Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
Mine would be The Utopians trilogy[1], I recommend it to anyone looking for a good sci-fi read.
I'm a person that struggles with boundary-setting and have spent numerous years in relationships that have left me as less-than I was before. Imagine people-pleasing to an absolute fault, and being more of a chameleon that adapts to avoid conflicts. This has led to problems of identity, and deriving my sense of worth through others which isn't healthy.
Fortunately, I do not have the same problems professionally and part of my people-pleasing skills have been put to good use there.
However, history continued and continues to repeat itself to this day. I'm more than half-way into this book and am not only seeing patterns from my childhood, my relationships with my parents, and my early relationships (platonic & romantic)
It's been eye-opening, and I consider it my first step in breaking this trend.
I can't recommend the book per se, it's a bit dated, but it lays a lot of groundwork and identifies a lot of traits so it has its place.
A lot of the principles outlined in the book are basically around the concept that you should learn these going into your 20's and apply them right away instead of applying them in your 30's from what I remember. It's been a few years since I've read the book though so I might be a little off.
I'm happy to give other suggestions as best I can if you're curious.
Which is not a stereotype that I associate with compulsive people-pleasing, exactly... Compulsive self-pitying and limerence, more like.
Top of the morning to both of you!
Codepedency is a genderless phenomenon.
From Wikipedia:
Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" for her 1979 book, Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, to describe a concept that had grown out of her work in the mid-1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love.[1]
Limerence, which is not exclusively sexual, has been defined in terms of its potentially inspirational effects and relation to attachment theory. It has been described as being "an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object (LO) involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation".
Is that also what I can expect from the book, or did I come to conclusions too quickly?
The men's rights stuff tells them they've been sold a lie/raw deal by society, and that they can get power, success, etc. by rejecting that narrative that didn't work for them. Yes, this involves a lot of fear, misogyny, etc. but at it's core there is the message that it's your own fault, and you need to take responsibility: learn to set boundaries, work hard, prioritize and communicate your own needs, develop vulnerability and emotional intelligence, etc. Old self help books that really work are extremely popular in these communities, and these men support and coach each other in working hard to apply these lessons in their own lives. Those books predate "incel" or "mens rights" stuff and themselves have nothing to do with it.
I grew up with these same issues, and found advice that helped me because it had been popularized and made visible by these "men's rights" groups. I wholeheartedly reject the misogyny, narcissism, and fear based manipulation these groups use, but I also wholeheartedly accept the idea that most of my problems were caused by myself, and I can do the work to fix them by doing the internal emotional work, learning to set boundaries, etc.
I think that's it in a nutshell. Selling a narrative of undeserved victimhood is very powerful. I think a lot of men stop at convenient victimhood and do not follow through and to learn how to be resilient, reliable, and genuinely put others' interests ahead of their own.
If you're being a "nice guy" just to get something, then you're not actually a "nice guy", you're just play acting in order to get what you want. People recognize that almost immediately, and do not trust people like that with relationships or responsibility. Peers will trust you when you accept that you cannot trick the world into trusting you, and you start building trust through actions.
This is contrasted with clearly setting, communicating, and enforcing boundaries: e.g. I choose to only have relationships with other people that treat me with dignity and mutual respect. I will let people know if they are violating my boundaries, and if necessary, I will move on from the relationship.
I do take issue with your idea to "put others' interests ahead of their own." Often, that is actually part of the problem these "nice guys" have- they are afraid to put their own interests first, which leads them them silently tolerate abuse, etc. and just constantly seethe with resentment. We are each responsible for our own needs and interests, and it is childish to put others first at the expense of yourself, and then silently expect other people to somehow take care of your interests for you. Good leadership, for example involves a type of enlightened self interest: e.g. I am mentoring young people because it brings me joy to see them succeed, I can relate to them, and it makes the world I also live in better. This is because it's good for me, I would not mentor young people if I hated it and it made me miserable, just because I think they need it, and I am putting their needs first, nor would I do it for some covert/unstated reward or repayment. Life isn't a zero sum game- your own best interests will very often align with those of others.
I don't believe that putting "others first at the expense of yourself, and then silently expect[ing] other people to somehow take care of your interests for you" is actually "put[ting] others' interests ahead of [your] own". That's still self interest, it just utilizes the Covert Contracts you mentioned.
I think good leadership is self sacrifice. Being able to adjust or set aside your expectations without resentment will not help you win a war or run a country, but it will help your marriage, friendships, and children. Once I learned to adjust my expectations for people, I let go of a lot of bitterness and I was able to focus energy elsewhere. This is more of a personal outlook for me--I'm not arguing with you, I just wanted to clarify my position.
I would argue that the type of leadership you are talking about is still ultimately self interest- it is still putting your own ideals or goals first, and being willing to endure hardship or difficulty to accomplish them. Wanting your family, relationships, etc. - things you care deeply about- to thrive is hardly self sacrifice.
This is a philosophical argument as old as the hills... but it seems that often what one calls altruism, another calls self interest, and they can be talking about the same thing. For example, in Ayn Rands books she emphasizes "selfishness" as a virtue, and yet her "selfish heros" are usually people working on some hard technical problem that would mostly benefit other people, and her "altruistic villans" are doing some type of empty posturing to make themselves look good, to gain personal social status and power. So her concepts are pretty muddled as well- was Stalin really evil because he put others needs before his own? That seems like a pretty silly take for someone mass-murdering their political opponents while living in multiple palaces.
Ultimately, I don't find the dichotomy of selfishness vs altruism to be a very meaningful distinction- it seems like people can easily categorize anything into either category. Things I think are "good" usually involve taking seriously both your own and others needs, looking for good solutions with creativity and an open mind, and being willing to endure hardship to make things better.
That said, the rest of the book is skippable. Most of the advice is ok but is a lot of the same stuff that I assume appears in every other self-help book (in short: attempt to find internal satisfaction with your life and to actively work on doing so). There's plenty of anecdotes of men the author claims to have helped, but those stories seem to be more filler than effective illustration.
The book comes off the rails when he talks about why "nice guys" exist. He says that boys spend too much time with their mothers and in the "female dominated educational system". Because of this, boys internalize that they need to spend all of their time attempting to please women. "Radical feminism" is also to blame for making men feel worthless. There's also a strange portion where he says that nice guys are petrified of sex and premature ejaculation in these cases is caused by a desire to finish coitus as quickly as possible to get it over with. That said, Glover mostly sticks to the advice rather than these "causes", likely to let his book appeal to a broader audience. However, I'm not at all surprised that Glover has appeared on both Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh's talk shows.
My take on the book is that Glover is targeting dissatisfied men who are getting in their own way and who feel like their life is stagnating. Any advice - good or bad - that gets these men to make a change is likely to feel like a massive improvement to them.
Had you read this stuff without first conceiving the notions that you did conceive, you would have risked being radicalized by the hateful, racist, misogynistic, islamaphobic, homophobic, Bidenophobic ideas contained in such literature.
It's a good thing that today we have both corporate and state-sponsored mass media available to create and attach these kinds of labels to dangerous information for us. It not only saves us time, but keeps us safe from exposure to harmful information.
I'm glad you were able to catch yourself before being exposed to these dangerous and radicalizing ideas.
It's a book from the 1980's about operational management. In particular, it focuses on physical manufacturing.
It's in the form of a fictitious personal tale. A plant manager struggles to save his plant from closure, and his marriage from falling apart.
The lesson is about lean management.
My main takeaway is the realization that when we try to optimize something, we focus on how to do something more efficiently. What more often is a problem is that people and processes are blocked from doing work. They spend a lot of time waiting and doing nothing. Focusing on reducing waits will produce better results than focusing on doing the work faster. Of course reducing the waits might mean doing some targeted piece of work faster. It could also mean doing better scheduling or focusing on other resource contention.
Recently I used this mindset to optimize a legacy DB struggling under the weight of a hodgepodge of unmaintained code. It worked wonderfully. Instead of fixing the slowest queries, focused on fixing the ones that block the most often. The result was that the DB was able to handle the workload after all.
> “The Phoenix Project”, a popular business fable about DevOps, is an adaptation of “The Goal” by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt. They are virtually the same book. The twist it takes on “The Goal” is that instead of focusing on manufacturing, the “The Phoenix Project” focuses on IT.
https://sobination.com/2017/08/08/the-goal-and-the-phoenix-p...
"Goldratt's Rules of Flow" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B9VH7TTZ
Sometimes there is a connection open to the DB which acquired a lot of locks during a long-running transaction. The DB is processing this transaction on one DB connection, and many other DB connections are blocked because they can not access certain tables, pages, or rows. The other sessions are literally doing nothing and are waiting.
Potential ways to improve it:
- Reducing the scope of transactions - committing more often within the transaction - optimizing just the most impactful queries which contribute to the blocking session's runtime (not ones that don't block at all) - loosening the transaction isolation level
More technically, before, people focused on individual queries with the hope of finding the one that is slowing down the server the most. When we instead focused on sessions, and which ones block others due to locks and DB transactions, we were able to fix the root causes.
I am simplifying a bit, but that is the jist.
The book is mainly credited with introducing the Theory of Constraints [1], which asserts that any manageable system's throughput is limited by exactly one bottleneck.
He goes on to encourage us to instantiate operating (and thinking) processes whereby we repeatedly discover and mitigate this bottleneck as each mitigation may result in a migration of the constraint.
The main observation is that most of us are inclined and almost always incentivized to focus on local optima (our area, our lane, our discipline) and that this striving is a great way to destroy any given system, or at best, do nothing useful. Any small experience in the world of business will illustrate this quite clearly, IME.
The sequel to The Goal is also quite good and is called, "It's Not Luck." This book takes the same characters into a larger organization where the constraints are in how their products are marketed, rather than produced in order to more fully demonstrate how the Theory of Constraints is not limited to activities on a factory floor.
As mentioned elsewhere, the narrative and writing style can be distracting, but the concepts are timeless and extremely powerful.
I have re-read or re-listened to both books at least once every year or two since the early aughts and I learn something new and relevant with each pass.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157385.It_s_Not_Luck
Despite the relatively naive execution, the underlying themes are powerful. I think the narrative approach is what makes it possible to revisit repeatedly and pattern match across widely varying contexts.
We're story telling creatures and a smarter, more academic recitation of a set of facts and observations probably wouldn't have held up as well.
I also agree that it doesn't appear to stand against even small amounts of critical argument while it unfolds, but the central position is so powerful, it's worth suspending disbelief for a bit, enjoy the story and then start taking it apart after it's complete.
Reading Goldratt, Deming, Drucker, Buckminster Fuller, and a few others, blew my mind. Most of my really good ideas and works were inspired by them.
Alas, being reality-based also impaired my career. Like during the dot-com bubble, the so-called New Economy, I just couldn't figure out wtf everyone was talking about. So I very pointedly did not jump on the crazy train.
My loss.
I wish there someone like Goldratt explaining grifts, cons, and investment banking.
You probably know this already, but if not: Eli Goldratt (the guy that wrote that book) wrote an equally brilliant academic paper on the same subject - I think the title was ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’. Just passing it on in the event you’re looking for a good follow-up read.
The paper is in the appendix of the book.
Where the book is a story and does not mention Lean Management, Toyota, and Taiichi Ohno, "Standing on the shoulders of giants" is a clear description of TPS (Toyota Production System).
It's awesome how the two varied styles of writing describe the same "thing". Where the "thing" is "how to operate efficiently".
The banking book is called "The Most Fun I Never Want To Have Again: A Mid-Life Crisis in Community Banking"[0] and it tells the story of an attempted bank startup in Georgia just before the financial crisis. It has a very clear explanation of the bank business model and how small banks make money. One of the surprising things I took away from it is that bank founders think of starting a bank in ways that are very similar to how tech founders think of starting of company. The main difference is that the bank business model is already well understood to those in the industry and success depends much more on your positioning in the market than it does on innovation.
The insurance book is called "Risk & Reward: An Inside View of the Property/Casualty Insurance Business"[1] and is by Stephen Catlin, who founded an insurance company that he grew to several thousand employees with offices around the world and later sold for $4 billion. Very UK centered since that's mostly where his career took place but I don't think the fundamentals of the industry change that much around the world. Pretty detailed on the mechanics of how insurance underwriting works and what insurance underwriters think about when pricing risk. Made me realize insurance is much more like trading than I'd previously thought.
Thanks for sharing the suggestions!
How to do nothing. About resisting the attention economy and reorienting one’s relationship with technology and the environment. A very thought provoking and timely read, especially while I’m on sabbatical.
Flow. Explores the psychology of optimal experience, and again has been rather applicable while I’m on sabbatical trying to recover from burnout. It explores the flow state: how people achieve it, why it’s so enjoyable, and shifting towards a mindset that seeks to find flow in everyday moments.
Learned Optimism. Explores the original research that revealed the concept of Learned Helplessness, provides tools to assess one’s own level of optimism/pessimism (this was…revealing), and makes a strong case for replacing certain pessimistic defaults through simple retraining exercises. Really helpful if you grew up in an environment that hammered pessimism into your core. Has been life changing.
It's unfortunate that he hasn't added a disclaimer to the original post since it is shared so widely.
EDIT: fixing autocorrect
EDIT: Did he really change his mind? Still seems like he thinks that book is pseudoscience, just that sleep is more important than he originally gave it credit for.
Some of the criticism he rebuts and some he accepts and says he will deal with it in a future version of the book.
https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-...
When I was dealing with sleep issues I tried reading it, hoping I'd learn something useful. But the book just kept hammering home how badly it screws you if you're not getting enough sleep. As I was trying all the recommended steps (good sleep hygiene, CBT, exercise, did an overnight sleep study, etc.) with only modest results, this basically just fueled my anxiety -- which is itself a known trigger for insomnia.
[1]: https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-...
The thing that had the biggest effect for me is eliminating caffeine. It has a pretty long half life and I believe I metabolize it slower than the average person. Most sources say it is ok to consume it in the morning, but in my case even morning consumption was enough to significantly disrupt my sleep. When I got to the point that even a can of coke was stimulating, I observed a complete cessation of night time restlessness.
The other thing that helped reliably, although to a lesser degree, was getting ~15 minutes of natural sunlight in the morning. In terms of supplements, a combination of lemon balm (mildly increases gaba) and agmatine sulfate (mild nmda antagonism) occasionally helps. I try to use supplements as a last resort, as I try to fix the issues upstream.
I think this speaks to the complexity of our bodies, something you do in the morning can have a significant effect in how you feel at night. It is also wild how our culture normalizes things that go against the healthy functioning of our bodies. I know many people who only get sunlight walking to their car. The human body is amazingly complex, there is certainly much more for us to understand.
I didn’t fully eliminate caffeine, but stopped drinking it after 9AM and reduced my intake by about 50%. I’d suffered from insomnia for years, and underestimated the impact of midday coffee.
I’ve also started going up to my building’s roof or taking morning walks to get sunlight. This works even on cloudy days (increase the time outside to more like 30 mins), and it does seem to help.
I’ve also started a no-screens wind down period about 1.5 hours before bed. This was a tough change too, but I’ve replaced it with books or spending some time at the piano.
I looked at sleep as a frustrating necessity that mostly got in my way. Starting to treat it more like an important ritual has been really helpful. This didn’t come naturally, and it took some time to shift to this mindset.
As per CBT, you fuel your own anxiety. This book is not empowered the ability to fuel people's anxiety. It is more easily exacerbated when we are sleep deprived, but ultimately you have to address it as just about any abrasive information then can equally kick off insomnia.
I think the book did lean too heavily on proselytizing that insufficient sleep is not healthy, and not heavily enough on advice, but it was mostly decent. One thing Huberman mentions in his podcast that is typically understated is the impact of sunlight (get some in the morning/day, limit blue light at night). In the main, though, being solid with the head game and limiting total time in bed to 8h strengthen sleep pressure / adenosine will do most of the work. But conditioning is such that it can take time to recover in a sustainable way.
The original article was fantastic and I kept coming back to it. The book was unreadable. After a hundred pages of academic own-fart-smelling, I had to put it down.
https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...
She admits very early on that it’s kind of a meandering exploration of ideas, so I came in not expecting some masterpiece and instead found it to be a collection of thoughts worth considering.
It does require some trudging through a bit of preaching, but at the same time, if one takes seriously the crises that are likely around the corner, I don’t think these objections hold water given the broader context.
To each their own, though, and I can understand why the book would rub some people the wrong way. But that’s why I found it worth reading.
Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed.
Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement among many other possible configurations. The alternative between this and going back to living in caves is a false choice.
Can You elaborate on this? - I quite liked Harraris book, especially his ideas about stories driving human cooperation and expansion. Does this false claims invalidates the main message of Sapiens?
I was mainly referring to how he talks about the invention of agriculture.
There has never been an agricultural "revolution". Cultivation was practiced for at least 3,000 years (probably much longer) before some human groups decided to make it their main mode of subsistence, while many others, already familiar with the concept, decided not to.
In areas such as the Great Plains of North America, where not a single wheat stalk grew 10,000 years ago, you can today walk for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometers without encountering any other plant. Worldwide, wheat covers about 2.25 million square kilometers of the globe’s surface, almost ten times the size of Britain. How did this grass turn from insignificant to ubiquitous?
Wheat did it by manipulating Homo sapiens to its advantage. This ape had been living a fairly comfortable life hunting and gathering until about 10,000 years ago, but then began to invest more and more effort in cultivating wheat. Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn’t easy.*
Then you have the master to judge the (accidental) student.
Great idea! Now we need a seperate thread or spreadsheet of books by eminent authors that present contradictory viewpoints!
Peacemaker has references to the laying on of hands and other religious hoo-haw, but just ignore that and read it for the interesting historical document that it is.
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
Borrowed from wikipedia:
The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops.
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
And don't let the reddit part fool you, AskHistorians is arguably one of the most high quality history forums out there, as the mods mercilessly enforce really, really strict rules that demands giving in-depth answers with sources. That page has lots of other in-depth answers on other popular "big history" books too, quite a sobering read honestly.
Don't take anything in that book as true, because I've read lots of academics losing their minds over how much he glossed over or just ignored contrary evidence.
Would love to hear perspective on this. The book would be a serious investment.
" I rated this one star, but understand the context, that I am very sympathetic to both the mission and perspective of the authors. I wanted to love this, and want them to be right. In general their key points are interesting ones to consider. The modern state is not inevitable. Past people were as smart and creative as we are, and likely experimented with a vastly greater range of societies than we are familiar with. We could learn a lot from them, and should consider trying more experiments ourselves. As they assert, few others are attempting to broadly reconsider recent evidence in the way they do.
But despite that, there is so much wrong with their execution. They started with their conclusion, and fit everything to that. Despite being massively long, the book is very short on actual evidence. It is very long on speculation, horrible logic, and frustrating repetition.
My suggestion is to gain exposure to the ideas, by reading few solid reviews of it. Then just keep those ideas in mind, and follow other more specific evidence cases, by more responsible scholars.
this episode of Tides of History podcast has some good coverage: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-the-state/id12... "
Anarchism means without a ruler, and there is scarce if any evidence that migratory hunter-gather bands at the dawn of history had rulers in one class expropriating surplus from another class. We can look for historical, or pre-historical evidence, but we can also observe the few remaining migratory hunter-gather bands remaining in the Amazon and such that have not been killed off by mining companies.
Modern authors don't impose an anarchist viewpoint on such groups, this is how they lived, and still live.
Now, about the 'anarchism', I don't feel that at all. He simply is having a non euro-western centric viewpoint, and that's precisely the underlying theme of the book. Most of the time he chooses to highlight a source that has largely been ignored by the academics, for not being European or maintaining the status quo. So he is actually the only one not ignoring contrary evidence.
If the other anthropologists want a good refutation, I welcome their books with their own explanations and analysis of these anthropological findings.
Wildberger is a mathematician, and a finitist. This means that he doesn't believe in infinity in the modern mathematical sense (I'm sure he won't dispute that the integers are unbound, for example). Which means he does not believe that Real numbers are properly defined either, or that limits are really a thing.
So he put his money where is mouth is and invented a branch of trigonometry that only uses rational numbers, by replacing length and angle with square distance (which he calls "quadrance") and the square of the sine (which he calls "spread").
All of the above is just what motivated him, what's interesting is that the resulting maths itself is all correct and quite nice to go through. It basically boils down to saying "hey, it's called trigonometry for a reason, so maybe it makes more sense to make actual triangles the fundamental unit, not circles," and working your way from there.
Personally I'm kind of curious if his approach might be more practical for computer implementations too, since all number representations on computers are either rational numbers or approximations of other numbers via rational numbers.
Kind of long and seems like a book just as a focal point but give Attia a break because he has hundreds (thousands?) of hours of podcasts and blog posts as well.
Although it must be nice to do the expensive tests his clients do, the book did give me some affordable tests that I ran to identify additional cholesterol labs beyond what my doc normally runs (Lpa and ApoB) and that was an immediate help. Also while I won’t pay for a proper VO2Max test, I do pay more attention to my watches estimation.
The WEIRD acronym stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The thesis is that the Christian Church inadvertently created modern society by prohibiting polygamy and cousin marriage.
The topic of polygamy is what’s really stuck in my head. Polygamy is a more natural state for civilized human societies than we think it is. It may be to women’s advantage to choose an “elite” spouse she has to share because it could mean a better quality of life for her and her children than the alternatives. Chris Hemsworth could have two dozen wives if it were legal and social acceptable (and he wanted to), and his wives might be happy with that. But the downside (or one of them) is that it creates huge imbalances in society—men find it really hard to find a mate. They then do risky stuff to make it into the elite to try to attract a mate—steal to accumulate wealth or kill potential romantic rivals.
This isn’t in the book, but it made me think—are we back in that same position now? Polygamy isn’t *technically* legal or common, but you still have plenty of people who have many romantic partners—just not at the same time. We know the what the activity of dating apps looks like—a very small subset of “elite” men get an outsized proportion of likes and matches from women. It’s slim pickings for the rest of the men. Are men, unable to find a mate, going to resort to risky behavior to try to make it into that subset that are able to attract women?
I don't think those two are the same. Polygamy is a way to structure society and determine access to resources, whereas fooling around on Tinder is just a way to have fun with no questions asked. It might surprise you but the plebes of old were also promiscuous.
Here's an interesting discussion on the topic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/5rre85/sexuality_d...
"Natural" state. For "civilized" societies.
Do you realize just how stupid it sounds?
Maybe, maybe not. In relationships where a larger number of people competes for one partner you still have the same emotions of jealousy, insecurity etc. Everybody wants to be the favorite one.
It was interesting to observe the dynamics of such a relationship of my friend who dated two women (one white, one black) some years ago. When you asked them then, everybody would answer they were perfectly happy. Years later it turned out both women felt increasingly uncomfortable in the situation.
I really don't think it is, but I also disagree with using the word "natural" in a way to argue its merit.
In my youth, I used to engage and try to retort about how brutal violence is also a more natural state. But now I just commiserate on HN.
What’s funny is that I do think that “natural law” is useful for reasoning problems in that equilibrium and natural forced impact on lives (eg, leverage gravity don’t fight it unnecessarily) and they frequently the invocation of nature isn’t accurate or isn’t particularly important. In that just because something occurs in nature doesn’t really mean much. And I don’t think there’s really any evidence that polygamy is a “natural state” only that some cultures practiced it and some didn’t. Even in the animal kingdom there’s polygamy and pair mating so it’s not even true that it is some expression of a natural law.
Would you consider it fair to describe violence as a 'default' state? To avoid a positive prejudice whilst also describing the higher frequency of violence in history and in toddlers.
> And I don’t think there’s really any evidence that polygamy is a “natural state” only that some cultures practiced it and some didn’t.
Through the lens of 'default state' - was there any civilisation pre 2500 BC that didn't practice polygamy? My understanding is that the prohibition of polygamy spread through the Greco-Roman tradition, but I'd be interested in finding out whether the prohibition occurred elsewhere or earlier too.
By not useful I mean, I wouldn’t plan my society around it and certainly not my partner decisions. Although maybe it feeds into the whole mindfulness technique of not acting on intrusive thoughts and minimizing their control over us.
> Through the lens of 'default state' - was there any civilisation pre 2500 BC that didn't practice polygamy?
This is an interesting question. I like history as much as the next person but haven’t studied this. I assumed there were because the Judeo-Christian origin story has Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eves (although the Bible is full of polygamy).
I’d look for societies that were individualistic rather than authoritarian as polygamy seems to me to be a function of patriarchy and power consolidation (ie, if the king/warlord/etc has 100 wives, that’s 99 fewer spouses available for craftsmen/merchants/artists/etc).
Wikipedia [0] says “ According to the Ethnographic Atlas by George P. Murdock, of 1,231 societies from around the world noted, 186 were monogamous; 453 had occasional polygyny; 588 had more frequent polygyny; and 4 had polyandry.” so it seems that polygamy is more common.
But again, my initial thought isn’t that this means polygamy is natural in as much as that physical strength and safety being prioritized and difficult means power consolidation. I’d like to learn about power distribution and it’s effect on family structure.
I wonder whether patriarchy is a consequence of polygamy rather than a cause.
It's very hard to compete with a person who has dozens or hundreds of children. And women cannot have more ten or so children, even in a non-monogamous setting.
This advantage is most visible in a hereditary aristocracy where a man could have a stable base of heirs, a large group of natural allies and the political opportunities of arranged marriages for children.
But even working class farmers would have the benefit of more free labour, and the middle class merchants could enjoy networks of trust in which to conduct commerce.
Although monogamous and eventually growing out of the middle class, the first / second Rothschilds are an example of the latter business benefit of having many competent adult children.
I think Esther Perel has written the best stuff on modern relationships. Read her.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the norm for most people at most points in history, but considering the populations of the above civilisations it wasn't uncommon either.
In traditional polygamy, the man with 10 wives would be the head of household for 10 wives with competing interests, so it does start to sound very managerial.
It's often classified as Sci-fi, but there's nothing particularly sciency or techy about the story. As far as "how it works", there are lots of curiosity, and very few answers. The book reflects more heavily on society, politics, gender, and most centrally, the personal qualities of honor/face/loyalty.
Having recently start keeping snails, I naturally draw parallel between my dear invertebrates with the hermaphroditism in the book, which is an extra curiosity for me.
I also finished another of her works, "The Word for World is Forest", just last week. This one is more about human nature. It is again brilliant, I could not put it down, and I highly recommend it especially to those already familiar with her writing.
I'll probably be picking up more of her books after I finish "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vinge.
I bought it because it was inexpensive and I the title was a "me-shaped" hook. :)
I chuckled after a few pages, after about 1/3rd I couldn't put it down, or read it fast enough. Challenging, as it started to rain during my walk to work (as evidenced by the dozen wrinkly pages towards the end). The next day as I read, I was pacing around my apartment, alone, gesticulating, with a VERY SPECIFIC flavor of happy that, gosh, I hadn't felt since well before she left me so... 4 years? Longer? A flavor of happy I had almost forgotten existed.
The only bad part is the book was finished the next day. :(
If your brain has a certain shape and polarization it's likely to bring great joy. (tho I have no idea how rare we are)
I also finished reading Annihilation by VanderMeer, what a friend insisted in exchange for him reading TIHYLTTW. It was .... good, I guess? I donno. Solid B-. I mean, I enjoyed it I think. Very simple, straightforward read. Some of the characters didn't feel ... relatable?
But wow, TIHYLTTW... felt like the authors had root on my brain or something. At numerous times I joked to myself that I must have been compromised. Hidden cameras.
If you're going to read it, don't google or read any commentary or anything :) I did not, and, looking at the commentary and comments, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if I did otherwise.
The other two people I convinced to read the book did not have nearly as strong a response as I. I think it requires a certain brain polarization. Or brokenness. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_How_You_Lose_the_Time_...
[1] _Empress of Forever_, while not poetic, I thought had interesting ideas that were more fleshed out. A lack of focus kept it out of top-tier scifi like Simmons' Hyperion for me, but it's worth a read if you like high-concept scifi like that.
A "trick". We were "tricked". :) I distinctly remember I wasn't even half through, and I broke out laughing, raising a fist in mock-anger. And to me, that's part of the awesomeness.
(For instance, I also enjoy magic shows, and standup, surprise parties, and love a trick or witticism. So of course I would process "you tricked me, authors!!" with a smile.)
yay brains/diversity of perception/etc :)
It's a beautifully written guide to artistic work, but also a manual for a mindful life. Savor every page packed with insight, subtlety and poetic aphorisms.
Also recommend The Dawn of Everything by Graeber & Wengrow, previously cited on this page.
Next will be The Matter with Things by Iain McGilchrist. The two hefty volumes are staring at me from my desk...
While I don't agree with everything shared, the crisp and clear way it's written allows for great reflection and inspiration.
I've described it to friends as a work book for artists and creatives. Every chapter simmering for days and helping to refine the creative process.
The book is very old, first published in 1999, but I did not know about it till my colleague brought it to work recently. The following stories are very interesting and read as detective novel: 1) how Enigma worked and how it's code was cracked; 2) how Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered, which appeared to be very common to Coptic language[2]; 3) how Linear B writing decoded[3], which appeared to be ancient Greek.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Code_Book [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B
I beg your pardon! 1999 is not very old! Especially in terms of books.
It does look really interesting, thanks for sharing.
Meanwhile you will understand in depth how all the basic shit in cryptography works, how did they crack it and its history: ROT13,ENIGMA,OTP,PGP,DES,AES, what are public and private keys and digital signatures, what the hell is quantum cryptography... everything gets told in a perfect ELI5 manner without any knowledge prerequisite and its so damn interesting its hard to put down.
All in historical order, with names, stories, previous building blocks, interesting trivias... perfect book, 10/10.
Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise https://www.amazon.ca/Ecology-Planted-Aquarium-Practical-Sci...
Having a slice of nature in my home that's genuinely self-sufficient by all practical means has been wildly educational, rewarding, and fascinating. So many species emerged from such small samples of local ponds, lakes, and streams where I found my materials. I thought I understood ecological diversity and the staggering number of living things out there, but seeing this thriving ecosystem in only 10 gallons of volume really drove it home... The earth is absolutely covered in life.
And it all came out of mud!
I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to nerd out on ecology, aquariums, water, etc.
Some people start with a large jar, while others try something like a 5–10 gallon tank. You can go very small to start.
In a tank system, it’s helpful to include either a small filter or power head to maintain water movement. If you’re adding a lot of plants, a head is sufficient because the plants and animals will do a great job of filtration. I use snails (naturally occurring) and shrimp (purchased, but I’d like to find a native equivalent) to aid with cleanup, and the water is crystal clear after several months with no water changes, only top ups to account for evaporation.
If you want to include animals like fish, you really should ensure you do some research first and establish something with a lot of plant life. The fish won’t thrive without a suitable habitat and usually, most species require some water movement and excellent filtration.
As for self sufficiency, the systems will run on their own for extended periods quite well, but if you add more fish for example, you’ll generally need to add more food. Even so, this can be a very occasional event. With mine I will add material I find from my worm composter such as small white worms which colonized on their own. I’ve also experimented with raising daphnia in a jar with baker’s yeast as their food. I think I’ve only added external food once per month or so, and I’m not sure this was actually necessary. The system produces a huge amount of micro fauna and algae which the animals go crazy for. The animals are all tiny, too, so their feeding requirements would naturally be far less than your typical fish tank system.
The book is also a great guide, though it’s a little advanced. It assumes you know a bit about the hobby of aquaria, both planted and with fish.
In any case, I’d say it’s easier than you think. With the right understanding, it’s hard to fail. It’s incredibly complex, but establishing a good culture and allowing it to thrive will generally ensure it remains well balanced with very little intervention.
Computer Networking - a Top Down approach is a technical book, but oh boy what an awesome read it is. I've just recently obtained a BSc degree in Computer Science, and the course curriculum didn't paid much attention to computer networks. We mostly studied cryptography algos, but not really looked into networks protocols and such.
This book is hence filling the gaps I have in computer networks (I'm mostly interested in web dev/cloud architectures).
The only other technical book that comes close to it is "Operation Systems: three easy pieces" by Remzi and Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau. Another great read.
Now, in terms of fictions books, I just finished re-reading "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It's a masterpiece, but I'm not sure if the author is widely known in english speaking countries.
https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/
> Combining stories of dramatic ultralearning feats with the detailed science on how to learn anything effectively, ULTRALEARNING will transform how you work, live and learn.
It made me realise that for most of my life, the things I was doing to try and learn new skills, techniques or technologies was actually more akin to entertainment than actually learning the thing.
It also helped me understand why I have been able to learn really specific things really effectively, and use those patterns to intentionally learn other things that I'd usually find really hard to crack.
Could you elaborate?
Learning about a programming language, vs actually building stuff in it. Learning the grammatical patterns of a language without speaking it etc.
There’s lots of videos, books and apps which first and foremost want you to be engaged moreso than actually teach you how to do the thing. This sort of context can be really useful, but ultimately one claim the book makes is that the best way to learn is to get as close to doing the thing you want to learn how to do as possible.
It spells out a framework that (roughly) boils down to:
0) Pick one topic at a time
1) Learning by doing
2) The doing has to be exercises of deliberate practice that push you
3) Create some type of deadline or pressure to make sure you actually stick to the task.
My experience with being self-taught is that I tend to just bounce around arbitrarily to different subjects or interests and drop them when I get bored and then all that knowledge bouncing around eventually becomes cohesive once I repeat that cycle enough times. So the concepts of picking a single topic, creating a strategy for only focusing on that topic, and then executing were difficult to apply.
I think this is something lost in the act of being too focussed on learning one thing at a time!
Note: I listened to the audiobook! The anecdotes about incredible learners (such as various language experts, the stardew valley dev as well as various other skills) was also really interesting.
Metalearning: First Draw a Map. Start by learning how to learn the subject or skill you want to tackle. Discover how to do good research and how to draw on your past competencies to learn new skills more easily.
Focus: Sharpen Your Knife. Cultivate the ability to concentrate. Carve out chunks of time when you can focus on learning, and make it easy to just do it.
Directness: Go Straight Ahead. Learn by doing the thing you want to become good at. Don’t trade it off for other tasks, just because those are more convenient or comfortable.
Drill: Attack Your Weakest Point. Be ruthless in improving your weakest points. Break down complex skills into small parts; then master those parts and build them back together again.
Retrieval: Test to Learn. Testing isn’t simply a way of assessing knowledge but a way of creating it. Test yourself before you feel confident, and push yourself to actively recall information rather than passively review it.
Feedback: Don’t Dodge the Punches. Feedback is harsh and uncomfortable. Know how to use it without letting your ego get in the way. Extract the signal from the noise, so you know what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
Retention: Don’t Fill a Leaky Bucket. Understand what you forget and why. Learn to remember things not just for now but forever.
Intuition: Dig Deep Before Building Up. Develop your intuition through play and exploration of concepts and skills. Understand how understanding works, and don’t recourse to cheap tricks of memorization to avoid deeply knowing things.
Experimentation: Explore Outside Your Comfort Zone. All of these principles are only starting points. True mastery comes not just from following the path trodden by others but from exploring possibilities they haven’t yet imagined.”
'Ukridge' is perhaps the funniest collection of stories ever written, it's magic. I love all the books set in Blandings. While the Jeeves books were not my favorite when I was younger, I really really enjoy them now.
I also like the Psmith books. I need to try Ukridge.
If you like Ukridge, then you could also read 'Love Amount the Chickens', which features the Ukridge character.
All should be out of copyright by now.
I've searched a lot to find more humorist writers but it's a very limited genre. Most comedy writing is too cynical for me. By contrast Wodehouse and Pratchett manage to be funny while also being uplifting.
Does anyone have any recommendations for not-too-cynical humorist authors beside these two?
I can vouch for it that it will make you laugh really hard.
gentle, fun and not cynical. Some of the characters are, but the series is not cynical, its slightly naive in it's own way.
In jeeves and wooster, there isn't much word play. It is somewhat antiquated english though, and wooster likes shortening words (the metrop, instead of metropolis/london, "thos" instead of thomas (almost pronounced "foss" but with a th sound))
Its not hard like oscar wilde, but its not overly easy. You _might_ want to try watching the Fry and Laurie version first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkLulnrecAQ
Short interesting read for anyone interested in China or development economics. The book does a great job composting to other countries and showing that way how development works and doesn't.
Tao of Wu [1] by RZA. Because, perspective.
The opening of that book is such a well put and apt description of... that, I've forced it on plenty of my friends.
Schild's Ladder also fantastic (yet similar.. like 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt? Still fun, but kinda "i've seen this before").
I think Permutation City was overrated.
I haven't read any of his other novels, have you?
Iain M Banks (Excession), Greg Egan (Diaspora, Dark Integers), and Charles Stross (Accelerando) are like a drug I'm still chasing that first high...
Recommendations welcome.
I think the opening of that book stuck in my head as that is how digital beings and digital identity WILL BE DONE. It makes so much sense to me.
Although oddly, I remembered it being cryptographically sound and describing a way for the individual to have secure private keys to prove they are them (even to themselves) but I can’t find it when I reread the intro. I thought it was some distributed secure escrow with the Polis but I have have dreamt it.
Neal Stephenson’s “Fall; or, Dodge on Hell” goes into this a bit with the PURDAH but I think it’s more hand waving and tied to “the body has some unknowable thing that can be captured in a digital mind version.”
I'm pretty sure I read something like this too. So either we both dreamt it, or we're both mixing from another science fiction story. :D
The author does an amazing job presenting the different views about the world and some important differences between cultures. If you are like me and haven't interacted that much with other schools of thoughts outside of the Western world, but are interested in learning more about them, you'll enjoy the introductions to Indian thinking as well as Chinese, Islam and some African philosophies. Also, he does a good job of highlighting some of the limitations of each, including Western thought.
The Genius of The Few by Christian and Barbara Joy O'Brien, an alternative take for garden of eden and Anunnaki compared to Sitchin
Built To Sell by John Warrillow, on how to build a business you can exit with a profit.
I read 30+ books in the last and this year so there are others but three is enough for this list.
Is there anything that you found convincing in it? Or is it just a fantasy without foundations (or, worse, fake foundations like Daniken)? I find Anunnaki fascinating but people who start writing about them usually stray into their pet theory away from facts.
As for the book, I liked their different take on the Anunnaki, although they focused on very niche part of the written history and had a different take on the events. By talking only about the garden of eden, they did not have to delve into what came before it, so they avoided the "aliens" controversy. They did the research and translations, so it's not yet another armchair warrior type of thing, like Tellinger, for example. And their interpretation does not go against what Sitchin wrote. It's just different take on it, well worth reading if you are a fan of Anunnaki stuff.
Since you mentioned Daniken, he is a sensationalist. Sitchin is, well was, a scholar. They are not playing on the same field and should not be even compared. Daniken is great to read, don't get me wrong, but he uses a lot of fantasy and "what-ifs" and sensationalism. Sitchin on the other hand was a researcher that did the ground work, he did the travelling, he did the translations and he always backed up everything he claimed.
If you want to get the book, I bough it at goldenageproject.org.uk because it is extremely expensive on Amazon. This is an independent reprint of it. But I would recommend to first read Sitchin, he's the foundation for everything else. No one else has done more research and delved as deep as he did. Although after 12th planet, the books become too technical and observational. Less story telling and more describing which does not read to well. If you get the Sitchin bug after 12th planet, go for it. There is a nice set called the complete earth chronicles. Or you can get the summarized version the anunnaki chronicles.
Related, I got a lot out of "Blue Ocean Strategy", though that was more than a decade ago.
But if you can look past that there were a lot of practical take away in the book, at least for me. The largest was how should I think about negotiation and how it is a part of life. My favourite technique I still use from day to day is 'labeling' and 'false labeling'. It just helps naturally start conversations when you meet someone at the office coffee machine.
Anyone who has mental blocks asking for a raise should definetly read it.
I mean, maybe. I read a lot of books and just found this one not very actionable.
As far as I could tell, the book was an ad for his consulting & training services. Which means that it did its job perfectly, between all the boasting and the nuggets of an idea that are almost, but not quite, useful (“man, this just isn’t working… guess I better pay for some classes!”)
Hard non-recommendation here.
The forest ain’t there. It’s a PR/advertising illusion that vanishes as soon as you engage critical thinking.
That’s my opinion. You disagree. Ok.
“How can I see the forest?” LOL.
[edit] for others reading this: it’s not that I didn’t find anything useful in the book, just that the useful bits were rare and most of the book is unrealistic BS about how effective the techniques are, which were either made up (the “true” truck-buying negotiation story, oh man, what a whopper) or omitted other factors to make the advice from the book seem to have saved the day all on its own. You’ll get the wrong idea if you take the book at face value, plus you’ll have wasted a lot of time reading a whole book that could have been a couple pretty-decent blog posts.
I no longer waste so much time on trivial unimportant nonsense.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stop-Reading-News-information-overl...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuit...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turning-Mind-into-Sakyong-Mipham/dp...
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Remembrance-Earths...
However, for those who have read books 2 and beyond, does the writing return to serious and deep or does a slapstick element remain?
However what I didn’t like throughout all 3 books is just how predictable the antagonists are … like the main characters devise a plan, stick to it and things unfold generally how they’ve predicted, with very few (though big) exceptions.
Maybe thats also part of the chinese perspective? I’m used to Branden Sanderson type of narrative where the bad guys are smarter than the good ones, outplay and counter moves, and apply constant pressure, but can be outplayed themselves as well.
Three body problem was more like if the other side has an advantage, there’s nothing you can do, and if they don’t, just follow the plan … But apart from that incredible series.
I would still recommend it to sci-fi fans, just don't expect a literary masterpiece.
In contrast, Exhalation by Chiang, which I read in the same period, was an excellent book, with much less reliance on unknown physics/technology, and more what-if and near-future social exploration. It had one mind-blowing story that'll stay with me because of its sheer audacity: can we be alone if the Bible is 100% right?
- "Ace: What asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex" by Angela Chen. Really helped me understand my ace friends better.
- "Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving" by Pete Walker. Helped me recover from a lot of trauma that was causing me duress
- "The Wizard and the Prophet" by Charles C. Mann. Helped me recover from anxiety disorder caused by climate change.
- "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey. As a former competitive gamer, this really helped me step back from competition and just enjoy the game.
- "Neurotribes" by Steve Silberman. Great book about the history of autism. Extremely sad but hopeful book.
- "Different Loving" by Brame, Jacobs, and Brame. A fascinating look back in time to the kink world of the 90s.
For fun I recently read and enjoyed: Foundation, Project Hail Mary (who's cutting onions in here), Going Postal, God Emperor of Dune, and Heart of Darkness.
But Project Hail Mary is a lovely story. And the twist half way through! Such a wonderful, happy reading.
It's a good, and gentle, introduction to the biochemistry and thermodynamics of digestion, and the history of calorie estimates.
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Calories-Dont-Count-Science/dp/16...
Adam Ragusea interviewed him on his YouTube channel.
It has some good advice on diet and macronutrients, especially on the less efficient metabolism of protein, that could make a significant difference in one's approach to weight loss dieting, but it is not a guide to dieting practice.
The Attention Revolution - In-depth guide to how to meditate without too much fluff. It basically directly goes into all the details of meditation practice as a thing you do and how to do it. Also very comprehensive and jumps straight into how to meditate.
The Practicing Stoic - Great overview of Stoicism with a lot of quotes from all the well-known Stoics compiled into one Book. I think it's a great introduction for anybody who isn't quite sure about Stoicism or what it's about, but it's also a great book to go back to as somebody more well-versed in it to refresh the concepts.
This book taught me how to meditate, and my life really changed for the better.
Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto [2] -- very japanese crime story, liked it
And my absolute delight:
50 Years of Text Games - Aaron A. Reed [3] -- I am just a sucker for everything text game/hypertext/interactive fiction. This book is amazing.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1593668
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38588764-tokyo-express
[3] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aaronareed/50-years-of-...
It doesn't just describe the debate about dropping the bomb - it details the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and other cities from the perspective of the survivors, the crews of the bombers as well as the leaders who ordered the bombings. It describes the resistance of the Japanese at Iwo Jima and other battles which cemented the belief that invading the Japanese homeland would be a bloodbath. And the chapter about the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombs as told by contemporary accounts is gutting.
Even this description is completely omitting a huge part of the book. It's a 53 hour audiobook with zero fluff.
Blind Sight by Peter Watts is some amazing fiction, a gripping First Contact story
The Body Keeps the Score and My Grandmother's Hands are two excellent books to assist at recognizing and processing the generational habits and traumas that impact us deeper than we realize
One that I bounced off of recently is A Fire Upon The Deep. I don't get it.
The Expanse series is great, but I reckon people already mentioned it elsewhere in the thread.
James Islington's Licanius trilogy is one of my favourite fantasy book series probably. He recently started a new series called Hierarchy, which I also recommend. They're very "grounded" fantasy, and the magic systems is very woven into society and its structure. The human relationships in his books are pretty nuanced, which is why I like his works so much.
I keep hearing good things about Cradle, I’ll have to give that a read.
And I loved it - despite the topic (few young guys eating pizza and staring at screens) it reads like Clive Cusslers book.
It's a great study of team dynamics and have some insides into what it takes to be the greatest at something (getting from Commandor Keen to Doom 3 costed Carmack almost 10 years of his life working day and night)
Interesting:
The Ark before Noah, Dr Irvine Finkel: A very engaging and slightly humorous history of arks from before the time of the Bible. Its not a religious book, its a book about myths/history.
A very english Scandal: a long tale about how the establishment closed ranks around a slimy piece of shit.
Fun:
Will save the galaxy for cash, by Yahtzee Croshaw: Actually funny scifi, best listened to when narrated by the author. His other series is also great too.
Death and Croissants, Ian Moore: gentle humorous crime thriller. Follows a divorced slightly unsuccessful middle aged man who has emigrated from britian to france and runs a B&B. he bumps into a glamorous but mysterious woman who he struggles to keep up with. best listened to by the author.
Engaging:
Casino royale: ian flemming. Its not at all like the movies. A page turner, but has 1930s attitudes to things. Its not as obvious as Live and let die, which is full of words you cant say in public.
It changed the way I think about progress.
Really makes me want to buy a boat or something :^D
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%E2%80%93Maturin_series
[0]: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
Do you recommend starting with this? Or something else?
From the Wikipedia entry[0]:
"The book is a collection of nine short stories telling the tale of three generations of a family before, during, and after a technological singularity. It was originally written as a series of novelettes and novellas, all published in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine in the period 2001 to 2004."
Skip "Equoid".
"The origins of this book go back to the twin shocks of 2016: the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. Like many others, we were struck by how deeply fundamental critiques of economic global- ization appeared to resonate among voters in these two countries. We were also concerned about the dismissive reactions of many establishment figures toward the competing narratives. Some seemed to view the logic of economic globaliza- tion as beyond question and focused their energies on discrediting the critiques put forward by populist politicians as economically illiterate and xenophobic."
https://archive.org/details/lombardstreetad00bagegoog/page/n...
Definitely disrupted my perspective on work and the monotonous, sometimes futile, insanity that some of us subject ourselves to in order to make a living.
The Idiot: What happens to a close to perfect person in an imperfect world. What I loved about this book, it doesn't go the obvious route (e.g. oh he is too nice and gets exploited, it's subtle)
Why you should read: Both books give an interesting inside of "russian" mentality (which I think is very important with the war going on). You will feel like you have gotten to know 4 close new friends.
Why you shouldn't read it: 1. It is a very male point of view, women in those books get displayed quite badly. 2. They are absolutely soul crushing.
It could be that the POVs are more universal than you think.
Have you read Crime and Punishment? There's a scene in there that I can hardly believe a man wrote.
Features extensive world building, character building, Lots of fleshed out characters, contains humour as well as serious stuff, has dragons, fae, aliens, time travel, hiveminds, automatons, cute pets, cosmic horrors, history lessons, magic, alchemy and steampunk engineering.
It's a bit longish and not finished yet, 2/3 done as of this year.
You don't say.
I just gave up on the series after book 4. I felt the original main character wasn't getting enough screen time, and didn't really like the newer characters as much.
See for yourself https://www.reddit.com/r/WanderingInn/comments/wil9pi/word_c...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath:_The_New_Science_of_a...
But I would rather read his original work Cosmographia, rather than a fictionalized biography (same for Ibn Battuta).
It's a collection of articles the author wrote for The New Yorker around the middle of the last century. The stories are portraits of weird, eccentric people and peculiar places in and around New York. Mitchell describes his subjects with dignity, without putting them on a pedestal.
The author is a very good writer and his stories are enjoyable, but only after I had read the book to the last page, I understood what makes this book so great. The stories tell you as much about the author as they tell you about the protagonists. I started the book to get a glimpse of the old New York and finished the book with a great curiosity about the author himself.
Not obscure or niche by any means but it surprised how good it was (again). Do recommend!
https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful...
This would make an epic miniseries!
If you read books about Native American history, Texas tribes and their interactions with Anglo settlers, northern plains tribes I can recommend a few titles.
Frontier Blood - Jo Ella Powell Exley : Tells the history of the Parker family clan. Their small fort in central Texas was raided by Comanches in 1836 and one of the children kidnapped was Cynthia Ann Parker who gave birth to Quanah Parker, the last great Comanche war chief. The book covers Parkers who helped shape the doctrine of the Baptist church too. It's a good read.
Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879 - Herman Lehmann : This book was written by a man who was kidnapped by Apaches in 1870 and raised as Apache. He later left that tribe for the Comanches after he killed an Apache medicine man. In 1879 he was repatriated with his family in central Texas on the advice of Quanah Parker. He, like many others who spent time living with Native American tribes, preferred their way of life to that of his blood family. He talks about the challenge of reintegrating. He had to relearn to speak English and German and to adapt to all the technology and lifestyle changes encountered. It's a great book.
The Heart of Everything That Is - Bob Drury/Tom Clavin : This is Red Cloud's story told using his autobiography. Red Cloud was probably the greatest Native American war chief. It's an epic story.
I just finished reading a book that according to a NY Times book review is "The single best book I have ever read on Native American history". You may have heard of it.
Indigenous Continent - The Epic Contest for North America -- Pekka Hamalainen/Evin Rias
I almost want to say don't bother. This is a classic case of an attempt to condense a complex subject into a book that can be digested in a few days of casual reading. The book must leave out so much in order to cover so many things that it ends up almost unreadable.
There are formatting problems that should've been corrected by the publisher. Several maps that should fit on one page have parts of the map cut off and printed at the top of the next page. That is ridiculous.
Another thing that contributes to unreadability and leads to confusion in telling this epic tale is that the narrative jumps from one time period to another with no subheadings to warn that you are stepping back in time for context. Consecutive paragraphs describe events in different regions with no effort to tie them together or to make them fit. There is so much information that it feels that things the authors thought important are just worked in whether they fit or not so that interesting tidbits are told. Unfortunately this ends up creating a stew of a story where the author stirs the pot a little and instead of the beefy broth in the spoon you end up with potato chunks and a random bay leaf. The bay leaf flavoring their story is the history that they couldn't fit somewhere else so they just tossed it in there.
There is a lot of slavery in the book. This was a real thing historically so it is a very interesting treatment of that subject and for those who are under the impression that Anglo colonists started the institution of slavery in North America it will be enlightening for them to read about Native American treatment of captives.
All in all, there is so much history to cover that many events and characters have their own stories feel like Reader's Digest footnotes.
The best way to treat this book is to use it as a springboard for deeper study because it feels shallow. The physical book also could be improved by cleaning up the typesetting, adding headings, moving paragraphs around into more coherent narratives, and fixing the maps.
Anyway, this got long and I know you probably read some of these. Have fun.
History is so full of fantastic stories, it's pathetic that Hollywood keeps cranking out miniseries with the same plot:
There was a mysterious murder in a small town. Detective DoesntFitIn investigates and finds the town is full of secrets! Can he solve the murder before the bodies pile up?
Real life is much more complex and rich in story lines. Lose ends sometimes just fray until they have unraveled the ties that bind us. The good guys don't always win and too many times the definition of "good guy" is dependent on the reader's perspective or life's experiences.
Life may seem that it moves in cycles and that we are trapped along a circular path with a known starting and ending point. In real life it is probably more that we are looking down the long axis of an infinite spring where events do repeat cyclically but each ending is forever disconnected from the starting point by the terminal forward velocity of time so there is no going back, there is only starting over with a new opportunity to learn from mistakes you might not remember making.
It kinda feels like an alternate history fantasy novel, but it's actually real. It tells the history of the world, but from a central asian perspective.
I'm going to get my EPA 608 certification so I can purchase and handle refrigerant in my HVAC system, because I'm done with the HVAC industry.
So here's another mention! If you haven't read it, it's a great story and informative too if you're a founder (on how not to run a company).
Last year I was doing a 14-hour drive from Seattle to the Bay Area and somehow ended up downloading this book to my phone. Well this book sent me through a time-warp, the hours rolled by while I was completely absorbed in the book and didn't feel the drudgy long drive at all. But kudos also to Wil Wheaton, he does an excellent job of narrating this book.
It's not a novel, but a reference guide to mushrooms. It's phenomenal, is small, it's funny, and is a really good starter reference for mushroom foraging. 10/10 just for the cover, 20/10 for the content.
(https://www.amazon.com/All-That-Rain-Promises-More/dp/089815...)
I also keep referring to “An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments” by Ali Almossawi [1] as it’s fun and seems to me to be technically correct. I recently had to look it up to remember if it’s “natural fallacy” or “naturalistic fallacy” or something else. It’s not covered in the book but I did get to read about others with sepia animal drawings. I’ve also found it useful for introducing critical thinking and avoiding logical fallacies to young people.
• Fashion Climbing: A Memoir, an autobiography of Bill Cunningham who you might know from the street style photography he did for the NYT.
• Kings of their Own Ocean, a non-fiction history of Bluefin Tuna fishing.
It really goes to town on how the McKinsey consultants working in government and private sector will work both angles to get a favourable outcome to ensure they become indispensable. Also the way McKinsey try to balances a "fair and honest" culture with the real dirty work they do. The section on the UK Public Health Service (NHS) was shocking.
It has loads of interesting stats on how generations have changed.
It still amazes me to find out that in the 1950s in the US half of brides were teenagers. The average age of having a child was similarly super low compared to now.
My review is at:
I mean: the '50s were 70 years ago. Imagine living in the '50s and talking about the 1880s: the French Third Republic, the British Empire, no airplanes, no radio or cinema...
I'm currently reading The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita[3].
In my mind, the nutrition books could be shorter so it might not be the best use of your time. But the 2nd one contains chapter for each common disorder so you could check the ones that (might) apply to you. The Dictator's Handbook is very interesting and it got me interested in politics more. I'll read Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson and The Invention of Power, another book by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita.
[1]: https://www.worldcat.org/title/607975714
The titular Ishmael is a gorilla who learns to communicate with humans (telepathically) and seeks to teach humanity how to see the underlying cultural narratives that we are captive to, and that define our entire worldview. It's set up as a Socratic dialogue so the character of the pupil can be a bit annoying in his boneheadedness (a device used by the author to advance his points) but otherwise an excellent read.
Its main lesson is that culture tells us there is only one way for civilization to act in the world and that we cannot examine this imposition -- because of the "fish asks 'what's water?'" situation we're in -- until we really unpack what narratives are driving people to act and think in the ways they do. These narratives were never independently developed by the people acting through them but rather largely inherited from what is said (how topics are conceptualized) and what's not said (how topics are avoided) that keeps these narratives self-propagating through society.
- Thought as a System
- On Dialogue
These are great books for removing mental fog, confusion, about the nature of our existence. They have great healing value, allowing us to integrate the world around and within us. They can also help in dealing with practical challenges in how we run organisations, develop teams, and in general help people cooperate together. It is a kind of "red pill" to enter the matrix :)
Say, I manage engineers, and I have a new intern, who is supposed to behave in a particular way, with particular standards. Their words strongly suggest sincerity, but again and again their actions go in the opposite direction. Why does this happen, what's the "problem"?
From Bohms framework, this sort of behavior is way too common, and it is due to the paradoxical nature of our psychological machinery. It's not a problem, it's a paradox. In the mind of the intern, there tends to be competing and opposing needs. One hand, they want higher quality output (verbally asserted). On the other hand, the unspoken parts of the mind demand comfort and energy saving. On top of this "incoherent" intentions/results, the intern will seem like they're lying, since words and actions/results don't match. They say they want quality, but behavior goes another way.
So, I see this entire situation clearly, so I become more patient. I understand it's not a simple situation, there's a lot going on underneath the hood. I can help this intern see their inner contradiction, generate higher awareness, make them work with less inner friction (and eventually less external friction). My process for helping someone out becomes accurate, crisp and helpful due to these additional insights from Bohm.
This is just one instance of Bohms framework helping me out in a practical organizational context.
But who I can only make contact with once every couple of years, and only with preparation. He's just so, so bleak.
The Road put me in a bad place mentally for two or three years. Outer Dark still fucks with me when I think about it. Blood Meridian. Just that. Just the title.
He's the kind of author that I want to recommend to everyone, but also have to add an asterisk of what to be careful of.
Rarely I have enjoyed so many books from a single author. I also think Blood Meridian is one the greatest books of all time.
According to [1] "his list of great novels stops at four: Ulysses, The Brothers Karamazov, The Sound and the Fury and his favorite, Moby-Dick".
They all are a good addition to this thread.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140629023902/http://74.220.215...
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again [2] by M. John Harrison. Beautiful writing. His descriptions give me vivid dreams if I read before bed.
The Thursday Murder Club [3] by Richard Osman. Light reading, amusing, beginning of a series.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echopraxia_(novel)
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49201192-the-sunken-land...
[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54846475-the-thursday-mu...
The Design Thinking Playbook - by Lerwick et al. Global Strategy - by Peng
I think they're both highly relevant to some of the fast pace changes happening in the world, especially in tech. Even though they're not about tech stuff specifically, they're full of good ideas and also have great frameworks for either design AND strategy and some interesting case studies are in Global Business too.
Apart from that, lately, I've been swamped with psych textbooks and journals, so not really had time for a book per se, however I have been reading about offender profiling (of sex offenders) and doing so in conjunction with a case study on Ted Bundy, and I find that really interesting.
I enjoy reading up on computer history, and this is a pretty good retelling of an important story. However, the parts that really struck me are the personal accounts of the author in trying to recover this history. The ENIAC 6 played an important role in the history of the first computer and of programming as a vocation, but their story was almost forgotten. To the point that these women were not even invited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ENIAC. That's shameful, and I'm happy that they finally have started to get the recognition they deserve.
If you're interested in this history, Jean Jennings Bartik also wrote an autobiography, that tells the story from her perspective.
Contrast that to Dune, which I heard so much praise for and was very very disappointed by. The first Dune book was ok, but it just went downhill from there. The God Emperor of Dune was the most boring garbage I’ve ever read, and I’m convinced people think it’s great because they read it in high school or middle school and thought it was “deep” when it’s just a bunch of fluff with no substance. The plot is terrible too. Once again, the first Dune book was alright, but the rest are absolute trash in my honest opinion.
A great series I can recommend is Red Rising from Pierce Brown (book 6 just came out, one more to go).
I like to always be reading one fiction and one non-fiction book. (My brain can't do two fiction books at once).
I already have a bottomless list of recommendations of nonfiction books from threads like this.
Caro's a talented writer, but what really shows through is just the sheer years of hard work he clearly put into the books. I don't know how one can focus for so many years on just one writing project.
Sony Pictures recently released a movie covering Caro and his recently passed editor, Robert Gottlieb, relationship and process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv3CRojrbeE
Aside from reinforcing what I already knew that habits are really powerful, the concept of micro habits stuck out to me and I’m going to try the snowball and stacking approaches to starting positive habits (putting out shoes the night before as a tiny habit to kick start the big habit of running, etc).
I feel like I really just needed to find the right podcast and would get the same info.
In a similar vein, although it's been a while since I read it, I'd strongly recommend J G Ballard's semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun - especially the earlier sections set in pre and post invasion Shanghai are also very evocative.
The narrative follows the author as he takes a canoe trip down the Brazos river in North Central Texas during the late 1950’s. Along the way you are told stories about the people who lived and settled that area, during the old days.
For me, the book reminded me of the stories I heard from my grandfathers about the way things used to be.
I’d recommend the book just as a way to experience North Texas at that time.
Not spoiling anything when I say that reading about one person running a fictitious group of spies across the UK from a flat in London, feeding thousands of pages of fake intelligence to the Germans amazes me. The creativity and mental capacity to stay on top of all those lies is astounding.
Oh and Expeditionary Force for some fun, slightly thought provoking space opera sci fi, first book is on Audible Plus so you can get into it without using a credit.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0008274983/ref=tmm_pap_swat...
The Second World Way by Anthony Beevor (it's a tough but very interesting listen) SAS: Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre (very enjoyable, assume slightly exaggerated) as well as Double Cross
All great books.
Really amazing biography about a man who became president by accident and guided country during the initial years of the atomic age. He was perfect, but the book depicts him to be a great person and a good president .
The End of the World Is just Beginning: https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Just-Beginning-Globalizatio...
Uses lots of data to back up his hypothesis two events
1. the US no longer policing the world 2) demographic shifts in most countries not reproducing
have create a situation where the the world as we know it is changing, and things are only going to get worse, the peace we know and the supplies we rely on will no longer exist soon.
Countries like China and most of West Europe are completely fucked because their populations are going to decrease by > 50% in the next few decades and they do not have the workforce or immigration policies in place to solve these problems. Ironically, he claims the US is in the best position because we have all the natural resources we need, we are not dying demographically, and Mexico and Canada are not threats.
We should expect to see less peace, more nationalism and overall a lot more instability in the future.
Aristotle's Ethics helped me reconcile my desire to constantly strive to do more and what to make of it when it seems never-ending.
Plato's Republic goes deep into virtue in a way that somehow doesn't (and might need to) get explored more often today.
Excellent Sheep is the book that got me to read the above books in the first place.
I now understand how the "west" is even able to keep China out of the loop (for now) on the highest level of tech. Fascinating read.
A Jungian dissection of the tale of a man that transforms into a donkey, and his journey of self discovery and redemption.
It gave me a whole new way of reading books (a "superpower" of sorts, lol).
Going back and reading stories I used to write as a child/teenager, I can now read between the lines and study my subconscious in ways I wasn't able to before.
Really helped with my own journey of self-discovery. Most impactful book I've read, by far.
It breaks down if you think about it too hard, but hey, enjoy it while you can.
- The Long Game: been thinking a lot about how to long term plan, stick to it and revise when needed. I think this book has been helpfull in those reflections.
- The Complete Investor: just to keep thinking and working on wealth creation, I've been reading this one.
- The Language of Emotions: this one came from Kent Beck's blog. The first half is not something I might ever use (contracts, etc...) but the second part, when it develops each emotion, is nice.
- Taking the Work Out of Networking: I need to make more connections :D And I think this readining will help me out a bit and freshen perspectives on how to build those. The Long Game also has some synergy with this one.
Also, inspired by Jared Henderson lastest video on Stoicism, I've been meaning to read Lessons in Stoicism and a bit of Seneca + Epictetus (no Marcus Aurelius for now, Jared's view conviced me to keep this one for later).
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710281/titanium-noi...
It was a short audiobook and I found it fun and entertaining look at the near future in a way that I hadn’t read before. What if immortality/bio hacking made you 20% bigger every time it reset you to 25 years old. I wonder if there will be more physical signs of wealth and immortality and we’re sort of starting to see that in 60-year-old Bezos seems healthier than 40-year-old Bezos.
I’ll also add that I’m not a Noir or detective fan and almost didn’t read it because of that aspect. But I’m glad I did.
https://blacklephant.com/ouvrage/une-histoire-populaire-du-b...
Yes, a book about baseball written by a Frenchman. Interesting that did focus on the "big names" (Ruth, Gehrig, Mayes, etc.) but instead focused on Edith Houghton, Victor Starffin, Moses Walker, Bonnie Baker, Bill Veeck, Effa Manley, Amanda Clement, AG Spalding, Bill Lee, and Juile Croteua.
Yes, he talks about other famous players, but it certainly is a different perspective. As an amateur baseball historian, it was well written and different from what I'm use to reading.
If you can overcome the small problem of it being written in French, and you like baseball, I highly recommend it.
While it wasn't the primary purpose, I also really enjoyed it from a personal perspective to Manning's upbringing. I have not seen the unique dynamic of growing up in a digitally connected America captured as well as it was in this book. The feeling of immense loneliness in real life but a deep connectedness online resonated very strongly with me.
I’ve admired The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger. This book is a collection of his journals from a couple of trips he took to North and South America in the 40’s to give talks and visit with friends and colleagues.
I particularly enjoy the style of writing he uses in these journals.
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/james-gillray-tim-clayton...
First was Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer. After about 1/4th of the book, I didn’t care about anything. Neither the world nor the main character. Decided to stop there, it seems it’s not for me.
Next up, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea Again, I stopped after 25%. This time the story was interesting enough, but I couldn’t stand her writing style, everything was written as if it was a prologue and the actual story is starting anytime now. That just got real annoying when it’s the main story.
Finally, I jumped many years forward (both regarding the release, and the setting), and started Pierce Brown’s Red Rising which I’m enjoying very much so far.
by James Bridle. James pulls an brilliant move of using various examples in technology as a tool to help us rethink our place in nature & reconnect with the (beyond human) world.
He weaves a fascinating tale with myriads of threads such as Cybernetics, Neural Nets, Internet, Random Numbers, Analog computers, Slime molds, Sortition vs Voting, Mycelium, Mysticism in animals, Turing machines, Personhood of non-humans etc.
A nice summary to whet your appetite, https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/07/more-than-human/#umwelt
I think teaching individuals to think in cause/effect, correlations, and chronological order is very important - but I think there's a missing fourth branch of deductive reasoning that we haven't taught en masse: Mereological.
Mereology is a disciplinary and philosophical perspective that implies that everything in the world is a set of parts and wholes; with every entity being both a part OF something, and a whole OF something else.
I think if more people thought of things and systems in part-whole relations, they'd get a more intimate understanding of what things are, how they work, their flaws, and how they can fix them - sometimes with other parts and wholes :)
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691156668/th...
Overall very short book and kind of repeats but is very clearly written. Leans towards academic thinking but I think it is pretty good. 5 elements refers to earth, fire, air, water, and the 5th element is the one which will hopefully "change" your thinking.
2. Tyranny, Inc. by Ahmari
3. American Revolutions by Alan Taylor
4. Everything Flows by Vasili Grossman
This book introduces phages and their pivotal role in advancing human health through phage therapy. In my opinion, it illustrates the inevitability of phage therapy's integration into mainstream medical practices, underscoring its potential to effectively combat antibacterial resistance.
Nice book if you find this part of world interesting.
Now started to read "The Border: A Journey Around Russia" by same author.
It’s a collection of quotes from various influential people along with Tolstoy’s own thoughts. The book is arranged in a daily reading sort of format but I found reading it normally fascinating.
Had a lot of nice insight into good ways of doing DevOps, and I found the examples from real companies incredibly helpful in understand how the concepts help in the real world.
It’s a really, really hard book to get into due to the way it’s written, but its really a quite unique fantasy world populated (and historically ravaged by) wizards and sorcerers.
It also has a fire breathing sheep called Eustace.
The rest of the series basically constantly expands on the world and the lore through the interactions people have, generally with different viewpoint characters.
I’m down to the last book, and a bit sad that the trip will be over.
I'm sure you've heard of it. It's smutty and insane. Oddly reminds me of 1000 Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari with its "rhizomatic" style.
After reading it I find myself in a state of mind that only a couple other works have achieved in me, one of free poetic openness to human experience, particularly when in society. It's a strange experience bordering on solipsism or paranoid schizoprenia but feels very liberating from the demands of stuffy "rational" existence.
Might sound a bit niche, and it is, but even if you ignore the stuff about actually certifying stuff to fly, it has some extremely useful and interesting tidbits about how to go about running very large and highly complex hardware/firmware projects in safety critical industries.
The chapter on requirements is especially useful, and the whole thing is written in a (relatively, for the topic) light-hearted way.
I recommend this book by Bob Bowman and Charles Butler is a self-help book that provides guidance on how to achieve world-class excellence in any area of your life. The book is divided into ten chapters, each of which focuses on a different golden rule. Its written in a conversational style and is full of personal anecdotes from Bowman's own life and career.
Dystopian-future novel with a backdrop of water scarcity in the western United States. A "water knife" is a name for a security contractor who enforces water rights...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/arizona-restricts-phoenix-h...
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717356/the-creative...
She does a great job at highlighting the social pressures that prevented these women either from achieving long lasting recognition or from reaching the same access to education, tools or simply dissemination as their male counterparts.
A mindblowing vision and project of a vehicle that would offer the capability to truck TONS of stuff as far as, say Saturn, or offer speedy travel to Mars.
Born in the nuclear optimism of 1950's, killed by politics and bad optics of nuclear bomb enabled spaceflight.
The more I read of the book the more exciting the topic became. I did not realize how superior and feasible the nuke powered spaceship would be if built.
I hope Orion will fly one day, it's that awesome.
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (1985) by Michael E. Gerber
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity (2023) by Peter Attia
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021) by Oliver Burkeman
From Strength to Strength, Brooks - it's a self-help book for midlife crises. Has all the normal issues of self-help books but I found the exploration of the acceptance of inevitable age related decline in some abilities interesting and useful.
It's a nice mix of being data driven but accessible.
Math foundation of programming. Church–Rosser theorem, Curry–Howard correspondence, intuitionistic logic, theorem proving with dependent types, etc.
2. Rust Atomics and Locks: Low-Level Concurrency in Practice by Mara Bos
Great introduction even for non-Rust programmers.
3. Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails by N. Taleb et al.
I've just started to read it, but looks promising (lot of mathematical statistics).
I'm halfway into this book. It talks about how technology is increasingly fragmenting our attention.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/susanna-clarke...
> At times, she said, bright sunshine has felt “like an oppression, a weight leaning on me”; she often retreats to a darkened room. In the late two-thousands, when her illness was at its worst, she was unable to get out of bed, experiencing depression, social anxiety, and agoraphobia.
Thanks for sharing the article, it resonates with me immensely. I went through similar hypersensitivity issues due to a car accident and brain injury, and still deal with some of that fallout. Knowing this background about Clarke makes the protagonist's perspective at the end even more meaningful to me.
These follow 1) the evolution of human conceptions of God, 2) the historical Jesus, and 3) the historical Muhammad, respectively. They're extremely accessible and have deeply influenced my thoughts on religion.
Excellent breakdown of the problem of politics and the increasing polarization of our times. Plus loads of great illustrations and humor besides. Can’t recommend it enough.
A pretty interesting history of Detroit in the 60s and 70s that relies heavily on first hand accounts and primary sources.
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/458-detroit-i-do-mind-d...
It was like a private key/ public key where you need both pieces to match in order to work. (Although I think the book is excellent by itself)
But I grew up on their games, both playing and modding, so I do have a soft spot for their history.
A thrilling memoir of a wanderer in the 20s of old’ cities.
"Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. I re-read this every 4-5 years just to enjoy the discussions about quality and why it matters.
You could always dive in, read the wikipedia article or lookup a literary review. It may or may not be to your taste but I for one enjoyed it.
It is not about motorcycles. You could read the title instead as about maintenance.
If a mountain leads an author to think about height, the book may not be about alpinism.
Most of us don't want a new hobby of "spend a few hours ever week or so to keep my computer capable of running software", but if you hang around places like this, you'll find that plenty of people do. They can't understand why you wouldn't care enough about your computer to do some basic research into its workings and occasionally recompile the kernel or make a few trivial tweaks to a driver to get it working to your satisfaction.
No amount of "already having a hobby" or "prioritizing for things you care about most" will convince people like the author/protagonist that there's not something fundamentally wrong (but, happily, fixable) with the way you approach life.
So yeah, it's not for you and me. It's for them. And they absolutely love it.
About halfway through. Pretty enjoyable read. Didn’t know much about AI before starting but the book approaches it on a fundamental level with relevant history so I feel like I’m getting a comprehensive education.
A tremendous read, about our human nature and creativity. An analysis on our limits, what talent is, and the common fears. A very freeing experience.
Best tech book has been "Designing Data-Intensive Applications".
"The Golden Notebook" (novel by Doris Lessing)
What blew me away the most about Golden Notebook: It was published in 1962 -- 60 years ago! The ideas about feminism that the two lead women characters discuss are way ahead of their time.
Also by Ms. Lessing, I recommend "The Grass Is Singing". She really knows how transport you inside the minds of her characters. The lead character's struggle to adapt to difficult farm life in a colony is real.
A work of historical fiction focusing on (real) scientists who grapple with the consequences of their discoveries. Actually had a very similar vibe to Oppenheimer for me.
Gorgeous book and immensely satisfying for self-studying mushroom foraging because of its comprehensiveness (thousands of species) and novel accessible organization.
by Richard H. Thaler
It's an interesting read about history of religion and how much is misunderstood nowadays.I would recommend it to both atheists and believers.
Seems like a heavy read and I was wondering what to expect.
It's also very similar to what happens in the movie Predestination.
It made me change the relationship to my belongings.
Also practical tips on how to organize the stuff that actually works.
Stories of Your Life and Others: Ted Chiang 978-1529039436
Leonardo da Vinci 978-1501139154
Used to think fiction was a waste of time a month ago. Not anymore.
For pleasure: Altered Carbon Trilogy
I found her observations about the moral conditions behind people committing atrocities were made on behalf of humanity in general, but somewhat at the expense of a necessary respect for the (then) new nation Israel at the time. I understand the criticisms of her, but I think most of her conceits are worth forgiving to understand how important her observations were.
She did derive a formula by which these things occur, since as a philosopher, she was able to see the role of ideologies as objects and moral mechanisms, with the trial evidence and dozens of hours of his testimony and psychological interviews as the example. Much of what she describes resembles normal government bureaucracy abstractions and what we recognize as crowd behaviors today - but driven by the zeal of a nihilistic inevitability, a sense of privileged enlightenment ("a bearer of secrets"), and a base materialist ontology. His defense was that he was dutiful, everything was "legal," it was an "act of state," his victims actively cooperated, the killing was "a medical matter," and that this was a sufficient moral basis for orchestrating a genocide.
I've found that the evil is far upstream of action, it begins in the blunting and dulling of the human spirit with cliches and ideology, and the horrors are a downstream effect of what was set in motion much earlier. I've read her "origins" book as well, but I'd recommend this one as more directly illuminating.
Do you have a favorite book about complex adaptive systems?
It's a strange, beautiful book tracing parallels between Christian theology and transhumanism.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567075/god-human-an...
* Anything by QNTM. You can start with short story Lena which I think would appeal to HN crowd: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
Both of these writers make phenomenal amount of their work available for free online; I've also purchased a lot of their hard-copies for friends :)
* Open Borders by SMBC guy. I'm a fairly liberal guy AND I'm an immigrant to North America, and still this very short read transformed my position on immigration: https://www.smbc-comics.com/openborders/
* SnowCrash and Neuromancer; have to put it out there as I re-read them every year or two - I know the story by heart but they are like places and towns and countries I like visiting for the atmosphere and company :)
* In that cyberpunk vein, I only recently read Hardwired and it was surprisingly good; first few pages felt like a bit of a variation on the theme, but then it built its own identity.
* The God Engines by Scalzi. ~50 page novella (novelette?). It's a... sci fi fantasy religious tale of space travel and manifested gods? It's different and inventive and sobering and one of those books that you put down after finishing and just stare at the ceiling for a bit. Cathartic.
* And for anybody who hasn't yet, Culture Series by Iain m. Banks. I don't personally love the very first entry, Consider Phlebas, but everything from Player of Games onward is just gold.
I'm currently reading "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff". If you need a book to unwind from a brick about the civil war, this is it. It's hilarious.
"Salt Fat Acid Heat" is recommended by everyone for a reason. Unfortunately, I read before bedtime and it makes me want to get out of bed and cook things.
"A very brief introduction to Marx" is exactly what's on the tin. These very brief introductions are a great way to read about something, although the writing quality varies from book to book.
° Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
° Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Thriller:
° Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe
Meiville normally write weird fiction with a heavy handed communist slant e.g. mutant railroad workers revolt against their capitalist masters and escape by laying and digging up tracks as fast as the train moves, they form a collective and live happily ever after.
The City & the City is his style, but constrained to the structure of a noir mystery novel. Classic gritty cop, loose cannon partner, dead woman, many suspects, second victim, big gunfight, climatic unmasking etc.
The set pieces Meiville is forced to work with results in an incredibly creative and enjoyable ride.
Note: this is not fantasy, it is a noir written by a fantasy writer. Many disappointed readers resulted from this misconception.
(The Disney+ series "A Small Light" is loosely based on the events in this book.)
Miep was Otto Frank's employee, close friend of the Franks, and helped hide the family during the time that Anne wrote her diary. (She was the person finding the Frank's food.) After the Franks were arrested, Miep rescued the diary and then gave it to Otto Frank when he learned that Anne didn't survive the concentration camps.
The book gives significantly more context than Anne's diary regarding who the Franks were, and the struggles they encountered. Not only is it a vital companion to Anne Frank's diary, Miep's account of Amsterdam during WWII describes in detail what life was like under the Nazi regime. She gives a lot more of the "who, what, where, why, and how," that Anne's diary omits. (Remember, Anne was a teenager who, initially, was writing for herself and not for a global audience.)
The first section of the book describes some of Miep's background, how she met the Franks, their relationship, and the history of the Franks. The second section describes the period where she helped hide the Franks, and often gives an alternate perspective to events that Anne wrote about. The third section describes the Frank's arrest and the famine that happened in Amsterdam before the Germans surrendered.
I read the book because some events in "A Small Light" were a little difficult to believe. And, yes, the events in "A Small Light" that I didn't believe weren't part of the book.
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Anne-Frank-Remembered-Helped-Family-e...
Edit 2: I also recently re-read Anne Frank's diary. As an adult with children, it provides a strong reminder of how teenagers' minds work. It also shows that even our heros were immature as youngsters. In Miep's afterword, she points out that she was really hurt at the way that Anne described some of the people in hiding.
Fiction:
- How High We Go in the Dark, a deeply moving science fiction story about loss - https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-high-we-go-in-the-dark-sequ...
- Severance (no relation to the TV show), which works as a pretty good double bill to the above - https://bookshop.org/p/books/severance-ling-ma/9880874
- Ripe, about the artifice of Silicon Valley and its human cost - https://bookshop.org/p/books/ripe-sarah-rose-etter/18992345
Non-fiction:
- The Jakarta Method, on US foreign policy (really should be required reading for every US citizen) - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-jakarta-method-washington-s...
- Poverty, by America, which is in some ways a cathartic read about the systemic ways poverty is incentivized (by the author of the deservedly award-winning Evicted) - https://bookshop.org/p/books/poverty-by-america-matthew-desm...
- README.txt: Chelsea Manning's memoir, which is riveting - not just about her story, but also in the little details about the information work she did while she was deployed - https://bookshop.org/p/books/readme-txt-a-memoir-chelsea-man...
'Drawing on eyewitness accounts and compelling testimony from those who have suffered at Putin's hand, we see the heroism of the Russian opposition, the bravery of the Ukrainian resistance, and the brutality with which the Kremlin responds to such acts of defiance, assassinating or locking away its critics, and stopping at nothing to achieve its imperialist aims.'
»McKenzie Wark argues that the all-pervasive presence of data in our networked society has given rise to a new mode of production, one not ruled over by capitalists and their factories but by those who own and control the flow of information. Yet, if this is not capitalism anymore, could it be something worse?«
An interesting perspective on the psychic appeal of capitalism + an approachable introduction to lacanian psychoanalysis -- if you're into that sort of stuff.
"The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold A fascinating exploration of time travel, despite its poor writing quality, according to the commenter.
"Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction" by J. Allan Hobson A hard science neurophysiological overview of dreaming.
"Material World" by Ed Conway A detailed look into basic minerals like sand, salt, oil, their supply chains, and the process of converting ores to materials.
"Blindsight" and "Echopraxia" by Peter Watts Sci-fi novels that deal with themes of consciousness and first contact with alien intelligence.
"The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again" by M. John Harrison Noted for beautiful writing and vivid descriptions.
"The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman A light and amusing mystery novel; the beginning of a series.
"The Roman Empire in Crisis" by Paul N. Pearson A detailed account of the Crisis of the Third Century in Rome, incorporating recent archaeological discoveries.
"The Good Virus" by Tom Ireland Introduces phages and their pivotal role in advancing human health through phage therapy.
"Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard H. Thaler A book about behavioral economics that suggests ways policies can be designed to "nudge" people into making better decisions.
"Blindsight" by Peter Watts A sci-fi novel that offers a less "anthropomorphic" first contact experience.
"Open Borders" by SMBC guy A book that presents an argument in favor of more open immigration policies.
"Snow Crash" and "Neuromancer" Classic cyberpunk novels, recommended for annual re-reading by the commenter.
"The God Engines" by John Scalzi A novella that is described as a sci-fi fantasy religious tale of space travel and manifested gods. Culture Series by Iain M. Banks A series of space opera novels set in a post-scarcity society.
"Art & Fear - Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking" by David Bayles & Ted Orland A book about human nature and creativity.
"The Case for God" by Karen Armstrong A book about the history of religion and how much is misunderstood in modern times.
"Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert Caro A detailed and well-researched biography of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
"The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles "American Revolutions" by Alan Taylor "Everything Flows" by Vasili Grossman "Silk Roads" by Peter Frankopan A history of the world from a Central Asian perspective.
"Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control" by Allan Mallinger "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber A book about why most small businesses don't work and what to do about it.
"Prisoners of Geography" by Tim Marshall An exploration of how borders and geography shape nations.
"Impro" by Keith Johnston A book with unique and radical views about how society functions.
"Peter Singer's books" Noted as being worldview-changing, but specific titles aren't listed.
"Two Years Before The Mast" by Richard Henry Dana An account of the cattle hide trade along the California coast in the 1830s.
"Empire of the Summer Moon" A book about the Comanche tribe and their conflict with settlers in the American West.
"Dune" by Frank Herbert A classic science fiction novel about politics, religion, and ecology on a desert planet.
"God, Human, Animal Machine" by Meghan O’Gieblyn Traces parallels between Christian theology and transhumanism.
"The Water Knife" A dystopian future novel set against a backdrop of water scarcity in the western United States.
It's the second book in The Three Body Problem series. To be honest, I found it a bit dull in similar ways to the first book in the series. There are good chunks of technical details (Hard Scifi), and specific ideas or concepts that are interesting, but it's then brought up during romantic relationships and other matters I'm not not invested in. If you can get passed the parts that drone on about flowers and clouds and whatnot, there's some good meat.
I don't want to give too much away, but I'll try to give you the general premise of situations that come up in each book:
* How does a civilization examine and come to understand the world around it, if that world is incredibly unstable and deadly at some points, and eerily stable at others?
* How would worldly matters like strife, unrest, famine, and suffering impact the mindset of people who attempt contact with other civilizations?
* If all you have is a rock and a loin cloth, how could you possibly fight someone with strategic bombers and nuclear warheads? ...
* ... Assuming you came up with any ideas at all, how would those plans or inventions impact the society you live in? How long would you need to prepare to even offer the semblance of a fight against that kind of enemy? ...
* ... If the threat you face is by an enemy that can hear every word you say, and read every word you write, how could you even begin to plan or mount any kind of a defense against it?
2) The Celtic World by Dr. Jennifer Paxton, PhD
A detailed look at the Celtic identity throughout history. Where did they come from? Who are they? Where do they live? What were their beliefs? What is their legacy in the modern day?
There's nothing specific that I can point to and say "And this is why you should listen to it!" It's simply very well done. It wraps up the history in a way that is engaging, without being excessive or dull, while still feeling incredibly detailed. It's entertaining, engaging, but also factual. In areas where things are murky or grey, the author makes it clear what is opinion, what is known, and what is uncertain. It doesn't feel like "infotainment" ala Discovery Channel, TLC, etc. It feels like those classic documentaries or miniseries you could sometimes find, where something hit that perfect mix of being: well produced, insightful, and complete.
You can feel the genuine passion that the author has for the topic, and it shines through to such a degree that, if you have even a passing interest in the topic, or history in general, you're sure to find something in there that piques your interest.
I also really appreciated that the author made a point of not looking her nose down at any misconceptions that people may have about various aspects of the Celtic world. There are a lot of half-truths and outright falsehoods that I had been told about the historical Celt that are wrong. It would have been incredibly easy for the author to sneer at such errors as "uneducated nonsense" or some other dismissive comment, but the author didn't do that at all! She made a point of saying that common misconceptions are...well, common, and that it's understandable that people think this way or that as a result. It was completely free of the kind of pretention that I had been concerned about, which made it far more accessible as a complete dullard on the topic.