Comment by chairmanwow1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chairmanwow1 | Hacker News Reader

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I have been in a recent period of intense non-fiction book reading recently (6 / month for past 3 months) and I realized a couple of things:

1. High-quality writing relaxes me to the point that I can enjoy learning at a much deeper level

2. It’s extremely arduous to keep my BS filter constantly deployed, which it is 95% of the time I'm reading unfiltered content (blogs, Twitter, news etc)

A well-written book is a large lake of high-quality information, and so I can generally develop some trust for the author and can relax and think about things I don't know well.

There is a torrent of knowledge, but panning for wisdom is exhausting. So I think for me, rather than the form factor (blog vs book vs podcast), it really comes down to the level of refinement of the information. There are some authors that blog / write newsletters that I have developed a sense of trust for, so I can also enjoy their without the BS filter fully engaged. (Matt Levine, Ben Hunt, Scott Alexander etc)

I've been on a kick of reading parenting books. I do a thing when I read where I fact check books when I read them (only things which are claims, usually only if cited or very specific).

Out of 7 or 8 books, only a minority have passed without deep deep factual errors. One specific one comes to mind - a book on "Danish Parenting" that cited a monkey study about kids and peer groups. I looked up the original study and the study author had specifically said not to cite the study on young primate behaviors in his disclaimers - he had used zoo raised primates.

Usually books are either generally pretty factual, or just repeated outright lies. "Hunt. Gather. Parent." was one I caught in multiple just plain falsehoods (and they didn't even need the cites! Just state it as an opinion!)

Obviously that is just parenting books which is a tiny niche, but I encourage you to do the same before taking a book as the gospel truth.

Parenting books are the worst. I read one of the pro "cry it out" books on the recommendation of friends and at one point the author had a chart of how the rise in juvenile delinquency corresponded to rise in attachment parenting.

The funny thing is that the friends who recommended it to me are both engineers but IME even a lot of smart people don't question "scientific" studies. Parenting books in particular rely on a whole lot of readers willing to take everything at face value.

Aside: I knew a women who had a PhD and studied sleep patterns. Her pediatrician told her she needed let her baby cry it out. When she asked for justification they handed her a study that she had participated in, it was about mama cats and their kitted - completely irrelevant to any sort of human behavior. She was pretty upset by the whole thing. How many parents had been convinced by doctors completely misinterpreting her research?

A lot of justified scorn was thrown at the anti-MMR vax crowd, particularly pre-covid, but I think it's hard to understand how many people just don't have the background to look at a bunch of charts and numbers with a skeptical eye. I don't know how we are going to manage it when these days everyone can find a chart somewhere justifying everything that they already believe.

Any parenting books you recommend? Thanks!

"The Montessori Baby" by Simone Davies and Junnifa Uzodike. Even if you don't intend to go Montessori, the book will teach you a lot of alternatives you won't hear about in the standard literature. Did you know instead of a crib, you can give your kid a floor bed? That way when the kid wakes up in the middle of the night (as all kids do!) they can quietly self entertain and go back to sleep. Also just good advice on how to interact with kids - cooperatively.

"Expecting Better" (pregnancy), "Crib sheet" (infant) and "Family Firm" (family dynamics) by Emily Oster. Dr Oster (economics, not md) reviews guidelines, their underlying evidence and talks about alternatives. She provides sensible recommendations (and does frequently support the guidelines!). She is the most quoted in our house, especially the "It can't just work for the child. It has to work for the whole family."

Half hearted recommendation for "Secrets of a baby nurse" by Marsha Pod. Some of what she says is no longer SIDs guideline aligned (it was when she wrote it) but she does clearly have a lot of insight and experience and passes that on well. Her method is very experiential ("This is what works for me") and not study based, but some of her tips have saved my butt (hold your kid upright after feeds!).

* The Whole Brained Child - https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strat...

* "How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Calmer, Happier Parent" - https://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Losing-Your-Kids/dp/15235054...

"Potty Training in 3 Days"

Worked for my children. Saved us a bunch of money on diapers as they were both ready and asking to use the potty at slightly over 2 years old.

"The Idle Parent" by Tom Hodgkinson.

Hard agree. Books present a single, complete tour of a concept. More and more lately I find myself just buying the best recommended book on a topic instead of trying to piece together my own journey of understanding. I’m working my way through Programming Rust for this exact reason.

Nice, do you have any recommendations for non-fiction? TIA.

Here are 5 I have recently read that I really enjoyed:

1. "When Genius Failed": about the failure of the hedge-fund LTCM

2. "The First Tycoon": Detailing Vanderbilt's life (he was a bad-ass businessman). Far more interesting than I expected.

3. "Made in America": I didn't really care about walmart or Sam Walton before reading this, but he's a man to be admired.

4. "Barbarians at the Gate": Private equity tries the largest hostile takeover ever (dramatic and exciting with a hilarious group of characters).

5. "The Smartest Guys in the Room": Enron was an absurd company run by absurd people. Jeff Skilling claims he didn't do anything wrong.

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