is that power corrupts and it is very easy for anyone attracted to power to co-opt legitimate grievance for their own ends. The return of the farmer brings a nice circularity to the story as well as giving the idea that the imposition of will on others is usually to their detriment. Capitalism or communism are basically indistinguishable to everyone existing without power or influence.
* they bore the brunt of Mongol invasion which utterly wiped the aristocracy at the time and set back the countries development by generations and depopulating the land. Luckily, the Mongols stopped there and didn't move further west, saving the populace of Western Europe
* Without warmwater ports, Russia lacked the capacity to participate in maritime trade that bolstered the economy of Western Europe
* Brutal and absolute monarchical rule suppressed any kind of representative government; Serfdom (essentially, slavery) was abolished only in the late 19th century
* Once it got its act together and started Industrializing in good stead... now comes the Crimean War, depleting morale, resources and will of the people
* Oh... was that not bad enough? World War 1, which strains the country so bad, that Germans successfully foment unrest and ultimately Revolution. The Revolution itself ends up being the best strategic decision by the Germans, and the Communist Government signs a treaty essentially ceding large parts of the country to the Central Powers
* But wait! That didn't mean the end of troubles for Russians, and they endure a prolonged Civil War fought not just on the Western theater, but also on their Eastern provinces. Red and White Russians fight each other constantly, appropriate resources from the peasants by force.
* The Country has barely recovered from all of this, Stalin comes to power. The madman purges experienced officers and intelligentsia leading to a very ineffective State and Military; he signs a pact leading to (temporary) peace as they know they can't fight the Germans
* Whoops, nope, the Germans invade anyways, reach as far as Moscow. Millions of Russians perish. St. Petersburg is besieged in one of the most destructive sieges ever, period
* At the end of the war, Russia has lost millions of its population, resulting in a demographic catastrophe that will affect it forever
* Once again, Stalin foolishly throws away a chance for friendship, and instead of working in good faith, we end up in the Cold War. The Soviet Union makes tremendous progress, but is no match for the economic and military might that comes with the vast (and now booming) population of the West. The Soviet Union was _offered_ aid as part of the Marshall Plan, and could have possibly used it for kickstarting their economy and supercharging economic growth but no
* Despite having a highly educated workforce, Soviets fail to capitalize on it, instead becoming the same repressive state they replaced. They fail to take advantage of the technological improvements and ultimately fall far behind
* the final kick: right after the fall of Soviet Union, when the people finally hope to be free and pursue and obtain the benefits of modernity, they're hit by an economic and social collapse. Again, the result is depopulation; crimes are high, lives are wasted by alcohol and tobacco.
And this is just the highlights. So... I do feel bad for the Russian people.
I myself have seen only brief mentions of this, and thus far couldn't find a definite source detailing this mess.
Though as years go by, I hate this snow mush more and more. With a passion.
"here, 40k prisoners of war. 300,000 soldiers here. 500,000 POWs. Here, 1.2 million soldiers. Another 120k POWs." on and on and on. The scale of it is just unthinkable.
1941: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu3p7dxrhl8
> they bore the brunt of Mongol invasion which utterly wiped the aristocracy at the time and set back the countries development by generations and depopulating the land. Luckily, the Mongols stopped there and didn't move further west, saving the populace of Western Europe
It's actual Russia (now called Rus` or Kievan Rus` in modern history), then Little Russia, now Ukraine.
> Without warmwater ports, Russia lacked the capacity to participate in maritime trade that bolstered the economy of Western Europe
It's bunch of various nations, then Great Russia, when part of them was captured by Russia, then Grand Duchy of Moscow, then Russian Empire (since 1860), now Russian Federation.
Time span | Historical name | Modern name | Language then and now
?? - V | Russia (Русся) | «Old Russa» town | Old Norwegian, not exists
VII-XII | Russia (Русь) | Kievan Rus`, Ukraine | Slavonic, Ukrainian
XVII- pt | Russia (Россия) | Russian Empire, Russian Federation | Many, Russian (modernized Church Slavonic)>Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what is his origin, education, profession. These questions should determine his fate. This is the essence of the Red Terror.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices
Shockingly less blue than you might hope.
Just "overthrow the current leaders and then (??? magic happens here ???) and then we get a better society" doesn't work. You end up where you started or worse because usually the ideas haven't changed.
Intellectual revolutions must precede political ones.
This is why I'm kind of a dull boring centrist politically. I dont support any major attempt to rock the boat because there has been no intellectual improvements that might guide such a thing.
The US “Revolution” was a regional separatist movement led by the local elites and local governments that did not upend the basic local social, economic, or political power structure save for severing the latter from a remote central government (and the resulting new central system was replaced with something more closely approximating, and deliberately modeled on, the old one very shortly after the Revolution in the face of widespread perception of imminent failure otherwise.)
In other words, it mostly wasn't revolutionary and in the one way that it was it mostly failed.
They have grievances with the existing systems, reason to believe those in power won't address those grievances, and reason to believe replacing those in power with people more sympathetic to their grievances will address them.
Also, there has been a boatload of revolutionary thought about how to make a better society over the last century or so. There are clear ways that our system is imperfect and clear ideas of how it could be improved. I'm not sure why you claim there are no "intellectual improvements" over the status quo.
So they are doing exactly the same as those in power, which is taking care of themselves.
Those are mostly not exceptions; successfully uprooting an existing power structure takes more than good ideas and solid values, and replacing it with something that will stably sustain itself both during the revolutionary emergency and afterwards without either falling apart or enabling a power hungry would be despot to exploit it to create an authoritarian regime takes far more than that.
Yes, in any period of turmoil sociopaths will attempt to abuse all and every lever of power.
But over the centuries we have made a lot of progress.
Humanity needs to get _much_ better at how we organize ourselves and decide things and grant authority to others.
Now, arguably "Emmanuel Goldstein" in 1984 is meant to be a kind of Trotsky figure (and his book within 1984), and the fact that Goldstein and his book are ultimately shown to be fake and created by the Party may be a kind of critique or renunciation of Trotskyism and similar currents. Hard to say.
"Capitalism is terrible" is a pretty constant meme on the left in US politics right now, perpetuated by many people who have read that book.
>where I live in Texas, all the sheep just think they are the farmer.
Ah the classic "people that don't vote to tax the rich for entitlements think they are rich". If your model of how people vote depends on people being completely stupid, it's wrong.
I suppose all book interpretation eventually shows the ideology of the reader. It doesn't even have to respect the presumed intention of Orwell who, from what I know, never expressed any support for veganism or actual animal rights.
But really it's such a pivotal moment in modern history that you're not going to starve for material. It sounds glib, but in this instance you could do worse than start on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution
I'm not an historian or anything of that kind but I'm really interested about the Russian Revolution and I spent quite a few hours on finding the best books about it. My knowledge about those books mainly comes from r/askhistorians (highly recommended!) and academic journals such as the American Historical Review and the Slavic Review. I saw a few other people recommending Miéville's October and even Reed's Ten Days. Now, I'm not claiming those books are bad in any way (I own Reed's) but if you're interested in an historical analysis those are probably not your best shot. Miéville is a sci-fi author who describes himself as a socialist, so he is not trained as an historian and, at the same time, he's definitely simpathetic to the Revolution. Reed's book was written during the Revolution and is a great book if you look at it as a primary source, but it's definitely a partial one. If you're interested in a book of history, then I would recommend you either Fitzpatrick's "The Russian Revolution", which is a short (about 200 pages) book from one of the great pioneers of the revisionist school in soviet historiography. For a more recent (and longer) book I would take a look at S.A. Smith's "Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928". I want to make it clear: Miéville's and Reed's books are great, but one should approach them knowing the context. It's similar to another great book (highly recommended!) by Orwell: Homage to Catalonia. It's similar to Reed's Ten Days, but I would not recommend it as an history book. Hopefully, those recommendations should be enough, but if you have other questions feel free to ask. For a quick look about Soviet historiography, here is a _great_ article by Sheila Fitzpatrick (the author of one of the books I recommended above) reviewing 5 books that came out in 2017: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n07/sheila-fitzpatrick/whats-left
Once you know the context, you can appreciate more books like Reed's and Mièville too.
Happy reading!
Unfortunately not available in electronic form, but well worth the trouble of paper.
I picked up A People's Tragedy after reading Figes's book on the Crimean War - do you happen to know if that book is similarly criticized? In other words, should I put a mental asterisk just next to A People's Tragedy, or next to everything by Figes?
That book is not exactly autobiographical. But she does draw very heavily on her own personal experiences to draw that time and place as accurately as she could. For example the purge that ended Kira's university education was not made up, and indeed would have ended Ayn Rand's career if she had been one year younger.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_BetrayedLuckily if you're in Australia, you can read this book for free because it is public domain there.
[1] https://bubblin.io/cover/animal-farm-by-george-orwell (iPad-book)
You have to only look at the management hierarchy in your company. Pigs in the Animal Farm novel eat apples.
We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.
Why do you think your bosses get business travel, no limit credit cards, RSU, big bonuses and neat double digit monthly pay check.
It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.
Sorry, but i dont believe this is an accurate analogy. The reason is that otherwise they might leave for another opportunity. No-one is telling workers what the pigs are saying in AF.
He fought for socialism and he stayed a socialist - but he became a enemy of Stalinism.
The brotherhood and spirit of the socialist militia he was in, he praised as real and something he never experienced before or after.
My interpretation was that he was always anti-authority, but his experiences led him to believe that an authoritian figure will always try to grab power and it doesn't matter what `side` they say they are for, power is their aim.
True he liked the spirit of his socialist militia but by the end I think he felt its spirit had been crushed and abused by others.
Also perhaps 'Watership Down'.
* The Dictator’s Handbook. One simple axiom - leaders do what is necessary to stay in power. Using that idea they explain the basis of all political systems, whether autocracy or democracy or somewhere in between. I didn’t really understand politics before I read this. CGPGrey has a video where he summarises the book. [1]
* (Only for Indians) India After Gandhi. You can’t really understand your country if you don’t know it’s history. History stopped in 1947 according to our history books, and most people are blissfully unaware of what came after. They don’t know how close India came to losing democracy or how easily it could happen again. They don’t understand the dangers of promoting one language at the expense of others because they don’t know that it’s been tried before. Every Indian needs to know so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past over and over.
Nevertheless, Guha is truly an amazing historian and all of his books deserve to be read!
Would it have been a bad thing? Well, China is doing swimmingly well. And please don't give the oh-India-is-very-diverse argument. Those who claim China is not diverse, doesn't know China.
Democracy was not something that originated out of India. It got shoved upon and lapped up by the very white-washed freedom-fighting leadership back in the day. No other alternative has/was ever been considered ["A political system with Indian characteristics"]. Also, for a country with a very high illiteracy rate, I never figured out how democracy actually works.
>>They don’t understand the dangers of promoting one language at the expense of others because they don’t know that it’s been tried before.
So let's just promote English and ensure there will always be animosity and division amongst the intellectuals (since by definition, they'd already know English) and the rest who only speak a "regional vernacular". The thing that has shocked me most on my interactions with the Indian English-speaking (elite) is on how unoriginal they are. I could have well been speaking with a Brooklyn hipster and wouldn't have been able to tell the difference (other than the appearance and context). Well with none of their "regional vernaculars" being developed and growing up on just a diet of American and British books and (liberal) ideas, can't quite blame them.
ps: I do a lot of business travel to India. Let's just put it that I have a love-hate affair with the country.
On the flip side, I think most of the modern generation has a better understanding of what needs to be done and where our priorities should be but it's gonna be a long time before those in power go away for good. But it might be too late by then, and I'm afraid we'll be stuck in this cycle.
While his admission concerns mostly the theory of priming, the problem is not specific but a methodological error. In my view all his research should be looked at with suspicion and with a view to have his experiments replicated independently sooner rather than later. This has been a problem throughout social psychology and other branches of science, so nothing specific to Kahneman, he's just the best known. Which brings up the next thought, which is I always look at information from the epistemic point of view: where does this knowledge come from: rational thought, experiment, experience, faith? I just notice, without judgement, how eager some of the posters here are to accept a theory or a philosophy even when it has already been debunked, or the evidence is flimsy, or maybe it's formulated in ways that are not even "debunkable". And there is a pragmatic view that if it feels right and it helps, why not.
The book was recommended to me as being mainly about bias, with the state of the world as examples, but this was wrong – the book is mainly about the state of the world, and it gives a few basic biases I already knew about as examples. The state of humanity all over the globe is not something I care about as much – I can’t personally affect it and it won’t affect my personal life – and the book never explicitly justified its assumption that it is important for people to know.
I did appreciate one thing: the book’s description of exactly what system is supposed to replace the “developing”/“developed” dichotomy. I was told as a child that it was obsolete, but never what was supposed to replace it. The book proposes categorizing countries within a distribution of four income levels in which most countries fall in level three. The author never justified his choice of four levels, nor his choice of boundaries between the levels, but I am willing to believe based on the graphs that at least this model is more useful than the older two-level dichotomy.
However, the rest of the book was pretty boring. I didn’t fall in the category of “people who think the world is getting worse” that the introduction assumed I fell into, so the next few chapters that kept insisting that the world was getting better were redundant and boring for me. The other chapters all seem the same and I don’t think I’ll learn anything useful from them.
I can guess that Bill Gates recommended this book because it is written for people like him – rich philanthropists who are wondering how best to use their power to make a difference in the world. Most people do not fall in this category.
Not so much for the tidying part (though I did find that extremely helpful), but the whole idea of only keeping things in your life that "spark joy" (not an exact translation by the way - "spark excitement" or "spark meaning" are other ways I like to think about it) has had a profound impact on me.
I realized there were lots of things in my life (much more than just physical objects) that I had just sort of accumulated without thinking about what I really like or if something was good for me. I found the benefit of "practicing" this concept without mundane household objects allowed me to have a stronger sense of what I really enjoy in the more important aspects of my life.
"Only keep it if it sparks joy"? Yeah, just burn the house down, I'm fine.
I had bookshelves full of books I never read, architecture books, art books, children's books, clothing I never wore, toys and figures I didn't play with, stuffed animals, framed posters, and entire household of stuff.
5 years later I miss some of that stuff. For lack of a better word I think it was part of my identity. Of course not all of it but lots of little things, even if I didn't use them they served as anchors for memories. Even if the only anchor was when I bought them that would remind me of other things that happened around the time I acquired the item etc..
I'm still mixed on if it was the right thing to do.
That's not the Marie Kondo thingy. Ms. Kondo's recipe is that you go through your stuff category at a time (books, shirts etc) and per each item figure out if that thing "brings you joy" or not.
My wife was into it. We went through our stuff and ended discarding lots of crap. So, it's rather "go through all of your stuff once in a while and throw all crap away" than "ultra minimalism at all cost".
From her I learned that all items have a home. I had heard such an idea before, but her explanation made it stick. Now I don't lose keys or gloves or ear muffs, they all have a home in my house. It's not ideal placement, I often end up backtracking a bit, but I think the idea isn't to wring efficiency out of every decision, but to just know and accept, and that feels ok when you're around joyful things.
It never gets old. There is no real reason to sell one because each instrument is almost childlike in some incorporeal manner.
I ended up purchasing more things, but just being more tidy.
I also went looking for an audiobook version. Looks like Downpour has it DRM free: https://www.downpour.com/economics-in-one-lesson
Part of it is probably just the historical context - monetary systems in the modern economy are very different than the gold-standard, fixed exchange rate kind of environment the book was written in, for example, which changes a lot of how things operate. But even then I think it still would have suffered from the fallacy of composition, where you can’t start from a description of interaction between two people and just scale it up - the emergent behaviour is almost always surprisingly different.
With regards to Austrian economics, as far as I remember, the school is not even mentioned in Hazlitt's book, but you are right that he was heavily influenced by it. But the book and its propositions stand on their own, I think.
> Among the theoretical contributions of the early years of the Austrian School are the subjective theory of value, marginalism in price theory and the formulation of the economic calculation problem, each of which has become an accepted part of mainstream economics.
Hayek was considered partly Austrian and he got the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974, well after this book was written. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek)
The core lesson of the book is fantastic:
> The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.
This is not fringe at all.
What for example, do you think of Subjective Theory of Value or the Theory of Marginal Utility, which were developed by the father of the Austrian School, Carl Menger, in the latter part of the 19th century? Or the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, for which Friedrich Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974?
Economics is a value free science, at least how Austrians practice it, but happens to show that government intervention is usually harmful. For example, Keynesians believe that the business cycle is an inherent failure of markets with no known cause and that government must intervene heavily to correct such errors. By contrast, the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle takes nearly the opposite position -- that intervention, mainly in form of credit expansion causes booms. A bust is a correction of errors made during the boom and should not itself be corrected with more easy money, starting the cycle all over again.
Now, the vast majority of working professional economists derive all or much of their income from the government in one way or another. Many work for the federal government or the Federal Reserve Bank or consult with them. Or they work in government funded universities doing research with money from government grants.
Early last century, Hoover then FDR discovered and embraced John Maynard Keynes who offered a general theory that supported heavy government intervention. The Keynesian prescription just happened to provide an intellectual basis for policies that would require government to grow much larger and more powerful. Before long government began to fund more and more professional economist jobs. And no surprise, those jobs went to Keynesians.
A few decades later Milton Friedman (not an Austrian) said, "We are all Keynesians now" -- not as an admission that the theories were correct but a concession that in practical terms it's nearly impossible to work in the field and not be a Keynesian.
Hazlitt wrote another good book Thinking as a Science.
It's an interesting read, but be (very) skeptical. The world and economics is a bit more complex than the picture he portrays.
Well, I think it's part of the book to speak in favor of free markets as opposed to centrally planned "markets" (such as prices for money, e.g., interest rate).
If you're criticizing an underlying assumption, then of course I can also go ahead and criticize parts of mathematics for some of their axioms. Yet, that doesn't make mathematics wrong, only more limited in scope.
Edit: hehe the reviews suggest its quite the polarising tome.
Sowell's weak point it is that (and this is is not unique to Sowell, it's common to both nominal supporters of free markets and their opponents) there's too often an implicit conflation of the economic system that actually exists with a free market. The way he taught me to look at policy in terms of incentives more than makes up for any of that though.
Now I see muda everywhere and cringe when I overhear people talking about applying kaizen and how they think they're practicing "continuous improvement" while repeating the same rote, industrial, mindless processes that they have been for the last 40 years. We can do so much better. Toyota tried very hard to teach GM how at their NUMMI[1] plant, but it wasn't the right location relative to their suppliers for JIT to fully work and "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair
[0] https://www.lean.org/Bookstore/ProductDetails.cfm?SelectedPr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
Not gonna lie, it's very hard
I believe agile was invented to incrementally improve an already well thought production process. Once the assembly line was setup, agile was used to eliminate the unproductive activities. I am not sure agile will be helpful to build the assembly line itself?
In most scenarios that's what people try to do with agile.
Setting up a mechanical assembly line is very different from setting up a software pipeline, although, as you can tell already, they use some of the same words and metaphors.
It isn't possible to build a mechanical factory in weeks with readily available tools [0]. We just don't have that kind of concentration of knowledge, we don't have the skills, the know-how etc. to accomplish that. Whereas with software: you have OSS, you have the Cloud, and all kinds of numerous tooling that helps you get started immediately, and iterate on that until you get to the final product. That kind of iteration, debugging etc. is just not possible with manufacturing. Which is why in manufacturing you need great designs and processes: bad decisions are very costly. They are costly in software too, but... your MVP will still churn out value, even if its not efficient. Once you prove that your product satisfies a need, you then make it better, you make it more efficient, scale it out, yadda yadda. But getting started is absurdly easy. And thats why lean works.
The designers of lean realized that all that worry about scaling, about automation, planning, QA... while its important, it doesn't provide the most value for everyone. For a smaller company, its more important to get out a product that solves a problem even if its janky. Once you prove its usefulness, you attract more money, more people etc.
So lean solves two problems: * gets you started quickly and fails bad ideas fast * lets you justify bad design if it provides more value
One could argue that the technical debt built up by this kind of process has to be paid down someday. If your product survives for long enough, you will have enough resources to do that. And then you have a core product that brings in revenue, and you repeat the same lean method for other products. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.
[0]: where this assumption fails, you see a lot more manufacturing. e.g. in China, the fruits of this kind of aggregation in manufacturing skill is visible, and that's why Chinese manufacturers are so adept at responding to changing market conditions.
My issue is with the way agile is evangelized and implemented in the Enterprise. These Enterprise people simply rationalize that if Toyota can do it then why we can't without realizing where it fit and where it does not.
Personally I think it does not fit with the culture of thousand approvals and beating the dead horse i.e. endlessly cross examining any design or implementation failures.
This happens because Enterprise people love the buzzwords. Agile and cloud are the latest buzz in Enterprise so they watch a ppt or two somewhere starts pushing agile into a culture where it does not fit at all. This results in sufferings and frustration.
Granted, long-term that thinking kills companies, but short term it keeps the bills paid, the kids fed, and the beer cold.
America was able to be a powerhouse of manufacturing during WW2, I remember reading that a lot of the DNA for JIT/Kaizen/Lean came from the Marshall Plan[1].
You're right, what has been seen cannot be unseen.
It's interesting for a number of reasons, not least because it explains that a lot of the ideas driving how Toyota worked post-war came from the fact that they knew they wouldn't be able to let people go in an economic downturn.
The tools don't really mean anything, it's mostly adopting the principles enforced. And everyone has to adopt it for it to work. The ones that do it best, have a strong company culture. You define the why before the how and what.
Bottom line: judge your success in life by how well you make your decisions, not by your outcome. You have full control of your decisions, and often no control at all over their results.
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0735216355/ref=tmm_h...
"If you ever struggle to make decisions, here's a talk for you. Cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths shows how we can apply the logic of computers to untangle tricky human problems, sharing three practical strategies for making better decisions -- on everything from finding a home to choosing which restaurant to go to tonight."
https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_griffiths_3_ways_to_make_bette...
"On The Shortness of Life"[1] is my favorite work of his, though there are many other gems among his letters.
[1] - https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pd...
https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Stoic-Meditations-Wisdom-Persev...
[1] https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V1N4/thompson.htm...
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
Which is quite short.
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/the-enchiridion/...
He gave some really great examples of how to apply stoicism in today's world.
No, and that's the key. You cannot truly control outcomes, so judging your life and self-worth on them is leaving your happiness and fulfillment to chance.
> That is, how does one get good at making decisions? By seeing positive results flow from them.
Nope. You get better at decision-making by being reflective about your past decisions. Outcomes can be a factor in that, but only insofar as they can point you to the realization that you missed information that was available to you.
There are many decisions in life where there is no "good" outcome. There are some where the "good" outcome is catastrophic for you personally, and that catastrophe is avoidable if you compromise your ethics. If you see a child drowning in a river and know that there's a good chance that you will die if you attempt to rescue them, rational self-interest alone tells you to walk on by. Stoicism puts a layer on top of that - can you live with yourself without regret if you do that? Are you willing to accept the risks to live up to your own standards?
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-satya-nadella-nonv...
All this "if you answered c, e and f, we are not of the same opinion" feels passive-aggressive to me.
The whole thing feels manipulative to me. It makes me think that people try an insincere way of talking to me, in order to manipulate my feelings and reaction.
I've had huge discussions with friends who try to live the book, and neither of us could make the other see their point.
One of their examples was "My boyfriend likes to go DJing, but sometimes I'd love for him to stay home and cuddle with me. So I clearly tell him that him leaving makes me feel alone and that I would like some warmth. But I don't tell him what to do, to stay at home, for example. I only talk about my own perception and feelings." – "Yes, that's great, but in communication there is the level of pragmatics above pure logical semantics. And you telling your boyfriend that him leaving makes you feel very alone is just another way of saying 'please don't go'".
Since reading it, I have been amazed at how unclear many people communicate. They say things to express some basic emotions - anger, frustration, etc - but so many people do not express in clear terms the root of this feeling.
In your example, the woman does indeed want the boyfriend to stay at home. But saying you want someone to do something, at a minimum, doesn’t explain why you want that. It also doesn’t give them much recourse to either object, or come up with alternative solutions.
I’d be happy to discuss it more!
Ok, you've convinced me to not go anywhere near this book if it teaches you to 'communicate' like this.
We're very "good" at solutionising what we think we want rather than what we need. One of the things I took away is a way to clearly consider and express the root cause of something. In the DJ example not wanting their partner to go may be due to any number of reasons that aren't clear to the DJ, they could be lonely, feel insecure, feel mistrustful of fidelity, feel ashamed at their own lack of passion for an activity etc. Any number of these things can come to the surface when you start saying why something bothers you rather than the first solution your brain offers up, plus it's a much nicer conversation when both parties are involved in building the solution.
What's also nice is I've had better "shower conversations" with myself to figure out what I really want from situations.
Importantly, saying it without coming down with harsh judgment on the other person is also key. You truly don’t know what’s going on in their mind, or what motivations they may have had in doing something. NVC encourages realizing this and avoiding assigning feelings or intent to the other person, since you don’t know if that’s accurate.
“I feel lonely much more than I want to when you’re gone DJing Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I don’t like feeling lonely. Can we figure out something to help me feel lonely less often?”
And yes, you could say “I wish you’d stay at home,” but is that really the desire? The desire is to feel lonely or ignored less of the time in this scenario I think; maybe I’m wrong!
Maybe the DJ said she couldn’t come with thinking she would be bored. Maybe she’d love to come, but thinks he doesn’t want her there.
Saying clearly the why, without judgment on the other person, certainly seems to be pretty NVC to me.
It seems natural if asked: "Can we figure out something to help me feel lonely less often?”
To respond: "Ok well, what do you want?"
If you're not willing to give actual things you want, then the other person has to "mind read." And from my experience in relationships, when people are trying to mind read what the other actually wants, this always ends up in issues/problems.
The response you said might happen - "OK well, what do you want?" - would indeed be a desired response. The reason is that the response leads to a conversation, where they can both talk about possible solutions. And the solution doesn't have to be "don't go DJ tonight," although that could be one.
Imagine if the conversation instead was this:
Girlfriend: "I don't want you to DJ at the club tonight."
DJ thinks: "What? She knows this is really important to me, but she just wants me to stop going. What the heck. She doesn't want to support me in this now, after I've done it for so long?"
DJ says: "This is really I important to me. Stop trying to control me, I don't try to control you!"
Girlfriend: "I'm not trying to control you, I just want you to stay home tonight!"
DJ: "Sounds like control to me!" huffs out of the room
Giving the DJ some amount of context can help avoid anyone feeling accused, and can help someone misinterpret why someone wants something.
“Oh, when you said you would feel alone you were actually (more or less) forbidding me from going out tonight.”
Why don’t you just say that then...
'Cause there's a big difference between "I don't tell him what to do" and "I don't express my preferences/desires".
1. Observations: things that are objectively observable
2. Feelings: your feelings about them
3. Needs: the needs you want met
4. Requests: a proposal as to how you want your needs met
It's not always practical or necessary to go through the whole sequence. Sometimes all you need to say is "I'd like you to stay." But if things get tricky or contentious, it can help a lot to separate observations from feelings, and start with objective facts first.
For example, if someone is really upset that their partner isn't staying home with them, they might be tempted to say "Obviously you don't care about this relationship because you never spend time with me!"
That's not going to work nearly as well as "When you leave me at home alone a lot, I feel lonely and ignored. I need time and connection to feel good about our relationship. Could you stay home tonight?"
Explaining your feelings serves (at least) two purposes: (a) it helps the other person have empathy for you; and (b) it provides information about the true purpose of the request. The extra information helps ensure the right need is addressed (in this case, it reveals that what's wanted isn't just presence at home; it's quality time and connection), and helps the other person find alternative solutions if they can't accept the proposal (maybe their partner has an appointment to visit a friend at the hospital and really can't stay; but they are still many ways to address the underlying need, e.g. "It's important that I see my friend at the hospital, but I do want to spend time with you; can we make a plan to spend tomorrow night together?")
If the only information provided is the request, then the receiver can only say yes or no; they aren't equipped with enough information to find a solution that might work better for both parties.
(I guess I should add that this is my interpretation; it seems like people have different interpretations of NVC. I think of it as a tool to use when things get difficult, and for me its purpose is to convey information more clearly, not to obscure my true preferences.)
Is your friend on the spectrum by any chance?
I've read the book and had a visceral reaction to it personally. It is called "How to win friends and influence people" after all. Seems to be a love it or hate it type of thing.
How did that go again?
Dear $FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME,
I am writing you to emphasise how much your business personally means to me and how $EMOTIONAL_STATE I feel about it...
* My boyfriend went DJing three times last week,
* but when he leaves, I feel lonely (n.b. this is different from "him leaving makes me feel alone")
* because I need some companionship in my relationship.
* I'd like to ask him to stay in with me at least x nights a week.
I talk to my boyfriend about my 1) observations, 2) feelings, 3) needs, and 4) requests (this is verbatim the four-step process outlined in the book). To all this, I might add:
On the other hand, I also wonder if DJing is his way of meeting his own needs for independence/action/excitement, and how he would feel about staying in x nights a week. Perhaps there's another way that we can make sure both of our needs are met, such as inviting close friends over to stay the night when he's gone, or inviting our friends over for a house party so he can socialize and I can still have him around.
---
Communication works when it's a good-faith effort on both sides to understand where the other is coming from and meet each other's needs mutually. The goal shouldn't be to manipulate the other's feelings and reactions, but to focus on the parts that no one could possibly disagree on (observation, feelings, needs—e.g., "I feel lonely") rather than blaming ("that makes me lonely") or subjective judgments ("3 nights a week is excessive").
If "we are not of the same opinion" strikes you as hokey, consider the intention of phrasing it that way: If you get in the habit of telling people when and why they're wrong, you're going to erode the spirit of cooperation required to arrive at a happy solution.
Just last week I sat through a meeting where no one was listening to one another, elephants were being buried underground, and we were becoming more divided. Taking a cue from ‘Radical Candor’, I invited the room’s abstract complaints and negativity to focus on me, specifically. Luckily, someone was so pissed at me and my team that they launched into a list of things we’d done wrong. That gave me a chance to listen, to show I cared, and to connect the dots with his previous discussion at the meeting. Basic stuff. But it opened the floodgates to honest conversation for the rest of the night.
I always say that computers are easy, humans are hard. Would love to see more recommendations about this topic.
I wouldn't go so far :). They're both hard; and need talented individuals to function together and come up with great ideas and processes on how to build, maintain and scale them.
And as nerdy engineers, we often discount the humans, which we ought not to do.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (aka The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence) by Balthasar Gracian - A set of aphorisms with penetrating insight into Human Nature.
Why we do what we do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward Deci - A short book from a psychologist.
The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work by Peter Block
Management: A Political Activity by Ted Stephenson
The main take away that I use all the time is that most of us jump to solution oriented problem solving when in conflict or explaining our side, and that's usually not what people are looking for. When someone is upset, they are usually looking for empathy. They want to be understood. When they are understood, they are able to problem solve or hear the other side.
The problems are that:
1) Marshall is teaching a new language. So, he's speaking slowly, repeating himself, and talking at a very basic level. That's why it sounds unnatural.
2) People generally suck at giving empathy, even more so when they are personally invested in the situation. So, they have a bias against it.
But, like learning any new language, when you get to native speaking level, it sounds very different.
I do couple's coaching on the side, and this is one of my main tools. It is amazing to watch. A couple who comes in and sit on opposite sides of the room, not looking each other will be cuddling on the couch crying in each other's arms 20 minutes later, right after I translate their actions into the feelings that drive those actions and simple requests. They see each other at a deep level, and that's what people typically want.
There is no better book on the philosophy of UX, imho.
If you really hate someone, teach them about kerning
Sorry, but the Noahs story does not makes sense logically (all the different animals on one ship) nor morally. Killing everyone and only spare some lunatic.
But if you can take from it "do what needs to be done" well, good for you. But I would argue a common trivial dantasy book contains as meaningful wisdom if you neglect 90% like with the bible.
Btw. that the scenario is allmost word for word the same as in the Gilgamesh epos, is another funfact.
For a book used by millions of people as the only source of wisdom for over a dozen centuries, I can hardly disagree more about the 'overlooked' part.
I am not commenting about its actual merits, as it has some merits and some beautiful verses. But it is just a book among many. It should stop being the only book many people read.
As an example, my agnostic, very nerdy brother read the whole thing and said he learned a lot from it. I figure there's a lot of potential people out there just like him.
Grab a Hebrew/Greek Interlinear bible and there are plenty of lexicons available online to see how words were used by contemporary writers.
It made me turn from an doubtful agnostic theist into an agnostic atheist 1/4 through it.
Amazing read. Will definitely not read it again!
I took the time to read it from the Hebrew/Greek about 25 years ago - have not stepped foot in a church since.
> And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law.
Turns out he was kind of a dick head.
[0] https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/132?lang=eng
Every other statement, "I have my own beliefs" is short sighted.
And Bible is not equal to the institution you call "Church"!
* Thinking Fast and Slow - study after study shows that we exhibit so, so many cognitive biases, as our minds take shortcuts. there are some things you can do to recognize and mitigate these biases.
* Imagined Communities - the notion of a "nation" is only 300 years old and has no objective basis, only the fact that a group of people agree that it is a thing.
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2014/07/23/reality-may-not-ha...
> Basically, Gat is refuting a modernist view, which has arguably gone from being revisionist to normative, that the concept and execution of a nation is a historically contingent construction of early modern Europe, and more precisely Revolutionary France of the 1790s.
Risk Savvy by Gerd Gigerenzer
The Penguin History of Europe series is great for this, especially The Pursuit Of Glory, which details the time when states switched from being based on their king, to states being based on a 'unified set of people', i.e., an imagined community.
There's also the amazing Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, which is a bunch of essays, one on a forgotten European kingdom that ceased to exist, and no-one claims it as their heritage. It shows you how easily your identity of a citizen of a state can get lost and forgotten - your great-grandparents may have seen themselves as Etrurians, but that state is gone and now you think of yourself as an Italian, but nothing much changed about your family
The Lombards, Saxons, Franks, Magyars, Mongols and many, many others would disagree. And the Khmer, Mon, Viet and Tai.
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/03/26/communities-only-e...
> Overall it is worth reading Imagined Communities because of its purported cultural significance. But much of it is so garbled and unclear I’m not sure what people are taking from it, aside from the proposition that the modern nation-state was invented in the last few centuries due to modernity. In the end the book is kind of a long tautology.
Azar Gat’s Nations is a far superior book.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Relig...
It’s less of a classic as the Righteous Mind because it’s more focused on a topical issue. I think it pairs well with Laura Kipnis’s Unwanted Advances.
Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change.
However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.
I followed up this book with Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That was another fantastic book for me.
For me, these two books fit right into the category of those that literally changed my life.
Since How to Win Friends is already mentioned, I'll add Musashi here. There are so many lessons it's hard to pick them all out, plus I don't want to spoil it for anyone.
It also made me a lot more cynical. I realized around halfway through that the author was (very skillfully) deploying his techniques in the direction of the reader. Further, the author is long-dead. We cannot possibly have a genuine emotional connection.
This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters to convincing people is that they feel empathized with. How you actually feel isn't important, though for many it's likely to be by far the easiest and most reliable way to get there.
Dale Carnegie provided me with a very useful set of tools that I can use to achieve the outcomes I want. For that I'm appreciative.
It may be possible that the detection heuristics a given individual relies upon might, upon occasion, be a bit less reliable than could be hoped for. I've witnessed both false positives and false negatives.
Again, you're right. People do earnestly and honestly believe in their ability to detect genuineness.
Or think about it another way... when you listen to music by Bach, do you feel an emotional connection? Do you see it as crass or alienated, or are you feeling something that a long-dead composer wanted you to feel, and grateful for the experience?
In the context of Dale Carnegie, I think that a genuine connection requires the active involvement of two people interacting with one another. For all that the emotions involved are unquestionably valid, I do not consider the genuine emotion one person feels for an imaginary other person to be a genuine emotional connection with another human being.
Bach, to my knowledge, did not like to rattle on about the importance of synchronous emotional engagement.
You have proposed an Emotional Turing Test! The price for failure looks high!
Both have an important role in your connections with other people but its useful if you learn to separate them.
https://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Conversation-Guide-James-Fle...
Hands down the book that most influenced me. The book had (for me) not one but several simple-yet-profound ideas that were forever inserted into the foreground of how I make sense of the world. For example, the existence of shared myths that allow humans to cooperate on a large scale. Or how I too, am religious, though I was sure I wasn't.
Can't recommend it enough.
For example, I never thought about how ideas that are touted by organizations or religions are frequently argued to be "natural" or "divine" or somehow sewn into the fabric of the universe. The book helped me to become a little more skeptical by portraying how versatile and diverse human societies can be, and how there is truly very little that is "natural", "eternal", and meant to be.
Similarly, the book helped me to realize how unprecedented the current rates of economic and technological growth are. Its an exciting time to be alive, filled with almost infinite possibilities, and that fact is especially inspiring when you understand how much more restrictive previous generations and cultures were.
I found Sapiens to be shallow and full of useless waffle after reading Ideas. It really highlights the fact that Harari presents one particular version of history and there are many great thinkers that have an opinion on the things he discusses. E.g. Harari speculates on how and why money came to be used where as Watson presents a plethora of ideas on the origin of money and discusses the merits of different views.
But seriously, can you elaborate on where you thought it was biased?
Harari often speculates about what people in the past were thinking when we have actual written accounts from the time. The point of “Ideas” is that imposing modern ideas on the past doesn’t really work or is at least difficult because the ideas of the time were so different. An example would be the modern conception of an “artist” being a concept created during the romantic period. Before that people doing painting or music considered themselves craftspeople. So trying to read intent into what they were doing based on the modern conception of an artist is a fools errand. Harari seemed to do this kind of thing all the time.
There were some interesting facts in Sapiens but there was so much fluff as well. Maybe this is just me but do we really need a page of speculation about what society would have been like if we used seashells as currency?
Maybe it’s the editors fault but I though Sapiens could have been a cut down to a third of its length by removing (to me) useless, unreferenced speculation about what people may have thought. A don’t get me started on the poor referencing.
Anyway this has turned into a bit of a rant so I’m going to stop here.
Highly recommend Ideas: A History. It’s denser, a little drier but definitely far superior to Sapiens.
I look forward to reading further books published in response by others.
Recently, Educated by Tara Westover, and in the past The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, both have taught me to approach individuals with the true ignorance of their lives that I have. You don't know where people come from and what life led them to where they are when you meet them. Try not to make assumptions. Additionally, I have to remind myself that I grew up loved, cared for, and privileged compared to so many other people.. the fact that I could read their story and post here is a testament to that, helps me try to stay down to Earth and that I had some advantages growing up that others did not.
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker... I used to be a chronic advocate for sleeping less until I read this and did my own scrappy post-research. I'm much more conscious of my health and my sleep now.
I could go on and on..
I realized that my bad relationships are mostly the result of my lack of skin in the game. That indifference is not an advantage but that it is paralyzing.
That I have to feel to be able to risk and do something.
In addition to applying the concept of antifragility to many external things.
It has motivated me to start a business and to connect more with my loved ones, changed my perspective on research, what's important and the power of the passing of time. It definitely impacted my life.
could you elaborate on that? pro research or against?
Very first: The Song of Wandering Aengus, by William Butler Yeats. I read this when I was six or so. I found it as an illustrated children's book in children's section of the public library of the very small rural town. Someone decided this very adult poem, about an old man who wasted his life chasing an unattainable magic dream, was a good children's story. It introduced me to the idea that poems and stories could express sadness and failure and other negative feelings, not just the happy silly stuff of the other age-appropriate things I read.
"Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella Meadows changed how I approached designing/troubleshooting software systems as well as changed how I think about political policy decisions and their results.
"Object Thinking" by David West dramatically altered how I approach designing OO systems. I especially liked the chapter(s) where he used different real-world metaphors for designing systems. For example, asynchronous communication (email) is often more appropriate than synchronous communication (calling someone on the phone). Delegation of tasks without "micromanaging" (i.e tell don't ask).
"Ever Wonder Why?" by Thomas Sowell gave me an insight into some of the underpinnings of Conservative thought. I'd never had the opportunity to hear any of the arguments he brings up in college or in my own liberal social groups.
-Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hosfstadter)
-The Mindbody Prescription (John E. Sarno, completely cured my long-term crippling RSI that kept me from using computers and was ruining my life)
-Feeling Good (Dr. Burns, cognitive therapy mostly centered on depression, but I want to learn about this before I have depression so that I can avoid it and do 'maintenance' on myself)
-The 5 Love Languages (Gary Chapman, made me understand a lot more about how people express and receive love, and the problems that arise from mismatched languages in relationships)
-Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman (you guys probably already know this)
-The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker)
-The Snowball (Warren Buffett biography)
-Influence (Robert B. Cialdini)
-Your Money or Your Life (Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin)
-When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace (Le Ly Hayslip)
-The Halo Effect (Phil Rosenzweig)
-The LessWrong.com sequences on rationality
-Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind%27s_I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop
Also - you might enjoy Kevin Kelly's book, "Out of Control":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Control_(Kevin_Kelly_bo...
Oh - and in a similar vein, Marvin Minsky's book "Society of Mind":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Mind
The problem with so many of these books is that there's been a lot of criticism and praise for all of them, tear downs, rebuttals, critiques, etc; not to mention various kinds of "evidence" both in support and against the various theories involved. The history of the ideas is long and convoluted, and is almost impossible to sort out today without a long and concerted effort on the part of the reader.
I prefer to take the information as more a "tour de force" - information to inspire my thinking, and where it seems to be relevant (or has supporting evidence of efficacy), application of it to problems at hand.
I hope that makes sense...
There are massive consequences for releasing a book claiming to be a factual model for how human brains work and how people should behave towards each other based on this model. If the book becomes popular, this sort of model can become the defacto truth to most people and live on in public consciousness for years as pop psychology.
As an example, look at things like Meiers Briggs (ISTP, ENFJ etc), "Type A vs Type B personalities", DISC personality testing, etc. ALl of these are based on old, flawed, and straight up bad research. Yet companies across America (and the world) are still giving people training and hiring people based on these studies. Note, DISC, for example was based on William Moulton Marston's work, a guy who DIED in 1947. The "research" which became DISC is from 1928! Businesses are still dressing up this old and flawed research and selling it to businesses for huge profits.
Access to scarce resources induces a particular scarcity mindset, which the authors -- both behavioural economists at Harvard and MIT respectively -- show with a large variety of well-chosen examples.
The kicker is that time is one of those resources. In other words, I may be economically well-off, but if I'm short of time, I adopt the same scarce mindset that poor people (poor in money terms). I fritter away my time, I don't save it and so on. This book really showed me to deal with my time as carefully as I deal with my money. Great read, of the Freakonomics kind.
Edit: also Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. It’s slim and user friendly to a fault, and would be easy to underestimate at first glance, but imho contains great wisdom and beauty.
More than any of those individual terms though, I took from the book a sort of gestalt of expansive, additive, richly intellectual ideation, one based not on truth values, but in thinking new thoughts. In my edition, the translator’s introduction portrays D&G’s notion of a concept as a brick that should not be used to build a courthouse, but to be thrown through a window. This whole way of being in the world was enormously refreshing to me when I read it.
Roots vs trees? If these ideas have any merit, surely it should be possible to express them clearly, and without (gratuitous?) invocation of pseudo-scientific terms.
You have a point with arborescent, but it is translated from French, and from what I know of French morphology, arborescent could probably sounds to a French person like "treeish" or "tree ADJ", and therefore not quite so formal/illegible.
The joke I tell about A Thousand Plateaus is that on one of the plateaus is good writing. Didn't make it into the book though
Your criticism is like telling a pharmacist not to use the terminology that distinguishes some kinds of drugs from others. It may be true that the blue pill makes your dick hard and the red pill cures your headache, but if you actually want to go into it and address why and how they do these things you need a more focused vocabulary that is clearly defined in its context of use (which G&D do).
Whenever I read about Deleuze and Guattari I get this feeling they are on to something - I just don't know what!
After I read it, I felt like I could see the world for what it really is: just a bunch of fallible humans all pretending they knew The Way Things Should Be. Popes, CEOs, tech gurus, presidents, the lot of them all desperately clinging to their beliefs lest their followers abandon them.
That book made me realize that all the truths everyone "just knows" and takes for granted aren't necessarily truths. They're beliefs, or myths. Even so, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that: a culture or civilization needs beliefs or myths to function, but what those beliefs are can determine the ultimate fate of that civilization and whether it's sustainable.
What I really took away from it is that I no longer really believe anything. Or perhaps more accurately, I recognize when something I hold true is actually a belief and not truth, and am willing to question it or understand that I continue to hold it despite any supporting evidence. I learned that beliefs are choices people make, for reasons their own.
I was always an atheist, but I realized religions are just more beliefs like any other belief people hold as true.
I learned that some beliefs can be beneficial ("If I'm good to others, others will be good to me") and others destructive ("Humans are the pinnacle of evolution"). Ideas don't need to be true to be helpful (which is why the relentless drive in tech communities, often, for the objective truth or a logical ordering and categorization for everything rubs me the wrong way).
Warning: If you go over the fence, there is no returning back. Your thought process will change forever (for the good in my view).
The question of population-level selection (what you've called group selection) is more contentious, although it shouldn't be. The grandpa of our field, E.O. Wilson, whom we all adore and wish we could constantly hug, loves the idea. Sadly, evidence doesn't love it. Like, there's basically none. There's no real theoretical underpinnings that would make it possible, either, because there's just too much gene flow between demes (...partially isolated breeding populations) to allow selection to happen.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRXA1_e30o&list=PL150326949...
It has not. The "battle lines" between the "Dawkins school" and the "Gould school" were established in the 1970s and 1980s, and they are pretty much the same still. Each school probably thinks they refuted the other one decades ago already.
Also the majority of biologists don't give these much thought either way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolutio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolutio...
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/evolute.html
> What I encountered were quite a few references to Stephen Jay Gould, hardly any to other evolutionary theorists. Now it is not very hard to find out, if you spend a little while reading in evolution, that Gould is the John Kenneth Galbraith of his subject. That is, he is a wonderful writer who is bevolved by literary intellectuals and lionized by the media because he does not use algebra or difficult jargon. Unfortunately, it appears that he avoids these sins not because he has transcended his colleagues but because he does does not seem to understand what they have to say; and his own descriptions of what the field is about - not just the answers, but even the questions - are consistently misleading. His impressive literary and historical erudition makes his work seem profound to most readers, but informed readers eventually conclude that there's no there there.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BahoNzY2pzSeM2Dtk/beware-of-...
> If you've read anything Stephen J. Gould has ever said about evolutionary biology, I have some bad news for you. In the field of evolutionary biology at large, Gould's reputation is mud. Not because he was wrong. Many honest scientists have made honest mistakes. What Gould did was much worse, involving deliberate misrepresentation of science.
What Prominent Biologists Think of Stephen Jay Gould Many nonspecialists believe that Stephen Jay Gould was the preeminent evolutionary theorist of the 20th century. His The Mismeasure of Man might be the most widely read book on biology/evolution among scholars in the humanities. But people specializing in the fields in which Gould pontificated generally had a poor opinion of his scholarship.
Bernard D. Davis (1983)
It is…not surprising that Gould’s history of the efforts to measure human intelligence, The Mismeasure of Man, received many glowing reviews in the popular and literary press, and even a National Book Critics Circle award. Yet the reviews that have appeared in scientific journals, focusing on content rather than on style or on political appeal, have been highly critical of both the book’s version of history and its scientific arguments. The paradox is striking. If a scholar wrote a tendentious history of medicine that began with phlebotomy and purges, moved on to the Tuskegee experiment on syphilitic Negroes, and ended with the thalidomide disaster, he would convince few people that medicine is all bad, and he would ruin his reputation. So we must ask: Why did Gould write a book that fits this model all too closely? Why were most reviewers so uncritical? And how can non-scientific journals improve their reviews of books on scientific aspects of controversial political issues?
John Maynard Smith (1995)
Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publically criticised because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary biology.
Ernst Mayr (2000)
Skeptic: You developed your theory of allopatric speciation in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1970s Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould applied that to the fossil record and called it punctuated equilibrium. Was this just a spin-off from what you had already done? What was new in punctuated equilibrium?
Mayr: I published that theory in a 1954 paper (“Change of Genetic Environment and Evolution,” in Huxley, J., A.C. Hardy, and E.B. Ford, Eds., Evolution as a Process, London: Allen and Unwin), and I clearly related it to paleontology. Darwin argued that the fossil record is very incomplete because some species fossilize better than others. But what I derived from my research in the South Sea Islands is that in these isolated little populations it is much easier to make a genetic restructuring because when the numbers are small it takes rather few steps to become a new species. A small local population that changes very rapidly. I noted that you are never going to find evidence of a small local population that changed very rapidly in the fossil record. My essential point was that gradual populational shifts in founder populations appear in the fossil record as gaps.
Skeptic: Isn’t that what Eldredge and Gould argued in their 1972 paper, citing your 1963 book Animal Species and Evolution several times?
Mayr: Gould was my course assistant at Harvard where I presented this theory again and again for three years. So he knew it thoroughly. So did Eldredge. In fact, in his 1971 paper Eldredge credited me with it. But that was lost over time.
E. O. Wilson (2011)
I believe Gould was a charlatan….I believe that he was…seeking reputation and credibility as a scientist and writer, and he did it consistently by distorting what other scientists were saying and devising arguments based upon that distortion.
Richard Lewontin (2015)
Steve and I taught evolution together for years and in a sense we struggled in class constantly because Steve, in my view, was preoccupied with the desire to be considered a very original and great evolutionary theorist. So he would exaggerate and even caricature certain features, which are true but not the way you want to present them. For example, punctuated equilibrium, one of his favorites. He would go to the blackboard and show a trait rising gradually and then becoming completely flat for a while with no change at all, and then rising quickly and then completely flat, etc. which is a kind of caricature of the fact that there is variability in the evolution of traits, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, but which he made into punctuated equilibrium literally. Then I would have to get up in class and say “Don’t take this caricature too seriously. It really looks like this…” and I would make some more gradual variable rates. Steve and I had that kind of struggle constantly. He would fasten on a particular interesting aspect of the evolutionary process and then make it into a kind of rigid, almost vacuous rule, because—now I have to say that this is my view—I have no demonstration of it—that Steve was really preoccupied by becoming a famous evolutionist.
Robert Trivers (2015)
Many of us theoretical biologists who knew Stephen personally thought he was something of an intellectual fraud precisely because he had a talent for coining terms that promised more than they could deliver, while claiming exactly the opposite. One example was the notion of “punctuated equilibria”—which simply asserted that rates of (morphological) evolution were not constant, but varied over time, often with periods of long stasis interspersed with periods of rapid change. All of this was well known from the time of Darwin. The classic example were bats. They apparently evolved very quickly from small non-flying mammals (in perhaps less than 20 million years) but then stayed relatively unchanged once they reached the bat phenotype we are all familiar with today (about 50 million years ago). Nothing very surprising here, intermediate forms were apt to be neither very good classic mammals, nor good flying ones either, so natural selection pushed them rapidly through the relevant evolutionary space.
But Steve wanted to turn this into something grander, a justification for replacing natural selection (favoring individual reproductive success) with something called species selection. Since one could easily imagine that there was rapid turnover of species during periods of intense selection and morphological change, one might expect species selection to be more intense, while during the rest of the equilibrium stabilizing selection would rule throughout. But rate of species turnover has nothing to do with the traits within species—only with the relative frequency of species showing these traits. As would prove usual, Steve missed the larger interesting science by embracing a self-serving fantasy. Species selection today is a small but interesting topic in evolutionary theory, not some grand principle emerging from paleontological patterns….
Hard to imagine—but at the end the organism appears to be in full self-deception mode—a blow-hard fraudulently imputing fraud, with righteous indignation, coupled with magnanimous forgiveness for the frailties of self-deception in others….
Much less so, it was said was Stephen Gould, who was into self-promotion, self-inflation and self-deception full time. Not only was his science hopeless but so was much of his behavior in other contexts as well.
As an aside, I also think it's funny that you could easily* substitute the name Gould for Feynman in each of these criticisms, but somehow Feynman is considered a demi-god among physicists for having the same 'character flaws' and rhetorical flair.
Comparing Feynman to Gould is distasteful. They may both have been blowhards, self publicists and excellent writers but only one of them launched campaigns of harassment against other researchers. You could not easily substitute Feynman for Gould in these criticisms. Feynman never wrote anything as dishonest as Mismeasure of Man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould
> Opposition to sociobiology and evolutionary psychology Gould also had a long-running public feud with E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists concerning the disciplines of human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, both of which Gould and Lewontin opposed, but which Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker advocated.[93] These debates reached their climax in the 1970s, and included strong opposition from groups such as the Sociobiology Study Group and Science for the People.[94] Pinker accuses Gould, Lewontin, and other opponents of evolutionary psychology of being "radical scientists", whose stance on human nature is influenced by politics rather than science.
If you would like to back up your claim that the same criticisms could be made of Feynman as of Gould here are the summaries. I’m sure the parallel statements will be easy to find if you’re right about Feynman.
Krugman: Gould was a good writer but vastly more respected outside his field than in it because he was a good writer more than a good scientist.
Yudkowsky: Gould wrote multiple books in which he acted as if other peoples’ life’s work was unknown to him, pawning off their intellectual work as his own, pretending that the field was in a state of confusion and that he, the towering genius, had brought closure and clarity.
Davis: Gould wrote a book of breathtaking intellectual dishonesty that was looked upon with favour in the popular press and panned by experts writing for other experts.
Smith: His ideas are so confused as to be unworthy of discussion but outsiders think he’s a genius of the field because he can write well.
Mayr: One of Gould’s only actual claims to originality was a trivial extension of work dating back either to the founder of the field or to a course taught to undergraduates in which he was a teaching assistant.
Wilson: Gould was a charlatan who dishonestly and repeatedly mischaracterised the work of other scientists.
Lewontin: Gould would take reasonable ideas and caricature them to the point they were plainly wrong.
Trivers: Gould was an intellectual fraud.
And they are guilty of the exact same non-arguments. Doesn't matter if they are scientists or non-scientists, the criticisms are exactly the same.
>> Opposition to sociobiology and evolutionary psychology Gould also had a long-running public feud with E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists concerning the disciplines of human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, both of which Gould and Lewontin opposed, but which Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker advocated.[93] These debates reached their climax in the 1970s, and included strong opposition from groups such as the Sociobiology Study Group and Science for the People.[94] Pinker accuses Gould, Lewontin, and other opponents of evolutionary psychology of being "radical scientists", whose stance on human nature is influenced by politics rather than science.
Again, where's the real critique of opposition to sociobiology? There are actually numerous flaws with sociobiology and evo-psych, which you seem to just dismiss out of hand as made up lies. The interdisciplinary fields of Science and Technology Studies and Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, which Gould was drawing from (though not necessarily in an optimal manner) provide sober critiques of the authority of science and of the political nature of knowledge and knowledge production. These fields look at how scientific practice is actually done and draw out mechanisms through which knowledge is produced through the interactions between people, prior knowledge and beliefs, objects of experimentation or evaluation, goals, pragmatic circumstances, 'grey' and information infrastructures, and community norms and expectations. Take a look at Epistemic Cultures (https://www.worldcat.org/title/epistemic-cultures-how-the-sc...) for a great example of such work, which compares scientific practice among high-energy physicists and molecular biologists, who follow very different trajectories in the formulation of new ideas, according to their circumstances and needs.
Gould's work is along similar lines.
One major critique of the Mismeasure of Man is that Gould dredges up long-dead hypotheses about race. However, these claims are in fact not dead, and have real impact on the world today. As an archaeologist, I can relate. Laypeople still think that archaeology does and believes things that have been debunked and shifted away from decades ago, things that 'prove' the inferiority of some races or that fuel nationalist and racist agendas. The thing is, people who are devising racist and nationalist policy are generally not intellectually honest, and don't care to actually read up on why or how these claims are wrong. They find an article from 1934 that supports their views and they go with it, and dismiss any criticism as coming from ""radical scientists", whose stance on human nature is influenced by politics rather than science.". Mismeasure of Man is clearly a popular non-fiction book geared towards educating laypeople about the flaws of race science, with the hope that people will recognize when policy is being enacted based on shitty science and oppose it when they do.
Below you or any other future readers may find a guide to the many faults in The Mismeasure of Man, all of which misunderstandings, distortions and deliberate omissions tended certain ways which supported Gould’s politics, though not the truth.
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/7/1/6
Stephen Jay Gould’s Analysis of the Army Beta Test in The Mismeasure of Man: Distortions and Misconceptions Regarding a Pioneering Mental Test
> 5.1 Gould’s Judgments of the Army Beta Among the many topics of negative analysis in Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man [1] is the Army Beta test. Although not the most prominent section of Gould’s text, his 23-page passage on the Army Beta is typical of his style in the book. Throughout the book, Gould criticized early scientists who studied individual and group differences of being misled by preconceived notions based on their social beliefs—instead of the data. Yet, Gould himself was motivated to write The Mismeasure of Man by his strong political and social beliefs, which guided him to present his text describing the early intelligence scientists as blinded by their prejudices [4,7,12,50]. Given Gould’s pervasively incorrect statements in The Mismeasure of Man about the Army Beta, factor analysis [3], the place of intelligence testing in the immigration debates of the 1920s [5,9,10], the biological basis for intelligence [4,8,9], and the questions regarding Gould’s analysis of Morton’s work [11–14], we wonder whether there is any section of The Mismeasure of Man that is factually accurate. Like other sections of The Mismeasure of Man, when Gould wrote about the Army Beta, he omitted relevant information that contradicted his preconceived beliefs and misinterpreted data in order to portray the study of individual human differences as ideological pseudoscience. Contrary to Gould’s claims, the Army Beta’s content, instructions, and time limits were all appropriate for a group-administered intelligence test a hundred years ago. We believe we have also demonstrated that the Army Beta very likely measured intelligence, given the results of multiple confirmatory factor analyses and the positive correlations with external criteria (both during World War I and in modern times).
I did not read the entire article you just posted, but it is worth noting that it misrepresents Mismeasure of Man as clinical research itself, rather than a historical and theoretical critique which it is, and holds improper standards against it (which is very funny because that's exactly what they claim Gould is guilty of!). Historical research is certainly biased, and that's okay. Historical research depends on omission as a crucial feature, otherwise how would you write a book about a focused topic? The two kinds of work have different kinds of data and follow different argumentation strategies, yet the authors of this paper expect otherwise. This is unreasonable and demonstrates a clear lack of understanding regarding what history is, and I have a hard time taking them seriously as a result.
“The Mating Mind” by Geoffrey Miller (another biologist who would do the world a favor by sticking to his domain of expertise) came to me more recently but has left a similar impression. It impeccably elaborates upon the power of sexual selection and how it intertwines with natural selection.
A philosopher has a look at what Dawkins actually says and realizes it is basically medieval demonology dressed up in pseudoscientific verbiage.
So, for now, my considered view is that Dawkins has many interesting insightful things to say, while his critics are often attacking straw men.
The search engine coughed up a PDF. I randomly opened it (p. 173) and read up to this author-provided "TL;DR" on p.176:
The main reason, however, for thinking that sociobiology is false, is the simple one I gave at the beginning: that it is obvious that human beings are the most intelligent and capable things on earth. But genes are not human. Therefore (etc.).
Uhhhm. Really?
tldr: Talk about how genes influence organism, is like reading animal planet
It has gradually shaped my thinking in ways that is hard to describe. I've really began to understand just how much the Old and New Testaments tie together; many ideas and concepts are repeated several times in different books.
I have just two minor quibbles with the YouVersion plan:
1. As the chapters are being read, each chapter is announced with just the number, not the book. So you have to guess the book from the context. This was confusing the first couple months, until I became familiar enough with them to be able to guess the book from the content and the context of the chapter.
2. The plan is meant to continue indefinitely, but the YouVersion plan must be restarted after the first cycle (250 days). It irks the perfectionist in me, but in practice it's no big deal.
That might be putting it a bit strongly. "western civilization" derives from ancient greek society, which wasn't christian, but contained many concepts that are considered foundational to our society (such as democracy).
Few books have ever had such penetration of a culture. The Koran, the Analects, the Pali Canon are perhaps the only meaningful comparisons.
Before that familiarity came from weekly readings at Mass, which is why I talked about partial familiarity for the thousand years prior.
I'm an atheist, but there's a difference between dismissing the book's contents and dismissing the impact and influence of the book's contents.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Genesis-Illustrated-R-Crumb/dp/0...
And there are also people who e.g. carefully count the details, so that we don't have to:
https://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/who-has-kil...
But of course always check the references. Use the work of textual critics to establish what is in which version of the original text, and compare.
Exodus 10:11,12 (NASB)
"...but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; [in it] you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy."
Then notice the change in Deuteronomy, it's specifically to address the experience of being a "foreigner" and being mistreated in Egypt.
Deut 4:14,15
"...but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; [in it] you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day."
It's really sad when people who claim to be "Christian" do not understand that the most foundational teachings of God in the bible include caring for foreigners in a very personal and special way.
Is there a version you might recommend? Or just advice on reading the archaic prose?
KJV is cool for the Cormac McCarthy-esque prose [strike that, reverse it], sounds great when declaimed, but it is kind of a chore to machete through as a reader.
There are so many variants these days, it's not unlike choosing a Linux distro
http://bible.com has ~60 english versions and a way to show 2 in parallel if you want to compare a few. http://biblegateway.com lets you look at 5 at a time... I thought I remembered one that let you do arbitrary number, but I can't find that one.
This helped me understand the duality of the logical/mechanical and the creative/artistic. Then merging the two.
"So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one's surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all."
I never fully understood what Pirsig meant by Quality though. I could not understand what it really was, but I didn’t need to. I got so much good out of the book. But if someone could explain better I’d love to hear.
It will change your whole conception of what language is and how it can be used. It’s not about the characters or plots; they are recycled from antiquity. It’s about the absolute mastery of interrelation between words and imagery. It is something that has a meaning entirely emergent of its’ own self referential structure, rather than what is being described, in a sense that is almost mathematical. Realizing that was possible with writing really blew my mind.
If someone tells you they enjoyed Ulysses, they're either pretentious or mad. If someone tells you they enjoyed Finnegan's Wake, they're a liar -- because no-one has made it through that book.
A good number (I won't say plenty) of people have read Finnegans Wake and enjoyed it. At the risk of being branded a liar I can say that I've read the whole thing (out loud) and found it a very worthwhile experience. Some of the language play is very enjoyable.
James Joyce actually advised people to read it out loud and there is a nice recording of the man himself reading an exert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kFqiv8Vww).
It also helps to read it in an Irish or Scottish accent!
side note: patiently waiting for all lorem ipsum to be replaced with random bits of finnegans wake :)
It changed the way I see the world, how to have a sceptical mind and not only how but why one should question.
And also, it shows to me that, if you don't have a answer for something, doesn't mean that it can not be true. It's just that you don't know. And for a lot of things, this is the correct and only answer that we can have now.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play."
The player in a finite game actually wants it to end, where the play itself is just a means to this end. He is "playing against play." The player in an infinite game wants it to continue, and revels in the game itself.
"Although it may be obvious, it is worth stressing that “play,” as it is used here does not mean merely “playing around.” Play, in this discussion, is a metaphor for any number of complex human engagements whenever they take on a competitive, or cooperative, character. Corporations, for example, not only compete with each other but are in themselves populations of strivers, each trying to supplant another, each struggling for higher incomes and titles. The same applies to schools and colleges where attaining superior grade averages, degrees, and honors absorb the lives of students. Sexuality and marriage are often finite battle grounds with winners and losers. In fact, the features of play–finite and infinite–are essentially the same whether we are children playing jacks or soldiers caught up in a war between nations."
To me it is a concise and broadly applicable way to see the world.
https://jamescarse.com/wp/?page_id=61
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189989.Finite_and_Infini...
Cheating might win you the game, but it means nobody will trust you and nobody will want to play with you in future and you're out of the meta-game, you lost the more important thing. It's important to lose fairly at a game, so you get to play again long term.
Something that comes up in HPMOR where a dark lord can't submit and be humble to learn a lesson, instead fighting and killing everyone but losing the larger goal, and something which surely comes up every time someone is "technically right" on a mailing list or forum argument but in such a way that nobody wants to engage with them in future.
2.) Candide by Voltaire - contributed to my personal sense of humor and belief that we live in neither the best nor worst of all possible worlds, but simply the most absurd of them.
3) The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Helped me understand the power of small effeciencies in large systems and the importance of metagaming.
https://www.amazon.com/Illuminatus-Trilogy-Pyramid-Golden-Le...
To be fair, I'm not a big recreational reader. But this one will always stick out to me. When I read it in college, it had such a profound effect on me, I belive it literally helped shape who I am as a person even to this day
Maybe it was right place, right time. It is certainly an impressionable age, but I have read it again as an older man, & it was just as powerful.
I've read "Guns, germs & steel", "How to win friends & influence people", "Freakonomics" & some of the other stuff that pop up in the comments, they are all fine. But none of them influenced me like "Walden" did.
A true American classic.
Emerson and Thoreau weren’t just naturalists preaching justice. Their Nature is the same Nature Marcus Aurelius refers to in Meditations. Once you put their work in the context of the Trinitarian/Unitarian debate of the early 19th century, you see how deeply they thought about not just civilization, but science and philosophy together.
I’d add to Walden, Emerson’s Nature, and especially his essay Man, the Reformer. In today’s ultra-specialized and mostly-capitalist society, this piece has the power to simultaneously shatter and solidify your identity and sense of worth.
The Transcendentalist practically gave young America its voice following independence. They’re certainly worth revisiting if you only remember Walden as a reclusive pond.
It's like Design Patterns for human conversations: the result of studying how people interact, common patterns that work, and how things break down. Really crystallised a lot of insights I'd perceived but never thought about systematically. I highly recommend it.
Word of warning - there are a few books with this title. Look for the one by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen.
Also Thinking Fast and Slow, recommended elsewhere in this thread.
If you dispair at the way that conversations tend to devolve into personal attacks in national politics, office politics or your day-to-day interactions, this book is a very insightful handbook.
The book is the result of a big study at Harvard Business School of a large number of case studies. It spots the patterns that humans tend toward. In each case it identifies the pattern, why it happens, what the result can be (usually negative) and how to spot it coming and mitigate it. It also has snippets of conversation as case studies.
It's been a while, so I can't remember each item. But one example is that people tend to connect their identity to the point they are trying to argue. You challenge the point but to your conversation partner it feels like a direct personal attack. If you can find a way to acknowledge that connection, gently separate it from the identity, you have a much better chance of resolving the conflict.
I find a particularly strong parallel in the Gang of Four Design Patterns book. These are the broad problems that people try to solve with software, the structures that tend to emerge as people solve problems.
And, like design patterns, some things are deeply insightful and some things are obvious. E.g. of course 'iterators' are a thing. But development is so much better for having vocabulary to talk about them.
Always start with examples.
If I am trying to teach the fundamental ideas of complex analysis, I want to show folks how to take derivatives of complex functions with several worked examples and then show them how to do line-integrals on the complex plane -- I want them to have a big repertoire of things that they have worked out. I want them to have done for themselves several "closed loop" integrals that have come out to zero, and some that have come out to one, before I ever imagine putting the residue theorem underneath their noses. When I explain that analytic functions are these conformal maps which preserve angles, I want them to understand that how we defined analytic functions requires them to locally look like scaled rotations, and to understand that neither scaling nor rotation can change an angle.
Same thing in computing. I wouldn't dream about explaining what a monad is until I've explained what a functor is, and I wouldn't dream about explaining what a functor is without thinking through how lists and maybes and functions and eithers and pairs are all "outputtish" in a certain hard-to-describe way, maybe even discussing how a `forall z. (a -> z) -> z` is actually outputtish in `a` too, before I could finally define some bad definitions ("can get an output out of it" -- well no, I can't do that with the function!) and then alight on "okay so here's a good definition of outputtish as mappable, you can take a function and map it over the output" and then the fact that this has a specific jargon name at that point is no longer of any consequence, "we call this a functor" -- great, some name to memorize, but the concept is "not hard."
In other words, abstractions are patterns in concrete topics. The Dewey Decimal System organizes a library. It is incredibly difficult to convince someone to use the Dewey Decimal System to organize a pile of five books: "What's the point in having this big abstract unifying theory about book contents? I only have five of them!". But what you do if you want to teach someone the Dewey Decimal System is to make sure that first they have a whole library that is in some mess of a state, they can't find what they need to find and they can't see where to file new "books" (examples, pieces of information) and then you come over the hill with this Dewey Decimal System and you look like a righteous force for justice, "aha! everything can be well-organized!"
I have tried so many times to lead with the "Here's how you want to think about this sort of problem!" theory for all of my tutees, and it always leaves them looking at me with that "what abyss of hell did this crazy tutor crawl out of?" face. By contrast if I am just encouraging about "okay, what do you know about this system?" and am very careful to snip the premature theory of "Uh, F = m a?" that they have been exposed to, we can often work through a problem in words and then work through it in numbers and then I can suggest that here is a different way to think about it in terms of, say, momentum conservation.
"The selfish gene" changed the way I define life, opened my eyes to virtual life, and morality of selfishness vs. altruism.
"Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life" changed the way I view the life and material existence. Whereas before I viewed them as two separate domains, after I see them as a spectrum.
Chinese classic taoism treaties: "Dao De Jing", and "Zhuan Zi", offers a via-negativa way of thinking and view of existence, the values are beyond words.
https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/01/the-very-last-david-g...
> That made me prick up my ears, and say that that was not so. The example I gave was Graeber's claim that the:
>> Federal Reserve… is technically not part of the government at all, but a peculiar sort of public-private hybrid, a consortium of privately owned banks whose chairman is appointed by the United States president, with Congressional approval, but which otherwise operates without public oversight…
> That is the kind of glaring error that Graeber claims he does not make.
> Of the twelve votes on the Federal Open Market Committee, seven are cast either by the Governors of the Federal Reserve--who are officers of the United States government, nominated by the President, and confirmed by the Senate--and five are cast by Federal Reserve regional bank Presidents, who take office only when approved by a majority of the Governors.
> Not one, but all twelve.
..,
> And let me give the last word to a commenter on the last:
> I don't want to get involved with him because he's so damned crazy, but I just noticed that note 19 to chapter 12, p. 451. Egads. He has no idea what he's talking about. Not understanding the Treasury bond market in a book that purports to be a major treatise on debt???... Someone should tell him that deposits are liabilities for banks
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2011_11_13.html#011751
>> But then he starts talking about how democratic methods of structuring organizations are often more efficient than rigid hierarchies, and so will often arise spontaneously when people really need to be get things done. And he uses Apple Computers as an example:
> Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages.
https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt...
> In other words, I am now angry at myself for paraphrasing the book, and trying to put theses into Graeber's mouth, because this is such a rambling, confused, scattershot book that I am doing you a disservice by making it seem more coherent than it really is.
https://www.annleckie.com/2013/02/24/debt/
> But Graeber is basing part of his argument on the attitude of ancient Sumerians towards prostitution (vs later attitudes), and this is his evidence for the attitude he says they had. And so the question for me is, did he not actually look at the list of mes? There are plenty of Sumerian texts that are mentioned or summarized in books but hard to find in translation, but this one, as I mention above, is easily available. So if he didn’t read the actual list of mes, he did sloppy research and I’m bound to wonder where else he skipped research he ought to have done.
> Or did he know what was on the list, and that things like destruction of cities and troubled heart and fear and terror were there (they are) but went ahead anyway because darnit he was sure he was right and how many of his readers would question it, or had ever actually seen that list? Cause it’s pretty obscure.
> Either way I can’t really trust him anymore–if he’s ignoring or eliding things in areas I know something about, surely it’s happening elsewhere in the book and I just don’t see it because how could I?
For a long time I had wanted to start a business but after reading that book I truly believed I could. It was a long journey but I now run my own software business and I honestly would not have started on this path had my friend not recommended it to me.
To be honest, I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. It is not high-brow literature, and I don't even think it's considered to be a good book on being an entrepreneur, but it was a very important part of my story.
https://www.amazon.ca/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Pol...
And a general +1 for GEB. If you read that as a teenager, you are different for it.
The Gutenberg HTML of it is definitely a labour of love and extremely high quality: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html . I converted it to a nicely formatted epub for Standard Ebooks and it’s in review now, so hopefully will be available this week.
An excellent source of carefully formatted and corrected free ebooks (mostly classics).
Would be really interesting to have Kahneman discuss the crisis in a new chapter.
HN discussion at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228712
[0] Archive link to the original comment by Kahneman https://web.archive.org/web/20190206160415/https://replicati...
It made me aware that someone as successful and powerful as Napoleon himself was by a large extent only a product of the people and the mood at the time. What I mean is that it wasn't him who inspired the people; it rather was just the Zeitgeist he was the perfect person for. I'm not a native speaker and can't really put it into words, but it completely changed my view of the amount of influence we really can have in this world, and how much we are a product of our time.
Narziß und Goldmund by Hesse.
Again a lack of words from my side. Whoever is looking for meaning in life should read this book. The last sentence of this book is (at least in German) the literary most perfect and awakening phrase I've ever read. I couldn't sleep for days afterwards.
I'm a literature professor, and in academic literary study, we don't spend a lot of time talking about which books are "better" than others. But personally? I'll just never get over that one.
I suppose I'd have to add Aeschylus' The Oresteia (the oldest of the ancient Greek tragedies we possess, and the only complete trilogy). I was a truly terrible high school student, who I think just barely got into college. Reading The Oresteia as a freshman made me decide that one way or another, I would have to figure out how to read and study literature for the rest of my life.
By the way, if by some chance, there is a big overlap in our tastes, I recommend the fictional work called "Loving Vincent". It's a "moving painting" rather than a "movie".
Barack Obama read it at 22 and said it was mesmerizing and that it shaped how he thinks about politics.
Speaking of "groking", Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love and The Fountain Head have probably had the most impact on my mindset.
Each book is rather different, but in general the idea of all three is
> You have to be in life for yourself, and only you can define who you are / want to be.
That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be mean, but the idea that "greed is good", or that it's okay to be selfish, provided you think long term. It's about coming to terms and accepting you are greedy. But with that insight you can do introspection and learn about what drives you and make decisions yourself.
It's almost as if another layer of consciousness, learning about ones self.
It's not okay to be greedy, nor is it okay to be selfish. And these ideas are responsible for much of the harm in the world.
It is okay to know what you need and advocate for your needs, to take care of yourself. But that is not being greedy or selfish. And to do it effectively means you have to be able to recognize the difference between a "need" and a "want". You also have to be capable of balancing your own needs against the needs of others.
A mindset of "greed is good" and "it's okay to be self" does not even try to understand the difference between "need" and "want" and provides ample justification for screwing over everyone else in pursuit of greedy (unneeded) wants.
In a well regulated capitalist environment, those drives are yoked in a way that the paths through which you become rich and powerful and sexy are the same paths through which you improve the lives of others around you.
In a poorly regulated one you get dupont and enron, but show me a silver-bullet government theory and I'll show you an unrealistic fantasy.
>A mindset of "greed is good" and "it's okay to be self" does not even try to understand the difference between "need" and "want"
You're assigning that. Honestly I don't think most of Ayn Rand's critics have read her books.
What could exist is a world based on economic democracy, where no one becomes rich or powerful and everyone has to work together because society is structured to prevent anyone from taking power for themselves.
An economy where the stock corporation is replaced by the worker cooperative -- still an independent business operating in a free market of goods and services, but governed democratically by its workers -- would be much closer to that reality. No one would be able to amass much personal power. And any power amassed would always be held in check by the democratic structures that granted it. A world like that would do a much better job of preventing the accumulation of personal wealth way beyond need.
I think the closest to this, in current practice, is the German model, where workers have at least a say in the direction of their enterprises (not sure about ownership). It seems to be working out really well for them.
What is the difference between "need" and "want" and why is that difference important?
On the other hand, for well-adjusted folks, taking the book literally, is a recipe for overcompensating.
Namely, that people tend not to think for themselves and slavishly follow social convention for no reason. Not for things like, "should I take all this money?" But rather for things like, Does doing this thing actually bring meaning and joy into my life? Or, Do I actually find deep value and beauty in consuming this media? Or noticing how often we adopt opinions of others for our own, without reflecting on whether or not we actually agree, and whether or not we actually care about what this other person thinks.
And then apply these thoughts to your own creative potential. How often have we not created something because others would not have appreciated it or preferred it another way? When was the last time we did something without consensus or approval, on our own, because we wanted to? How many things are we hanging on to because that's what everyone else does and we don't want to be cast out?
Much of Bhuddist thought addresses the same concepts, but the goal is reduction of suffering.
So it's like a reactionary book ... it's existence might makes sense in historical context.
Though not a fan myself.
The first is Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky. This was the first political book I had ever read and it completely rocked my world. I knew the US was involved in some nefarious stuff, but never to that extent. Completely changed the way I read news / history & how I react to current events.
The other book is Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
The First Immortal by James Halperin - introduced me as a sixth grader to things like cryonics, nanotech, etc. Got me thinking about a realistic ambitious nearer term future for humanity, rather than a more fantasy-like one in the other sci-fi I'd read at that point, like Asimov and Heinlein
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen - gave me much greater agency in life. Made me realize “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
The Power of Vulnerability by Brenè Brown and Quiet by Susan Cain.
The first is not a real book since it's audio only, there is no written counterpart but it changed the way I see, connect, live in the world entirely. I _never_ found something along those lines.
While the second book, Quiet, although a little boring in some sides, made me accept my introversion (although I don't appear like an introvert).
If I had to pick only one then it would be the power of vulnerability, such a shame it hasn't a paper counterpart (you could read all brene brown books probably and get the same message, but that audio book is so great).
Perhaps the most nuts-and-bolts useful of books for me has been John Saxon's Algebra 1 and Algebra 1 1/2 textbooks. After coasting through high-school algebra without gaining any real mastery, in my early 20s I sat down with these two masterworks of clarity and re-taught myself algebra in the space of a couple full weekends. I use this (re-)learning every day of my life.
All said and done I feel like it's made me look at and evaluate a lot more possibilities at all important junctions in my life (if not all junctions). It's helped me channelise my mind better to understand signals I care about in an otherwise extremely noisy world. It's also made me a stronger individual being able to do more for people and look at things sometimes as just a series of outcomes, and making everyday life and outcomes more tolerable for me emotionally as well.
The Lindy effect: The strongest systems are usually the ones that have been around the longest. Accordingly, there should be a healthy distrust for any recent invention or practice.
The world is too complex to understand: Complex systems are mostly not designed, but exist and thrive by virtue of natural selection. This includes human societies. Even leaders and managers of these systems do not understand why they work. In particular you can't predict the outcome of tampering with complex systems, and you should avoid doing it in a wholesale centralized way.
Stress makes antifragile systems stronger: In particular a certain amount of stress, challenge, and variation is necessary for a person to remain strong.
Extreme tails: Fragile and antifragile systems often have payouts where a single event dominates the outcome. As an individual, there are two takeaways. There are only a couple of opportunities in life that count. They will only count if you maintain the optionality to take advantage of them. A single tragedy can ruin you. You have to look out for it constantly, even if everything has been pretty rosy up until now.
Second, Wendell Berry’s many essays and short-stories. His skepticism about technology can be taken to Luddite extremes, but his questioning of the full human impact of technology has profoundly affected how I think: that technology not only enables new human possibilities, but more importantly, shapes the very meaning of what it means to be human.
Finally, Paul Graham’s essays, especially his one on wealth. It’s the clearest explanation of “Make what people want” that I have read, and has a liberating affect on a mind that has been conditioned by society to be just another employee. I wouldn’t have jumped head-first into the startup world were it not for PG’s influence.
Was a big help in helping me understand how empathy can help to resolve issues and how fundamentally different we all can think - be it medieval humans or alien beings.
Maybe it didn't change my mind about "everything," but it did change my mind about everything related to negotiating.
The premise is that "no," is not an answer to be feared and avoided - it's an answer to be sought out. Getting a "no" is a key part of understanding the other side's position.
Many of the techniques he teaches can be used in non-negotiation settings.
For example, consider the seemingly simple problem of asking good questions. The author advocates interrogative-led questions over leading questions:
- interrogative led: begins with "who," "where," "what," "when," and "why."
- leading: binary answer, and usually begins with "do" or "does"
Consider the difference between the answers you're likely to get by asking "Did you like the movie?" vs. "What did you think of the movie?"
When you ask someone an interrogative-led question, you acknowledge their agency and challenge them to think. When you ask a leading question, more often than not, you're trying to manipulate the other person. Worse, you will get much less helpful answers.
Works great for job interviews, and many other professional settings.
One oddity: I've seen interviews/presentations with author, but he's a surprisingly bad speaker. As a how-to writer he's one of the best I've read.
The title sounds it's appealing to some kind of self-help shenanigans on how to fake your knowledge on books, but in truth is a very coherent metaliterary theory that delves into memory, psychoanalysis, honesty, and creativity.
Because of this, and since it correctly argues that the line separating what you have read from what you haven't isn't as clear or obvious as it appears, it's inspiring because it shows you a way through the seemingly endless human library; and liberating because it allows you to reconcile yourself with your limited knowledge of any particular set of books.
Since it's impossible to know even a fraction of all that has been published, and because your memory is fallible, whenever you are talking about books, whatever book it may be, in some sense you are always talking about a book you haven't read.
That being so, it's far better to own it as it is and to take advantage of that fact, talking confidently about any book. And this is where this book can really come handy.
Ever since I first read it some years ago, I felt I had a weight lifted from my shoulders. I'm not as bold as Pierre Bayard is, and I still find myself awkward for not having read so many important books. But now I'm more at ease, knowing that others, whoever they are, are also in a somewhat similar situation. Instead of feeling an ignorant sod, I now know I'm surrounded by an endless throng of likewise ignoramuses.
Similar book is “Stoner” by John Williams
and the concept of the political: https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo54...
I used to think of laws and society as just arbitrary things. However, I now see that they reflect thousands of years of wisdom / improvement and are critical to creating the conditions for people to flourish. The right to earn a living helped me understand the common law system and why we should care about unenumerated rights and how to create a more just society.
The concept of the political helped me see how nihilistic egalitarianism and feckless bureaucracy isn't a bug but a feature of liberal democracy and how it doesn't have to be that way.
Imagine the plot of three or four excellent movies woven together. It struck me how little human nature changes over time and across cultures. It also features some fascinating Russian history as a backdrop. As a person who almost exclusively reads non-fiction, it changed my view of how powerful fiction can be. I can't fathom what must've been in Tolstoy's mind to have the ability to create something like this.
Honorable mention to The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I'd like to learn more about Russian literature - I don't know if it's these authors and books that grabbed me, or if it's something larger.
1) "A Guide of the Good Life." This is an approachable intro to stoicism and helped me become more conscious of which things are within my control and which things are outside of my control. I now spend a lot more time focusing on the former and a lot less time being anxious about the latter.
2) Books like "Traction" (by Gabriel Weinberg) and "Cracking Creativity" that take a fuzzy subject like marketing or being creative and show that you can get very far by following recipes/algorithms/heuristics. Skill like creativity are not purely innate; they can be learned.
3) "Economics in One Lesson." (Spoiler: the one lesson is: "economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.") After this book, I now think much more carefully about proposed policies/rules/business strategies/etc. "Subsidized child care" or "charge businesses per seat" can sound great on the surface, but specific proposals often have so many unintended or negative consequences that are not discussed, and it's important to weigh those consequences against the benefits.
4) A statistics textbook. I don't remember the specific book that was my first stats textbook, but learning about statistics made me a lot more skeptical and inquisitive about data. Now when I see a graph or number reported in the news, I think "are there ways that this might be misleading?" instead of "omg cool this is a graph in a popular magazine so it must be true."
"Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
Resonates with me in real life a lot.
I'm only a quarter of the way through but it's already giving me vast amounts of insight into the roots of western civilization. It's also equipping me with mental models to analyze modernity and determine where we are in the history of civilization. It looks like we're in the decadent period.
My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knasgaard
An auto-biographical novel that's over 3600 pages for the entire series. It's really just the most accurate literary experience of modern man. I'm finding it quite useful to analyze my own conscious experience through life.
The Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons. It is deeply philosophical and caused me to think about life in a way no other science fiction has before or since. I found myself really sympathizing with the characters in these books, and found the overall plot incredibly fascinating.
Another good one is the Commonwealth Saga series (and others set in the same universe) by Peter F. Hamilton. It's a very _big_ space opera with lots of engaging characters, interesting technology, exciting descriptions of interstellar war, and a good reminder of just how unlike humanity an alien species could be. It really opened my mind to possibilities of humanity in the future in terms of how we might progress, both in terms of progressing out into the galaxy and how we could progress as a species.
Presents a compelling case for being optimistic that economic growth really will keep making the world continually better on average, and in particular explores the reasons why the contrary position is often so prevalent in the media, popular opinion etc.
Regardless of whether you agree with the thesis of the book per se it's a fascinating read which will definitely give you a lot of new perspective on debates on big topics - things that come up often on HN such as AI, climate change, international relations etc. I thoroughly recommend it.
I discovered the dire situation of men, with health and social conditions that top women’s problems by a factor 50, but we’ve never heard about. Funny thing is the guy is still a feminist in his approach (give men what used to be only given to women), but finally seeing men in a society where we really carr a lot when women face a problem... it changed my vision of life and humanity.
* Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
* Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
* Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (evidence based, ~1,000 references)
* The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep (sleep debt)
* Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
* Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
* Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
I haven't heard back on that, probably should message him outside of Twitter, but was hoping for a public dialogue.
Girard was a professor at Stanford and writes about the idea of 'mimetic desire'. His overarching idea is humans are fundamentally creatures of mimesis, and whether we realize it or not all our desires are born out of mimic the desires of those around us. We don't think critically about what we actually want, we just sub-consciously mimic each other's desires - which ultimately leads to conflict.
[West World Spoiler coming]
Reading his book, and theory on mimetic desire, felt like when Bernard realizes he's a host in West World https://www.amazon.com/See-Satan-Fall-Like-Lightning/dp/1570...
I don't think I've ever stopped thinking about that story and how, even if there was someone in the other boat, I could react as if there wasn't, and things would be better.
Not a book, but once I'd read and re-read enough https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ articles to start to understand his view on narcissism and how it's an epidemic problem in the West.
Something like https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/09/how_does_the_shutdow... from 2013 about the government shutdown, or https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/01/randi_zuckerberg.htm... from 2014 about why people are really so obsessed with Facebook and why we fill our home lives with work.
He writes my favorite books.
This review is something I generally send out to people after they've read GG&S, and strongly recommend Eric Wolf as an author. He puts many of the points I would make significantly more eloquently:
https://www.livinganthropologically.com/eric-wolf-europe-peo...
If anything, the way it has been challenged and shown to be flawed is a lesson on and of itself - that complex systems have emergent properties, and that those starting conditions are not as deterministic as it might appear at first blush.
If GG&S changed the way you think, I'd highly recommend following it up with either the book from that review (Eric Wolf's "Europe and the People without History") or Ian Morris's "Why The West Rules, For Now".
The author poses the idea of intentionally losing when arguing with a loved one since the victory will usually be a hollow one. It might seem like simple advice, but I found it extremely influential in my life.
There are many times when being right is actually the worst thing to be and made me consider if winning an argument was worth (potentially) damaging a long term relationship. When it was, this book gave some good advice about quickly repairing the damage and minimizing the consequences.
Sapiens, recently. It had a profound effect on how I think about people, history and progress... Particularly, the points about group size and all th cultural clockwork required for and limiting our ability to function as large groups.
Paul Graham's essays, which are kind of a web book.
Practical Ethics, by Peter Singer influenced me a lot (made me study philosophy) but I was a lot less expensive impressed by my decades-later re-read.
https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/d...
While I think it's a pinch silly oversimplification of things, it makes good arguments against central planning and for individuality and liberty.
It really struck a chord in an impressionable 16 year old.
Also, she has no sense of "Standing on the shoulders of giants", and how an eco systems make some things easier and harder.
Plotinus -Enneads
Markus Aurelius - Meditations
Descartes - On method
Descartes - Meditations
Spinoza - On the improvement of Understanding
Leibniz - Monadology
Leibniz - Grace
Voltaire - Candid
Diderot - D'Alembert's Dream
Kant - How to orient oneself in thinking
Kant - Critique of Pure Reason
Kant - Critique of Judgment
Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit
Hegel - Logic
von Kleist - Marionette Theatre
Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death
Heidegger - Being and Time
Sartre - Being and Nothingness
Sartre - Flies
Sartre - Nausea
Deleuze - Difference and Repetition
Kafka - Metamorphosis
Kafka - The Castle
Lem - Magellan Nebula
Lem - His Master's Voice
Cioran - A Short History of Decay
Pessoa - Book Of Despair
Wolfe - New Sun tetralogy
I was in my first couple years of military service when I read that. I can't really say how it changed my outlook on life, other than the fact that I liked how realistic the writing was, in regards to how children can adapt to an extreme situation (and how quickly naivety and innocence can be lost).
Lead me to read other books by Orson. I like many of them.
- "Computation and the Future of the Human Condition"
- "On the Quest for Computable Knowledge"
These tiny books in combination with some other similar books and ideas transformed the way I think about the world, physically, biologically, technologically - all from the perspective of computation - in terms of computational reducibility, kolmogorov complexity, emergence and entropy (RE maxwells demon - the meaning of life? more like the universal property resulting in the emergence of life like patterns and fluctuations in energy and matter)... sorry all a bit vauge, but difficult to articulate succinctly, read the (very short) books and maybe you will latch on to the same train of thought, it was mentally transformative for me.
I read it once a year. It changed how i think about everything. My career is based on this book. My interaction with people and groups of people is based on this book.
I can recommend everything else she has written. I go back to "Thinking in Systems" once a year and analyze my life, my projects again with her framework. There is always something new to discover.
A lot of warfare is not about violence even. Violence and attrition are bad, to be avoided. The goal is to win before the first shot is fired.
A lot of things that can be applied to life. For example,
Holding the high ground - don't lower yourself to someone's level just because they're taunting you. If you maintain the high ground while others try to drag you down, you'll have a large advantage.
Counterattack - sometimes the best offense is to stay on the defensive, to tip the enemy off balance and counter.
Sometimes you have to be intimidating as a form of defense. Sometimes you envelop/surround and destroy. Sometimes you want to draw attacks to decoys and straw men. Sometimes you hammer them down with suppression fire to advance. Sometimes you want to lose battles to win wars. Sometimes you have beaten and humiliated an enemy, but instead of destroying them, you recruit them to your side.
All skills useful in business, work politics, and anything that involves conflict.
From a technology standpoint, "The Pragmatic Programmer" changed the way I looked at programming. When I read it the first time, I was a Visual Basic programmer, with only a passing familiarity with the world outside the Microsoft ecosystem. After reading that I began to explore Perl, then Python, and installed Linux and learned it. For my career as a developer, then team lead, and then manager, that book changed me more than any other book I've read in the field.
- Jacques Ellul "The Technological Society"
- N.N.Taleb "The Black Swan"
- Danny Kahneman "Thinking Fast & Slow" (also his papers with Amos Tversky)
- Thomas Ligotti "The Conspiracy against the Human Race"
- Peter Wessel Zapffe "On the Tragic" & "The Last Messiah"
- Sokal, Alan D "Intellectual Impostures"
- Simon Herbert "A The Sciences of the Artificial"
- Herbert Marcuse "One-Dimensional Man"
- Schopenhauer "Parerga and Paralipomena"
- Lewis Mumford "The Story of Utopias"
- Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish"
- Edward S. Herman "Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media"
- Franklin Foer "World Without Mind The Existential Threat of Big Tech"
- Ben Goldacre "Bad science"
- Emil Cioran "The Book of Delusions"
- Gracian "The Art of Worldly Wisdom"
- Heidegger Martin "The Question Concerning Technology"
- Jacques Ellul "Propaganda The Formation of Mens Attitudes"
- Mumford Lewis "The Culture of Cities"
- Orwell "1984", "Down and Out in Paris and London", "Animal Farm"
- Huxley "Brave New World", "The Doors Of Perception"
- Michael Pollan "How to change your mind"
- Jeff Hawkins "On Intelligence"
- Fyodor Dostoevsky "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "Notes from the Underground", "The Brothers Kasamarov", "The Gambler", "The Idiot", "Crime & Punishment"
- Peter Smith "Teach Yourself Logic"
- Thomas More "Utopia"
- Emil Cioran "The Trouble With Being Born"
- Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago"
- Nietzsche "Complete works"
- Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"
- Gerald M. Weinberg "The Secrets of Consulting"This kind of clear, higher-level thinking about technology is rare and valuable. In the IT world, there's presumably a way to use the model, substituting "data" for "energy", but I've never seen (or come up with) one.
Jordan B. Peterson "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" made me more proactive and helped to summarize some past experience.
Richard Feynman "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" awesome book, about awesome life of awesome person.
Society and structure: Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper
Business: Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
Life: The Gospel of Matthew
It has shaped my thinking on 'what is good' or 'what does quality' mean. As an engineer it is easy to appreciate the author slowly going insane about the details he keeps coming back to, and as a human it is invaluable to have an understanding yourself of when something is 'good'.
Highly recommended.
The book is a series of histories of disaster events, natural and human-made. It shows how traditional ideas of what happens to people in crisis - i.e. that it brings out the worst in human nature and people need to be managed, by force if necessary - are wrong and that disaster and hardship create temporary communities that are peaceful, egalitarian, and supportive. In many cases, the experience of working in common to support others was so powerful that it led to profound individual and even structural political transformations.
All in all, it's a deeply optimistic view of human nature, one that you rarely see these days.
Studying and playing poker in high school changed how I thought about problems of incomplete information and how to gather the most information possible to make a decision. This book, in particular, for introducing The Fundamental Theorem of Poker and its use and application, gave me tools of reasoning and analysis of complex problems that I have built on and still use to this day.
That's why some of the most "logical", mathematically intelligent people are so susceptible to religious ideas: https://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm
Reading about how he experienced time in a concentration camp with endless hope to be reunited with his wife kept him going and surviving each day hungry, cold, and doing his best to take care of the ill. He learned the positive impact of hope and when individuals lost it, they quickly fell ill or died. It gave me perspective and to challenge my way of thinking in addition to helping clients learn there are multiple ways to interpret anything.
Totally changed how I view budgeting/team management, etc. Helped me learn about my own productivity and how to improve it. Introding flow and such to me. A lot of other books say similar things but they are generic, so its easy to write off with "oh, well software os different". But peopleware is specifically about software development.
Actually transformative concepts are usually not simple, and they need to mature in the thinkers mind.
Most important subjects are ao large it would be impossible to cram them into a single book.
Books can be insightfull and amazing, and there are several that are so vivid I find chapters from them popping into my head. A few recent books I feel have been very enligthening to me:
Notes on the synthesis of form by Alexander. Skunk works by Ben Richie. Influence by Cialdini. Skin in the game by Taleb. Isaacson's biographies.
Another I'd add is 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins. I have a Bachelor degree in science and never thought I'd be able to add to my understanding of evolution, but this book accomplished it. Almost everything I've studied can be broken into two periods - that I studied before reading the Selfish Gene, and what I studied after.
Lastly, I'd add Hume's 'Treatise on Human Nature', specifically his theory of substances. The basic idea was that as you learn more information about a substance, how you define that substance changes. First you see an orange ball, and you think it's just an orange colored ball. Later someone tells you it's a fruit, and your understanding of it changes.
How this is relevant is that I realized this can be applied to the world at large. Our understanding of any given phenomena is intrinsically linked to what we know about it. So there is no such thing as 'enlightenment' 'self-awareness' etc, there is only ever increasing awareness as we move through life, and we can also make a point to be intentional about increasing our own awareness.
Duh? I don't understand what alternative could possibly exist. Do some people somewhere think that the less they know about something, the more they understand it, or that the very first look you take at anything in the world is all you'll ever need to know about it?
Where I think for a lot of people they learn about a thing, or a group of things, until they come to accept something as absolutely and definitely true - "what I know IS reality". Then the learning process just kind of stops there because they think they know, when really they just know slightly more.
I see it all the time, people with the illusion of knowledge when there is a ton more to the story.
It really illustrates the enormity of the energy problem and the changes that are needed to make sustainability a reality, especially for densely populated regions like Europe and Japan.
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Erving Goffman uses the metaphor of theater to explain how we perform roles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Ev...
I would say How to Do Things With Words by JL Austin which talks about the power of words to bring things into existence but it really gets into too much detail for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin#How_to_Do_Things_...
Similarly Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty really influenced me but it is really really really long and dense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception
I think any atheist rational person should read this, to get a more realistic view on himself/herself and the world around you.
Our society is too individual and self-centered, which is actually a wrong view on how the world works. I recommend this to anyone, especially when you lose someone or something big in your life.
Here is what I have figured out regarding this topic.
1) most times what really matters to you is impossible to measure. When you drill down to core motivation/drives.
E.g how does one measure “happiness”, relationship quality, friendship, quality of life, learning etc.
2) Due to 1. we measure a proxy for the outcome we seek.
3) if we get this proxy wrong, and we optimise/improve it we have no effect on the outcome. Maybe we even have the opposite effect.
4) We often import/take-on other peoples definitions/proxy metrics for the outcome. Not our own.
Think it was Russel Ackoff who said “rather do the right things wrong then the wrong things right”
In other words. Start with what you actually value/want and make sure the metric will get you there.
I wasn't doing this with my goals and a byproduct of that was that I wasn't able to measure to progress of my final goals.
It's really more about how you manage your goals, not what they might be, but even with something as broad as happiness I think this is still possible. If you set "being happier" as your final goal, you can start to set daily, monthly, yearly... goals that fold into happiness. Happiness may not be strictly measurably, but if you know that working out 3 times a week makes you happier you can set that as a weekly goal. You then can set monthly and yearly goals around what working out steadily will improve (lifting more weight, running further and faster) and those things will usually be easily measurable.
There's edge cases for sure, as with most things. I will say it works better in a work environment where most progress can be easily measured (Even though it often isn't), but I think a good goal system is something that can be beneficial for any goal you may set.
However I do agree with #3 & #4, if your final goals are not in the right direction any adjustments to the daily, weekly, monthly goals will not improve that and may have a negative overall effect, but I think that resolves to a much larger issue than your goal management system.
Poland by James Michener - or any other of Michener's historical fiction. Not all of them are great literary works, but because they span thousands of years, they caused me to start thinking generationally.
It's mindblowing just as a work of history (prehistory really) but it also entirely changed how I viewed environmentalism. It made me realize that untouched wildernesses don't exist. Every single landscape on earth has been irrevocably and entirely reshaped by humanity. The Earth is a garden and we are its gardeners, now we just need to get good at it.
It opened my mind to be able to understand all kinds of storys on another level.
In school I always hated literature. It was like they tried to make me do something I just didn't understand at all. Literature was just random stories for me and all interpretation and attribution of meaning was fruitless and had I to just guess/fake it. Yea maybe my education was just bad who knows, doesn't matter now.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed that. Now I was open for all the literature and saw everything in a new light. I could recognize common concepts in stories and human life in general.
It also opened my mind for later Alan Watts reads on the interconnected-ness of everything. Someone already recommended Alan Watts. Which I can only approve of! I'd also like to add "The Way of Zen" and "The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are", also by Watts.
(self-copy from previous similar discussions)
This book consists of over 100 very short stories that are inspired by Buddhist teachings. It's contributed quite a bit to making me wiser, happier, less anxious and having better interpersonal skills.
Anyhow, few books have made as significant an impact on my life in both personal and professional circumstances than "Difficult Conversations" by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen.
A learned habit to stop and empathize with the motivations behind people's emotional upset has completely changed the way I interact with everyone in my life. I used to think that I was rational and a great communicator. I've come to understand that I've missed countless opportunities to comfort those I care about while saving myself literally years of stress.
Many of my regrets are based on retroactive realizations of how avoidable some of my communications failures actually were, given the long term damage that they helped to cause.
Please, read Difficult Conversations and give copies to people that you love.
Sometimes when I feel a bit sad I remind myself to read a few chapters. It reminds me what I find important in life. What I can ask from myself and from other. It gives me joy in a good way.
It was the first/only book that put into words feelings I've had for my entire teenage-->adult life around the complexities of a dysfunctional middle class family.
This explains so much of human behavior, but I hesitate to recommend it to people because it is so easily weaponized. To borrow from Harry Potter, it's the closest thing I've seen to a book of charm spells, but was written as a defense against the dark arts. Better everyone read it rather than just the marketers.
What I really love about this book is how much of politics it has explained for me, including the downfall of the USSR and the American civil rights movements, but also newer events like Schwarzenegger's poltiical career.
If you like this, I'd also recommend:
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg
All are in a similar vein. For more focused book on human behavior, I recommend first time team leads/managers read:
"Switch" by Dan and Chip Heath
A solid guide to changing organizational behavior.
2. Thinking Fast and Slow - made me think about all of the biases that my mind has that I dont even realize
3. The organized mind - This book gave me a lot of ideas about how I can change my life to live with less distractions and maybe do thinks more efficently
4. The Vital Question - Made me realize how lucky we as humans and complex cellular beings are to even exist.
5. Misquoting Jesus (and all of Ehrman's other books) - Gave me talking points I use against any/all overzealous Christians in my life. The stories of the bible are not remotely close to the stories that where handed down by the people that were with Jesus when he died. Over 100s of years and many errors (and a lot of luck), people decided Jesus was the son of God. Unfortunately for them, the chances of that being true are very very close to zero.
Bruce Metzger is a far more reliable (and recognized) guide, regardless of religious inclination. At worst, you will have a more balanced perspective after reading Metzger, and at best you will see where Ehrman has let you down.
"Over 100s of years and many errors" is pseudo-science. It makes for a Dan Brown novel for the uninitiated, but it doesn't fit the facts. Few mainstream scholars today would deny the accuracy of the New Testament documents, nor their 1st century authorship and dating.
Fantastic. Would be great to hear how you find him.
"most evangelical christians [...] don't doubt the accuracy"
By "mainstream scholars" I don't necessarily mean evangelical Christians, just non-fringe ancient historians or textual critics.
In this respect, Ehrman himself is interesting, because he's not actually the most extreme liberal, and you can find Ehrman himself correcting the fringe scholars when he wants to. When Ehrman is writing for the masses, however, you almost want to say to him "you should know better". After all, he had the privilege of sitting under Metzger.
For a real mindbender, read Kuhn (history of science), Carlota Perez (economics), and Stephen Jay Gould (evolutionary biology) in rapid succession. There're very similar ideas there around paradigm shifts, selection bias, and responses to environmental change there, appearing in many disparate domains.
"Tools of Titans" - Tim Ferriss : This book can be seen a summary of 15 most popular non-fiction books. There are a lot of guests in this book with a diverse back ground. There is wide wisdom you can pick on every page of this book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31823677-tools-of-titans
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2053923.What_Every_Paren... - a very nice book about neuroscience for parents
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26329.Emotional_Intellig... - changed the way how I think about emotions and interactions with people
The basic idea of the book that you cannot think straight until you understand the hard limits of thought, and respect it can never be more than a supplement to performing useful actions in the world, is a lesson I've never unlearned.
Then Nietzsche did the same years later - he truly can't be appreciated until you've spent 5-10 years reading philosophy searching for 'truth' and being frustrated.
Finally, engineering school really twisted things again and made me confront the difficulty of maintaining fundamental skepticism in the face of reliable scientific law (or even the occasional deterministic program).
Its been quite the trip
I started reading this book after my startup failed. I was looking for a job and I have this mindset that I need to find this perfect job to fit my passion. So the job hunting took sometime.
Picking up this book helps me understand there is not much need for passion but more on the development of my talent and skills. It’s listed as a self-help book so some might dislike it.
However the book did shed a different light on me. I’m in my new role for about two years now and within this period I gotten a double promotion.
Do I love the work I do? Not really, it’s product ops mainly so people find you to fix “issues”. However it does improved my skills a lot especially in the area of managing cross functional teams .
I think this book is great for people going through career transition. And it changed the way I view passion.
I recently read that one and it made me see my profession as a software engineer in a new light.
At work, I catch myself using possessive pronouns about code a lot for example. It really shone a nice light on the human element and how we reason and think about code and programming.
Really recommend reading that one!
The intersection of billions of years of history, a scale where ice ages come and go like thunder storms, where mountains go up and down in quick succession, with the human timescale of scientific progress, really altered my perspective on a lot of things. We didn't have plate tectonics until the 1970's. My grandfather went to high school and college learning the classical theories of orogenies, and just two generations later, a blink of an eye relative to the movements of our Earth, human understanding of what shapes our world is massively advanced.
It's made me think about every human endeavor differently. Everything we do and are is so ephemeral.
Much of our upbringing and education is underpinned by the assumption that "talent" is a real thing. Peak dismantles that assumption pretty thoroughly. The implications are far-reaching and I recommend it to everyone.
When he says anything, he means anything. How to measure the value of a human life, how to estimate things you know nothing about (like the gestation period of an African elephant), and how to get better at measuring things with limited information.
This book radically changed my understanding of reality, consciousness and the nature of self. I’m a very skeptical and scientifically minded person; this book looks at the subject of life after death from an evidence based approach.
I distinctly remember reading and re-reading the chapter telling the tale of the Grand Inquisitor. Only after two or three readings of the whole novel I began to grasp Dostoevsky's answer to the Inquisitor's objections, which are not stated plainly in the text but are instead suggested by the way the narrative unfolds.
I have read many other books by Dostoevsky (my other favorites are "The Devils" and "The Idiot"), but "The Brothers Karamazov" is still my favorite.
Simple things as "Watch your language! Never say “I can’t do that”" or "Never blame anything or anybody else for your misfortune" And my favorite is "Grab every opportunity which is going" You'll keep yourself busy and open for the world.
https://hundredfoot.com/bookstore/the-midas-method
It's a little dated but the stupid thing is the basic principles if you can be bothered to understand them really do work.
" Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing. "
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
There was one specific anecdote that rung true. Jackie Robinson, the first African American baseball player. It took a lot of guts to actually make in the MLB. First to get in athletically. Second to not lose his cool, because of racial segregation. Third, to actually be recognized as Rookie of the year. He had a lot of opposition against him but never got triggered. And he was a role model for many.
There's some other good books, like the "Toyota Way" and "Thinking fast and slow"
1. Getting to Yes 2. Getting Past No
Those two books by themselves are enough to truly learn how to become an adept principled negotiator.
Link: https://krishnamurti-teachings.info/book/commentaries-on-liv...
Archived page: http://archive.is/mp9W6
Absolutely opened my eyes to the realities of the world we live in.
Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster
Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis
> every action humans take can be traced back to an incentive
It's not enough to know that an action traces back to an incentive. You also need to know which of multiple possible incentives might be the incentive. The obvious incentive is often not the actual incentive, as we're seeing demonstrated in current American and British politics.
Also appealing to children
2. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.[2]
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33426.Hyperspace
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_
This is the book that really got me into programing. I'd tried programming before, and had even studied a C++ textbook and written some simple programs. But it really hadn't clicked. Graham's points about the fundamental expressiveness of different programming languages really blew my mind. This started a chain of "learn language X and try to build Y" for different values of X and Y.
Part of what I realized is how much I had been hampered by how difficult C++ is to pick up (especially with the IDEs of the early 2000s, which would give you an "empty" project with a couple hundred lines of code in it). When I realized that to write a Perl script, all I needed to do was open Notepad and start from an empty file, it was just so unbelievably liberating. That and also, obviously, just how much easier dynamic languages are to work with in general. Of course I eventually came back to C++, but that was the spark which kicked off a journey that lead to me flying through CS in college and eventually ending up in a PhD program.
Edit: Fixed link. Note also that the essays are available online for free, though you have to reverse engineer the reading order from the table of contents.
Not only did it help me see that no matter how accomplished/famous/old someone is, there is the demystifying shared thing that we all do, but also humbled me when I get too full of my skills or experience with anything in life. It’s a pretty silly thing but always pops in my mind and changes my behavior almost instantly.
Obviously it didn’t change the way I think about everything but changed the way I think about everything with people and social situations.
I think about "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell a lot directly. Over time I've appreciated it as a way to both motivate me to work towards success, and also to cope with feeling not successful enough. The fact reflecting on that book is helpful for both sides of that coin is part of its staying power for me, I think.
"The State" by Franz Oppenheimer was also impactful. It was the first kind of political theory that really gripped me. The idea that the State was something to analyze and scrutinize in the way that he did was exhilarating. Touched a nerve that resulted in significantly more questioning of authority and critical thinking about power, generally.
"why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby" made a difference, too. The book itself is great and it helped me to learn Ruby, and it also introduced me to _why. His work made me view programming as not just a craft, like building a chair, but also as an art form, like writing a book. It can be a way to express yourself and be creative, and programmers can, indeed, be creative, too!
I read these books when I first got into management and they changed so many things about the way I communicate with others. Everything in the books is obvious but things I was never taught growing up.
Learning how to understand others' intentions by the totality of their body language along with what they say is incredibly important. It's helpful for diffusing tense situations, understanding whether or not strangers pose a threat, easing tension in a relationship, etc.
Made me see the world, my life, my code and my desires, everything in a total different way.
It's like when you want to an apple then someone points out that a hole the worm's head can be seen out of it, or that actually the painting you're about to throw is masterpiece worth millions.
Gives light were it's all darkness.
It's really life changing, at least, it was for me.
It helped me understand how I created all the trouble I have experienced in my life, why I never became “succesful” and why I had felt so stuck most of my life.
I now understand how my mindset, how I see the person in front of me, either as a person or as an object, has a greater impact on my results than anything else.
Even on my abillity to be unstuck, to change my mind, to moce fast and break things.
10/10 would recommend it to anyone.
The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples by John Gottman revolutionized my understanding of trust and relationships. Reading it was like flipping on the light switch after stumbling around in the dark for decades.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson revolutionized my understanding of myth, faith, suffering, evil, meaning, and responsibility. It illuminates the underlying ailments that plague our modern societies and describes what we can and should do, as individuals, to improve our lives and the lives of those around us. It reaffirms the basic tenant of many world religions that suffering is real, and that the intentional creation of unnecessary suffering is evil. And finally, it makes a case that meaning is derived from responsibility.
Both are nice reads but Harari's book is shallow from multiple respects, and Diamond's book omits important counter-examples.
To me the book that made everything fall into place with respect to political history (and at some point, political philosophy) - and that I actually read before Harari and Diamond - was Francis Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political Order". An absolute must-read.
Could you elaborate ? I would like to understand how it made everything fall into place for you.
My most recent example is Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, it made me realize how difficult it would be for us to communicate with, or even comprehend the motives of a sentient alien. I wrote a full review here: http://www.alphadevx.com/a/519-Review-of-Solaris-by-Stanisla...
The most memorable part was around the fox.
All good ideas help, and we test those theories and decide our ourselves to keep the idea or ignore it. We are sum total of our ideas and behaviors, and it constantly evolves. Good books help with forming good ideas, and clear thinking. It varies from person to person. It could be Quran, a psychology book, or a puzzle book.
- Thanks for the feedback [1]. How to give and receive feedback well.
- Start [2]. Sort of your run of the mill self help book. Thought it had some nice insights in it.
- Glass House [3]. Talks about the deterioration of industrial towns and the society that used to be built around them.
- Thinking in Bets [4]. Approaching situations from the perspective of a gambler and how to choose what to do when you don't know all the facts.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114120-thanks-for-the-...
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17249189-start
[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939240-glass-house
[4] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957157-thinking-in-bet...
It inspired me to think about the role technology can play in improving someone's life, enhancing their development, helping them thrive.
Books: 1. Sapiens - It finally connected a lot of dots on how things work in the world (money, governments, religions, companies etc) and how humans communicate at scale.
2. On intelligence - Gives you a decent perspective on how brains work. How they are like learning centers that are continuously trying to figure out what is going on around us. How they store and recall that data and finally how they use our senses to put a lot of context around different concepts like objects, ideas, poems, people etc. Also it shares some examples to prove that our brain is not limited by its senses. Those examples just blew my mind wide open.
3. Biography of Einstein - I always imagined that people like Einstein are lone geniuses and worked in a silo. But it was pretty clear from the bio that even Einstein learnt and practiced his science by bouncing off ideas and fine tuned his explanations through many many different and equally brilliant people. And the role that his parents played in constantly keeping him challenged.
Non book: Blue planet 2: You think aliens would be different than us? Check out some of the species on our own planet and no animal will ever seem alien to you anymore.
Some ideas that got triggered outside of a particular book: 1. All non natural things around us that I thought were super complicated were actually built by humans like me. Rules, bridges, planes, rockets, buildings, religions etc. This opened my mind that even I am capable to contributing in a significant manner.
2. Happiness is not the goal. It is an incentive to get the goal. This keeps me motivated to think beyond the current issues and focus on the future.
Two books by Erich Fromm, a German/American philosopher of the 50s/60s: The Art of Loving. Some points: To him love is a skill that has to be practiced and learned, love in a relationship is constant hard work, love of another is only possible if you first love yourself, and you cannot love another human being if you do not love mankind. A little bit later he published The Sane Society, a Marxist critique of capitalist society, how consumerism leads to self-alienation etc.
>Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism have in common that they offered the atomized individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination of alienation. The individual is made to feel powerless and insignificant, but taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of the leader, the state, the "fatherland," to whom he has to submit and whom he has to worship. He escapes from freedom and into a new idolatry. All the achievements of individuality and reason, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century are sacrificed on the altars of the new idols. ...built on the most flagrant lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders.
Sounds familiar?
- Donna Meadows' Thinking in Systems, how to model anything as an interconnected system, and how unseen positive and negative feedback loops cause unintended consequences in any system
- Anne Lammott's Bird by Bird - I have to write a lot for my work and this is the best primer on getting things out the door
- For the Australians: Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu, on how early white European settlers completely misunderstood indigenous agriculture, all the things that were lost when Europeans settled Australia, and what we can use today. Gives you a VERY different look at Australian history.
- Ha-Joon Chang's Economics: The User's Guide. Just came out, an absolutely amazing intro and look at modern economics, the flimsiness of neoliberalist thought, and how we need to use the tools of each economic school of thought to think about the economy, not getting stuck on one school
Applying the lessons made my studying many times more productive. After getting Bs and Cs in many of my undergrad classes, I recently finished a five course post-bacc CS program with all As. While Dr. Oakley isn't the only reason, it absolutely helped!
I know this is a recent book but it got me to think about personal, religious, and government motivations from a different perspective.
Also, now that we know more about epigenetics, that's another really interesting framework in which to contemplate Jaynes's thesis.
Bastiat was a great French Economist and liberal political philosopher. He been considered as more of a popularizer than an original thinker, but that's unwarranted. The Law is the greatest work of classical liberal political though that I have encountered. In school we all read Locke's Second Treatise of Government, but we should have first read The Law. It's very short--more of a long essay than a full length book--but it packs an earth shattering wallop.
Bastiat is also an intellectual ancestor of the Austrian School of economics. The famous Hazlitt book, Economics in One Lesson, is an extended meditation on Bastiat's classic essay, That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen [2], which is the origin of the Broken Window Fallacy.
By giving vivid examples of failing or badly functioning and "maladaptive" (processes in) various (indigenous) societies he made made me value our current state of existence very much: Government, rights, laws, police, infrastructure, jobs, and all that really are a great achievement of mankind.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries got me thinking about applying the scientific method to things I never thought of before.
Those are the two most published books in history and have changed more people's thinking than any two other books.
Currently in the middle of thinking fast and slow, and I think it may be happening again :p
Become genuinely interested in people, make them feel good, they will appreciated it. The advice is essentially don't be a jerk and do talk to people about the things they are interested. When you start doing that it's like playing life on easy mode.
In his latest collection of essays originally published in Natural History magazine, paleontologist Gould examines diverse and diverting topics. The title piece refers to toes, and we learn that five is not necessarily the optimum number. Gould re-examines the work of astronomer Edmund Halley and 16th-century Irish Archbishop James Ussher, who pinpointed the moment of creation (Oct. 23, 4004 B.C.);
Edit: I see The Selfish Gene listed here quite a bit. It might be of special interest to you to read Dawkins "rival" on the other side of the pond - Stephan Jay Gould. His "punctuated equilibrium" resonates with me more than Dawkins take on evolution, simply because it involves something less "neat".
Plus, even as a child I found Gould made me laugh out loud sometimes.
Another idea that book drove home was the power for the media and the utter control of your life a government can exert when it completely controls it.
I'm wrecked after this book. Hated that I couldn't find a good way to disagree with it. Feels like so many nice things I thought about the world were ruined, and will never come back.
The implications permeate so much of our daily life.
I... wouldn't really recommend reading it.
I never actually read it until around the time the iPhone came out and everyone was walking around with those white earbuds. I remember sitting on the bus reading and I looked up and stared around at the people on their phones with their white earbuds and all I could think was holy fuck Ray Bradbury was right.
Realizing who you are not changes everything.
https://www.amazon.ca/Riding-Waves-Culture-Understanding-Div...
Literally rethought everything following this read.
Mixed in with the magical fantasy and high adventure, there are major philosophical themes of what it means to be free–and for Lucifer it is to absolve oneself from all concept of or involvement with worshipping a deity. It was a big influence on my thinking about religion and philosophy.
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mihaly-csikszentmihaly...
I'd done a lot of computer systems and engineering control courses but this book put systems into perspective for me. They're everywhere and we're embedded in them. If you want to change the world this is the book to read. Its also a quick read.
Reading "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer and "Private Truths, Public Lies" by Timur Kuran prepared the ground for it!
Also: A Pattern Language, The Design of Everyday Things, and An Introduction to General System Thinking, the latter by Gerald Weinberg
The idea that a company would have some kind of special research division where people can pretty much do as they wish (just "improve the product") feels like something in a fantasy world. But it existed, and it gave us amazing inventions that fast forwarded technology and improved the lives of everyone, and barely anyone even knows about it! Lasers, the transistor, fiber optics, UNIX, the cell network, even friggin information theory.
Even the [eventual] HQ building was designed in a interesting way. They had purposely long hallways of offices, so whenever you had to go to lunch (or the bathroom) you would inevitably be 'caught' by coworkers, forcing interaction.
i think one of the echoes from this idea at google is the "20% of your time you work on a project of your choice"
not sure if there is anything else at google like that.
Details the battle of Verdun (France v Germany), one of the longest and bloodiest battles of WW1 with around 700000 dead, more than 1 man killed every minute for 10 months. A slaughter of men by machinery. I've read a bunch of books about the great wars and they are all affecting, some of them deeply, but this one showed me in stark relief the mindless brutality and utter futility of war. People talk of wars as necessary, of actions as heroic. It's sad that a civilized species, capable of high reasoning, can still resort to base violence so easily. It wasn't very long ago, and there's been a lot of violence since, some of it on comparable scales. We don't learn much.
Just using pure reason and inference he not only made accurate predictions about DNA he also inspired a whole generation of physicists to switch to molecular biology and discover the fundamental building blocks of Life.
That really made me aware of all the things people do to try to influence other people. I probably read that book 15 years ago, but I still recognize sales tactics based on principles in that book. It helped me to be more aware of attempts at manipulation when people are trying to sell things. It had a big effect on what I noticed going on in the world.
It's really more about human psychology and how people attempt to influence each other than it is a book about selling.
As I side note I now have 10 books in my amazon shopping cart. This thread proved to be pretty dangerous.
Jiddu Krishnamurti - a freethinker, who said we need a revolution in the psyche of the individual
Paul Theroux - prolific travel writing
Oliver Sacks - his insights into brain disorders
Salman Rushdie - his early works, when he was in his prime, a giant in literature.
I'm not sure it's the best now but it was my introduction to it at the time.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Same.
Complexity, by Mitchell, is an introductory look at complex systems that changed the way I see the systems in the world and sent me off on a long tangent to learn more.
Life's Ratchet, by Hoffann, is just plain mind-blowing, or at least it was for me. It's about the inner mechanics of living cells, and does a really good job of conveying how insanely complex life is.
More recently, the short novel The Machine Stops blew me away with its prescience.
* The Alchemist - the closest thing in my life to a religious text. Just a beautiful story that I can recall at any time for some calm.
* Desert Solitaire - just read this recently and it gave me an entirely new outlook on the relationship between humans and nature.
* Don Quixote - I was blown away by how a book that is ~600 years old could make me laugh and keep me interested. Changed how I think about people 'a long time ago' since they could enjoy the same books I do.
* House of Leaves - this one just split open my brain in an irreversible way, sort of like how you hear people describe certain drugs.It explains with many examples how stable, global structures arise from simple, local interactions.
It changed the way I think about economics, politics, society, evolution, computer science, and a whole host of other things.
Skinner's views on human behavior evolved a bit after this book was publish until he died but this book was my first contact with his ideas.
This book changed the way I view humans (myself included). It made me more empathic. It allowed me to unified many concepts of human/animal behavior and AI.
It was kind of like when I learned how to program - what I read in his book - gave me a new lens to interpret how or what I saw in the world. It created a crack that made me wonder what else I wasn't seeing or able to see.
There was a page in there about secrets in plain sight and it bothered me for years because I couldn't understand what he meant until I finally read Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and the sequel, What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
The New Jim Crow - this gave me a way to frame structural racism and its impact now, in today's society.
The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football - I read this in high school. And it really gave me an understanding on how sports reflects our society's structure and values in the narrow sense. And got me thinking about how, more broadly, pop culture is a really good lens to use to understand our culture whether it is sports, tv, music or mass media.
Highly recommend if like you are like I was - wondering when and how the next client was going walk in the door
https://www.amazon.com/1-Page-Marketing-Plan-Customers-Money...
"Old Southern Apples" by Lee Calhoun, as above but more about the potential wisdom and benefit in pursuing the quixotic.
"Beethoven's Letters" by LVB trans. Kalischer [Dover] - made me realize it's OK to struggle mightily with everyday difficulties even if you're shooting for the loftiest goals.
“No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.”
- The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy (there is absolutely nothing quite like it, and it taught me to laugh - or at least giggle - at anything)
- Dune (the notion of mental discipline, at least as idealized by Frank Herbert, made an impression on me)
- Sherlock Holmes (focused awareness and logic)
- Godel, Escher, Bach - The Eternal Golden Braid (multiple takes on awareness, logic and creativity)
There are more, but I tend to avoid Malcom Gladwell style books (and Freakonomics uses a lot of the extrapolation-by-slingshot-logic approach) and the like because they play upon our biases and are often quickly disproved.
The other book that feels most influential to me is "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. I read it many years ago when I was in college and studying CS. Maybe I just read it at the right time in my life, but I remember loving everything about it and being fascinated by all the different topics from math/science/CS/AI/history that it touched on while exploring its central thesis. In really broad strokes, the book is an exploration of logical paradoxes and the insights we can draw from them. It ultimately leads to a focus on the concept of recursion (in nature, in the human mind, in mathematics, in CS and AI, etc.), and how certain patterns of recursion found in math, nature, and the mind could form the basis of creativity, inspiration, natural diversity, human intelligence, etc.
But that's selling it short. It's a huge book that ranges over so many topics that it can seem overwhelming. I devoured it at the time, and it fired my imagination for many years later.
It's been 20-30 years since I read either book, so I can't say if they would hold up for me now. Maybe. But they introduced me to so many different ideas that led to so many more ideas and lines of reasoning throughout the rest of my life. For better or worse, I would be a different person if it weren't for those books.
It really opened my eyes to many issues about race I was not aware of and did a great job explaining the real problem is systemic racism. It had a pretty profound impact.
Note that I cannot always wholeheartedly, universally recommend all his later philosophical / atheism books to a wider audience, Selfish Gene is a no-brainer to me. --- Close second is Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
- The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan - It gave me the tools required to cut through bullshit and helped me free myself from the shackles of a religious upbringing
- The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - Gave me the courage to look at things differently when everyone thinks we know it all
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel - It made me question what I was doing professionally and I now have a list of questions to answer whenever I am in a startup to help guide me
- Compersion by Hypatia From Space - It help remove limits to how I can love and care for the people that are important to me.
Everything from leadership to how your mission needs to speak to people's reptilian brain first, because that's how people ultimately make their decisions.
It helped me think about the deep motivations that should drive me to build a successful company. Apart from making money. And all the benefits that comes with thinking from Why, to How and then to What.
It was an eye-opener for me. And it's full of real-world stories to really make you understand his points.
I highly recommend the audiobook narrated by Simon Sinek himself, on Audible.
In a nutshell: The mental models we typically use to think about and understand the behavior of organizations such as corporations and governments are deeply wrong.
It is the story of Beowulf, told from the monster's point of view. It underscores the constant internal struggle between nihilistic despair and finding meaning in life (for yourself and others). It strikes a chord with Ozymandias[0].
It is primarily responsible for me abandoning my strong Catholic upbringing (and, ironically, despite John Gardner himself being a Christian).
It's an explanation that makes sense out of otherwise nonsensical human habits of cultures (tribal, ancient and modern).
If you're curious and want to read something enjoyable—he's a decent writer—check out "Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches" (preferably one of the later editions), or for something a little denser: "Cannibals and Kings".
Reading Rand’s essays both made me appreciate her views more and made me cautious to accept her epistemology as a whole. I don’t consider myself an Objectivist, but I still consider her work to be a strong influence on my life.
Likewise. In addition, The Fountainhead was, IMO, better written... and it has the additional perk of being shorter than Atlas Shrugged. If anyone was thinking of sampling Rand, I'd almost always suggest starting with The Fountainhead.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Represen...
A Pattern Language
The Alphabet Vs The Goddess
Aloud: Voices From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
The Fire Next Time
The book introduces the context of the scientific revolution and the thinking from which the ideas that we think of as science developed. It tells a very different story than the "dark ages to enlightenment" narrative and shows the seriousness and depth of thought at the time and also of subjects that many dismiss even without thinking, such as astrology.
Ancient human's may have more in common with schizophrenics of today than history would indicate. Religion may be a result thereof.
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
US History can be considered a function of large scale popular movements rather than decisions made by individuals (leaders).
Gun's Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond
Civilizations' success can be considered a function of base resources (edible grains, farmland, metals).
Evolution is the reason we exist! Understanding how it happens and why it can lead to counterintuitive outcomes is very important. He also narrates his own audiobooks and is excellent at it.
The Blank Slate & The Better Angels of our Nature by Pinker
Both books counter much accepted wisdom. The second book, in particular, will make you think of humanity in a fundamentally different light.
The Black Swan & Fooled by Randomness by Taleb
The role of chance in everyday life! It plays a big role!
Dawkins: A lot of really interesting things in life are really weird and puzzling, such as sex. Literature and religion try to elucidate it, but fail to get to the bottom of it. The insights popularised by Dawkins really make a lot of sense of it.
Pinker: Absolutely. There is this notion that things were much better in the past. These books shred it to pieces. It's also worth looking at Pinker's Enlightenement Now, and Julian Simon's The State of the World, though that has a lot of libertarian propaganda in it. However, the statistics are sound.
Taleb: Not a huge fan of Taleb. The point about the role of chance is much better made, in my view, by Robert H. Frank in his Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy.
Behave by Robert Sapolsky, The Social Animal by Elliot Aronson, Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman - we are animals shaped by evolution. The human brain isn't perfect and makes lots of silly mistakes. I learned not to belive everything I think.
The illuminating thing for me was the history of different groups, where they were from, where they settled, where they migrated and basically how these cultures remain in those areas for the most part.
Maybe I had a naive view before, but after moving from one region to another, it was enlightening to see things described this way and help understand aspects of southern culture.
We've all asked the questions: "What's life all about? Who am I?" This book won't give you the answers but it will show you why all the "solutions" given since the beginning of time are probably wrong. The author blends Eastern Zen with Western Psychology in a mix that will have your mind spinning right from the first page. Fair warning: You may lose your-self after reading this book.
Atlas Shrugged: I like this book because it attempts to show how things some people think are virtuous can be bad, and visa versa. The protagonists have a sort of honor code to them that defies common ideas of morality.
Don't Shoot the Dog: Describes how to do positive reinforcement training on dogs, horses, and even your children. People don't seem to realize how similar we are to other animals. Also, it's nice to know that positive methods can be more effective than punishments and dominance tactics.
Your Deceptive Mind - A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/your-deceptive-mind-...
This course helped me find places where i was allowing my own mind to run the show by default without thinking critically about my own motivations, thoughts, memories.
Grant Cardone's Be Obsessed or Be Average last week.
Finally, but mostly, Maurice Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of P.D. Ouspensky and G.I. Gurdjieff, though I recommend reading what is widely considered the "introductory" text, "In Search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky.
Although it sounds like a self help book, it’s actually a fascinating interpretation and explanation of the Tao de Ching which was written 2500 years ago by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.
It really helped me understand the wisdom of that text, which without the accompanying interpretation by Dyer is a bit like reading Shakespeare without the notes.
I think about this book almost every day, and it truly did change my life. highly recommended.
"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. Lots of life wisdom in there. https://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/ I recommended to watch the video _after_ you read the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/...
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquir...
It's an outstanding book though I also liked his 'Beneath the Wheel' and 'Steppenwolf' a lot. Siddhartha has an unusual depth for the topic it tackles, namely achievement and meaning. Highly recommend, and the best part—it is free!
Says a lot about risk taking and potential rewards. It's short enough to read in one sitting, but more importantly, picking up a book like that reminds me why the world needs more risk takers.
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/How-Fight-Hydra-Ambitions-Destined-eb...
- The Structure of Magic
- The Game by Neil Strauss
- Antifragile
- How to win friends and influence people
- 48 Laws of Power
- E-Myth
- Field Guide To Lucid Dreaming
- Turtle Trader by Michael Covel
Structure of magic may be the most impactful one out of all of them, but they are all hella good.
Great book about our how humans think. He breaks our slow, logical reasoning as system 2, and our fast, automatic visceral processing. He points out we might think we have control over our thoughts and actions (system 1), but more often than not our System 1 is intervening or providing the true reasoning for our decisions. Great book to introspect your decision making and that of others.
- I read Brave New World (Huxley) when I was young, and it didn't have such a strong impression on me at the time, but it has strongly influenced some of my political takes over my whole life.
- The four steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank) showed me that there can be method to the apparent madness that is entrepreneurship.
Like many "radicals" (it's the same for libertarians), he has great observations about the way things are, but umconvincing ideas for solutions. Oh well.
He's one of the few public intellectuals with the humility to step away from saying "do this", and constantly speak to the power of "countless small deeds of unknown people" in creating a better society.
It lays out the inevitable power dynamics behind any political system, democratic, autocratic or corporate. The rules for the players are the same, despite different terrain.
If anyone thinks politics can ever really be about policy (for politicians) here is the cure. What has to be done to get power, hold on to it, and why, regardless of motives or competence.
I would add Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman. It too follows the thread of incentives, but also more interesting aspects of human psychology like memory, and the 2 parts of the brain. Understanding how the 2 parts of the brain are often at odds with other, has vastly changed the way I think and helped me realize times I'm susceptible to bias and misunderstanding.
- Models: Attract Women through Honesty + The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
- The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy + More than Two by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert + Opening Up by Tristan Taormino
The book takes music theory as its subject, but explores perception, culture, the meaning of art, innovation, and other related ideas in its lengthy footnotes and tangents. It shows a world of practical considerations that go into art, which many would assume is primarily subjective.
Schoenberg is known as a composer for exploring atonality, and for having many students who became important composers.
New author, new view of the world - literally hanging yourself upside down to see a new viewpoint.
https://www.amazon.com/HANGED-MAN-M-PFEFFER/dp/0960055118/re...
The ideas in this 20-year-old book are just starting to catch traction, but basically it's that depression manifests differently in men than in women. This is because, the book's thesis goes, of the differences in social conditioning between men and women.
I recommend this book all the time.
1. The first book I read that changed my view of my own mind, that is, taught me to "think about thinking", was Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I truly felt like my view of myself and the world I live in changed dramatically.
2. The second book that had a huge impact on me was Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.
3. The third book has to be The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Alexander Solzhenitsyn (the abridged version by Edward E Ericson, Jr). When I mention this book, I meet a lot of people instantly debating the death toll numbers presented by Solzhenitsyn, but for me, the main point of the book is about complicity in the context of the Stalinist regime and complicity in evildoing more generally.
There are a few anecdotes there as well, but it's less fun than Freakonomics. Still, it explains so much about institutions, governing, and generally how societies work. It does make you rethink everything.
I was raised in a culture where if someone has luxury items, a big house, and an expensive car, then they were rich.
The Millionaire Next Door defined wealth in a different way for me. Wealth was no longer how high your income was, but wealth become how long you could live without working. You can increase your wealth by saving/investing more and by lowering your expenses.
* Sapians - great for a global view of our history, and an understanding of how important myths and religions have been for us being successful (as protocols for getting on)
* Thinking in Systems - toolchest of mental models for dealing with complex systems
I found there were some very interesting and useful insights into the way our brain works. Disclaimer, I am only 2/3 the way through it.
* The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt
* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
* The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee
* The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
* Getting Things Done - David Allen
* The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card
* The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss
* The 5 Love Languages - Gary Chapman
* The Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsey
It was really an attitude change for me, and realising that I can only control what I can. I can't control people's reactions to that. It set me off on a bit more reading into stoicism.
Very challenging book. Not recommended for the feint of heart, easily offended, or closed-minded.
The Feynman Processor (Gerard J. Milburn)
Strategy: A History (Lawrence Freedman)
Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People by Thurman Wilkins
Also the NVC book and Walden that have been mentioned.
It changed my mind completely on the fact that being a millionaire is actually attainable. And these are all average Joes!
I read it not so much as a historical text but as a story about dramatic shifts in power attributed to technological advancement and strategy.
Amazing works of fiction that I come back to again and again include Anna Karenina and The Three Musketeers
A great introduction.
One of the most practical books I have read which you can easily implement in your real life to see positive outcome.
https://www.amazon.com/Compound-Effect-Darren-Hardy/dp/15931...
"On The Road" by Jack Kerouac was a liberating, mind-expanding experience with no drugs involved. Kerouac's free-form style and open-ended approach to life made a great impression.
"Cosmic Loom" by Dennis Elwell debunked the narrow-minded, reductionist attitudes of scientists towards astrology and opened up my mind to the value of symbolism.
[0] - https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest...
None of the things he's criticizing were things I took away from the book. Examples, "If you're gonna go broke, go broke big"--> obviously stupid, just disregarded it; "Convinces people that college is for suckers" --> already was completing my degree, am well aware of the value of a higher education and also how it isn't for everyone, this had no impact on me whatsoever; "Advocates committing a felony: have rich friends for trading stock based on non-public inside information, he says "That's what friends are for." --> I am perfectly aware of what insider trading is and that it's a felony, again not exactly what I took away from this book.
And so on. What I took away was assets vs liabilities and using your money to make more money. That's it. And that's all I needed, that was the golden key.
His other books are very good as well, "only yesterday", "since yesterday", and "the rise of the 1%".
This book really helped me see the cyclical nature of economics.
It made me understand just how much of what I was raised believing about the history of the US was just plain mythology. It also explained why I always hated US History in school...
https://www.amazon.com/HANGED-MAN-M-PFEFFER/dp/0960055118/re...
misc. Forrest Mims notebooks, the Python Tutorial, Practical C Programming
first chapter of Sound and the Fury, snippets of Naked Lunch, wide swaths of Ulysses
The Universe in a Nutshell, French's Special Relativity
The Gamma Function, a graph theory text whose name i don't remember, baby Rudin
Brain Structure and Its Origins, The Form Within
There are plenty of good reads here already but for posterity I am going to add Edward Abbey to the list. His work is a primer on what freedom is really about rather than this 'freedom' word bandied about by politicians. His work was also important to the environmental movement.
Changed my view on business and reproducible business systems forever. Fun to read, too.
- *The Selfish Gene* by Richard Dawkins
- *The Righteous Mind* by Jonathan Haidt
- *Thinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman
- *The Art of Not Being Governed* by James C. Scott
- *The Unwinding* by George Packer
- *People's History of the United States* by Howard Zinn
- *East of Eden* by John Steinbeck
- *Sometimes a Great Notion* by Ken Kesey
- *The Brothers Karamazov* by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
People could get different takeaways, but it made me think very deeply about falsifiability, the limits of persuasion, and the thin lines between plausible, reasonable, and likely theories about the world.
Doing the experiments contained within some of his books will take you on a very rational, sensible journey to some very strange places, and may break parts of your worldview.
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Re...
Amazing insights on the corruption of the USG/Nixon And the ties between the unions/cia/and the mafia.
These made me realized how much control I can have on my life.
To sum all that up for you using my own words: If I die tomorrow, I’ll make today the most meaningful day of my life. Rinse and repeat.
Totally. That's what I meant. To me personally a meaningful day means no complaints, good connections with people, have at least a positive impact on people, etc. This doesn't have to be extreme. It's a strategy to push away negative thoughts and to focus on what really matters every single day.
Beautiful book, full of wisdom. It's short but I had to read it multiple times (and I'll probably read it many times more, each time discovering something new and deeper and relevant to my current state of play).
When I was younger, On The Road and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning opened my mind to travel and wandering.
Stranger in a Strange land: "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
It turned out to be better than it looked. I highly recommend it.
ISBN: 0071433864
This book really highlighted for me how we literally rewrite history to suit our own prejudices, and finally taught me what "history is written by the victor" actually means (including claiming victory).
Set in occupied France during World War II, the novel centers on a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths eventually cross.
It’s a nice reminder on how to treat people.
It's written by someone who lives violence on an everyday basis, and his insights are amazing. Particularly for people who rarely experience violence, but when they do it will be catastrophic.
It matters a lot since I've seen eastern books having hugely varying translations.
For example, an Indian friend of mine tells me that 'I am become God ... ' is a very inaccurate representation of the original hindi text
Changed my perception about the state, our society, people's beliefs and media's influence. I was fascinated how Orwell was able to accurately portray the characteristics of totalitarian and authoritarian states.
2. How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie - made me to survive few odd situations
Completely changed my mind on economics, how it relates to people, and what fulfilling work is. I can't recommend it enough.
That book offers excellent insight into the stupidity of crowds and how that plays into geopolitics, and more.
1) love is a verb and 2) people want appreciation in different ways and 3) people give what they want to receive
It applies to every kind of relationship: lovers, parenting, business, etc.
Tense Present by David Foster Wallace: https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...
This really changed how I think about communication and language, which is used for everything.
Abolition of Work by Bob Black http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm
This essay persuaded me to change a belief which was previously core to my belief system: that work is an inherent good. I don't think that his view of an ideal society is entirely realistic now, but as technology replaces jobs, I see Bob Black's vision of productive play to be a lot more palatable than slavishly continuing the capitalist obsession with work as work becomes more and more unnecessary.
Once I came understand that human beings are survival machines built for the single minded task of gene survival, everyone’s behavior become much more predictable.
* Human, too human, by Frederick Nietzsche ;
* The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris ;
* La Femme est le propre de l'homme, by Rolf Schappi ;
* Biologie de la mort, by Frederik Revah ;
* The Manipulated Man, by Esther Vilar ;
I read it when I was a teenager and it helped me to overcome everyday drama and widely extend limits of my personality.
Fiction: Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut and Ender’s Game by Card have been transformative.
One can't really summarize the argument. It essentially describes the structure of modern society as it's existed since, say 1960 or early. The text may seem opaque but if you read it closely, you actually need any explanatory texts, though they exist.
Honorable mention: Game Theory Evolving, Herb Ginitus Biochemical Individuality, Roger J. William The Working Brain, Luria Using Your Brain For A Change, Bandler The User Illusion, Norretrander How The Beattles Destroyed Rock And Roll, Elijah Wald Mathematical Logic, Manin The Ascent Of Man, Bronowski The Book Of Secrets, Osho
[1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.ht...
The first chapter especially blew my socks off. I never have been able to see nature and man's relation to it in the same way after that.
Now everyone I look at reminds me of a monkey.
Practical Primers on Political Power - now I think of EVERYTHING in terms of selectorate theory and cartels
It changed how I think about identity by showing me the danger of labels, and made me appreciate the beauty of life.
General non-fiction: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds; http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
It's surprisingly relevant today and many of the anecdotes are fun. Helps you have a healthy skepticism but also acceptance of fads.
Fiction: Pratchett. Hilarious and deeply humanist at the same time.
Fiction and politics: Ian M Banks; fully automatic luxury space anarcho-liberalism. With lasers.
I was raised in a super religious house; for whatever reason, that one or two books started my down a path of materialism/skepticism and away from religiosity/dualism/spiritualism. It was just the start, mind you. I was probably already primed and heading that way anyway, and that just happened to be the spark. I don't mean that there were any huge insights or great revelations for me there.
The ideas around TANSTAAFL were what really drove me to believe in the value of hard work and being wary of the easy path to "success".
It helped me think about my time spent in relationships and how should I address my sorting problem under constraints of time
All of these portray the world as a series of systems. First deals with interconnected systems like war, business, conflict, the second the notion that culture itself is a series of systems of power and sexuality has been used as a system of power, and third that most of our thought can be made from simpler set of blocks i.e metaphors from which we construct almost all of existence.
1. The Technological Society - Jacques Ellul
2. The Sickness Unto Death - Kierkegaard
3. Dubliners - James Joyce
4. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World - Cal Newport
Finally human behaviour makes perfect sense.
Was brought up in a very toxicly pop-libertarian household, and it really opened my eyes to how much all of nature (including human culture more specifically) depends on working together towards common goals.
I was very young and impressionable and I think this book is like philosophical crack cocaine.
Then again I've got no excuse not to be.
It's even more easy to watch the speech itself on Youtube, ofcourse.
A lot of my managerial lessons have come from that book.
2. Dale Carnegie - How to Win Friends and Influence People. The definitive guidebook to interpersonal relations. Taught me empathy.
3. Thornton Wilder - Our Town. A play about a little girl who gets one more day after her death to visit her memories. I read it at 16 and it brought me to my first understanding of mortality.
4. Peter Watts - Blindsight. A romping and intellectually trusting sci-fi involving space vampires. Good biology. Made me seriously question the nature of consciousness.
5. Eric Hoffer - The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Dense and hard to get through old book on what it says in the title. Helped me better understand the Trump movement and similar nazi/alt-right movements that were beyond my ability to grasp before.
6. Douglas Adams - The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Helped me understand that though I may die (or the universe may end), that might be OK.
- Never Split the Difference
- From Zero to One
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior
- Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
- Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
No limits, Jonathan? he thought, and he smiled. His race to learn had begun.
Autobiography of a Yogi
"Wisdom is the greatest cleanser."
"Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge"
"In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle."
Other notable books that had an impact on the way I think are:
On The Shortness of Life - Lucius Seneca
Steve Jobs Biography - This was way back before I moved to states and gave me an intro to states as well as S.V
The Design of Everyday Things.
If you grew up, as most people did, your world view was shaped by a child's world view seeing a small slice of local life and some nationwide lowest-common-denominator TV/media.
If you haven't read anything which has shaped, changed or distorted that brain you see the world with, you either had an unusual upbringing or you haven't read anything very interesting.
I cannot write a glowing praise of it. On paper, it is an awful book, because it contains a textbook but it is trying to be a novel, and so you have to roll your eye when the main character takes the physicist's advice and suddenly his business life and relationships are all sailing smoothly. Even worse: the mathematical derivation that it provides is performed in a context of a steady demand for named products, a manufacturing context, and so it has almost no value in the software engineering "project context" that most of us face, where everything we produce is essentially different from everything else we produce. To understand that you have to read a sequel called Critical Chain, but that sequel is written even worse: at least with The Goal you could imagine yourself as a brave manager finding "Herbies" and putting them "at the front of the troop." But the sequel is just a textbook that has been artificially forced into anecdotal form.
Nevertheless, the points covered by the textbooks deeply changed my view of my purpose at my company and beyond. The essential thesis is that we commit a fallacy: everyone knows the basic accounting knowledge "profit is revenue minus cost" and that the point is to generate more profit, but the fallacy is to assume "there's nothing that I can do to change revenue, that's the job of sales, so the way to maximize profit is to reduce cost, so we will cut costs across the company and then we will be extremely profitable." And it doesn't work! At least, not consistently. What follows is a failure of the greedy algorithm: to improve the efficiency of the system, the greedy algorithm says that you make every single part more efficient, and this is also precisely wrong. The result means that you lose a certain sort of robustness against catastrophe that anyone who has gotten good at backgammon can tell you all about: beginners, who play every move safe, systematically make "good luck" impossible and "bad luck" inevitable: and so they are routinely beaten by the masters who seem to have bad luck all the way until some run of amazing luck causes them to make up their loss and more.
As a consequence you create a circumstance where, as Eli puts it, the entire shop has three priority levels: "hot, red hot, and DO IT NOW". You create a circumstance of "end of the month syndrome": you start every month cutting costs and then you end every month throwing away these lofty ideals in order to meet overdue deadlines and save some customers who are getting mighty irate with you.
All of these are failures to understand that what we'd now call velocity in fact just is profit. With a bit of help from my econ course back at Cornell, most systems can be described with an "order queue" and each order can be associated with its marginal revenue and a marginal cost. You may have to be creative to uncover these in some contexts, for example marginal revenue for a software team at a mechanical contractor may be "paid for" in some "cost savings" for the contractor as a whole in an informal "this is why we keep you programmers around!" type of situation. Marginal cost, similarly, requires being very careful to say "no, I am not going to count my programmers' time in that, unless I really intend on hiring them specially like contractors for this order and only this order." Generally labor, like the building that you are occupying, is a fixed cost.
The velocity of something in the order queue is just the reciprocal of the lead time that it spends in the order queue, and each item in the order queue represents a marginal profit, and your profit comes from creating as much marginal profit as fast as possible -- hence from increasing velocity as much as possible. Furthermore the only reason to prioritize things in that order queue is if you are accepting orders of negative marginal profit and you intend those orders to eventually get cancelled by their recipient -- in the typical case you can mostly ignore all scheduling optimizations and just take orders first-come first-served.
So what you're looking at is a sort of physics about how your organization makes money, and about through my second read-through I started to see how that needed to change my own professional behavior and how I could help my companies to do better. And it's just gone beyond my professional life into thinking about how to increase my throughput of things that make me happy, how to increase my throughput in household chores, how to increase my spiritual throughput. There's a sort of nice ubiquity to any sort of physics.
* Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
* Discipline Equals Freedom by Willink Jocko
Completely shaped my worldview from 13 to now.
In particular his focus on the structures of every day life:
https://www.amazon.com/Structures-Everyday-Life-Civilization...
And his focus on the importance of trade among the different parts of the world:
https://www.amazon.com/Perspective-World-Civilization-Capita...
More here:
Writing thoughts down changes everything.
2) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
I also read another great book that talked about differences between conservative, liberal, and libertarian viewpoints, with a notion of different taste buds that are active when observing the world that was really interesting, but unfortunately, the name escapes me.
Les Miserables, Hugo
Several stories by Kafka
Dubliners, Joyce
Walden by Emerson
Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter
Sexual Personae By Camille Paglia
Capital: Volume I By Karl Marx
My own interpretation is that while we can say "I think therefore I am" you can't really prove anything else. The tao takes it some small step further: There exists you, but there also exists everything which isn't you (even if that's nothing). So, in other words the existence of A implies the existence of not-A, even if that's the empty set. Between A and not-A there is a boundary where you transition from A to not-A. In other words, by implying the existence of one thing, you imply the existence of 3 things, even if 2 of them are the empty set.
This turns out to be really handy. If you say "tall", it implies "short" (not-tall) and it even implies that there is a point between "tall" and "short" where it transitions from one to the other. This is actually a tautology, based on the definitions of the words, but it can be used as a base of reasoning. The classic example is that a cup can be empty or it can be full. A cup that is always empty is not useful, and neither is a cup that is always full (for the normal definition of "useful" when applied to a "cup"). It has to transition between empty and full for it to be "useful". Similarly, a spoke in a wheel is defined as much by the places where it isn't as it is by the place where it is. You can't have a spoke without a space and when you think about spokes, you should also think about the spaces between the spokes because they are just as important. Or if you don't want criminals, one easy way of accomplishing it is by getting rid of laws -- no laws, no criminals. More laws, more criminals. This is just reasoning based on the tautological definitions of words, but it can lead you to pretty interesting insights.
The I Ching is interesting because it documents 64 states that you could possibly be in. It then describes all the transitions between the states. There are consequences for moving from one state to another. The consequences are described in those transitions. It is surprisingly apropos! Though it was supposed to have been written by the Yellow Emperor thousands of years ago, in reality I think it's been tweaked over and over again for thousands of years and the 4096 different possible transitions have just been worked out by exhaustion.
Many people think of it as a fortune telling thing and you can roll dice (or draw straws) to pick a starting condition and the transitions, but my impression is that this was originally a study mechanism. In fact, it's not a book you can easily read through. Randomly selecting a starting condition and transitions allows you to study one thing at a time. I still haven't gotten through everything :-) Basically, I think of the I Ching as design patterns for life. I'm here. I want to go there. What is the best way to go about it and what are the likely consequences of those actions? Very useful.
The Bible being profound to people isn't anything new to people, but it was in particular the writings by these men that deepened it for me, solidified it, I don't know what was it. Maybe it was because I was a functioning agnostic the entire time I was brought up, it just made it that much more real to me. I can't really put my finger on it, but that was the experience I had.
For my non-cliche picks, starting with "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. Particular the a-ha moment here was the dichotomy between the "fixed" mindset and "growth" mindset. Shedding the notion that we were "fixed" in our ways. The particular example that resonated the most with me was the one about Michael Jordan. How I used to remember so many people saying "he was born with that talent" or "it was a gift from God"
No the gift was not his talents, it was his work ethic and determination. To find out he was actually cut from his high school varsity team at 15. To hear the stories of how he practiced so determined (and took great offense if his team mates didn't take practice as seriously as he did, sometimes to the detriment to some relationships), it just changed my whole perspective. I was going through a tough time of my own at work, and this book allowed me to realize that the feedback I was getting wasn't attacks against my character or meant I wasn't smart enough or good enough, they just were what they were, and they were opportunities to grow. Everything can be malleable with enough time, energy, focus, and most importantly, the right mindset.
A follow up to this in a tangential way was "The Obstacle is the Way" which really helped me learn how to roll with the punches, and turn everything into an opportunity, a challenge. If something wasn't fair, wasn't right, seemed impossible, it didn't become my destruction, it became my motivation.
Finally, for leadership, and kind of along that same theme of rolling with the punches and stop buying into the "life isn't fair" or "I got a unfair shake" was Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Lief Babin. The book details the stories of the Navy Seals that fought in the Battle of Ramadi in 2005-2006. Most people will be particularly interested in the chapter about Chris Kyle of "American Sniper" fame, as he was part of this Navy Seal unit.
Besides the awesome stories, the book details a great mindset for ownership and leadership in general. Teaches you how to ditch the word "they" when referring to other people in your organization (I found myself often complaining that things were more difficult than they needed to be, often using the word "they" when describing who exactly was making my life difficult). It helps you realize your part of the bargain when it comes to your organization's success.
I also recently discovered Stoicism and there seems to be a relation (albeit weak one) between Objectivism and Stoicism.
"The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch. It's difficult to pinpoint this book as being about a thing or a set of things, but my best attempt is to say it's about attaining knowledge and the non-existent limits to human knowledge. I've never felt more inspired than when I finished reading this book and reflected on the infinite lengths humankind has to go on technological progress. Overall, it's an incredible argument for optimism about what is possible.
Before I read it, I thought anarchism was just punk-ish people who want to run around Mad Max style with no rules. Reading The Dispossessed helped me to see it's actually a fully fleshed out political system, with many rules, that could work well.
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter; recursion.
In fiction, Gene Wolfe (Severian) and Doris Lessing (Shikasta) have rewired a considerable number of my synapses. To this day they tug at my subconscious.
* Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
* The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
* Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
* Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation by Mitch Horowitz
* Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
* Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
* The Culture novels by Ian M. Banks
* Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
* Not a book, but Gene Roddenberry's vision in Star Trek shaped who I want to be and the world in which I prefer to live.
Although, I would say that it's hard to choose because just about everything I read changes me in some way. Here I've tried to stick to the ones that changed me for the better, rather than sending me off on an amusing if useless rabbit trail, e.g. Real Magic by Isaac Bonewitz, Illusions by Richard Bach, The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson, H.P. Lovecraft's works.
Another was Nineteen Eighty Four by Orwell.
I'd also cite The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand as having influenced me, although I read it when I was older and found that it mostly reinforced ideas that I was already sympathetic towards. Similar situation with Atlas Shrugged, also by Rand.
I could probably also call out The Soul of a New Machine by Kidder, as being a primary influence that pushed me in the direction of getting involved with computers.
"Debt: The First 5000 Years": This is truly a magnum opus. Until I read this I had taken money, economy, market etc., for granted. And I had held onto the widely accepted, but naive, view that economic systems somehow grew out of barter systems. The range of topics discussed, and the way author shows how seemingly independent concepts are intertwined, is truly astonishing. I'm on my 2nd read.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow": This book made me truly appreciate the value of psychology. I didn't even know the existence of a vast domain called behavioral science until I read this book. Now I'm deliberately conscious about the decisions I take and retrace my thought process multiple times just to make sure that I haven't fallen pray to some of the cognitive biases.
"The Tell-Tale Brain": While I did know that human brain is a unique organ this book opened my eyes to its layered complexities. For instance, how "seeing" is not a single step but a multi step process. From image formation, to identifying the object, to evoking emotional response.
"QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter": The book with the highest signal to noise ratio. I finally understood what science is about, a way to model nature and to keep refining it to fit the observation. There are no true/false theories/models only those that explain nature's behavior better or worse. Nature is agnostic to all our theories and models. She's just the way she is. For details read about double slit experiment.
"How the World Works": This one along with "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order" has greatly shaped my mental model about the workings of contemporary world. I now understand why does military gets all the funding, why do powerful governments tend to keep its subject under perpetual fear, why is it that the cost of education has been sky-rocketing.
"The Hanging of Afzal Guru and the Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament": A glimpse into the working of Indian justice system.
"Broken Republic": This is by far the most accurate description about current affairs in India. How India is being hollowed out and how its most vulnerable section is the one fighting against it.
"Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life": I'm currently reading it (20% through) and it has already made a big impact. The meaning of information is deep and subtle and pervades not just human being but the life itself.
"The Order of Time": The book that well and truly shook the foundation that I had taken for granted for my entire life. That space and time aren't something absolute and are personal has had a profound impact on me.
"The Upanisads": A truly remarkable work of human mind. Just to think about some of the concepts uplifts my mood.
Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche. I picked it up knowing nothing but Nietzsche was the progenitor of the saying 'that which does not kill you makes you stronger' (which is a radically misunderstood saying that is supposed to sound naive and stupid). Then I read the chapter titles. "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Write Such Great Books". I had to read it. It sounded ludicrous from the table of contents alone. And so it was. I later found out that he wrote the book while in the end stages of syphillis, mostly insane. It did, however, clue me in to a whole different kind of thinking by introducing me to philosophy and how problems could be tackled that can't be addressed through more analytical means. Plus, it is full of a great many laughs simply due to the absurdity. The only thing I can recall actually making sense and being true was a bit about how to be most like ones parents is the greatest disgrace because it indicates that humanity has stagnated and not advanced for your generation at least.
And though I don't care for it now, Ayn Rand's works, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, had great impact on me at the time I read them. I went on to read all of Rand's non-fiction philosophical writings as well. It was thanks to her that when I attended college, I majored not just in Computer Science, but also in Philosophy. And I credit that education with granting me a tremendous amount of insight and philosophical confidence. Today I would vigorously disagree with many of Rand's shortsighted conclusions, and even with her physically incorrect epistemology, but she did have a grand idea after all, to derive all of philosophy from first principles. Shame she started with the wrong principles and A is indeed often not A but a superposition of A and B. Beyond that, the modern Objectivist community seems to lack a great deal of the intellectual mettle that I think she herself had, and they seem incapable of letting go of the seemingly helpful flawed evidence of the past and embracing the more sound modern evidence of the benefits and evolutionary advantage of empathy and such. I could go on for hours about how Rand actually DID account for things like charity and supported them, but it's a nuanced discussion and not for a thread like this.
Also, the hardest book to read I have ever read, Comprehensive Mathematics For Computer Scientists. It derives mathematics from set theory on up. It is written like a single books-long (there are multiple volumes) academic paper and if you're not accustomed to reading such information-dense material, it might well be impenetrable. It took me days per page to fully comprehend, often with breaks in between. But it gave me interesting perspectives on at least functional programming and infinity and how to prove things.
But that goes for pretty much everything really. Catcher in the Rye in high school. Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People".
I think books can "change the way you think about almost everything" when you are younger, naive and idealistic. As you grow older, wiser and understand the world more, you leave those childish things behind.
Also, as einstein said : "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
I'm sure I'm not the only one that used reading as a crutch and a form of escapism and to waste time.
But if you want a book that left an impression on me, K&R's C Programming Language is one. It showed me that a technical book can be concise, well written and enjoyable to read.
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/sateve...
Not really the total repudiation of reading that this quote is being implied to be
Through good books, I could have access to mentors who would would never know me, but I knew them through their writing, and I acquired the tools to add value to the world.
Yes there are many mass marketed B.S books, that's why I tend to read older books that are battle tested and still relevant today(Lindy effect).
Yes, some books have more impact or less depending on what period in our lives we read them, our personal motivations or what prior knowledge and the context that makes the book relevant to us.
Of the hundreds of millions of books in the world, we may only get to read maybe a thousand or so if we try. Someone could invest years of their life into something that takes 8 hours or so to read. I think there's a high chance that their experience reveals to us something which we wouldn't have imagined and amazes us about the world we share.
I've definitely seem people change their behavior after reading it well into their 30s and 40s.
The key part of that quote (whether it's real or not) is the "and uses his own brain too little" part. It's not as helpful to read a book mindlessly like you're watching television and I think you're missing out on so much by just reading technical manuals. You need to form your own opinion about what you're reading by drawing on your own experience and things you've learned.
I'm pretty sure you didn't develop your way of thinking by yourself. You were influenced by mentors and other people's thoughts and opinions. So why would you intentionally stop evolving? How do you know you've reached some "optimal mental state"?
As an aside, if you're into well-written technical books that are enjoyable to read, check out Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/
You have only one life. But by reading you can assimilate cumulative wisdom from thousands of lives.
Sure, don't just read, personal striving is also needed for a wholesome life.
I agree that if a book claims to be amazing and life changing, it likely is not. I find books can offer singular insights, and intuition about how people and organizations operate, what psychological and historical principles are general, and so on.
As you grow older and “wiser” you realise that your time is precious. So you understand the opportunity cost of reading a book. You should then choose books that are foundational that are often the sources used by other books. You see more deeply into the meta meanings in the books, drawing many more links to other concepts hence you understand them better. This also means you could probably read much more deep/technical or difficult books.
Yep, that describes so much of what's popular.
One book I find goes in the opposite direction--I didn't get much from it when younger, but when I revisited it as a grown man, I suddenly saw a lot more value in it: The Bible. Which is about as far from "mass market rubbish" as you can get, considering quite a lot of it was written by people who were persecuted, tortured, and killed for writing it!
Of those five books, "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction" by Gabor Mate changed me the most. I actually re-read portions of the book last night.
Practical effect: you'll start seeing your favourite cereals as an entirely indistinct product, with a cardboard box around, with coloured print over it which has no connection whatsoever with the content.
The question itself is kind of absurd if you think about it. But it leads to a nice parade of skimmed and unread books. Sorry, if I'm too cynical. I just have seen these questions about books thousand of times and every time I have the same feeling: that people are grossly overestimating the impact of the books they have read and they are just approval junkies. Surely, no book can change your thinking about almost everything.
It's quite interesting that people love the concept of "favourite books". Any time there is a question about our favourite books we feel the urge to share and tell everyone what great books we have read. It's not important what others have read, main thing is to shout out our title.
I still haven't figured out why we love to discuss books so much. Is it egoism or need for approval? Is it because we have to somehow justify hundreds of books we have bought and never actually read? Books become elements of decoration, just to show off and appear smarter perhaps. If they are stacked on the edge of your desk, that's even better, it portraits you as a restless intellectual adventurer. And when your guests arrive you make sure that they get a glimpse of your amazing "library". And some of the guest who kind of dabble in books themselves, are happy to look at your books, skim them, and make some general remarks. Win-win. I'm sure you guys can relate.
>Surely, no book can change your thinking about almost everything.
False, for me. Many books have significantly changed my thinking about one, many, or nearly all "things." If you're curious which ones and in what way, feel free to ask here or on my email address.
>I still haven't figured out why we love to discuss books so much. Is it egoism or need for approval?
I like to talk about the thoughts I have about things, including books. This is a sharing concept with my friends and partners - I enjoy hearing their opinions, bouncing ideas off them, and exploring topics. It gives me pleasure. It is not egoism, nor need for approval (I say with extreme confidence).
> Is it because we have to somehow justify hundreds of books we have bought and never actually read?
I don't have opinions on books I've never actually read, so this is an inapplicable statement. I also don't have hundreds of purchased, but unread, books. I have perhaps 20 purchased and unread, and about 50 on the immediate "want to read list" that are unpurchased and unread.
>Books become elements of decoration, just to show off and appear smarter perhaps.
This is not true for me.
> If they are stacked on the edge of your desk, that's even better, it portraits you as a restless intellectual adventurer.
There is nothing on my work desk but my notebook, phone charger, laptop, monitor, headphones, keyboard, mouse, and an empty coffee cup. At home, it's the same, minus the laptop, plus a bunch of postcards from friends jammed between two plants.
At this point, I'm convinced there is someone in your life you are thinking of, that annoys you, that has books on their desk. Perhaps they are legitimately annoying - it would be sad if this makes you hate all book readers.
> And when your guests arrive you make sure that they get a glimpse of your amazing "library".
My guest library is in the living room. It consists of cookbooks, a Haynes manual on the Suzuki SV650, and about 10 different picture books of cats, dogs, bridges, and infrastructure. Also, a D&D manual.
>and make some general remarks. Win-win. I'm sure you guys can relate.
Do you not discuss topics of shared enjoyment with other people? What makes "reading books" an unacceptable hobby discussed between friends?
Your rant gives me the impression that you believe people do things only to appear smarter, better, than others. I remember I used to think that way, because it didn't seem possible to me that "genuineness" could exist - nope, everyone is guided by primal urges. This isn't true. I hope you come to discover this one day.
For me, I love books, have since I was a kid. I used to love having books on my book shelf and looking at the books every now and then, and remembering the stories. When having friends over looking through the books was something we did (that and CD's/LP's), likewise going to friends places and looking through their stack was always fun. I'm always keen to discuss books I've read and recommend books I enjoyed, or in this case changed my view of life, there are a few.
Now they're all on my ipad and I can carry my library round wherever I go. In many ways I think people are made of stories, we all have our stories about ourselves and people we know, and the stories we read and share are just an extension of that. The stories are about people we may never know and things that we may never see, or never even exist, to want to share these with others seems natural to me.
This led me to read other authors like Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet. Helps me identify the influence of religion in nearly every aspect of life.
[1] https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty... [2] https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Ethics%20of%20Lib...
"Wait a minute--this Snow Crash thing, is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"
"What's the difference?"
This was the original definition of a "meme" as coined by Richard Dawkins: instead of humans choosing what to think, what if ideas self-replicate using human minds as hosts? Religions, languages, agriculture, chemistry, the word "like", uptalk, literally any thought or behavior pattern can be framed this way.
See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...
He argues that anyones decisions are a direct result of the physical structure of their respective brain, which in turn is moulded by their genes and experience so far, rather than a by an unexplainable free will.
The book made me reconsider how people treat each other because of their beliefs and actions - from harbouring negative feelings towards somebody due to their opinions to locking up people for committing crimes.
At the very least it has helped me in personal relationships and encouraged me to try to understand where another persons opposing viewpoint is coming from rather than feel negativity or superiority towards them because I feel they are wrong.