Any reason for which you still remember that book or its contents. Also mention the reason.
The book is also an easy read because the entire thing is told in the form of a father-son travelogue. The fact that the author pulled off a travelogue about the philosophy of science is an amazing feat of exposition. So another lesson is about the value of good communication.
His biases are clear, but even if you disagree with him, looking past those there is still the very important lesson that much of what we take for granted as true about the world is really not much more than shared mythology, not some objective, universal truth.
So regardless of what you think about his particular viewpoint I think that’s an important lesson that helps you examine the world and assumptions we all make more critically.
If there is such a thing as a “red pill” moment, that book was it for me. After reading it there were many things about our culture that I just couldn’t take seriously anymore.
I’ve read it when I was in my late teens / early twenties and it sort of changed my outlook on things. My then very naive and straightforward view of the world where right and wrong are obvious was shattered. It’s kind of made me sad and that sadness has remained with me ever since.
Since that time it’s been my answer to a question about a book that has had the most impact on me.
A few others:
The Simple Path to Wealth - JL Collins (changed my entire investment strategy)
Breath - James Nestor (something so routine but there is so much to learn)
A Short History of Everything - Bill Bryson (silly, but its a pretty large and encompassing look at various parts of life from the galaxy to the planet to cells)
I read it more when I was around 38 or so, but it really helped me change how I interacted with people.
While it's ostensibly a book about sales, I took it as breaking down selling into the idea that if you get along with people and they like you, they will want to work with you. That can take the form of making more sales, but I took it as having people want to do more with you and be around you more.
And how does that happen? Kinda simple: be nice to people, be genuinely interested in them (even if their interests aren't your core ones, they still are often curious), and genuinely try to get to know people.
I took this as a great life lesson for making friends and getting along better with the whole world. And from that flows nice things. And if it's what you need/want, more sales. But it doesn't have to be about sales.
So I figured it must be worth a try and learned a few valuable lessons, even though some of them seem kind of obvious - with the benefit of hindsight.
> even though some of them seem kind of obvious
It may be obvious to you… but believe it or not, there are people who have never seen these things spelled out in plain language and who never discovered these lessons on their own. Such people are not to be disregarded, we all have different strengths and weaknesses.
I’ve not seen another book that really spells out how to make friends and keep them. Everyone is supposed to learn this in Kindergarten, but many do not.
The book is almost 100 years old. Some of the examples have not aged well unless you can be generous in your understanding of the times in which it was written. The examples are still very useful.
Indeed, good points well made, what I meant was that I have been such a person and have been guilty of failings that, when I look back, should have been obvious at the time but were not, for whatever reason.
It's a truly sad comment on our society that so many people have to be taught to do this and effectively be bribed to do it (the bribe being in the form of getting friends and success) instead of it coming naturally.
I also question how "genuine" such interest is, when it's done by people looking for a success/friendship payoff. It seems more manipulative than anything to me.
/me putting it next to my bed, for a rereading.
It changed how I viewed social interactions and made me realise it’s just another skill you can work at, with guidance even.
This one was right when he was just on the edge of being overly impressed with himself, so the lessons include more humility and less lecturing. His later books still have useful material but the delivery and underlying smugness is jarring.
In short, it's a book you can get a lot from without liking or agreeing with Scott Adams on most of his public opinions.
„Getting Things Done“ by David Allen. Learned about how to capture everything that’s on my mind and organize it. Best way to keep sane. - Also how important it is to contantly review my systems and lists to keep them current and to make decisions.
„Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs“ by Abelson / Sussman. Learned a lot about how to structure and organize code, how to abstract and build smaller functions that solve problems and glue them together and thus build ever more complex soltions.
„Siddartha“ by Hermann Hesse. Reminded me of my inner struggle in my young years regarding life, religion and meaning of life.
„Wherever you go, there you are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Introduced me to the idea of mindfulness, of being present, of letting go.
His perennial themes are coming of age, division within the self, and intellect vs intuition/emotion, success in conventional society vs renunciation and seeking on the spiritual path.
Really exposed me to the idea that you were in control of your learning.
If we really need a book… Ulysses by James Joyce. It was a model of pure creativity and artistry that really inspired me.
I read it as an e-book originally but ended up buying the signed copy.
When I read that book, I was an intense student, and I could totally see myself in the main character. Since then, every single one of Ishiguro's books has changed the way I think about things. It's hard to convey what he's trying to say in any other way than by reading his work.
When you think you have it hard, read what Frankl lived through. He lost his family in the camps and almost didn't survive himself. However, as a psychologist he used this experience to analyze and create the the theory of logotherapy. A great example of what strong human spirit and scientific mind can not only cope with, but grow inside the horrors of nazi camps.
I've read passages many times over the years and had given it to many friends when shit happened in their lives.
It resonated with me on many levels and even made me actually think about things which I was somehow not thinking through just because no one questions them in general, especially in a country where patriotism is celebrated as a virtue. It is full of wonderful ideas and parts of it have been thought through in great depth.
Some excerpts which I really liked and have sort of stayed imprinted in my brain since:
> This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.
> I am convinced that the great men--those whose achievements, even though in a restricted sphere, set them above their fellows--are animated to an overwhelming extent by the same ideals. But they have little influence on the course of political events. It almost looks as if this domain, on which the fate of nations depends, had inevitably to be given over to violence and irresponsibility.
> What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_I_See_It_(book)
Curiously relevant to the recent (ongoing?) pandemic as well.
The reason it changed me? I like starting with a blank slate for new projects without relying on huge monolithic frameworks. Such a book is invaluable for software engineers.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind%2C_Beginner's_Mind
Ashes,ashes: mankind can go from gods to animals. Really fast.
Lord of the rings: teamwork makes the dream work. But expect a massive amount of pain in the process.
[The second one needs a bit of Wikipedia to understand the background of the two characters, and why they have to talk to each other]
What it did for me was inoculate me against all manner of foolish choices that I probably would have made during my young adulthood.
It's short, entertaining and practical. The mechanics of investing have evolved considerably over the years, but the author has released frequent updates. Also most of the lessons are timeless.
If I could sum up the most important point in the book, it's that in investing and finance, playing not-to-lose is unreasonably effective. Playing to win is usually a losing strategy.
His description of the road trip from Minnesota to California motivated me to mark his path on my highway atlas. The discussion of romantic versus classical thinking resonated with me right away. The idea of Quality as a focal point was important to me. The story of his studies at the University of Chicago gave me a bit of insight into the academic world, and a different perspective on Great Books. When I had my own Zen practice years later, I could link it to this book. The distinction between Logos and Mythos opened my eyes to the power of our unspoken assumptions, built into our language. Later, after I had children of my own, I could relate to the way Phaedrus gets along with his son Chris.
Make fun of it if you want, but as long as your realistic it's a great guide to thinking.
We become what we think about. This doesn't mean imagine you're a trillion are and Tuesday someone picks you up in a jet.
It's more like imagine you'll get that job, study for it, and maybe you'll get it. If not try again.
Even if you keep failing that's much more productive than whining all day.
To put it in HN terms, you can't open VS Code and expect software to write itself. I'm a self taught developer so I fully get it. Everything I know I taught myself ( the Unity forums helped a LOT in my early days, more than Stack Overflow).
That said, take the original work. Not the spin off that tells you The Secret can turn a homeless man into a millionaire. A homeless man getting his own place is pretty decent.
"The Beak of the Finch" shifted my perspective on evolutionary timeframes.
"The Design and Evolution of C++" had an inverse impact on my appreciation of academic programming language design.
I don't think until that point I had really understood the idea of accelerating progress, like I knew that I wanted to work in technology just out of interest, but that book really instilled in me that the pace of change could be really quite rapid through my career, which to me made it all the more exciting. Certainly in my career in software so far that's turned out to be the case.
Read it in my first semester as a freshman Biochem major in college with a great grad student as the teacher of a class on American Lit. Really changed how I thought about books and how I approached writing.
The class was incredibly challenging. I stopped going to my chemistry classes and changed my major to English/Creative Writing.
That was 20 years ago and things have worked out OK. I’m sure I’m happier now (business management career) than I would be in a scientific field.
Turns out it’s only $2.99 on Kindle right now. That’s inspiration enough to give it another read :)
Lying involves not just what you say. It includes what you don't say.
It turned me on to all sorts of interesting authors that I may otherwise have never read, or read much later than I did after being exposed to Wilson's compelling writing on them.
Anyone interested in philosophy and why some highly gifted people don't seem to fit in to this world would do well to give this book a read.
I carried that thing around in my backpack in lieu of textbooks. (It's a tome, like two feet high (more than half a meter)!)
Probably the single most important thing I learned from it is that we have all the tools and technology we need to live well together on the Earth without destroying the environment nor compromising on quality-of-life, we just have to learn to be nice to each other.
This was a good alternative view to how we were taught the world was “meant” to be run
The main character gets an A.I. powered book that teaches them anything. pretty mind blowing for me, I imagine one day possibly something like that could exist.
It showed me that intellectual curiosity doesn't need to be coupled with abstruse language, that in fact unclear language is not a sign of deep thought, but more likely unclear thought. It showed me that being an optimist isn't stupid, that it's an art and that gloom is not an inevitable consequence of intellect. I was suffering from depression back then. It took me 10 more years to win the battle, but I did it. It was all more about how this book was written, rather than what was written in it.
Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956
Tony Judt, The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century
Czesław Miłosz, The Captive Mind
Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals
Those books taught me that there are quite a few secular religions to be beware of, with all the associated dangers and indeed opium for the mind. They were written with the example of Marxism, but this lesson can be generalised to other ideas, which explain away everything about life and bring a prophesy of things to come. It taught me that the religion I left behind when I was young is not the end, but there are more things to be vigilant about, lest your critical mind becomes anaesthetised and subjugated by the current intellectual orthodoxy.
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble
A truly insane book. Prior to reading it I thought that the criticisms coming from "the other side" were caricatures. After reading this book I've known that there truly are people denying the reality of biology and making all sort of twisted reasonings you would have never dreamt of. The political movement associated with this book doesn't let it slip at first, but when I confronted core members of this movement (responsible for most of the political messaging in the press etc.) in my country it turned out that they actually believe that stuff. It disillusioned me about the sort of nonsense people can seriously believe, while carefully not admitting it at first.
I read it while starting a company, and it was exactly what I needed to suffer that process.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I'm not a huge fan of the book, but for me it was a viewpoint often missing now days. For some people it's a good wake up call. If one want to trade in some of our sicker tendencies in this society for better virtues then perhaps it may be appropriate.
First time i've seen and experienced the power of abstraction in programming.
normally, if you disturb a system three things can happen, it can be stable, it can explode, or it can oscillate. corresponding to e^x where x is a complex number or a matrix.
but actually in the liminal area at the edge of cyclical behavior there is a mode that is neither cyclical nor stable and it happens quite a bit and is responsible for many interesting and important phenomena and systems.
there isn't much regularity, the only way to predict is a model of the evolution of the whole system which is highly sensitive to small disturbances or measurement errors.
It has not aged well - it is a book written by two dudes who were the editors for the Playboy letters column in the swinging sixties, who kept getting piles and piles of far-right-wing-nutjob conspiracy tracts and decided to write a book asking "hey what if all this crazy shit was all true" - but it poked some interesting holes in my reality.
I tried to read it again recently, and couldn't get in to it. Conspiracies are everywhere these days, and so have become a bit blase...
In the pre-internet days the book was a treasure trove of interesting trivia about various events events throughout history. But today we're drowning in such historical trivia, which is all over the internet.
Drugs also play a central role in the book, and while they were pretty taboo in the 80's and 90's, today with the legalization of pot and the Psychedelic Renaissance, books featuring positive depictions of psychedelic drug use are just not as fresh or transgressive.
I still give credit to the books for opening my eyes on a lot of these subjects, of which I was completely clueless about when I read it, and if you're young and this is all new to you, you might enjoy it too.
I don't want to start a theological flame war here but I think it's extremely unfortunate that the Dispensationalist's view of Revelation is the face of North American Protestantism. It's a rather new theology (mid 1800's) but I think it's what most non Christians, that have more than a passing interest in such matters, ascribe to the faith. For those of us who don't subscribe to this theology, the events predicted in Revelation already happened in 70 A.D.
As a Christian, I believe there is always something to be learned from the Holy Scriptures and that the words themselves have significance beyond just letters on a page. The apostle John started his gospel with these words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." I take this quite literally.
How has the Bible changed my life? I believe the commitment to Christ's teachings and the seeking of the Holy Spirit's counsel is the primary reason I've been happily married for 25 years and have been blessed with two sons that have grown into very lovable and capable young men themselves. Obviously it's not all been a bed of roses, marriage and life is hard at times. But the teachings, hope and promise provide by Christ Jesus has assisted me immensely in navigating life's hurdles.
Whereas Materialism (and Marxism) introduced a whole systematic view of competing classes and interest groups. It made it much more interesting and relatable.
[Questions from a Worker who reads](https://www.marxists.org/archive/brecht/works/1935/questions...) really sums up the issues with history education at school IMO.
1. Simplicity, William Jensen 2. Getting Things Done (GTD) 3. Getting Real, Jason Fried