As parents we wanted to be one of the better ones. A while back, we started with Bringing up Bébé, and since then learnt How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk; we were even Prepared while Reviving Ophelia. This year, we realized, we want to just settle on being A Good Enough Parent.
Sitting with my newborn sleeping on my chest currently. I’ve really enjoyed Brain Rules for Baby and currently reading Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. Both good, feel like the latter is going to be a pivotal part of our parenting. My wife really enjoyed The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read.
I didn't realize I might have the wrong link to the book everywhere I wrote until now (this comment thread). "A Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child-Rearing" by Bruno Bettelheim.
From Wikipedia: “ Much of his work was discredited after his death due to fraudulent academic credentials, allegations of patient abuse, accusations of plagiarism, and lack of oversight by institutions and the psychological community.”
Add it to your Wishlist on Amazon and watch it for a while. I'm pretty sure an American will resell one. I got mine used on Amazon.in after stumbling on a fine day that someone was selling it for ₹399 (~$5). So, bought it. They shipped it all the way from the USA and it took more than a month.
Checking it right now shows ₹1,388 (~$17) for the Paperback and ₹2,261 (~$28) for the Hardcover edition.
I have read many parenting books, and those listed above are the ones I believe others parents should read through. However, if you want to pick just one, you might want to settle on the Good Enough Parents. It is a fun read.
I really loved Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Too often sci-fi feels cold, and detached with characters that feel akin to chess pieces moved in complicated schemes. His stories, even if they are sketches instead of paintings, exhibit a far more heartfelt, human ethos. The characters are real people with wants and unfulfilled wishes. The subjects are both technology but also mortality, fate, raising children, loss. It's sci-fi, but also just good short story writing.
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories by Raphael Bob-Waksberg is another good set of short stories, more absurd and about love, but equally fun. If you liked the funny-sad combo of Bojack Horseman (which Bob-Waksberg created), you'll probably like this.
Exhalation is one of my favorite books of any genre and Chiang is one of my favorite authors. I love listening to his interviews as well. It's very clear how the person Ted Chiang and the author Ted Chiang exist in the same space. For some authors, that connection is less clear.
Similarly, Bojack Horseman is one of my favorite shows. I had never looked into its creators and had no idea the creator also wrote short stories. I am now very excited to read this. Thanks!
+1 for Exhalation by Ted Chiang.
And also: "Sum - Forty Tales from the afterlives" by David Eagleman. A small book that makes you think very very deeply.
Project Hail Mary is such an awesome book. Great buildup, an intriguing plot slowly unfolding with an inquisitive problem solver caught in the middle. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Currently in the midst of this audio book… very fun and entertaining. You know it is great when you look for reasons to get in the car or do the dishes/ laundry just so you can continue listening.
The first third of The Gods Themselves could be written now and one might interpret it as being about our approach to climate change, it's just such a great examination of the problem of negative externalities, I had to re-read the start of the middle third a bunch of times before I grokked it but when I did it I was impressed with how well he gave us a means to empathy to those characters and their point of view (after struggling to figure out what the heck I was reading!).
How the World Really Works by Vaclac Smil is one of the best book I've read this year. It gives such a great perspective on how much energy and material we use.
It's one of the most readable books by Smil and has gems like this :
“Moreover, within a lifetime of people born just after the Second World War the rate had more than tripled, from about 10 to 34 GJ/capita between 1950 and 2020. Translating the last rate into more readily imaginable equivalents, it is as if an average Earthling has every year at their personal disposal about 800 kilograms (0.8 tons, or nearly six barrels) of crude oil, or about 1.5 tons of good bituminous coal. And when put in terms of physical labor, it is as if 60 adults would be working non-stop, day and night, for each average person; and for the inhabitants of affluent countries this equivalent of steadily laboring adults would be, depending on the specific country, mostly between 200 and 240. On average, humans now have unprecedented amounts of energy at their disposal.”
Red Plenty, a novel that is loosely about the invention of linear programming in the Soviet Union (a branch of mathematics, only somewhat related to computer programming). Good description of what the process of scientific invention feels like in the first part of the book. (if you want more depth on the mathematics of linear programming, Understanding and Using Linear Programming is a very readable (and short) textbook that only requires basic linear algebra knowledge).
Moneyball, people have been recommending this to me for years but I never read it because I find baseball so boring. I'm glad I finally read it. It's not really a book about baseball it's about finding and exploiting unappreciated edges.
Who We Are and How We Got Here, makes a lot of the recent genetic research on human origins understandable. Especially relevant this year due to Svante Paabo's nobel prize.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, possibly better than the movie (which I love). Reads a bit like a script. The dialog is very good and contains many "scenes" that aren't in the movie.
$12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark, if you are interested in modern art or how things that look like something anyone could do can sell for absurd amounts of money this book is worth reading.
A Sailor of Austria: In Which Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Hapsburg Empire, one of the reviews I read before starting this described it as something like "a techno-thriller set on an austrian submarine in world war one". If that sounds appealing to you, you'll probably like this book. If not don't bother starting it.
"How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question" by Michael Schur is my favorite read of the year.
It's an introduction to the philosophy of ethics through real-life examples and anecdotes by the creator of The Good Place TV show (the audio book even features the shows actors). Unlike most of philosphy stuff you can actually finish it in couple of days and feel like you learned a whole lot!
In particular it helped me with my ethics choice anxiety and introduced me to Aristotel's "be the best version of yourself" philosophy which is such a liberating way of thinking.
Hahah, the author seems to be very well aware of the trolley trap and actually makes the same joke in the book while also spending pages on exploring various trolley scenarios. So I'm not sure how to answer your question :D
While I liked the show, given the basic level of the explanations of ethics systems as well as the caricature portrayal the philosopher, I find it hard to believe their book is an exceptional option for learning more.
Its an incredible older book looking at the mechanisms exploited by totalitarian systems to subdue their victims. Namely nazi Germany, soviet Russia and revolutionary China.
The author was part of the dutch resistance against the nazi occupation and headed the psychological department of the dutch army in exile after he had to flee mainland Europe. He later also acted as a witness for the defense in the trial against Frank Schwable for collaborating as a PoW in Korea.
In addition to the really interesting and still highly relevant topic his writing shows him to be among the other awe inspiring scientists of the "greatest generation". Its quite simply an extremely impressive yet pleasant to read opus magnum.
During the war he debriefed people interrogated by the Gestapo to figure out ways to resist and briefed other resistance fighters with what to expect. Its obviously impossible to "resist" many things on that level, for example the threat of having your family put into Sippenhaft with you. While other mechanisms, especially on a societal level, are much more easily countered. You can summarize his approach with "knowledge is power". So the book is using the same approach he applied during the war and which he had recommended since, that true and honest information in an open society is the best medicine against a rise in totalitarianism and the resulting corruption.
Its an approach you should be familiar with when it comes to combating the different methods of propaganda, psychological warfare or information operations. Or simply cognitive biases. Once you describe how they work, you are primed to recognize them when you come across them. Which hopefully reduces their effectiveness.
To give an example, there is the rather famous quote concerning the title:
>“Many victims of totalitarianism have told me in interviews that the most upsetting experience they faced "…" was the feeling of loss of logic, the state of confusion into which they had been brought — the state in which nothing had any validity "…" they simply did not know what was what.”
Recognizing that this is an actual tactic, aimed at creating a predictable reaction is rather helpful to break out of that predetermined path for your thoughts.
In the West we still have democracy - yes might be on its last few legs, but it's not too late, as the 2020 election showed - we the people just need to come together and be more organized and strategic and remove the corruption.
In the US or EU no political opposition was 'suicided' or disappeared in a Gulag like it happened in Russia multiple times.
In Russia or China you will be arrested for holding up a white piece of paper.
If you're trying to say current day Russia is the same as current day US or EU then you're way off line.
I see it different, and to the comment one level up...we have the illusion of democracy, which takes the oppression of opposition to a whole new level.
In fact, this episode of Freakanomics talks about The Politics Industrial Complex and how The Media is on the inside of that bubble. In short, without a healthy and objective Fourth Estate there is no democracy. Add in the duopoly one-party choices and it gets even worse.
There's more to democracy than getting to vote. What we're living is the Orwellian defintion of democracy.
I also heard it said on another reputable podcast - I think it was "How I built this" - that the top corporate guest of the Obama WH was Google. I'm trying to verify that. This looks close enough.
It's odd that a POTUS who sold hope would be so closely aligned with a surveillance company.
See also: "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" for a look behind Google's public facing narrative.
The Pentagon keeps failing its audits, to the tune of trillions of dollars, and the people are silent. Trillions? If it walks like corruption and talks like corruption...well we all should see where this is going. Yet, zero opposition to this?
I think you are smart and insightful person. There's too many of "yes we could be better but we are still the best while those other suck beyond improvement unless we fix them" East and West, left and right. I hope to fix my country and I hope you fix yours. Maybe we even come together and fix them both. But I hope some won't attepmt to fix my country again with dropping depleted uranium bombs on civillians in the name of democracy.
That we the people just need to come together and be more organized and strategic and remove the corruption is applicable to any society, on any level of corruption. It was not too late for Netherlands under nazis, it is not too late for anyone.
>In the West we still have democracy - yes might be on its last few legs, but it's not too late, as the 2020 election showed
This is laughably biased. Whatever his defects, the election of Trump was if anything a much better example for democracy in action than the forced-along Biden election in which as much as possible of the mainline media and tech companies did everything possible to ensure it went that way.
Trump legitimately upset the applecart by winning (even if it was an electoral college victory, it was nonetheless part of how the system formally works) and surprised many people including a majority of the media landscape fully against his campaign. Because you detest that particular president's politics (im no fan of them either in many ways) doesn't make it an antidemocratic step backward..
Trump recently called for the constitution to be suspended… and constantly banging on about the stolen election… he is anti democratic.
With him in power we would have eventually slid into fascism.
The reason he won back then is in a large part due to the misinformation campaigns supported partly by Russia, see Cambridge Analytica with the psychographic targeting etc.
For a functioning demographic you need well informed citizens.
Luckily us the people rejected the crazy views of trumpeteers.
>The reason he won back then is in a large part due to the misinformation campaigns supported partly by Russia, see Cambridge Analytica with the psychographic targeting etc.
I call bullshit on that. The progressive side of US politics and society badly discredited itself with its endless harping about Russian electoral manipulation. They spent years doing this without ever putting forth any credible, concrete evidence and in other cases ignoring evidence that showed connections between Russian officials and their preferred political affiliations. This latter event to the point that now, we have several major media outlets being forced to admit the importance of the Hunter Biden laptop story that they previously sneered at after the New York Post made it very public. The levels of partisan absurdity only grow more laughable.
Much of this, I suspect pushed by a near hysterical desire to find an external cause for millions of Americans who voted for him (for whatever numerous reasons of their own) not listening to the preaching by their supposed superiors in the major media outlets and social feeds.
How many people right on this site frequently talk about how difficult it is to convince people through online advertising even when the spending is in the billions by agents that know a lot about individual's preferences because of online habit tracking. And then at the same time we're supposed to believe that tens of millions of Americans were brainwashed into voting against their own preference by a Russian manipulation campaign run by a government that has repeatedly shown itself to be inept at so many things (war most recently), with a relatively modest budget, limited personnel and a general cultural divide between the mentalities of the perpetrators and all those average Trump voters in the U.S.
The entire accusation reeks of idiotic nationalistic elitism justifying a profound disdain for a huge percentage of the U.S population that "refused to listen" (to progressive arguments against Trump).
There is a difference between trying to convince someone to spend money on your product vs trying to convince someone that your worldview and ideology is the right one (Trumpism) by using language that resonates with your values.
You wouldn’t be able to convert a progressive to become a Trumpist, but try it on folks on the fence and the probability is higher.
Same happened in the UK with Brexit. A weak West benefits Putin. The Russians have a lot of experience with disinformation campaigns. Look up Operation Infektion. Luckily it failed. The West is now more united, due to Putin’s miscalculation with the Ukraine war.
>There is a difference between trying to convince someone to spend money on your product vs trying to convince someone that your worldview and ideology is the right one (Trumpism) by using language that resonates with your values.
Both is propaganda, the difference stems from not only trying to frame things in a positive light as you commonly do with advertisement. The reason political propaganda is often more effective is the easy exploitation of negative caricatures combined with ingroup/outgroup effects and the errors of our brains. Be it cognitive biases or simply the inability to scale with complexity. So for example, if i get you to perceive yourself to be part of my ingroup, by having you react predictably with caricatures representing the outgroup (often with some "with us or against us" rhetorics) and manage to have you accept simplified stories, then i quite simply already won. Because i will be able to define who is and who isnt grouped in with the caricatures and how you think about anything they say.
This is very much about brainwashing. If i get you to think about stuff the way i framed it and stop you from communicating with people outside of the frame in a meaningful way, then i own you. And it works through you not wanting to challenge believes you started to identify with due to cognitive biases. Which is also how you recognize whether you are already in such a situation. By for example, believing every disagreement with sockpuppets is a "no" instead of a "yes, but...". Having an incomplete view of a situation is often just as easy to exploit as a wrong one.
Unfortunately this is just the start. This is very much an asymmetric battle with individuals on the loosing end in terms of complexity management and ease of adaptation. And even if you somehow managed to stay objective and got your hands on good information, you are still at threat of your attacker escalating to psychological warfare, for example overwhelming you with inputs to force you into either paralysis or predetermined reactions. And depending of how vicious your attacker is, white torture is also a possibility for further escalation.
> The reason political propaganda is often more effective is the easy exploitation of negative caricatures combined with ingroup/outgroup effects and the errors of our brains.
Yes - spot on. And this was used during the Trump and Brexit campaigns.
However, brainwashing to me is when you can turn someone who originally is far away from your side and make them come over to your side. So maybe we just have a different definition of it.
I hope we can agree though that Trump was not good for the US - he created a lot of damage and used those tactics you mentioned to create division and in-fighting, which benefits the status quo and hinders societal progress.
I always wonder how can you ensure that people get factual information and how to change the system so politicians lose their jobs if they deliberately spread misinformation or lie. It's key for having a functioning democracy, voters need accurate and factual information.
Agree on the not so great again and the need for a honest inquiry for factual information. Its just that i think some of that stuff is caricatures itself. Q-Anon for example is more or less crack. Here is a game developer describing it
https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analy...
>It’s not that strange actually. In fact, the difference between apophenia and science is just the scientific process and the reliance on proof. People make the connection before they know for a fact if it’s real or not. Maybe it is apophenia, maybe not. It’s a hypothesis. THEN YOU TEST IT. The facts determine the outcome and then, whether it feels good or not, you accept them. Even scientists may not want to let go of a good theory that just isn’t panning out. The feeling of correctness is over-powering. This is why people need to have peer-reviews. Colleagues need to be able to replicate results. Solutions need to be tested and the facts harnessed.
>In Q, the proof is more apophenia! Another arrow in the dirt in an endless cycle back to the central propaganda. It has to because there is no truth. The answer is whatever feels the best, makes the most sense, and helps the story. Any truth is just fuel for the propaganda and reinforces the conclusions of the apophenia and central narrative.
>It feels like it’s really happening. It especially seems so when cheered on by a curated fake “community” clapping you on the back and telling you you are a hero for every radical leap into the void you make.
Being opposed to something like this is very easy. And at the same time the ability to figure stuff out without political framing gets harder and harder as well. Its made only worse with propaganda on the political level being also very profitable. And even stuff with good intentions backfires.
Its a clusterfuck all around, stuff gets more and more complicated. We havent solved scaling problems in software development or companies and it seems political discourse cant handle either. In addition to problems becoming too complicated, you also have to stay realistic. If you just fire every politicians dealing with disinformation you have the old problem of replacing everyone with some magic competent new humans with authoritarians meanwhile racing onwards. Give people certain incentives and its hard to behave differently. People want to get reelected and peoples opinions are very easily swayed with some well made propaganda.
On the bright side, this should all be a rather easy fix as long as we can agree on meaning well and reality mattering more then wanting to feel right. Because that is how a really nice made frame looks and you might have to let go and try to be rational for a moment.
edit: tldr: Any attempt to ban missinformation would likely be a terrible idea, we will have to agree to wanting to fix it instead. And that is hopefully just a question of tooling.
I have to read up on the ancient Greeks and the origins of democracy.
And yes agree - banning misinformation isn't the answer.
So what are the solutions - how do make sure propaganda doesn't bubble to the top, but facts and truthful information does - so people can make informed decisions.
How do you avoid people like Trump, i.e. narcissistic self serving people rising to power and subverting democracy.
You can't simply expect truth to win. History shows time and again that a lie can circle the world a hundred times before the truth even gets its shoes on. Misinformation is viral, information is not. Lies are simple, the truth is often complicated. Charismatic con men and charlatans appealing to base emotion, rumors and conspiracy theories often short circuit reason and rationality in ways that a presentation of facts to the contrary can't repair.
If your top priority is ensuring the playing field is always even between truth and lies, and that lies are always given a fair shake, then you're just rigging the game for lies. The truth only wins and holds precedence in an environment where lies can be recognized and fought against, and prevented from manifesting their own reality bubbles.
Banning misinformation alone isn't enough, and yes it can certainly be abused, but it is necessary.
>Banning misinformation alone isn't enough, and yes it can certainly be abused, but it is necessary.
Its impossible. And its one of the most dangerous and insidious ideas out there. To put it quite bluntly, you arent competent enough to determine for other people what is true and what is fake. And neither is anyone else. Its the reason we had informed consent, because without it, idiots thinking to do "the right thing" historically time and time again inflict horrible fates upon those deemed not smart enough to make decisions for themselves.
I understand that you want it to work, or even feel it needs to work, but reality quite simply doesnt give a crap about what anyone feels "should or needs to work".
This might look like a stupid disagreement, but quite frankly, this is the line in the sand towards totalitarian dystopias. If you were competent enough to make that decision, you would be competent enough to explain why something is true or fake. Which in my view leaves either malice or delusion motivating those pushing on regardless.
Thanks to the internet i had the possibility to speak with people holding despicable views, be it nazis or thanks to /r/syriancivilwar even interviews with ISIS supporters. Please really think about the fact that i am still more worried about people with your set of believes.
This is truly dangerous, especially because people tell themselves they do it for the "right reasons". Its what makes it such a horrible trap. Its an easy narrative to fall for and once you are in you left reality in favor of the group narrative. And while other extremist groups use the same mechanisms, this one is a lot more palpable on first view. After all, who would be against no more misinformation? Overlooking the horrible and costly insight of the last 100 years and more that just as running an economy, this isnt a trivial task you can just dictate, even if you really want to. Especially since running the economy would be trivial in comparison.
For the sake of a livable future, please stop before you doom us all.
Not sure you noticed - but your reply is to a new contributor to this discussion.
I agree - we shouldn't ban information, same as not cancelling people into oblivion, e.g. for jokes they made 10 years ago.
But /u/krapp made a valid point... "Misinformation is viral, information is not." ... or it seems to be that way.
There should be consequences for lying and spreading misinformation, esp if you have a large platform and your decisions will impact millions of people.
And my question prior... what do you think can be done to stop people like Trump rise to power - how can this system weed out narcissistic and self-serving people who don't care about progress or improving society. With those people in power long enough, we will eventually have a system where our freedoms will be taken away.
> Not sure you noticed - but your reply is to a new contributor to this discussion.
Yes, i hope you didnt thought this applied to yourself, far from it. I also jumped in a few posts ago on a conversation you had with somebody else.
I also didnt want to imply that missinformation spreading viraly wasnt a problem. Its just not fixable with authoritarian measures and the problem goes far deeper then "just" liberties. The problem is that any attempt to ban the sharing of information means you need a means to accurately determine what is wrong or incomplete information (jumping over the whole problem of miss-/diss/mal-information and true information without context to keep the post short) without the ability to challenge errors. By attempting to ban information you are interfering in your reality finding process. Doing this is extremely dangerous due to the inability to judge implications of errors and such errors being extremely profitable. Its a truly horrible idea, no matter how nice solving the problem of spreading missinformation (while actually being impossible) sounds. Its the patching out of a vital safety check without which you loose your ability to error-correct. As everywhere, without a means to error correct, all the problems such an approach allows for already exist, time just hasnt caught up.
I think this is a vital point people overlook. Its not a moral argument, totalitarianism isnt just horrible, it does not work. Its a process that leads to the creation of errors in thinking, dismantles the means to error correct and breeds corruption. Its groups of idiots moving forward while ignoring the consequences, encouraged by socio/psychopaths profiting off such movements temporarily at the cost of long term problems it creates.
>And my question prior... what do you think can be done to stop people like Trump rise to power
I mentioned it at the end of my first post, i think the solution is as old as time and as with everything technology makes them more solveable. You cant fix stupidity centrally, its a decentralized problem for which a centralized solution would require totalitarian perfection due to loosing the ability to error-correct.
So its down to everyone to have a honest conversation about how stupid they are on individual questions and whether they are emotionally mature enough to have that conversation without becoming cynical. So figuring out where your views are wrong, or incomplete, where you are acting ideologically or are just reacting to a frame. Instead of attempting to get rid of miss-information you focus on figuring out where you can say with a high degree of certainty, and strict requirements for falsifiability what is likely true. So what is non-missinfornation, approximating base-reality from which we then can have meaningful conversations. Since we make the effort to communicate, we clearly decided on cooperation instead of conflict. So lets work on making that more productive, after all there is a core question here. Are you actually interested in being right or do you just take pleasure from feeling right? If its the later, know that reality is a bitch that will win every time over your feelings. Clinging on regardless is how being stupid looks from the perspective of a stupid person. Which we all are sometimes. Which cognitive biases trick us into ignoring or brushing aside.
I think this is a task where tooling can help and where we can give a hand to other people in the process. Talk to people meaningfully, think steelmening instead of strawmaning. You might be missing a perspective somebody else overcorrected for. Almost none of the issues are one dimensional, its all spectrums you cant overcorrect on without being just as wrong as before. Understand how people came to a conclusion and show up errors instead of regurgitating your own views. As this is obviously difficult (take this from the experience of a seasoned idiot) its clear why we havent "solved" it yet. But i believe it is something technology can help us with. And cooperative decentralized solutions are still a lot more solvable then the insane idea of trying to dictate reality.
It would also help with the old star trek question of where technology will move towards. Will we manage to create a world in which technologies are useful tools or are we headed for becoming clogs in a malfunctioning machine we dont understand and cant control?
This problem is hard to fix because everyone believes they themselves are not an idiot, everyone else is. Thats an error caused by cognitive biases. But one were we can help each other and develop tooling to achieve better results all around. I suspect there will be massive payoffs once we just agree on trying to be less stupid and meaning well, even just for the benefit of a less shit future for yourself.
> Are you actually interested in being right or do you just take pleasure from feeling right?
Yes great point. I have experienced this myself in the past and it takes effort not to do this.
> Since we make the effort to communicate, we clearly decided on cooperation instead of conflict.
Yes - I think our first exchange seemed to veer slightly towards conflict (for me anyway), but then it took a turn to a more shared understanding.
> So it's down to everyone to have a honest conversation about how stupid they are on individual questions
Yes agree. Stupidity is dangerous [0] and we need to be better equipped to detect our own stupidity and then self-correct.
That's why I think 2 key things for avoiding spiraling into tyrannical systems are a) fight poverty b) better education systems that teaches more about critical thinking and to recognise the tactics self-serving people use to gain power. Easier said than done of course.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts, which were insightful for my ongoing journey to study this topic. Two resources next on my list are:
Thanks for the resources, especially the Bonhoeffer theory and the nice feedback. I do appreciate it. I can also only return the favor, being able to come to an agreement on such points is really good news and i found this quite beneficial as well. The difficulty of it (conflict in speech is just so much more easy and fun) is why i have so high hopes for technology. Because you wont just help with understanding but being more easy to understand. Which means getting more control about how you frame stuff without just trying to influence your conversation partner. I am not so optimistic about education beyond a base level though, getting a grip of framing stuff, and not just reacting immediately, is just very difficult no matter how much you meditate, at least for idiots like myself. Schmachtenberger [0] is proposing that same approach with the stuff around "rule omega", but as you can take from the close to 10 hours of videos and not making much visible progress since, you are kind of trying to build a new non-stupid human. (Not tryint to downplay that approach would be great if it worked and its a really nice idea. I might be overly cynical here).
When it comes to possible solutions, cooperative minimum is key imho. Which likely means the solution cant be aimed at gaining political influence or monetary benefits. Because people react to such attempts of influence as well. And as with every tool, there will be attempts of weaponization. Which gets us to conflict again, which makes the experience everywhere more shit. So keeping Goethe Zauberlehrling in mind is rather important.
In case anyone is wondering about the poverty point, its so people get the option to not have to react under dire pressure for once. Because thinking about stuff like this is quite simply a luxury if you have to worry about where the next meal for you and your family is going to come from. Less anxious people are more willing to cooperate.
4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. It goes against a lot of societally enforced norms we’re coming up against, and suggests the benefits of living a more aware, intentional life and the benefits of commitment and community. Awesome, awesome book I constantly recommend to people.
I cannot agree more. I listened to it all the way through twice and it had a profound impact on how I see the world. It feels like an essential guide for living in the modern world. I look forward to reading it on paper to see what else I can get out of it.
I agree - this book is great. I find it hard to really explain what this book about (time management?) without making it sound less interesting than it actually is, but it really has impacted my thinking. Definitely one that I'm going to keep coming back to.
"Thinking in Bets" Annie Duke. Changed how I feel "bad" decisions because, per Duke, bad outcomes can happen to good decisions. I also enjoyed how she framed truth seeking as the preference over groupthink.
Finally, it was fact that she was speaking from experience (as a professional poker player) and just some idea she researched.
Warning: this book can make it difficult to communicate with other people, if you expect them to think like you do. So many people evaluate the quality of decisions based on results, and so many of them are outright hostile to the ideas suggested herein.
Further, in any given situation, variance swaps all - so don't expect to be able to say "i told ya so".
I firmly believe this book helps make my life better in terms of making better decisions, but it is not a book you want to trot out at cocktail parties unless you enjoy arguments. And I will also say - people get offended when you ask them to put money down on their perspective, even after you disagree. So it appears to be true, people know it's true when money is on the line, but will still argue with you.
Let it change how you think, but if you want something to discuss with others, go with Gladwell or Freakonomics.
Yes and no. But ultimately ironic. Duke's position on truth seeking is rock solid. Any disagreement is, in the eyes of Duke, is a positive. I would take names, and then buy them the book. If they choose not to read it then self identifying groupthinkers might be best avoided going forward.
As for Gladwell. That's the problem, isn't it? Beige ideas and slanted research, etc. Yeah, I read him to see what the "average reader" is slurping down, but he's a candy coated pop star to Duke's Radiohead ideas.
It’s a bit of a paradox. While a lot of Gladwells work is a broad brush and not generalizable, it has opened people’s minds to a new way of thinking. I have found those people are open to discussions with more rigor, but it’s possible that is selection bias at work.
I also don’t think Duke is saying all disagreement is good. She specifically says you need a small trusted circle of people who agree to basic rules. Even then, it’s difficult to keep people inside the lines. That’s why her recommended way of rigorous thinking wouldn’t work on Twitter or in a general public sphere, for instance.
It’s not that people are dumb or willful, it’s that our brains are wired for different circumstances. And it takes constant effort to swim against the stream, which is tiring and not scalable.
In the end, I have concluded that humanity is better off for having a Gladwell - someone who can connect and clearly communicate with the masses. We need these mass communicators, even if they aren’t precise, because they open people’s minds to alternative ways of thinking.
It’s like a funnel - gladwell gets more people to the top of the funnel. You end up with folks who take pop music conclusions, and some percentage will dive deeper. Without Gladwell, I would have never discovered Duke or been receptive to the message.
Just started reading, "Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away" by her so can't confidently recommend it, but so far I'm really enjoying it. Again, poker experience, knowing when to fold, is relevant.
After being prepped for an understanding of the conflict of visions by Thomas Sowell, Booker T Washington's autobiography really brings it all home as to what could have been. The accomplishments, the respect, the fulfillment.
A close second is Shelby Steele's White Guilt, in particular, his description of the difference of his parents' civil rights attitude (change the laws, get along) compared to his own in his youth (burn it down) with his eventual understanding of where that came from and what the consequences were.
I haven't finished it yet, but I am currently working through Thomas Sowell's Ethnic America which has a very satisfying history so far of different ethnic groups in America.
I also have to say that most years, I have barely been able to read even a few books. But this year I got audible and have now listened to 35 books. Of course, I have a growing queue which now stands at 176 books.
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It merges science and storytelling in an amazing way, I can highly recommend it. The books are long, but they didn't seem like it.
Neuromancer by William Gibson. The book that started cyberpunk. I love the genre, but I think it's well worth a read just to see how he can craft a world with language. I sometimes found it hard to understand what exactly was happening, but the vibe was always crystal clear.
Those are really good choices. I re-read the Mars trilogy every couple of years, though the differences between the book's timeline and our own are getting a little embarrassing :-)
Here are some early "cyberpunk" books that people may not be aware of. I'm using a loose definition of stories where networked computers play a major role, the characters are technologically sophisticated and from the shady edge of society, and there's a caper of some kind.
John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider (1975)
Thomas J Ryan, The Adolescence of P-1 (1977)
Vernor Vinge, True Names (1980)
John M Ford, Web of Angels (1980)
I've left a few out (e.g., Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Bester's The Computer Connection) because they're not really "punk".
As an American, it was the most enjoyable and interesting history book I ever read, was even laughing out loud at one point. Talks about the four major English cultures that planted the seeds of the United States. It's so cool to learn about these old cultures and how their values and folkways are still reflected in certain locales to this day.
It's not only an interesting history book, but it feels useful. I feel like I have a much stronger understanding and frame with which to look at modern American politics. You stop looking at things as Democrats vs Republicans and start looking at things as Puritans vs Borderers - these are the two prevailing English cultures of the four who founded the country.
Goes without saying that this Team A vs Team B is an oversimplification and there's nuance and it's complex, et cetera et cetera. But as a simplification, there's a lot more to learn and there's more depth in the Puritan vs Borderer frame than in the Democrat vs Republican frame. I've gained more respect and appreciation for these imposing cultures/factions who persist to this day.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino, a great companion to the movie and expands on characters in really unique ways that make me think about them.
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, a near future book about climate change and trying to fix it with an interesting geopolitical look of China acting like the US. I also liked Ministry of the Future but it was less fun of a read.
Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt, a reasoned look at how social media and devices are negatively impacting society and children.
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, a weird near future declinepunk with bioengineering and evil corporations.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, very short book with a glimpse into post colonial colonialism in remote locations. Wanted to read a book about Congo.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, a portrait of a character in a time I didn’t experience.
Tarantino's novelization was fantastic. He just released a piece of nonfiction with 'Cinema Speculation', which is definitely worth a read if you're into film and especially his films.
If you like audio books Kenneth Branagh’s reading of Heart of Darkness is incredible. I listen to it all the time. He really brings out the dark humour in Marlow’s narration.
Also, Apocalypse Now was based on Heart of Darkness; so it’s definitely worth rewatching after having read HoD.
> Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, a weird near future declinepunk with bioengineering and evil corporations.
I loved Shriek: An Afterword, and have wanted to read more VanderMeer for a while. Did you just coin the term 'declinepunk'? I've never heard it before.
I don’t know what the right term is but the world is worse than today and on the way down. It’s not apocalyptic, but it’s decaying and declining with loss of services, crime, chaos. But there’s still tech and big companies and stuff.
Similar would be Battle Angle Alita and the last section from Bone Clocks.
+1 for "You're Not Listening". I had it on my shelf for too long. When I finally pulled it down and read it there was a feeling of "I wish I would have done that a lot sooner."
Think Again was good as well, but didn't hit me as hard as "Listening."
This is absolutely fantastic, and above all the other choices here that I agree are wonderful, this is absolutely one of the most absorbing and interesting books you could spend your time in and realise "oh, there isn't another book I could put in this next to as being of the same type".
Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera uniquely combines fiction and philosophy, often switching back and forth from a world of suspended disbelief in the lives of his characters, and a world where his characters only serve as overt mythological illustrations of Nitzchean, Paramenidean, or other philosophical ideas.
I name it the best book I read in 2022 because of the ways the author prompts his readers to hunt for meaning. It's a book that reminds one to ask philosophical questions of meaning amid the pleasures, the ambiguities, and the tumult of ordinary life.
Personally, this brings lot of memories. It is that one novel which I remember more vividly amongst all of the others that I read. A few years back, I bought a physical copy for the archives and a digital copy for nostalgia. I re-read it in 2018 and unfortunately, I find it hard to feel as good as I felt when I was younger. I have no idea and no reasoning.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the people of my state and thus me are influenced heavily by Bengali literature, food, and culture. I might have felt closer to her or she became a common name in our tiny town. Finally, I grew up with teachers, most of who hail from South India and have heard (and I visualize) the hot Indian summers in the state of Kerala. One of my few good friends I made during school, was from Kerala and lost contact after school. During summer vacation, I visualize that he met his local friends, and play around big ponds and jump in beating the heat.
It's about one possible future of our relationship with AI. It paints multiple perspectives on this relationship while being implicitly judgmental. I'm being vague because the story reveals itself slowly, and the blossoming of information is itself a work of art -- this unfolding is part of Ishiguro's mastery.
Most people feel that AI currently has zero emotions, and perhaps a near-future version may convince some people that it has _some_ kind of emotions, though these emotions almost certainly will feel wrong, maybe-invalid, and strange to us, merely by them being different and by our awareness that an AI is not human. This and other questions are explored in Klara and the Sun.
It’s a recent Hugo award winner. Generally speaking if you like SiFi/Fantasy novels, you can find a trove of excellent books by looking at the list of past Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees. The Fifth Season is more fantasy, but has aspects that I consider SiFi’ish. Superbly written, and wonderful world building.
The two best books I read this year, and have been recommending widely are:
"The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by Graeber and Wengrow since it really shows how narrow our political imagination has been for the last 250 years, and makes me excited by people looking for new ways to organize.
"The Ministry for the Future" by KSR, which has further radicalized me and challenged me to spend more of my time fighting the climate crisis.
Fighting climate change… what do you have in mind… what can folks in (soft) tech do?
I’m equally interested but lacking in imagination currently how software can have a bigger impact.
All the big impactful things are in hard tech, ie changing industrial processes, new / improved material design, renewable energy production, reducing energy waste or waste in general etc and planting tons and tons of trees at scale - best carbon capture and ecosystem restoration tech we have I think.
But for all that we need to have the political will, which is not sufficiently present at the moment. Too many counter forces preventing systems change. So how do you address that?
If you could come up with an effective method of combating stupid on internet you could have an immense effect on climate change. Or trolls or fossil shills or bad faith actors etc.
Even solar power needs interfaces. One of those interfaces will likely be through the Web. There will be work to be done that requires normal Web dev in that area.
This book spawned its own show too I believe, called Homicide: Life on the Streets, predating The Wire. I have had it downloaded for a while but not watched it yet.
Fritz Riemann is a german psychoanalyst, and this is the translation of his best-known work, originally published under the title Grundformen der Angst (Basic forms of fear).
The book discusses how various types of fear (fear of commitment, fear of self-becoming, fear of change, fear of necessity) give rise to various personalities (schizoid personalities, depressive personalities, compulsive personalities, hysterical personalities), and discusses their relationship to love, aggression and their biographical backgrounds.
- Travel, Alan de Botton: This got me thinking more than anything else that I read this year
- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester: I read a lot of scifi and fantasy, but this was the standout for the surprising (and in retrospect, obvious) twist. The other interesting aspect was that this was written in the 50s, and you can see how their idea of 'the future' is rooted in the tech of the time
Of more interest to this crowd is probably
- Math Girls and Math Girls Talk About Trigonometry, Hiroshi Yuki: Brilliant!
And finally,
- Lords of the Deccan, Anirudh Kanisetti: More relevant to people from the Indian Subcontinent, I suppose.
I recently read The Rational Optimist, and it provided a refreshing perspective in a time where global events can often leave one feeling disheartened. Despite the challenges of climate change, political strife, wars in Europe, an energy crisis leading to financial instability, the book offered a much-needed reset for my mind.
Humanity has made incredible progress over the last centuries and decades, and it's important to maintain a sense of optimism.
John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed. It's funny and makes me thankful to be a part of the world. It is not like his other books, it is a non-fiction work written in short essays. Highly recommend.
I haven’t read the book but I’ve listened to his podcast with a similar name and enjoyed it greatly. I’m betting there’s some overlap that you’d enjoy as well.
I read Jude the Obscure recently after seeing it on the bookshelf of a character in the HBO show Westworld. It was a very controversial book in its day because of its portrayal of marriage. I found it pretty bleak and yes shocking. It made me want to do a deep dive into Hardy’s other works though.
My two favourite books I read this year were both non-fiction:
* Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - If you enjoy books about persistence in the face of adversity, this has it in spades. When I was in my 20's I saw the movie "Touching the Void" and remember being in total awe at a human's ability to persevere in seemingly impossible situations. Shackleton and his crew bring this power of determination to another level.
* On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Reading this gave me another level of respect for Stephen King. He also pointed me towards another excellent book "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life".
My favourite nonfiction read of the year was a biography of Wittgenstein by Ray Monk called The Duty of Genius. Absolutely enthralling read about a really fascinating person. I find Wittgenstein's own writings almost impenetrable, but I feel I got to know and love the man, and his way of thinking, in this work.
For fiction, I read almost all Chaim Potok's novels this year and he has become my favourite author. If anybody has a deep interest in religion, and how it interacts with the secular world, and how one is to reconcile the two, I heartily recommend Potok.
In a similar, but different, vein, I also recommend Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges. Do not be turned off by the useless film adaptation. The book is intelligent and fascinating, and more aimed at someone with an undergraduate level understanding of math and logic, rather than a general layperson.
Hodges's book is excellent – delightfully thorough and detailed.
After finishing it (I read it after watching the movie) I was rather shocked at just how many liberties the film had taken. I'm not against a historical movie tweaking things here and there for the sake of drama, but The Imitation Game totally mischaracterised almost everything about Turing and his work in my opinion. I guess, to the movie's credit, it did make me want to learn more about Turing.
An excellent gauge for how good a book is can be found in how many times you catch yourself thinking back on it even after some time has passed. Through this, my favorite this entire year is The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank's diary). Without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read, just through how supremely human it is.
Other books are:
-The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
-Sapiens by Yuval Yuval Noah Harari
-21 Lessons for the 21st Century
-Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyn
man!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman
-Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Changed how I think about work and makes me hyper-aware of when I or anyone I work with says that we “have” to do something. Getting into the mindset that everything I do at work is my choice has helped me feel more in control of my workday and get more done as well.
I read a lot in 2022, but almost all of it was individual articles for my nonfiction reading and short stories or chapters of serialized longer stories for my fiction reading. I think there were only two books that I read in 2022. They were:
• Excel VBA Programming for Dummies
• The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method Volume I -- The Art and Technique of the Classical Guitar
They were both good. I can't really say which was best because they are about such different topics.
I read the VBA book because I wanted to automate some tasks in my food tracking spreadsheet that went beyond what I could figure out how to do with the macro recorder.
I read the guitar book because after a long gap I got back into playing guitar, and decided that it would be best if I just pretended I was a complete beginner and started over. Also even when I had been playing regularly I was never good at reading music, so I also wanted to start over and pay more attention to the sheet music.
I don't know how good the Parkening book would be for an actual true beginner, but for a pretend beginner it worked out great and I'm playing better than I ever did before, and reading music way better too. I feel I'm good enough now that it is finally time to upgrade my guitar from the Hohner HG-13 I bought new around 1980. Next week my new Cordoba C9 should arrive.
Finally got around to The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson (https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyda...), I think it's my favorite this year. It's a fun psychology/sociology book and gives a pretty convincing explanation for some seeming puzzles across several areas of human behavior and policy. It's also fun to explicitly introspect my own motives from the assumption that some things I've done or planning to do are a lot more for self-serving reasons than I like to admit.
On the fiction side from this year that I'd recommend, I reread Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion and read Unfinished Tales for the first time, all were great. I've read Tolkien as a kid, a teen, and now an adult, enjoyed him each time but I think I got even more out of some things this time around. I also liked Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, and in the last month or so I read two enjoyable tearjerkers: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and Still Alice by Lisa Genova.
It`s a biography of Paul Dirac, considered one of the best physicists of the 20th century. The book elucidates his obscure life and his contribution to quantum physics while not being overly jargonistic.
Non-fiction: Finally got around to reading The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. A great read that captures the feeling of being on project with great teammates that care and want to “win” Haven’t felt that way in a while at work, but currently kicking around a project with some friends after hours and it feels good to have people that all care about the project.
Kingdom of Grit, a completed trilogy. I couldn't read the books quickly enough and then never wanted it to end at the same time. Brilliant world, fantastic story telling, very likeable characters, intriguing plot... this book has it all. It's the Ocean's 11 meets Dragons meets Gentlemen's Bastards. Go read it now!
I liked "Ripley under Ground" by Patricia Highsmith. It is a sequel to the well-known novel "Ripley's Game". The main plot is about art forgery, a few murders and cover-ups.
But aside from that, there are lots of thoughts about art, artistic development, traits of painters, self-doubt, etc in this book (Highsmith was a painter herself). Hence I might consider a re-read, because I didn't get everything.
As a non-fiction book I am currently reading 'The Man from the Future' by science-writer Ananyo Bhattacharya. The book is a biography of Hungarian-American mathematical genius John von Neumann. It has a long chapter on how JvN developed quantum mechanics, together with other researchers, of course. Bhattacharya goes to great lengths to explain the maths and the thinking behind QM in nonmathematical terms (without equations) but still very competently.
"the History of Strength of Materials" By Stephen Timoshenko Dr. Timoshenko, the father of thin shell theory in the field of solids of mechanics outlines accomplishments in this field as related to the conquest of land and wars.
Another along similar lines of technology and war "The Arms of Krupp" William Manchester
Ever dream of being a post-human computer with a free mandate to explore the galaxy as a Von Neumann probe? Then read this series.
Not only is the setting interesting, his character development is really well done too.
I hate recommending an Audible book (terrible business practices) but Dennis has an exclusivity agreement with them (he’s a new author) and it is actually a really great way to consume his books. They’re narrated by Ray Porter and he really does a fantastic job.
Well written, engrossing book on the historical underpinnings and the pharmacological foundations behind liturgical practices in modern religions.
The motivation and gist of the book isn't new but the author paid great attention to existing evidence and wrote the book carefully enough to not diverge into hippie territory.
Quantum By Manjit Kumar: Traces the scientific discoveries leading to quantum theory, relationships among renowned scientists of 20th century, with a focus on Bohr-Einstein debate.
Incredible History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal: Abbreviated history of the Indian subcontinent, starting with the Indus Valley civilization, ending with the conflicts between India - Pakistan.
Sea Stories by William McRaven - An autobiography of a decorated Navy SEAL officer, who was involved in planning and execution of historically significant special operations (rescuing Captain Philip, and killing Bin Laden).
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller was a great one for me. Surface level it’s a book about a great but immensely flawed scientist. Under the surface it’s about identity and purpose. Binged it in like 2 nights.
Maximum City, a nonfiction book about Mumbai. A good companion to a first time visitor. I believe that an update is coming out soon.
Project Hail Mary, a book about space for engineering nerds.
The Body and At Home. They're books by Bill Bryson. He geeks out about stuff and showers is with fascinating trivia. It's hard to put his books down.
The Right Stuff, a book about how they picked the first astronauts without knowing what the job would even entail. A fascinating look at the psychology of test pilots. Pairs well with the movie First Man.
Ten Steps to Nanette, Hannah Gadsby - Autobiography of an Australian comedian I like. (If you like audiobooks, she reads it herself which is a treat.)
True Biz, Sara Nović - A year in the life of a boarding school for the deaf.
Upgrade, Blake Crouch
Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains, Matt Johnson & Prince Ghuman - Interesting angle of examining neurology.
Treasure & Dirt, and The Tilt, Chris Hammer - Good Australian rural crime fiction.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Eliezer Yudkowsky - Alternate fan fic depiction of Harry Potter as a hyper-rationalist. My review linked below.
At first I was going to say "there are too many good ones and I can't pick out a favourite." But then I looked at the list and there is one clear favourite among many very good ones: Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems.
Queueing theory is probably one of the most useful subjects of all time, for just about any human. This book teaches it in a way that made it extremely easy for me to grok.
There were a handful I really enjoyed reading this year, mostly some older stuff. I could never get into fiction, so I'm more of a non-fiction and computer book kind of guy.
* Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler
Published in 2005 I believe, but still _very_ relevant. Good concrete architecture patterns and it's cool to see these patterns before they were no-brainers.
* SQL Performance Explained - Markus Winand
Actually how I first convinced my company to start paying for my books (and there have been 15+ since). We had a query that was running in an absurd amount of time for our largest customer and we couldn't get it down. It was a real blocker for releasing a feature, so I bought this book while visiting family and tore through it on the plane home. Got that query down from over 10 minutes to about 12 seconds. Through a light caching layer in front and we were cooking with gas. Part of that query's long runtime is definitely due to a poor initial implementation, but this book taught me a lot about indexes and how they're not being used constantly like I thought they were.
* Clean Architecture - Robert Martin
Always recommended around here. Finally gave it a read and the central message of dependency inversion is a good one. I took a "software engineering" course in Uni that taught us SOLID principles in a text book way where we didn't actually apply them, but working in the real world has taught me that they're appropriate in many cases, and why that's the case. Uncle Bob does a great job demonstrating that.
* Your Money or Your Life - Vicky Robin and Joe Dominguez
I reread this about once a year so I'm going to count it :) Fantastic book that keeps the concept of money and what is really does for us grounded. Helps me keep my expenses down by not being a nut with money. Working in software is a very fortunate career path for a lot of us, and I want to make sure I can make the most of it.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
by David Graeber, David Wengrow
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.
Postwar by Tony Judt. Published in 2005, it covers 1945 Postwar Europe to ~2005. Good coverage of not just the major Western European countries like the UK, Germany, and France, but attention is paid to the Eastern European countries and Soviet Union. The US of course comes into the picture at parts, but the book is firmly focused on Europe. I found the economic development, political attitudes and party shifts, and the coverage of the Soviet Union and countries behind the iron curtain.
I am looking for a follow up and may read Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, Stalin by Kotkin, or The Free World by Mendand. Suggestions appreciated
"The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours" by Gregory Nagy, Harvard prof on greeks.
Deepens your understanding of a different conception of a hero. According to Nagy, the heroes in Homeric poetry were not meant to be directly emulated like our modern Superman -- instead of a single character being the role model, you should take your inspiration from the whole story. All characters, all nuances, sequences of events, consequences and interactions.
Also gives you a much richer vocabulary for so many concepts still central to the human condition. English and other modern languages don't allow us to explore these in the same way.
In-depth, but provides a "civilizing experience" according to Nagy. And I suggest: don't read it as an engineer, so to speak. It's not code, or an academic paper. Read for inspiration and conceptual diversification. Broaden your toolbox for understanding the human condition.
"The Constructed Mennonite: History, Memory, and the Second World War" by Hans Werner
It was a great read because it gave an insight into the "Russian" style perspective of the Anabaptist understanding, and the deep complications around: nonresistance, nationhood, language, and war. It is only a small slice of some of the horrifying realities the Anabapists' suffered at the hands of both Axis and Allies during WWII, but as a personal account, and as a detailed series of event, it is excellent.
"Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture" by David Kushner
It gave a real snapshot of what it was like making (and playing) games in the 80's and 90's. It helped to remind the reader of the technical challenges programmers faced, as well as the much less money-focused nature of video games as an industry. (I have way more to say on this, but will resist the urge.)
"Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe
Gives, in my opinion, very accurate account of both "sides" of the issue regarding The Troubles. It brought up a massive number of details I was either unaware of, or forgot about. From my perspective, it didn't appear to pull any punches, but instead laid things out precisely as they happened, and showed the blood on the shirts and knuckles of both side. It gave a personal insight to the people who were going through it first hand, and the ways in which they lived their lives; in many ways, it reminded me of some of the descriptions I had heard about the 2003-2011 Iraq War from civilians. (A common theme in both I recall hearing described was the fear of waiting in lines for things, as it meant that location might be targeted for bombing.)
"History Is Wrong" by Erich von Däniken
Although the book is meant to be a serious read, I take it as a comedy. I enjoy listening to various conspriacy theories to see whether I find any shreds of truth in them. In this book, there are some claims about how the way we understand human history is fundamentally wrong, and that "a lost subterranean labyrinth in Ecuador" held specific secrets in the form of "gold panels" - panels which mysteriously disappeared.
Note: I don't mean to sound overly dismissive to anyone who might be a "true believer" in this specific line of thinking, I just find the claims made to be preposterous.
+1 for Say Nothing, Radden Keefe is one of the best non-fiction writers around today imo. Been meaning to read his latest on the Sacklers for a while also.
Happen to have any recommendations for other resources on Irish History or The Troubles?
I checked out "The Northern Ireland Conflict: Bolinda Beginner Guides" by Aaron Edwards and Cillian McGrattan a few years ago, but was a little underwhelmed by how the information was presented - it felt a little one sided, if I remember correctly.
Alternatively, "The Celtic World" by The Great Courses (audiobook) was pretty good, but a little overwhelming in the amount of time it was covering (Again, I think. It's been a few years since I listened to it.) I'd really like to hear something historical about Ireland that focuses in on one or two eras/generations, not necessarily a "Here's the last 1,000 years" type approach. Anything in particular around the time Romans had come to the English area would be of especial interest to me, due to certain religious perspectives and beliefs I'm interested with.
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer.
An astonishing tale of daring and determination about the Battle off Samar in WW2 Pacific. Told with respect and admiration for the 6 USA escort carriers, their planes, and their destroyer escorts, that faced 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers of the Japanese navy. One of the greatest last stands in history, and a riveting story.
It made me realize the utter horror of the conditions the sailors fought under. The ordinary backgrounds of them all. That training and a culture of excellence can multiply the effectiveness of people far beyond what feels possible. That accurate information is critical to making good decisions. And that for all your preparation, you are still at the mercy of chance.
The best non-fiction book I read in 2022 was Plagues Upon the Earth (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57423807-plagues-upon-th...) a history of infectious disease in humans. It really changed my views on a lot of things, especially how recently many contagious diseases crossed over from animals.
I enjoyed the Alexandra Quick series so far (still being written). It's a fan fiction in the Harry Potter universe set in the US, with almost no reference to any character in the HP books. The books expand on the magic system in satisfying ways, and portrays the characters more deeply than the original books. If that's your thing, I'd suggest you give it a go.
I found it while searching for fan fictions that would explore the HP universe from different cultural perspectives and in different settings. I was looking for a bigger jump (the US is more similar to the UK than other countries are) but the books have everything I was looking for in terms of exploring magic associated to the local cultures.
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber of Bullshit Jobs, and, more importantly, this book. Graeber was an anthropologist, and he goes through the history of debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality with many, many examples. The book is chock full of ideas.
Also The Dawn of Everything, which Graeber cowrote with archaeologist David Wengrow. The broader point of the book is that there is no one story of the "evolution" of society into modern states and no "agricultural revolution" triggering the rise of urbanization and social hierarchy. Instead, there have been countless arrangements and permutations of these things with intelligent, politically-conscious people thinking about how they wanted to order their society long before the invention of writing. He takes particular aim at popular writers pushing simpler stories painting Western capitalism as a natural endpoint, especially Stephen Pinker and Yuval Noah Harari.
Even if you aren't onboard with Graeber's radical left politics, both books are so chock full of ideas and examples that it's hard to come away without a lot to think about.
Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics, calls the safest securities on the planet a debt that will never be paid and spins bizarre conspiracy theories about the Iraq invasion. You might learn about the quaint cultural practices of remote tribes but a lot of the ideas presented are complete nonsense.
You might say it has good and original parts. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
A non-economist makes economic claims that just so happen to reflect the political views of his political contemporaries, but it is the job of anyone who disagrees to cite an entire body of literature, reviewed to a high but unspecified standard?
I'd totally agree with you had Graeber not been an influential anthropologist (wherein one academically studies human activity, culture, trade, economics, social structures, institutions etc. from a rigorous historical lens)
Your demand would have made sense if Debt was a peer-reviewed scholarly work and not a political screed aimed at a lay readership.
But then again, there is enough nonsense in there than can be picked apart without being a domain expert. For example, Graeber claims Adam Smith's famous "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest" thesis is wrong because shopkeepers of the time mostly sold goods on credit and thus the customers were in fact depending on their benevolence. This blithe conflation of credit with benevolence should evoke laughter from anyone who is even remotely familiar with how businesses are run.
And dunking on Smith is how Graeber builds his grand neo-liberal economics conspiracy theory.
I've not the read Greaber's book, though I intend to, but Adam Smith is regularly misinterpreted in an extreme right-wing way (e.g. the Adam Smith Institute) so it's possibly to disagree with that interpretation without disagreeing with Adam Smith.
> The context of Smith’s intervention in The Wealth of Nations was what he called ‘the mercantile system’. By this Smith meant the network of monopolies that characterised the economic affairs of early modern Europe. Under such arrangements, private companies lobbied governments for the right to operate exclusive trade routes, or to be the only importers or exporters of goods, while closed guilds controlled the flow of products and employment within domestic markets.
> As a result, Smith argued, ordinary people were forced to accept inflated prices for shoddy goods, and their employment was at the mercy of cabals of bosses. Smith saw this as a monstrous affront to liberty, and a pernicious restriction on the capacity of each nation to increase its collective wealth. Yet the mercantile system benefited the merchant elites, who had worked hard to keep it in place. Smith pulled no punches in his assessment of the bosses as working against the interests of the public. As he put it in The Wealth of Nations: ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.’
> The merchants had spent centuries securing their position of unfair advantage. In particular, they had invented and propagated the doctrine of ‘the balance of trade’, and had succeeded in elevating it into the received wisdom of the age. The basic idea was that each nation’s wealth consisted in the amount of gold that it held. Playing on this idea, the merchants claimed that, in order to get rich, a nation had to export as much, and import as little, as possible, thus maintaining a ‘favourable’ balance. They then presented themselves as servants of the public by offering to run state-backed monopolies that would limit the inflow, and maximise the outflow, of goods, and therefore of gold. But as Smith’s lengthy analysis showed, this was pure hokum: what were needed instead were open trading arrangements, so that productivity could increase generally, and collective wealth would grow for the benefit of all
Greaber's interpretation of Smith is just as shallow as extreme right-wing one. And what's worse is Greaber's whole cloth invention of Adam Smith's supposed morality.
Simply, as a meta note / rational argument's sake ->
Let's assume X (Smith) makes statement S (X -> S). A few hundreds of years later, Y (Graeber) makes statement S' that refutes S and says Y -> S' and negates ~ (X -> S). Now what I'd expect is a Z, that counter-refutes Y. For example, Z -> S''. Instead, you're going back to saying yeah, we all know X -> S, so how can Y -> S' be ever true...
I think Debt is a terrible book but that's not a convincing or even substantive review. Even more bizzare is the author admitting to dunking on the book without even having read it!
Does Noah Smith consider himself left-wing? I've always tagged him as "right-wing but not totally insane" as he often seems to be explaining bits of reality to his audience who consider them politically incorrect, like renewables and climate change not being a hoax, or him explaining that being 'woke' is okay, as long as you aren't rude to white men.
I followed the stoush between DeLong and Graeber closely, and my strong impression is that Graeber was thin-skinned, vengeful, often inaccurate and unable to stand criticism. DeLong was a bit trolly, but nothing a competent, stable writer shouldn't have been able to handle. This impression is also borne out by my own reading of Graeber's work, and his reprehensible actions as a working academic:
I have the same impressions of Graeber in this back and forth but it doesn't change the fact that Graeber has a point
I mean making a Twitter bot to spam someone "stay away!" every day seems a lot more thin-skinned and vengeful than Graeber's response here. And Graeber points out that most of the "factual errors" pointed out by DeLong do basically nothing to detract from the main theses Graeber makes in his book.
It's clear DeLong has it out for him and the "takedown" is just a collection of "gotchas" on minor details pasted together to try to attack the overall validity of the book
As suggested by its title, "Debt" is an anthropology book about the history of debt. And by extension the origins of money. Not economics.
Adam Smith and his contemporaries hypothesized that barter proceeded money. Modern economics textbooks and pundits continue to repeat this misbelief. Academics even admit the tale is often repeated as form of short hand narrative.
Too bad that the book about debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality relies on a spurious conflation of basic terms. Adam Smith wrote a whole book on The Theory of Moral Sentiments but the beliefs that Graeber choses to ascribe to him are invented whole cloth.
And for a book written by an anthropologist, the picture of China we get is a culture existentialist caricature.
Belated followup. I reread the bits which reference and quote Adam Smith. (Revised edition.) Because maybe I'm being clueless.
Sorry, I'm just not seeing it.
FWIW, I wouldn't expect Smith to have access to reports from the New World, or even the inclination to connect the dots (play anthropolgist). So maybe you think Graeber is too harsh there. But I certainly expect Adam's academic successors to adjust as necessary.
Also FWIW, I wouldn't care so much about barter-money genesis fables, recognizing that pop-science lags academic best avail science by decades or more, were it not for the outsized influence that economic spokesmodels have on real world policy.
With that kind of assumed power, relished and hoarded, the pundits have that much more responsibility to be intellectually honest. In my future perfect world, of course.
You don't have to explain more, beating a dead horse. But I am keen to know which explanations -- what is money? where did money come from? -- you favor.
The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics. David Graeber rightfully argues that Neoliberalism sells itself to the masses by constructing this "quaint" tale of uncivilized barter-practicing foraging tribes turning into coin/money using farmers into debt based industrial-financial empires.
I am sure there are many factual inaccuracies in the book (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully manages to do is show the reader that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest). And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?"
> The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics
And misrepresenting mainstream economics is the way to do that?
> (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully
This is a bizzare take. It's like claiming Graeber gets the premises wrong but somehow the conclusions he draws are correct?
> that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest).
But somehow these grand sophisticated economic systems did not find takers outside their niches. This is what makes rui stones and cloth bolts quaint curiosities compared to coinage and credit when discussing the 5000 years of debt.
> And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?"
Too bad he spins nonsensical conspiracy theories to do that.
And you agree that it's a work of political rhetoric and not dispassionate scholarship.
> Guns, Germs and Steel is basically a modern eugenicist theory, racist and dumb.
Um, run that by me again? It’s been a while since I read it but doesn’t the book specifically argue that the Europeans conquered the Americas because of geographic factors rather than because of race? Do I have the main thrust of the book completely backwards?
I’m not sure what their claim is based on as your memory is broadly correct. The two criticisms I’ve read basically come down to it being oversimplified (e.g. ignoring the degree to which European successes depended on local allies) and that it ends to being too passive about the decisions made at key points which weren’t accidents of geography even if some of the capability to conquer arguably was.
You're correct and the grandparent is wrong. I'm seeing a lot weird hate for this book by people who haven't read it. I'm guessing there is someone with a ideological bone to pick that spread a mind virus about the book.
Like any book of its scope, there are obviously things that can be criticized ... but at least read it, and state those objections clearly.
Yes I have read the book. I can't seem to access the rest of the parent tree (did our comments get shadow-banned?) but I think I was just trying to provide support for the abundant criticism that book has gotten
However, I don't think there's anything in the book that suggests Graeber and Wengrow DON'T think Diamond is a racist. The few professional anthropologists I'm friends with hold such a view (obvy with more nuance) and I get the impression this type of criticism for Diamond is the norm not the exception in the field
Anyways now that I am explicitly supporting the accusation here's meat to add to the bone:
> Timothy Burke, who teaches African history at Swarthmore College, writing in Cliopatria, says that Diamond's problem is "that a term like 'race' can still serve some useful purpose in describing variations between human populations: I’m not going to make a definitive statement on that subject here. But just to give the example of the Africa chapter, Diamond clings to the term 'blacks' as racial category within which to place most pre-1500 sub-Saharan Africans except for Khoisan-speakers and “pygmies,” even as he explicitly acknowledges that it is an extremely poor categorical descriptor of the human groups he is placing in that category."
> Arguments such as these have made him a darling of bourgeois intellectuals, who have grown tired of looking meanspirited and self-serving when they make their transparently desperate efforts to displace histories of imperialism back on its victims. They need a pseudointellectual explanation for inequality in order to sustain the bourgeois social order that guarantees their privilege. This they found in Guns, Germs and Steel.
> This approach distances Diamond’s analysis from much of the current literature on cultural interactions in modern history - indeed, his suggestions for further reading omit almost all of the standard literature on the history of imperialism and post-colonialism, world-systems, underdevelopment or socio-economic change over the last five hundred years. Thus the large debate that is currently going on over historical explanations of the wealth and poverty of nations in a global context is here reduced to a sub-set of the ultimate question about bronze tools and geographic connectedness - ‘technology may have developed most rapidly in regions with moderate connectedness [Europe], neither too high [China], nor too low [India]’ [p. 416].
Yeah the original comment is (rightly) flagged dead
"Racist" is an extremely lazy label; it shuts down any interesting or well-motivated conversation.
It's especially silly in this case because the "traditional racist" explanation to Lali's question is genes, and Diamond's whole point is to provide a different answer to the question. Many people think he has gone too far in the direction of geographical determinism, but that's hardly a racist POV -- it's more like the opposite.
To be clear, what I was saying is NOT that anyone who disagrees with Diamond has an "ideological bone to pick". There are plenty of people who disagree with him honestly -- it's inevitable because it's a work of synthesis that "stomps on" many academic subfields. He makes leaps to the "big picture" that don't meet the standard of evidence for many (although I don't think there is any false advertising of rigor)
What I was saying that the "racist" label applied to Diamond is evidence of someone who wants to shut down conversation, probably because he doesn't conform to that person's ideology. If they understand what he wrote, they wouldn't make such a claim (especially not as a one line Internet comment)
---
These critiques linked by a sibling are better, and show evidence of having read the book!
It's weird that you say there's a lack of evidence that Graeber and Wengrow don't think Diamond is racist. If that's what you take away, it seems like a pretty big misunderstanding.
The problem that Graeber and Wengrow have with Diamond (and "big history" authors like Harari) is that they assume that inequality is inevitable and we have little agency as human societies to do otherwise.
I actually love this point and 100% agree -- we should be consciously shaping our society to be more egalitarian, and not just let evolution and capitalism play out.
However it's also true that Dawn of Everything doesn't propose solutions. It's an amazing critique, including accurate claims of Eurocentrism and male bias, but it doesn't lay out a path forward. It gives evidence for many egalitarian societies, but falls short on how we apply those lessons to our own.
i.e. people read things and don't pick up on nuance -- all information (e.g. a book on the entirety of human history) is eventually reduced to a single bit of "racist" or "not racist"
I read the first of "The Murderbot Diaries" series by Martha Wells after seeing it recommended several times. Short, snappy and very modern, I intend to continue reading the series to see where it goes.
Having read more books on "how to communicate better" than I should admit to, Murphy's easy yet highly usedul read reminded me just how important listening is, just how important people feeling like they've been heard it.
I'm honestly not doing it just, and pardon the cliche but it was a game changer for me.
$100M offers by Alex Hormozi. The writing itself isn't all that polished, but the content is great. It's been very useful in thinking through my own business positioning and offerings.
In the fiction category I thouroughly enjoyed the "Green Bone Saga" by Fonda Lee:
- Jade City
- Jade War
- Jade Legacy
The story sits somewhere between Asian mafia clan drama, crime and magical fantasy.
They were the kind of books where I buy both audio and paperback to keep reading wherever possible..
Price of Time by Chancellor. Out of the new books I read, will be a classic of financial history. It isn't technical, it isn't a complete critique of QE but it is the most understandable, fully-explained critique...also well-timed (again, Chancellor wrote a book in 1999 about financial bubbles).
Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism by Kathryn Tanner. A really good look at how capitalism has been expressed in our modern world, and how Christianity should not enable the worst excesses of capitalism.
The Power Broker by Robert Caro. This one actually took me about 6 months between reading and Audible, because it is in some ways too detailed, but the naked use of power for maintaining power for a singular vision is illuminating. Even in an antagonistic biography, Moses leaps off the page as a bright, energetic, flawed human. I enjoyed this a lot.
Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women by Lucy Peppiat. A persuasive, intelligent, and solid look at how Christianity in America has taken many unfortunate turns away from reading Scripture as a document of equality and elevation, and toward a document of hierarchy and repression. I think Peppiat does a good job of discussing all theological avenues of thought and while clearly disfavoring some, not stooping to ridicule, caricature, or personal attack.
I've been reading a lot of history books. For me, reading history is like reading fiction but better. It still transports me to a different place. But the characters are more realistic. My suspension of disbelief never breaks. And I learn about things which really happened.
If you just want to dip your toe in reading history, the Cartoon Guide to the History of the Universe series is a reasonable place to start. I think it prioritizes entertainment over accuracy some, but it's pretty entertaining! https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-History-Universe-Volumes-1-7/...
After learning about the macro contours of history, I started reading more about specific things which seemed potentially interesting. I liked all of these, roughly in this order:
Reading history is a great way of getting a broader perspective.
Learning about history is underwhelming when you do it as a kid because when you're young, everything is new to you. You don't gain an appreciation for how interesting the past really was.
But as an adult, you have a well-developed model of how the world is supposed to be, so history becomes really interesting because you realize that lots of historical events actually violate your model. (Did you know that when Venice first heard about the USA, they didn't bother establishing diplomatic relations because they thought the experiment would not last? Turns out it was the Venetian state that soon disappeared! Sometimes it feels like I'm highlighting an interesting fact like that on practically every page. There's a lot that gets left out of popular narratives.)
(in terms of genre, I guess you'd call it urban fantasy, kind of, but it's really more of a classic fable - in structure, not in story - told in an original way)
* Prompt and utter destruction : Truman and the use of atomic bombs against Japan: the decision making process of the US leadership leading up to August and why the US / Truman thought the use of atomic weapons was 'necessary'. Related: American Prometheus, a bio on Oppenheimer.
* Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin: the story of the people of Eastern and Central Europe during the early 20th century.
* Man's Search for Meaning: An Holocaust survivor explains on how to find hope and meaning even in the darkest of times.
* Why civil resistance works: the strategic logic of nonviolent conflict: Examining on how most resist movements in the last one hundred years have tended to be more successful when they eschew violence.
* The origins of Canadian and American political differences: On how two very similiar-seeming countries right next to each other could diverge in their cultures. (I'm Canadian.)
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Queen's Thief series by Megan Turner. I went into it not expecting much but came away from it surprised in a number of ways.
It’s older, but I read The Wonder by Emma Donoghue. The movie just came out on Netflix too so the timing was great. She wrote Room previously and really enjoyed it
The coolest book I’ve ever read is The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil. I believe a sequel updated to today’s technology is due for this year as well.
Reason why isn't necessarily because of the specifics of the 2013 leaks, but because he documents the interaction between government and press (and how he was demonized and threatened afterwards). Tl;dr the government blackmailed journalists to keep the story from getting published
Also (on a related note because both are about obscure bureaucracy), Kafka's Castle. Kafka bored me at first, but he writes situations that are just a little "off" in a way that's really unique. It's incredibly hard to describe and definitely very surreal, he takes certain aspects of human nature and amplifies them to the point of absurdity
I seriously doubt this appeals to the modern Hacker News crowd, but it might appeal to a couple of you:
Published in October 2022, The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 4B is dazzling. It's like a guide to expressing (in non-obvious ways) all kinds of problems as some variation on Exact Cover (or Boolean Satisfiability) and using wicked tight little general-purpose backtracking solvers to solve them.
If you want a peek, watch Knuth's 2018 lecture on Dancing Links Exact Cover:
Classic: Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. One of the best books I’ve ever read. Entertaining and deep thoughts included! The only philosophical, sci-fi comedy book you need.
I’ll preface this by saying that I have no problems with fauci and so I’m definitely not the target market for this book.
I wonder, though, what would make a person want to read a book about someone that they hate? I can’t imagine a more useless use of my time than that. Even if the book was true (which I highly doubt given some of the other notable books by the same author “Profiles of the Vaccine injured”, “A letter to liberals”, and “The Wuhan Coverup”), what do you gain? Sounds like concentrated rage-fuel to me…
"what would make a person want to read a book about someone that they hate"
I would/am reading history books about Hitler, Stalin, etc. You want to understand how something so atrocious can happen and how such people can rule over so many, not just rule, and how so many would follow them and love them. It is pretty valuable to try to understand that.
Thank you for sharing your recommendation, but I'm afraid that this book contains misinformation and promotes conspiracy theories that are not supported by evidence. I would kindly ask that you refrain from posting recommendations for this book in the future, as it is not in line with the standards and guidelines of HN.
Sorry for the posting and thank you for the reply. I would recommend you read this book as RFK Jr references many of the facts in this book. More and more evidence is being revealed to directly support RFK's assertions. Please send me a few of the "conspiracy theories that are not supported"? Have a pleasant day.
As parents we wanted to be one of the better ones. A while back, we started with Bringing up Bébé, and since then learnt How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk; we were even Prepared while Reviving Ophelia. This year, we realized, we want to just settle on being A Good Enough Parent.
1. https://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Up-Bébé-Discovers-Parenting/...
2. https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/14516638...
3. https://www.amazon.com/Prepared-What-Kids-Need-Fulfilled/dp/...
4. https://www.amazon.com/Reviving-Ophelia-Saving-Selves-Adoles...
5. https://brajeshwar.com/2022/books/
6. https://goodenoughparenting.com/
Loved How to talk so kids will listen
Also a fan of
Our babies ourselves - https://www.amazon.com/Our-Babies-Ourselves-Biology-Culture/...
Hunt, Gather, Parent - https://www.amazon.com/Our-Babies-Ourselves-Biology-Culture/...
"How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk." Replace "Kids" with "Adults" and it still works. :-)
Sitting with my newborn sleeping on my chest currently. I’ve really enjoyed Brain Rules for Baby and currently reading Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. Both good, feel like the latter is going to be a pivotal part of our parenting. My wife really enjoyed The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read.
A slight pivot but worth mentioning, I've collected a number of "children's" books that (for me) are just as good - better? - for adults. For example:
- "What do you do with a problem?" https://www.amazon.com/What-Do-You-Problem/dp/1943200009
- "What do you do with an idea?" https://www.amazon.com/What-Do-You-Idea/dp/1938298071/
- "What do you do with a chance?" https://www.amazon.com/What-Do-You-Chance/dp/1943200734/
- "I wish you more" https://www.amazon.com/Encouragement-Gifts-Uplifting-Books-G...
Of course, there are others. These are just the ones that come to mind ATM.
I've given the "What do...?" books as gifts to plenty of adult and young adults. My point is, a book doesn't have to be 200+ pages to have an impact.
My recommendation for parenting book is The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
And Stephen King for bedtime?
Edit: oh wait you were being serious
Your username has both 'Bra' and 'War' in it. I don't know what to feel.
This is fantastic. I'm a relatively new parent, and I really feel like I could use some of these materials. Thank you for sharing.
I didn't realize I might have the wrong link to the book everywhere I wrote until now (this comment thread). "A Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child-Rearing" by Bruno Bettelheim.
It is not a popular book. The approaches and ideas were great though, and that was indeed the beauty of the book. Here is the correct link - https://www.amazon.com/Good-Enough-Parent-Book-Child-Rearing...
Highly recommend looking into the author... was about to order the book but saw a lot of stuff I didn't like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim
From Wikipedia: “ Much of his work was discredited after his death due to fraudulent academic credentials, allegations of patient abuse, accusations of plagiarism, and lack of oversight by institutions and the psychological community.”
The article describes all of this in detail.
Also “How to talk to little kids so they’ll listen”. For ages 2-7. https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/joanna-faber/how-to-talk-so-...
Incidentally this and the original are some of the best managing resources you can read.
> https://goodenoughparenting.com/
wow, the book is only physical and it costs $60 to get it where I live... (without import taxes)
Add it to your Wishlist on Amazon and watch it for a while. I'm pretty sure an American will resell one. I got mine used on Amazon.in after stumbling on a fine day that someone was selling it for ₹399 (~$5). So, bought it. They shipped it all the way from the USA and it took more than a month.
Checking it right now shows ₹1,388 (~$17) for the Paperback and ₹2,261 (~$28) for the Hardcover edition.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tf95ulhkt4tn9g/screenshot%202022-...
"A Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child-Rearing" by Bruno Bettelheim. Here is the correct link - https://www.amazon.com/Good-Enough-Parent-Book-Child-Rearing...
Which one of these did you like the most?
I have read many parenting books, and those listed above are the ones I believe others parents should read through. However, if you want to pick just one, you might want to settle on the Good Enough Parents. It is a fun read.
> Good Enough Parents
There are at least three books with similar name, can you please say the author as well?
"A Good Enough Parent: A Book on Child-Rearing" by Bruno Bettelheim. Here is the correct link - https://www.amazon.com/Good-Enough-Parent-Book-Child-Rearing...
Thanks, appreciate it!
I really loved Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Too often sci-fi feels cold, and detached with characters that feel akin to chess pieces moved in complicated schemes. His stories, even if they are sketches instead of paintings, exhibit a far more heartfelt, human ethos. The characters are real people with wants and unfulfilled wishes. The subjects are both technology but also mortality, fate, raising children, loss. It's sci-fi, but also just good short story writing.
Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories by Raphael Bob-Waksberg is another good set of short stories, more absurd and about love, but equally fun. If you liked the funny-sad combo of Bojack Horseman (which Bob-Waksberg created), you'll probably like this.
Exhalation is one of my favorite books of any genre and Chiang is one of my favorite authors. I love listening to his interviews as well. It's very clear how the person Ted Chiang and the author Ted Chiang exist in the same space. For some authors, that connection is less clear.
Similarly, Bojack Horseman is one of my favorite shows. I had never looked into its creators and had no idea the creator also wrote short stories. I am now very excited to read this. Thanks!
+1 for Exhalation by Ted Chiang. And also: "Sum - Forty Tales from the afterlives" by David Eagleman. A small book that makes you think very very deeply.
Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir (top recommendation of the year)
Sanderson's Skyward Flight series (a few things came out this year, it's young-adult but thoughtfully enjoyable and easy to consume).
I read a few Asimov's this year I hadn't gotten around to, but the two that really stood out were 'The Gods Themselve's and 'The End of Eternity'.
(I primarily read to sci-fi/fantasy)
Project Hail Mary is such an awesome book. Great buildup, an intriguing plot slowly unfolding with an inquisitive problem solver caught in the middle. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
Currently in the midst of this audio book… very fun and entertaining. You know it is great when you look for reasons to get in the car or do the dishes/ laundry just so you can continue listening.
The first third of The Gods Themselves could be written now and one might interpret it as being about our approach to climate change, it's just such a great examination of the problem of negative externalities, I had to re-read the start of the middle third a bunch of times before I grokked it but when I did it I was impressed with how well he gave us a means to empathy to those characters and their point of view (after struggling to figure out what the heck I was reading!).
Big fan of Sanderson here.
Also love how fellow devs such as Andy Weir and Ernest Cline (Ready Player One) are coming up with great novels.
How the World Really Works by Vaclac Smil is one of the best book I've read this year. It gives such a great perspective on how much energy and material we use. It's one of the most readable books by Smil and has gems like this :
“Moreover, within a lifetime of people born just after the Second World War the rate had more than tripled, from about 10 to 34 GJ/capita between 1950 and 2020. Translating the last rate into more readily imaginable equivalents, it is as if an average Earthling has every year at their personal disposal about 800 kilograms (0.8 tons, or nearly six barrels) of crude oil, or about 1.5 tons of good bituminous coal. And when put in terms of physical labor, it is as if 60 adults would be working non-stop, day and night, for each average person; and for the inhabitants of affluent countries this equivalent of steadily laboring adults would be, depending on the specific country, mostly between 200 and 240. On average, humans now have unprecedented amounts of energy at their disposal.”
My review is at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4708765021
Another excellent book is Arbitrary Lines by Nolan Gray - which is a great book about zoning and why we should all be YIMBYs.
My review is at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4800787011
How Asia Works by Joe Studwell is a fascinating look at why Japan, South Korea and China have done so well.
My review is at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4806521204
Another book I really enjoyed was Firepower : How Weapons Shaped Warfare by Paul Lockhart
review at : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4417950705
That book review reminded me of the « energy slave » concept: https://disnovation.org/energyslave.php
Firepower was tremendous!
+1 to How Asia Works!
From me as well. Tho the title can be quite misleading. It's more: how to build a prosperous economy and how not to.
Red Plenty, a novel that is loosely about the invention of linear programming in the Soviet Union (a branch of mathematics, only somewhat related to computer programming). Good description of what the process of scientific invention feels like in the first part of the book. (if you want more depth on the mathematics of linear programming, Understanding and Using Linear Programming is a very readable (and short) textbook that only requires basic linear algebra knowledge).
Moneyball, people have been recommending this to me for years but I never read it because I find baseball so boring. I'm glad I finally read it. It's not really a book about baseball it's about finding and exploiting unappreciated edges.
Who We Are and How We Got Here, makes a lot of the recent genetic research on human origins understandable. Especially relevant this year due to Svante Paabo's nobel prize.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, possibly better than the movie (which I love). Reads a bit like a script. The dialog is very good and contains many "scenes" that aren't in the movie.
$12 Million Dollar Stuffed Shark, if you are interested in modern art or how things that look like something anyone could do can sell for absurd amounts of money this book is worth reading.
A Sailor of Austria: In Which Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Hapsburg Empire, one of the reviews I read before starting this described it as something like "a techno-thriller set on an austrian submarine in world war one". If that sounds appealing to you, you'll probably like this book. If not don't bother starting it.
You will probably enjoy CMU Statistician Cosma Shalizi's fabulous review of Red Plenty: http://bactra.org/weblog/918.html
Moneyball is a good investing book by Michael Lewis. Legendary investor Bill Miller recommends to read books by Michael Lewis.
"How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question" by Michael Schur is my favorite read of the year.
It's an introduction to the philosophy of ethics through real-life examples and anecdotes by the creator of The Good Place TV show (the audio book even features the shows actors). Unlike most of philosphy stuff you can actually finish it in couple of days and feel like you learned a whole lot!
In particular it helped me with my ethics choice anxiety and introduced me to Aristotel's "be the best version of yourself" philosophy which is such a liberating way of thinking.
Did the book manage to NOT spend most of it's volume on the trolley problem?
Hahah, the author seems to be very well aware of the trolley trap and actually makes the same joke in the book while also spending pages on exploring various trolley scenarios. So I'm not sure how to answer your question :D
Also read that book this year. Absolutely fantastic. The audiobook is one of the better audiobooks I’ve listened too recently as well
While I liked the show, given the basic level of the explanations of ethics systems as well as the caricature portrayal the philosopher, I find it hard to believe their book is an exceptional option for learning more.
Joost Meerloo's "Rape of the mind".
Its an incredible older book looking at the mechanisms exploited by totalitarian systems to subdue their victims. Namely nazi Germany, soviet Russia and revolutionary China.
The author was part of the dutch resistance against the nazi occupation and headed the psychological department of the dutch army in exile after he had to flee mainland Europe. He later also acted as a witness for the defense in the trial against Frank Schwable for collaborating as a PoW in Korea.
In addition to the really interesting and still highly relevant topic his writing shows him to be among the other awe inspiring scientists of the "greatest generation". Its quite simply an extremely impressive yet pleasant to read opus magnum.
How do you fight a totalitarian from the inside, eg China, Russia, Iran, where surveillance is high and any opposition will be ‘disappeared’.
Does this book go into detail how the Dutch resistance did it?
During the war he debriefed people interrogated by the Gestapo to figure out ways to resist and briefed other resistance fighters with what to expect. Its obviously impossible to "resist" many things on that level, for example the threat of having your family put into Sippenhaft with you. While other mechanisms, especially on a societal level, are much more easily countered. You can summarize his approach with "knowledge is power". So the book is using the same approach he applied during the war and which he had recommended since, that true and honest information in an open society is the best medicine against a rise in totalitarianism and the resulting corruption.
Its an approach you should be familiar with when it comes to combating the different methods of propaganda, psychological warfare or information operations. Or simply cognitive biases. Once you describe how they work, you are primed to recognize them when you come across them. Which hopefully reduces their effectiveness.
To give an example, there is the rather famous quote concerning the title:
>“Many victims of totalitarianism have told me in interviews that the most upsetting experience they faced "…" was the feeling of loss of logic, the state of confusion into which they had been brought — the state in which nothing had any validity "…" they simply did not know what was what.”
Recognizing that this is an actual tactic, aimed at creating a predictable reaction is rather helpful to break out of that predetermined path for your thoughts.
How do you fight a totalitarian from the inside, eg USA, EU, where surveillance is high and any opposition will be ‘disappeared’?
In the West we still have democracy - yes might be on its last few legs, but it's not too late, as the 2020 election showed - we the people just need to come together and be more organized and strategic and remove the corruption.
In the US or EU no political opposition was 'suicided' or disappeared in a Gulag like it happened in Russia multiple times.
In Russia or China you will be arrested for holding up a white piece of paper.
If you're trying to say current day Russia is the same as current day US or EU then you're way off line.
I see it different, and to the comment one level up...we have the illusion of democracy, which takes the oppression of opposition to a whole new level.
In fact, this episode of Freakanomics talks about The Politics Industrial Complex and how The Media is on the inside of that bubble. In short, without a healthy and objective Fourth Estate there is no democracy. Add in the duopoly one-party choices and it gets even worse.
There's more to democracy than getting to vote. What we're living is the Orwellian defintion of democracy.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/im-your-biggest-fan/
I also heard it said on another reputable podcast - I think it was "How I built this" - that the top corporate guest of the Obama WH was Google. I'm trying to verify that. This looks close enough.
It's odd that a POTUS who sold hope would be so closely aligned with a surveillance company.
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...
See also: "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" for a look behind Google's public facing narrative.
The Pentagon keeps failing its audits, to the tune of trillions of dollars, and the people are silent. Trillions? If it walks like corruption and talks like corruption...well we all should see where this is going. Yet, zero opposition to this?
That's enough for now.
I think you are smart and insightful person. There's too many of "yes we could be better but we are still the best while those other suck beyond improvement unless we fix them" East and West, left and right. I hope to fix my country and I hope you fix yours. Maybe we even come together and fix them both. But I hope some won't attepmt to fix my country again with dropping depleted uranium bombs on civillians in the name of democracy.
That we the people just need to come together and be more organized and strategic and remove the corruption is applicable to any society, on any level of corruption. It was not too late for Netherlands under nazis, it is not too late for anyone.
>In the West we still have democracy - yes might be on its last few legs, but it's not too late, as the 2020 election showed
This is laughably biased. Whatever his defects, the election of Trump was if anything a much better example for democracy in action than the forced-along Biden election in which as much as possible of the mainline media and tech companies did everything possible to ensure it went that way.
Trump legitimately upset the applecart by winning (even if it was an electoral college victory, it was nonetheless part of how the system formally works) and surprised many people including a majority of the media landscape fully against his campaign. Because you detest that particular president's politics (im no fan of them either in many ways) doesn't make it an antidemocratic step backward..
Trump recently called for the constitution to be suspended… and constantly banging on about the stolen election… he is anti democratic.
With him in power we would have eventually slid into fascism.
The reason he won back then is in a large part due to the misinformation campaigns supported partly by Russia, see Cambridge Analytica with the psychographic targeting etc.
For a functioning demographic you need well informed citizens.
Luckily us the people rejected the crazy views of trumpeteers.
>The reason he won back then is in a large part due to the misinformation campaigns supported partly by Russia, see Cambridge Analytica with the psychographic targeting etc.
I call bullshit on that. The progressive side of US politics and society badly discredited itself with its endless harping about Russian electoral manipulation. They spent years doing this without ever putting forth any credible, concrete evidence and in other cases ignoring evidence that showed connections between Russian officials and their preferred political affiliations. This latter event to the point that now, we have several major media outlets being forced to admit the importance of the Hunter Biden laptop story that they previously sneered at after the New York Post made it very public. The levels of partisan absurdity only grow more laughable.
Much of this, I suspect pushed by a near hysterical desire to find an external cause for millions of Americans who voted for him (for whatever numerous reasons of their own) not listening to the preaching by their supposed superiors in the major media outlets and social feeds.
How many people right on this site frequently talk about how difficult it is to convince people through online advertising even when the spending is in the billions by agents that know a lot about individual's preferences because of online habit tracking. And then at the same time we're supposed to believe that tens of millions of Americans were brainwashed into voting against their own preference by a Russian manipulation campaign run by a government that has repeatedly shown itself to be inept at so many things (war most recently), with a relatively modest budget, limited personnel and a general cultural divide between the mentalities of the perpetrators and all those average Trump voters in the U.S.
The entire accusation reeks of idiotic nationalistic elitism justifying a profound disdain for a huge percentage of the U.S population that "refused to listen" (to progressive arguments against Trump).
It’s not about brainwashing.
There is a difference between trying to convince someone to spend money on your product vs trying to convince someone that your worldview and ideology is the right one (Trumpism) by using language that resonates with your values.
You wouldn’t be able to convert a progressive to become a Trumpist, but try it on folks on the fence and the probability is higher.
Same happened in the UK with Brexit. A weak West benefits Putin. The Russians have a lot of experience with disinformation campaigns. Look up Operation Infektion. Luckily it failed. The West is now more united, due to Putin’s miscalculation with the Ukraine war.
Further material: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/professor-emma-l-b...
And watch the Cambridge Analytica documentary.
>There is a difference between trying to convince someone to spend money on your product vs trying to convince someone that your worldview and ideology is the right one (Trumpism) by using language that resonates with your values.
Both is propaganda, the difference stems from not only trying to frame things in a positive light as you commonly do with advertisement. The reason political propaganda is often more effective is the easy exploitation of negative caricatures combined with ingroup/outgroup effects and the errors of our brains. Be it cognitive biases or simply the inability to scale with complexity. So for example, if i get you to perceive yourself to be part of my ingroup, by having you react predictably with caricatures representing the outgroup (often with some "with us or against us" rhetorics) and manage to have you accept simplified stories, then i quite simply already won. Because i will be able to define who is and who isnt grouped in with the caricatures and how you think about anything they say.
This is very much about brainwashing. If i get you to think about stuff the way i framed it and stop you from communicating with people outside of the frame in a meaningful way, then i own you. And it works through you not wanting to challenge believes you started to identify with due to cognitive biases. Which is also how you recognize whether you are already in such a situation. By for example, believing every disagreement with sockpuppets is a "no" instead of a "yes, but...". Having an incomplete view of a situation is often just as easy to exploit as a wrong one.
Unfortunately this is just the start. This is very much an asymmetric battle with individuals on the loosing end in terms of complexity management and ease of adaptation. And even if you somehow managed to stay objective and got your hands on good information, you are still at threat of your attacker escalating to psychological warfare, for example overwhelming you with inputs to force you into either paralysis or predetermined reactions. And depending of how vicious your attacker is, white torture is also a possibility for further escalation.
> The reason political propaganda is often more effective is the easy exploitation of negative caricatures combined with ingroup/outgroup effects and the errors of our brains.
Yes - spot on. And this was used during the Trump and Brexit campaigns.
However, brainwashing to me is when you can turn someone who originally is far away from your side and make them come over to your side. So maybe we just have a different definition of it.
I hope we can agree though that Trump was not good for the US - he created a lot of damage and used those tactics you mentioned to create division and in-fighting, which benefits the status quo and hinders societal progress.
I always wonder how can you ensure that people get factual information and how to change the system so politicians lose their jobs if they deliberately spread misinformation or lie. It's key for having a functioning democracy, voters need accurate and factual information.
Agree on the not so great again and the need for a honest inquiry for factual information. Its just that i think some of that stuff is caricatures itself. Q-Anon for example is more or less crack. Here is a game developer describing it https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analy...
>It’s not that strange actually. In fact, the difference between apophenia and science is just the scientific process and the reliance on proof. People make the connection before they know for a fact if it’s real or not. Maybe it is apophenia, maybe not. It’s a hypothesis. THEN YOU TEST IT. The facts determine the outcome and then, whether it feels good or not, you accept them. Even scientists may not want to let go of a good theory that just isn’t panning out. The feeling of correctness is over-powering. This is why people need to have peer-reviews. Colleagues need to be able to replicate results. Solutions need to be tested and the facts harnessed.
>In Q, the proof is more apophenia! Another arrow in the dirt in an endless cycle back to the central propaganda. It has to because there is no truth. The answer is whatever feels the best, makes the most sense, and helps the story. Any truth is just fuel for the propaganda and reinforces the conclusions of the apophenia and central narrative.
>It feels like it’s really happening. It especially seems so when cheered on by a curated fake “community” clapping you on the back and telling you you are a hero for every radical leap into the void you make.
Being opposed to something like this is very easy. And at the same time the ability to figure stuff out without political framing gets harder and harder as well. Its made only worse with propaganda on the political level being also very profitable. And even stuff with good intentions backfires.
Its a clusterfuck all around, stuff gets more and more complicated. We havent solved scaling problems in software development or companies and it seems political discourse cant handle either. In addition to problems becoming too complicated, you also have to stay realistic. If you just fire every politicians dealing with disinformation you have the old problem of replacing everyone with some magic competent new humans with authoritarians meanwhile racing onwards. Give people certain incentives and its hard to behave differently. People want to get reelected and peoples opinions are very easily swayed with some well made propaganda.
On the bright side, this should all be a rather easy fix as long as we can agree on meaning well and reality mattering more then wanting to feel right. Because that is how a really nice made frame looks and you might have to let go and try to be rational for a moment.
edit: tldr: Any attempt to ban missinformation would likely be a terrible idea, we will have to agree to wanting to fix it instead. And that is hopefully just a question of tooling.
I have to read up on the ancient Greeks and the origins of democracy.
And yes agree - banning misinformation isn't the answer.
So what are the solutions - how do make sure propaganda doesn't bubble to the top, but facts and truthful information does - so people can make informed decisions.
How do you avoid people like Trump, i.e. narcissistic self serving people rising to power and subverting democracy.
You can't simply expect truth to win. History shows time and again that a lie can circle the world a hundred times before the truth even gets its shoes on. Misinformation is viral, information is not. Lies are simple, the truth is often complicated. Charismatic con men and charlatans appealing to base emotion, rumors and conspiracy theories often short circuit reason and rationality in ways that a presentation of facts to the contrary can't repair.
If your top priority is ensuring the playing field is always even between truth and lies, and that lies are always given a fair shake, then you're just rigging the game for lies. The truth only wins and holds precedence in an environment where lies can be recognized and fought against, and prevented from manifesting their own reality bubbles.
Banning misinformation alone isn't enough, and yes it can certainly be abused, but it is necessary.
>Banning misinformation alone isn't enough, and yes it can certainly be abused, but it is necessary.
Its impossible. And its one of the most dangerous and insidious ideas out there. To put it quite bluntly, you arent competent enough to determine for other people what is true and what is fake. And neither is anyone else. Its the reason we had informed consent, because without it, idiots thinking to do "the right thing" historically time and time again inflict horrible fates upon those deemed not smart enough to make decisions for themselves.
I understand that you want it to work, or even feel it needs to work, but reality quite simply doesnt give a crap about what anyone feels "should or needs to work".
This might look like a stupid disagreement, but quite frankly, this is the line in the sand towards totalitarian dystopias. If you were competent enough to make that decision, you would be competent enough to explain why something is true or fake. Which in my view leaves either malice or delusion motivating those pushing on regardless.
Thanks to the internet i had the possibility to speak with people holding despicable views, be it nazis or thanks to /r/syriancivilwar even interviews with ISIS supporters. Please really think about the fact that i am still more worried about people with your set of believes.
This is truly dangerous, especially because people tell themselves they do it for the "right reasons". Its what makes it such a horrible trap. Its an easy narrative to fall for and once you are in you left reality in favor of the group narrative. And while other extremist groups use the same mechanisms, this one is a lot more palpable on first view. After all, who would be against no more misinformation? Overlooking the horrible and costly insight of the last 100 years and more that just as running an economy, this isnt a trivial task you can just dictate, even if you really want to. Especially since running the economy would be trivial in comparison.
For the sake of a livable future, please stop before you doom us all.
edit: sorry for the addition 30 minute in
Not sure you noticed - but your reply is to a new contributor to this discussion.
I agree - we shouldn't ban information, same as not cancelling people into oblivion, e.g. for jokes they made 10 years ago.
But /u/krapp made a valid point... "Misinformation is viral, information is not." ... or it seems to be that way.
There should be consequences for lying and spreading misinformation, esp if you have a large platform and your decisions will impact millions of people.
And my question prior... what do you think can be done to stop people like Trump rise to power - how can this system weed out narcissistic and self-serving people who don't care about progress or improving society. With those people in power long enough, we will eventually have a system where our freedoms will be taken away.
> Not sure you noticed - but your reply is to a new contributor to this discussion.
Yes, i hope you didnt thought this applied to yourself, far from it. I also jumped in a few posts ago on a conversation you had with somebody else.
I also didnt want to imply that missinformation spreading viraly wasnt a problem. Its just not fixable with authoritarian measures and the problem goes far deeper then "just" liberties. The problem is that any attempt to ban the sharing of information means you need a means to accurately determine what is wrong or incomplete information (jumping over the whole problem of miss-/diss/mal-information and true information without context to keep the post short) without the ability to challenge errors. By attempting to ban information you are interfering in your reality finding process. Doing this is extremely dangerous due to the inability to judge implications of errors and such errors being extremely profitable. Its a truly horrible idea, no matter how nice solving the problem of spreading missinformation (while actually being impossible) sounds. Its the patching out of a vital safety check without which you loose your ability to error-correct. As everywhere, without a means to error correct, all the problems such an approach allows for already exist, time just hasnt caught up.
I think this is a vital point people overlook. Its not a moral argument, totalitarianism isnt just horrible, it does not work. Its a process that leads to the creation of errors in thinking, dismantles the means to error correct and breeds corruption. Its groups of idiots moving forward while ignoring the consequences, encouraged by socio/psychopaths profiting off such movements temporarily at the cost of long term problems it creates.
>And my question prior... what do you think can be done to stop people like Trump rise to power
I mentioned it at the end of my first post, i think the solution is as old as time and as with everything technology makes them more solveable. You cant fix stupidity centrally, its a decentralized problem for which a centralized solution would require totalitarian perfection due to loosing the ability to error-correct.
So its down to everyone to have a honest conversation about how stupid they are on individual questions and whether they are emotionally mature enough to have that conversation without becoming cynical. So figuring out where your views are wrong, or incomplete, where you are acting ideologically or are just reacting to a frame. Instead of attempting to get rid of miss-information you focus on figuring out where you can say with a high degree of certainty, and strict requirements for falsifiability what is likely true. So what is non-missinfornation, approximating base-reality from which we then can have meaningful conversations. Since we make the effort to communicate, we clearly decided on cooperation instead of conflict. So lets work on making that more productive, after all there is a core question here. Are you actually interested in being right or do you just take pleasure from feeling right? If its the later, know that reality is a bitch that will win every time over your feelings. Clinging on regardless is how being stupid looks from the perspective of a stupid person. Which we all are sometimes. Which cognitive biases trick us into ignoring or brushing aside.
I think this is a task where tooling can help and where we can give a hand to other people in the process. Talk to people meaningfully, think steelmening instead of strawmaning. You might be missing a perspective somebody else overcorrected for. Almost none of the issues are one dimensional, its all spectrums you cant overcorrect on without being just as wrong as before. Understand how people came to a conclusion and show up errors instead of regurgitating your own views. As this is obviously difficult (take this from the experience of a seasoned idiot) its clear why we havent "solved" it yet. But i believe it is something technology can help us with. And cooperative decentralized solutions are still a lot more solvable then the insane idea of trying to dictate reality.
It would also help with the old star trek question of where technology will move towards. Will we manage to create a world in which technologies are useful tools or are we headed for becoming clogs in a malfunctioning machine we dont understand and cant control?
This problem is hard to fix because everyone believes they themselves are not an idiot, everyone else is. Thats an error caused by cognitive biases. But one were we can help each other and develop tooling to achieve better results all around. I suspect there will be massive payoffs once we just agree on trying to be less stupid and meaning well, even just for the benefit of a less shit future for yourself.
> Are you actually interested in being right or do you just take pleasure from feeling right?
Yes great point. I have experienced this myself in the past and it takes effort not to do this.
> Since we make the effort to communicate, we clearly decided on cooperation instead of conflict.
Yes - I think our first exchange seemed to veer slightly towards conflict (for me anyway), but then it took a turn to a more shared understanding.
> So it's down to everyone to have a honest conversation about how stupid they are on individual questions
Yes agree. Stupidity is dangerous [0] and we need to be better equipped to detect our own stupidity and then self-correct.
That's why I think 2 key things for avoiding spiraling into tyrannical systems are a) fight poverty b) better education systems that teaches more about critical thinking and to recognise the tactics self-serving people use to gain power. Easier said than done of course.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts, which were insightful for my ongoing journey to study this topic. Two resources next on my list are:
1) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_...
2) https://www.greecepodcast.com/plato-republic-civil-war/
[0] https://sproutsschools.com/bonhoeffers-theory-of-stupidity/
Thanks for the resources, especially the Bonhoeffer theory and the nice feedback. I do appreciate it. I can also only return the favor, being able to come to an agreement on such points is really good news and i found this quite beneficial as well. The difficulty of it (conflict in speech is just so much more easy and fun) is why i have so high hopes for technology. Because you wont just help with understanding but being more easy to understand. Which means getting more control about how you frame stuff without just trying to influence your conversation partner. I am not so optimistic about education beyond a base level though, getting a grip of framing stuff, and not just reacting immediately, is just very difficult no matter how much you meditate, at least for idiots like myself. Schmachtenberger [0] is proposing that same approach with the stuff around "rule omega", but as you can take from the close to 10 hours of videos and not making much visible progress since, you are kind of trying to build a new non-stupid human. (Not tryint to downplay that approach would be great if it worked and its a really nice idea. I might be overly cynical here).
When it comes to possible solutions, cooperative minimum is key imho. Which likely means the solution cant be aimed at gaining political influence or monetary benefits. Because people react to such attempts of influence as well. And as with every tool, there will be attempts of weaponization. Which gets us to conflict again, which makes the experience everywhere more shit. So keeping Goethe Zauberlehrling in mind is rather important.
In case anyone is wondering about the poverty point, its so people get the option to not have to react under dire pressure for once. Because thinking about stuff like this is quite simply a luxury if you have to worry about where the next meal for you and your family is going to come from. Less anxious people are more willing to cooperate.
[0] Sensemaking and its problems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LqaotiGWjQ
4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. It goes against a lot of societally enforced norms we’re coming up against, and suggests the benefits of living a more aware, intentional life and the benefits of commitment and community. Awesome, awesome book I constantly recommend to people.
I cannot agree more. I listened to it all the way through twice and it had a profound impact on how I see the world. It feels like an essential guide for living in the modern world. I look forward to reading it on paper to see what else I can get out of it.
I agree - this book is great. I find it hard to really explain what this book about (time management?) without making it sound less interesting than it actually is, but it really has impacted my thinking. Definitely one that I'm going to keep coming back to.
I just finished the audiobook, which is read by the author. Lovely.
He also has a short series inside Sam Harris' (paid) 'Waking Up' meditation app which is how I got on to him (Oliver Burkeman).
I listened to the course on Waking Up too, and I can highly recommend it.
"Thinking in Bets" Annie Duke. Changed how I feel "bad" decisions because, per Duke, bad outcomes can happen to good decisions. I also enjoyed how she framed truth seeking as the preference over groupthink.
Finally, it was fact that she was speaking from experience (as a professional poker player) and just some idea she researched.
Warning: this book can make it difficult to communicate with other people, if you expect them to think like you do. So many people evaluate the quality of decisions based on results, and so many of them are outright hostile to the ideas suggested herein.
Further, in any given situation, variance swaps all - so don't expect to be able to say "i told ya so".
I firmly believe this book helps make my life better in terms of making better decisions, but it is not a book you want to trot out at cocktail parties unless you enjoy arguments. And I will also say - people get offended when you ask them to put money down on their perspective, even after you disagree. So it appears to be true, people know it's true when money is on the line, but will still argue with you.
Let it change how you think, but if you want something to discuss with others, go with Gladwell or Freakonomics.
Yes and no. But ultimately ironic. Duke's position on truth seeking is rock solid. Any disagreement is, in the eyes of Duke, is a positive. I would take names, and then buy them the book. If they choose not to read it then self identifying groupthinkers might be best avoided going forward.
As for Gladwell. That's the problem, isn't it? Beige ideas and slanted research, etc. Yeah, I read him to see what the "average reader" is slurping down, but he's a candy coated pop star to Duke's Radiohead ideas.
It’s a bit of a paradox. While a lot of Gladwells work is a broad brush and not generalizable, it has opened people’s minds to a new way of thinking. I have found those people are open to discussions with more rigor, but it’s possible that is selection bias at work.
I also don’t think Duke is saying all disagreement is good. She specifically says you need a small trusted circle of people who agree to basic rules. Even then, it’s difficult to keep people inside the lines. That’s why her recommended way of rigorous thinking wouldn’t work on Twitter or in a general public sphere, for instance.
It’s not that people are dumb or willful, it’s that our brains are wired for different circumstances. And it takes constant effort to swim against the stream, which is tiring and not scalable.
In the end, I have concluded that humanity is better off for having a Gladwell - someone who can connect and clearly communicate with the masses. We need these mass communicators, even if they aren’t precise, because they open people’s minds to alternative ways of thinking.
It’s like a funnel - gladwell gets more people to the top of the funnel. You end up with folks who take pop music conclusions, and some percentage will dive deeper. Without Gladwell, I would have never discovered Duke or been receptive to the message.
Just started reading, "Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away" by her so can't confidently recommend it, but so far I'm really enjoying it. Again, poker experience, knowing when to fold, is relevant.
Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington
After being prepped for an understanding of the conflict of visions by Thomas Sowell, Booker T Washington's autobiography really brings it all home as to what could have been. The accomplishments, the respect, the fulfillment.
A close second is Shelby Steele's White Guilt, in particular, his description of the difference of his parents' civil rights attitude (change the laws, get along) compared to his own in his youth (burn it down) with his eventual understanding of where that came from and what the consequences were.
I haven't finished it yet, but I am currently working through Thomas Sowell's Ethnic America which has a very satisfying history so far of different ethnic groups in America.
I also have to say that most years, I have barely been able to read even a few books. But this year I got audible and have now listened to 35 books. Of course, I have a growing queue which now stands at 176 books.
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It merges science and storytelling in an amazing way, I can highly recommend it. The books are long, but they didn't seem like it.
Neuromancer by William Gibson. The book that started cyberpunk. I love the genre, but I think it's well worth a read just to see how he can craft a world with language. I sometimes found it hard to understand what exactly was happening, but the vibe was always crystal clear.
Those are really good choices. I re-read the Mars trilogy every couple of years, though the differences between the book's timeline and our own are getting a little embarrassing :-)
Here are some early "cyberpunk" books that people may not be aware of. I'm using a loose definition of stories where networked computers play a major role, the characters are technologically sophisticated and from the shady edge of society, and there's a caper of some kind.
John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider (1975)
Thomas J Ryan, The Adolescence of P-1 (1977)
Vernor Vinge, True Names (1980)
John M Ford, Web of Angels (1980)
I've left a few out (e.g., Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Bester's The Computer Connection) because they're not really "punk".
True Names is an amazing read.
Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer.
As an American, it was the most enjoyable and interesting history book I ever read, was even laughing out loud at one point. Talks about the four major English cultures that planted the seeds of the United States. It's so cool to learn about these old cultures and how their values and folkways are still reflected in certain locales to this day.
It's not only an interesting history book, but it feels useful. I feel like I have a much stronger understanding and frame with which to look at modern American politics. You stop looking at things as Democrats vs Republicans and start looking at things as Puritans vs Borderers - these are the two prevailing English cultures of the four who founded the country.
Goes without saying that this Team A vs Team B is an oversimplification and there's nuance and it's complex, et cetera et cetera. But as a simplification, there's a lot more to learn and there's more depth in the Puritan vs Borderer frame than in the Democrat vs Republican frame. I've gained more respect and appreciation for these imposing cultures/factions who persist to this day.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino, a great companion to the movie and expands on characters in really unique ways that make me think about them.
Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, a near future book about climate change and trying to fix it with an interesting geopolitical look of China acting like the US. I also liked Ministry of the Future but it was less fun of a read.
Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt, a reasoned look at how social media and devices are negatively impacting society and children.
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, a weird near future declinepunk with bioengineering and evil corporations.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, very short book with a glimpse into post colonial colonialism in remote locations. Wanted to read a book about Congo.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, a portrait of a character in a time I didn’t experience.
Tarantino's novelization was fantastic. He just released a piece of nonfiction with 'Cinema Speculation', which is definitely worth a read if you're into film and especially his films.
If you like audio books Kenneth Branagh’s reading of Heart of Darkness is incredible. I listen to it all the time. He really brings out the dark humour in Marlow’s narration.
Also, Apocalypse Now was based on Heart of Darkness; so it’s definitely worth rewatching after having read HoD.
> Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, a weird near future declinepunk with bioengineering and evil corporations.
I loved Shriek: An Afterword, and have wanted to read more VanderMeer for a while. Did you just coin the term 'declinepunk'? I've never heard it before.
I don’t know what the right term is but the world is worse than today and on the way down. It’s not apocalyptic, but it’s decaying and declining with loss of services, crime, chaos. But there’s still tech and big companies and stuff.
Similar would be Battle Angle Alita and the last section from Bone Clocks.
Nice. The end of that book was pretty depressing. I suppose cyberpunk is usually dystopian anyway.
Came across this nice wiki when googling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives
Think Again by Adam Grant - A book on how to rethink any/everything. I think a lot of us could read and apply the lessons from this book.
You're Not Listening by Kate Murphy - If you're like me and "listening" actually means "solutioning", read this book.
Longitude by Dava Sobel - The fascinating and infuriating story of how longitude was created/discovered/measured/whatever.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - I loved The Martian and after what felt like a misstep with Artemis this is a return to form.
+1 for "You're Not Listening". I had it on my shelf for too long. When I finally pulled it down and read it there was a feeling of "I wish I would have done that a lot sooner."
Think Again was good as well, but didn't hit me as hard as "Listening."
There Is No Antimemetics Division: https://qntm.org/scp
This is absolutely fantastic, and above all the other choices here that I agree are wonderful, this is absolutely one of the most absorbing and interesting books you could spend your time in and realise "oh, there isn't another book I could put in this next to as being of the same type".
Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera uniquely combines fiction and philosophy, often switching back and forth from a world of suspended disbelief in the lives of his characters, and a world where his characters only serve as overt mythological illustrations of Nitzchean, Paramenidean, or other philosophical ideas.
I name it the best book I read in 2022 because of the ways the author prompts his readers to hunt for meaning. It's a book that reminds one to ask philosophical questions of meaning amid the pleasures, the ambiguities, and the tumult of ordinary life.
The God Of Small Things
Winner of the booker prize, a delightful tale set in Kerala, a province of India where our ancestors first landed on the subcontinent.
Very well written, and invokes powerful imaginery of Kerela's environ and social setting.
Personally, this brings lot of memories. It is that one novel which I remember more vividly amongst all of the others that I read. A few years back, I bought a physical copy for the archives and a digital copy for nostalgia. I re-read it in 2018 and unfortunately, I find it hard to feel as good as I felt when I was younger. I have no idea and no reasoning.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the people of my state and thus me are influenced heavily by Bengali literature, food, and culture. I might have felt closer to her or she became a common name in our tiny town. Finally, I grew up with teachers, most of who hail from South India and have heard (and I visualize) the hot Indian summers in the state of Kerala. One of my few good friends I made during school, was from Kerala and lost contact after school. During summer vacation, I visualize that he met his local friends, and play around big ponds and jump in beating the heat.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is amazing.
It's about one possible future of our relationship with AI. It paints multiple perspectives on this relationship while being implicitly judgmental. I'm being vague because the story reveals itself slowly, and the blossoming of information is itself a work of art -- this unfolding is part of Ishiguro's mastery.
Most people feel that AI currently has zero emotions, and perhaps a near-future version may convince some people that it has _some_ kind of emotions, though these emotions almost certainly will feel wrong, maybe-invalid, and strange to us, merely by them being different and by our awareness that an AI is not human. This and other questions are explored in Klara and the Sun.
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin
It’s a recent Hugo award winner. Generally speaking if you like SiFi/Fantasy novels, you can find a trove of excellent books by looking at the list of past Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees. The Fifth Season is more fantasy, but has aspects that I consider SiFi’ish. Superbly written, and wonderful world building.
The two best books I read this year, and have been recommending widely are:
"The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by Graeber and Wengrow since it really shows how narrow our political imagination has been for the last 250 years, and makes me excited by people looking for new ways to organize.
"The Ministry for the Future" by KSR, which has further radicalized me and challenged me to spend more of my time fighting the climate crisis.
[edited for formatting]
Fighting climate change… what do you have in mind… what can folks in (soft) tech do?
I’m equally interested but lacking in imagination currently how software can have a bigger impact.
All the big impactful things are in hard tech, ie changing industrial processes, new / improved material design, renewable energy production, reducing energy waste or waste in general etc and planting tons and tons of trees at scale - best carbon capture and ecosystem restoration tech we have I think.
But for all that we need to have the political will, which is not sufficiently present at the moment. Too many counter forces preventing systems change. So how do you address that?
A book on my to read list is Reinventing Fire.
Two communities I have joined to help me learn not only what is being worked on, but also where I might be able to put my skills, are below:
https://climateaction.tech
https://workonclimate.org
If you could come up with an effective method of combating stupid on internet you could have an immense effect on climate change. Or trolls or fossil shills or bad faith actors etc.
Even solar power needs interfaces. One of those interfaces will likely be through the Web. There will be work to be done that requires normal Web dev in that area.
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, David Simon
I usually don't read anything true crime like, but this book struck me as an almost endless maelstrom of night feverish violence.
This and 'The corner' are the books that 'The wire' is based on.
This book spawned its own show too I believe, called Homicide: Life on the Streets, predating The Wire. I have had it downloaded for a while but not watched it yet.
Three books that really stood out for me last year were:-
1. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1999475.A_Million_Miles_...)
2. The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World's Most Successful People Launched Their Careers by Alex Banyan (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36739769-the-third-door)
3. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54503521-a-thousand-brai...)
There are still like 4 weeks left until 2022 ends, and am hoping to finish more books. Wish me luck! :D
Anxiety by Fritz Riemann (1902-1979)
Fritz Riemann is a german psychoanalyst, and this is the translation of his best-known work, originally published under the title Grundformen der Angst (Basic forms of fear).
The book discusses how various types of fear (fear of commitment, fear of self-becoming, fear of change, fear of necessity) give rise to various personalities (schizoid personalities, depressive personalities, compulsive personalities, hysterical personalities), and discusses their relationship to love, aggression and their biographical backgrounds.
Best is subjective, but...
- Travel, Alan de Botton: This got me thinking more than anything else that I read this year - The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester: I read a lot of scifi and fantasy, but this was the standout for the surprising (and in retrospect, obvious) twist. The other interesting aspect was that this was written in the 50s, and you can see how their idea of 'the future' is rooted in the tech of the time
Of more interest to this crowd is probably - Math Girls and Math Girls Talk About Trigonometry, Hiroshi Yuki: Brilliant!
And finally, - Lords of the Deccan, Anirudh Kanisetti: More relevant to people from the Indian Subcontinent, I suppose.
My (still to be updated) list of books I read this year: https://shrirang.karandikar.org/reading-in-2022/
I recently read The Rational Optimist, and it provided a refreshing perspective in a time where global events can often leave one feeling disheartened. Despite the challenges of climate change, political strife, wars in Europe, an energy crisis leading to financial instability, the book offered a much-needed reset for my mind.
Humanity has made incredible progress over the last centuries and decades, and it's important to maintain a sense of optimism.
Previous thread from 36 days ago
Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33381791
John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed. It's funny and makes me thankful to be a part of the world. It is not like his other books, it is a non-fiction work written in short essays. Highly recommend.
I haven’t read the book but I’ve listened to his podcast with a similar name and enjoyed it greatly. I’m betting there’s some overlap that you’d enjoy as well.
My favorites I read this year in order:
- Prayer of Owen Meany, it’s the basis of the movie Simon Birch if you have seen that. The book has so much more going on though
- My Antonia, wonderful characters
- Jude the Obscure, the cover tells you the ending is shocking, and the cover is right!
- How the Irish Saved Civilization, really fun and interesting
I read Jude the Obscure recently after seeing it on the bookshelf of a character in the HBO show Westworld. It was a very controversial book in its day because of its portrayal of marriage. I found it pretty bleak and yes shocking. It made me want to do a deep dive into Hardy’s other works though.
When I finished that book in college I literally couldn’t get out of bed for two days. I have never been so devastated by a work of fiction.
My brother did an M.A. in English and told me the story of a graduate who wrote an essay on Jude for an exam question worded like the following:
"Select a female character in Hardy and discuss the development of character in the relevant novel".
I too read "A Prayer for Owen Meany" this year, it is beautiful, and despite knowing everything that was coming I still welled up.
My two favourite books I read this year were both non-fiction:
* Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - If you enjoy books about persistence in the face of adversity, this has it in spades. When I was in my 20's I saw the movie "Touching the Void" and remember being in total awe at a human's ability to persevere in seemingly impossible situations. Shackleton and his crew bring this power of determination to another level.
* On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Reading this gave me another level of respect for Stephen King. He also pointed me towards another excellent book "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life".
Adventurer: The Life & Times of Giacomo Casanova by Leo Damrosch. About Casanova.
Fears of a Setting Sun by Dennis Rasmussen. About the Founding Fathers loss of faith in the Constitution over time.
The Greek Plays. Edited collection of 16 plays by Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. Fascinating reads.
Grand Strategies by Charles Hill. Short book on literature and statecraft.
Casanova’s own memoir is worth a read too
My favourite nonfiction read of the year was a biography of Wittgenstein by Ray Monk called The Duty of Genius. Absolutely enthralling read about a really fascinating person. I find Wittgenstein's own writings almost impenetrable, but I feel I got to know and love the man, and his way of thinking, in this work.
For fiction, I read almost all Chaim Potok's novels this year and he has become my favourite author. If anybody has a deep interest in religion, and how it interacts with the secular world, and how one is to reconcile the two, I heartily recommend Potok.
I second this!
In a similar, but different, vein, I also recommend Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges. Do not be turned off by the useless film adaptation. The book is intelligent and fascinating, and more aimed at someone with an undergraduate level understanding of math and logic, rather than a general layperson.
Hodges's book is excellent – delightfully thorough and detailed.
After finishing it (I read it after watching the movie) I was rather shocked at just how many liberties the film had taken. I'm not against a historical movie tweaking things here and there for the sake of drama, but The Imitation Game totally mischaracterised almost everything about Turing and his work in my opinion. I guess, to the movie's credit, it did make me want to learn more about Turing.
An excellent gauge for how good a book is can be found in how many times you catch yourself thinking back on it even after some time has passed. Through this, my favorite this entire year is The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank's diary). Without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read, just through how supremely human it is.
Other books are:
-The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
-Sapiens by Yuval Yuval Noah Harari
-21 Lessons for the 21st Century
-Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyn man!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman
-Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
-Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
Changed how I think about work and makes me hyper-aware of when I or anyone I work with says that we “have” to do something. Getting into the mindset that everything I do at work is my choice has helped me feel more in control of my workday and get more done as well.
I read a lot in 2022, but almost all of it was individual articles for my nonfiction reading and short stories or chapters of serialized longer stories for my fiction reading. I think there were only two books that I read in 2022. They were:
• Excel VBA Programming for Dummies
• The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method Volume I -- The Art and Technique of the Classical Guitar
They were both good. I can't really say which was best because they are about such different topics.
I read the VBA book because I wanted to automate some tasks in my food tracking spreadsheet that went beyond what I could figure out how to do with the macro recorder.
I read the guitar book because after a long gap I got back into playing guitar, and decided that it would be best if I just pretended I was a complete beginner and started over. Also even when I had been playing regularly I was never good at reading music, so I also wanted to start over and pay more attention to the sheet music.
I don't know how good the Parkening book would be for an actual true beginner, but for a pretend beginner it worked out great and I'm playing better than I ever did before, and reading music way better too. I feel I'm good enough now that it is finally time to upgrade my guitar from the Hohner HG-13 I bought new around 1980. Next week my new Cordoba C9 should arrive.
Finally got around to The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson (https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyda...), I think it's my favorite this year. It's a fun psychology/sociology book and gives a pretty convincing explanation for some seeming puzzles across several areas of human behavior and policy. It's also fun to explicitly introspect my own motives from the assumption that some things I've done or planning to do are a lot more for self-serving reasons than I like to admit.
On the fiction side from this year that I'd recommend, I reread Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion and read Unfinished Tales for the first time, all were great. I've read Tolkien as a kid, a teen, and now an adult, enjoyed him each time but I think I got even more out of some things this time around. I also liked Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, and in the last month or so I read two enjoyable tearjerkers: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, and Still Alice by Lisa Genova.
The Strangest man by Graham Farmelo.
It`s a biography of Paul Dirac, considered one of the best physicists of the 20th century. The book elucidates his obscure life and his contribution to quantum physics while not being overly jargonistic.
Non-fiction: Finally got around to reading The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. A great read that captures the feeling of being on project with great teammates that care and want to “win” Haven’t felt that way in a while at work, but currently kicking around a project with some friends after hours and it feels good to have people that all care about the project.
Fiction: Red Crosses by Sasha Filipenko
Kingdom of Grit, a completed trilogy. I couldn't read the books quickly enough and then never wanted it to end at the same time. Brilliant world, fantastic story telling, very likeable characters, intriguing plot... this book has it all. It's the Ocean's 11 meets Dragons meets Gentlemen's Bastards. Go read it now!
I liked "Ripley under Ground" by Patricia Highsmith. It is a sequel to the well-known novel "Ripley's Game". The main plot is about art forgery, a few murders and cover-ups.
But aside from that, there are lots of thoughts about art, artistic development, traits of painters, self-doubt, etc in this book (Highsmith was a painter herself). Hence I might consider a re-read, because I didn't get everything.
As a non-fiction book I am currently reading 'The Man from the Future' by science-writer Ananyo Bhattacharya. The book is a biography of Hungarian-American mathematical genius John von Neumann. It has a long chapter on how JvN developed quantum mechanics, together with other researchers, of course. Bhattacharya goes to great lengths to explain the maths and the thinking behind QM in nonmathematical terms (without equations) but still very competently.
"the History of Strength of Materials" By Stephen Timoshenko Dr. Timoshenko, the father of thin shell theory in the field of solids of mechanics outlines accomplishments in this field as related to the conquest of land and wars.
Another along similar lines of technology and war "The Arms of Krupp" William Manchester
The Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L082SCI?plink=uiGaVWnYtvU9VuSn&...
Ever dream of being a post-human computer with a free mandate to explore the galaxy as a Von Neumann probe? Then read this series.
Not only is the setting interesting, his character development is really well done too.
I hate recommending an Audible book (terrible business practices) but Dennis has an exclusivity agreement with them (he’s a new author) and it is actually a really great way to consume his books. They’re narrated by Ray Porter and he really does a fantastic job.
I've been meaning to read this just to see if he's plagiarising Roger Williams but with humour added in.
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. David Graeber
The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Brian C. Muraresku https://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Key-Uncovering-History-Re...
Well written, engrossing book on the historical underpinnings and the pharmacological foundations behind liturgical practices in modern religions. The motivation and gist of the book isn't new but the author paid great attention to existing evidence and wrote the book carefully enough to not diverge into hippie territory.
Quantum By Manjit Kumar: Traces the scientific discoveries leading to quantum theory, relationships among renowned scientists of 20th century, with a focus on Bohr-Einstein debate.
Incredible History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal: Abbreviated history of the Indian subcontinent, starting with the Indus Valley civilization, ending with the conflicts between India - Pakistan.
Sea Stories by William McRaven - An autobiography of a decorated Navy SEAL officer, who was involved in planning and execution of historically significant special operations (rescuing Captain Philip, and killing Bin Laden).
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller was a great one for me. Surface level it’s a book about a great but immensely flawed scientist. Under the surface it’s about identity and purpose. Binged it in like 2 nights.
Maximum City, a nonfiction book about Mumbai. A good companion to a first time visitor. I believe that an update is coming out soon.
Project Hail Mary, a book about space for engineering nerds.
The Body and At Home. They're books by Bill Bryson. He geeks out about stuff and showers is with fascinating trivia. It's hard to put his books down.
The Right Stuff, a book about how they picked the first astronauts without knowing what the job would even entail. A fascinating look at the psychology of test pilots. Pairs well with the movie First Man.
Ten Steps to Nanette, Hannah Gadsby - Autobiography of an Australian comedian I like. (If you like audiobooks, she reads it herself which is a treat.)
True Biz, Sara Nović - A year in the life of a boarding school for the deaf.
Upgrade, Blake Crouch
Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains, Matt Johnson & Prince Ghuman - Interesting angle of examining neurology.
Treasure & Dirt, and The Tilt, Chris Hammer - Good Australian rural crime fiction.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Eliezer Yudkowsky - Alternate fan fic depiction of Harry Potter as a hyper-rationalist. My review linked below.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60034663-ten-steps-to-na...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58395049-true-biz
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59838811-upgrade
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52225003-blindsight
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58520598-treasure-dirt
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61413297-the-tilt
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33951086-harry-potter-an...
(My review) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5124124732
This book helped me so much this year: Rewire Your Anxious Brain https://amzn.to/3B3muZ9
At first I was going to say "there are too many good ones and I can't pick out a favourite." But then I looked at the list and there is one clear favourite among many very good ones: Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems.
Queueing theory is probably one of the most useful subjects of all time, for just about any human. This book teaches it in a way that made it extremely easy for me to grok.
There were a handful I really enjoyed reading this year, mostly some older stuff. I could never get into fiction, so I'm more of a non-fiction and computer book kind of guy.
* Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler
Published in 2005 I believe, but still _very_ relevant. Good concrete architecture patterns and it's cool to see these patterns before they were no-brainers.
* SQL Performance Explained - Markus Winand
Actually how I first convinced my company to start paying for my books (and there have been 15+ since). We had a query that was running in an absurd amount of time for our largest customer and we couldn't get it down. It was a real blocker for releasing a feature, so I bought this book while visiting family and tore through it on the plane home. Got that query down from over 10 minutes to about 12 seconds. Through a light caching layer in front and we were cooking with gas. Part of that query's long runtime is definitely due to a poor initial implementation, but this book taught me a lot about indexes and how they're not being used constantly like I thought they were.
* Clean Architecture - Robert Martin
Always recommended around here. Finally gave it a read and the central message of dependency inversion is a good one. I took a "software engineering" course in Uni that taught us SOLID principles in a text book way where we didn't actually apply them, but working in the real world has taught me that they're appropriate in many cases, and why that's the case. Uncle Bob does a great job demonstrating that.
* Your Money or Your Life - Vicky Robin and Joe Dominguez
I reread this about once a year so I'm going to count it :) Fantastic book that keeps the concept of money and what is really does for us grounded. Helps me keep my expenses down by not being a nut with money. Working in software is a very fortunate career path for a lot of us, and I want to make sure I can make the most of it.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber, David Wengrow
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.
I have read a lot of books this year. I am not sure I could pick a best.
I will put up The Last Duel as one of the most entertaining books I read this year. I really enjoyed it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/438538.The_Last_Duel
Postwar by Tony Judt. Published in 2005, it covers 1945 Postwar Europe to ~2005. Good coverage of not just the major Western European countries like the UK, Germany, and France, but attention is paid to the Eastern European countries and Soviet Union. The US of course comes into the picture at parts, but the book is firmly focused on Europe. I found the economic development, political attitudes and party shifts, and the coverage of the Soviet Union and countries behind the iron curtain.
I am looking for a follow up and may read Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, Stalin by Kotkin, or The Free World by Mendand. Suggestions appreciated
Try The Balkans by Misha Glenny
"The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours" by Gregory Nagy, Harvard prof on greeks.
Deepens your understanding of a different conception of a hero. According to Nagy, the heroes in Homeric poetry were not meant to be directly emulated like our modern Superman -- instead of a single character being the role model, you should take your inspiration from the whole story. All characters, all nuances, sequences of events, consequences and interactions.
Also gives you a much richer vocabulary for so many concepts still central to the human condition. English and other modern languages don't allow us to explore these in the same way.
In-depth, but provides a "civilizing experience" according to Nagy. And I suggest: don't read it as an engineer, so to speak. It's not code, or an academic paper. Read for inspiration and conceptual diversification. Broaden your toolbox for understanding the human condition.
"The Constructed Mennonite: History, Memory, and the Second World War" by Hans Werner
It was a great read because it gave an insight into the "Russian" style perspective of the Anabaptist understanding, and the deep complications around: nonresistance, nationhood, language, and war. It is only a small slice of some of the horrifying realities the Anabapists' suffered at the hands of both Axis and Allies during WWII, but as a personal account, and as a detailed series of event, it is excellent.
"Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture" by David Kushner
It gave a real snapshot of what it was like making (and playing) games in the 80's and 90's. It helped to remind the reader of the technical challenges programmers faced, as well as the much less money-focused nature of video games as an industry. (I have way more to say on this, but will resist the urge.)
"Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Radden Keefe
Gives, in my opinion, very accurate account of both "sides" of the issue regarding The Troubles. It brought up a massive number of details I was either unaware of, or forgot about. From my perspective, it didn't appear to pull any punches, but instead laid things out precisely as they happened, and showed the blood on the shirts and knuckles of both side. It gave a personal insight to the people who were going through it first hand, and the ways in which they lived their lives; in many ways, it reminded me of some of the descriptions I had heard about the 2003-2011 Iraq War from civilians. (A common theme in both I recall hearing described was the fear of waiting in lines for things, as it meant that location might be targeted for bombing.)
"History Is Wrong" by Erich von Däniken
Although the book is meant to be a serious read, I take it as a comedy. I enjoy listening to various conspriacy theories to see whether I find any shreds of truth in them. In this book, there are some claims about how the way we understand human history is fundamentally wrong, and that "a lost subterranean labyrinth in Ecuador" held specific secrets in the form of "gold panels" - panels which mysteriously disappeared.
Note: I don't mean to sound overly dismissive to anyone who might be a "true believer" in this specific line of thinking, I just find the claims made to be preposterous.
+1 for Say Nothing, Radden Keefe is one of the best non-fiction writers around today imo. Been meaning to read his latest on the Sacklers for a while also.
Happen to have any recommendations for other resources on Irish History or The Troubles?
I checked out "The Northern Ireland Conflict: Bolinda Beginner Guides" by Aaron Edwards and Cillian McGrattan a few years ago, but was a little underwhelmed by how the information was presented - it felt a little one sided, if I remember correctly.
Alternatively, "The Celtic World" by The Great Courses (audiobook) was pretty good, but a little overwhelming in the amount of time it was covering (Again, I think. It's been a few years since I listened to it.) I'd really like to hear something historical about Ireland that focuses in on one or two eras/generations, not necessarily a "Here's the last 1,000 years" type approach. Anything in particular around the time Romans had come to the English area would be of especial interest to me, due to certain religious perspectives and beliefs I'm interested with.
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer.
An astonishing tale of daring and determination about the Battle off Samar in WW2 Pacific. Told with respect and admiration for the 6 USA escort carriers, their planes, and their destroyer escorts, that faced 4 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers of the Japanese navy. One of the greatest last stands in history, and a riveting story.
It made me realize the utter horror of the conditions the sailors fought under. The ordinary backgrounds of them all. That training and a culture of excellence can multiply the effectiveness of people far beyond what feels possible. That accurate information is critical to making good decisions. And that for all your preparation, you are still at the mercy of chance.
The best non-fiction book I read in 2022 was Plagues Upon the Earth (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57423807-plagues-upon-th...) a history of infectious disease in humans. It really changed my views on a lot of things, especially how recently many contagious diseases crossed over from animals.
The best fiction book I read in 2022 was Spinning Silver (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36896898-spinning-silver). A really awesome riff on Russian fairy tales.
If you enjoy riffs on Russian fairy tales - I thought The Bear and the Nightingale trilogy was also really enjoyable.
I enjoyed the Alexandra Quick series so far (still being written). It's a fan fiction in the Harry Potter universe set in the US, with almost no reference to any character in the HP books. The books expand on the magic system in satisfying ways, and portrays the characters more deeply than the original books. If that's your thing, I'd suggest you give it a go.
I found it while searching for fan fictions that would explore the HP universe from different cultural perspectives and in different settings. I was looking for a bigger jump (the US is more similar to the UK than other countries are) but the books have everything I was looking for in terms of exploring magic associated to the local cultures.
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. So good, so so good. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-...
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber of Bullshit Jobs, and, more importantly, this book. Graeber was an anthropologist, and he goes through the history of debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality with many, many examples. The book is chock full of ideas.
Also The Dawn of Everything, which Graeber cowrote with archaeologist David Wengrow. The broader point of the book is that there is no one story of the "evolution" of society into modern states and no "agricultural revolution" triggering the rise of urbanization and social hierarchy. Instead, there have been countless arrangements and permutations of these things with intelligent, politically-conscious people thinking about how they wanted to order their society long before the invention of writing. He takes particular aim at popular writers pushing simpler stories painting Western capitalism as a natural endpoint, especially Stephen Pinker and Yuval Noah Harari.
Even if you aren't onboard with Graeber's radical left politics, both books are so chock full of ideas and examples that it's hard to come away without a lot to think about.
> Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics, calls the safest securities on the planet a debt that will never be paid and spins bizarre conspiracy theories about the Iraq invasion. You might learn about the quaint cultural practices of remote tribes but a lot of the ideas presented are complete nonsense.
You might say it has good and original parts. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
> Graeber misinterprets the history and ideas of mainstream economics
Can you provide a well researched body of literature that counters Graeber’s thesis as opposed to just stating an opinion?
A non-economist makes economic claims that just so happen to reflect the political views of his political contemporaries, but it is the job of anyone who disagrees to cite an entire body of literature, reviewed to a high but unspecified standard?
I'd totally agree with you had Graeber not been an influential anthropologist (wherein one academically studies human activity, culture, trade, economics, social structures, institutions etc. from a rigorous historical lens)
Your demand would have made sense if Debt was a peer-reviewed scholarly work and not a political screed aimed at a lay readership.
But then again, there is enough nonsense in there than can be picked apart without being a domain expert. For example, Graeber claims Adam Smith's famous "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest" thesis is wrong because shopkeepers of the time mostly sold goods on credit and thus the customers were in fact depending on their benevolence. This blithe conflation of credit with benevolence should evoke laughter from anyone who is even remotely familiar with how businesses are run.
And dunking on Smith is how Graeber builds his grand neo-liberal economics conspiracy theory.
I've not the read Greaber's book, though I intend to, but Adam Smith is regularly misinterpreted in an extreme right-wing way (e.g. the Adam Smith Institute) so it's possibly to disagree with that interpretation without disagreeing with Adam Smith.
https://aeon.co/essays/we-should-look-closely-at-what-adam-s...
> The context of Smith’s intervention in The Wealth of Nations was what he called ‘the mercantile system’. By this Smith meant the network of monopolies that characterised the economic affairs of early modern Europe. Under such arrangements, private companies lobbied governments for the right to operate exclusive trade routes, or to be the only importers or exporters of goods, while closed guilds controlled the flow of products and employment within domestic markets.
> As a result, Smith argued, ordinary people were forced to accept inflated prices for shoddy goods, and their employment was at the mercy of cabals of bosses. Smith saw this as a monstrous affront to liberty, and a pernicious restriction on the capacity of each nation to increase its collective wealth. Yet the mercantile system benefited the merchant elites, who had worked hard to keep it in place. Smith pulled no punches in his assessment of the bosses as working against the interests of the public. As he put it in The Wealth of Nations: ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.’
> The merchants had spent centuries securing their position of unfair advantage. In particular, they had invented and propagated the doctrine of ‘the balance of trade’, and had succeeded in elevating it into the received wisdom of the age. The basic idea was that each nation’s wealth consisted in the amount of gold that it held. Playing on this idea, the merchants claimed that, in order to get rich, a nation had to export as much, and import as little, as possible, thus maintaining a ‘favourable’ balance. They then presented themselves as servants of the public by offering to run state-backed monopolies that would limit the inflow, and maximise the outflow, of goods, and therefore of gold. But as Smith’s lengthy analysis showed, this was pure hokum: what were needed instead were open trading arrangements, so that productivity could increase generally, and collective wealth would grow for the benefit of all
Greaber's interpretation of Smith is just as shallow as extreme right-wing one. And what's worse is Greaber's whole cloth invention of Adam Smith's supposed morality.
Simply, as a meta note / rational argument's sake ->
Let's assume X (Smith) makes statement S (X -> S). A few hundreds of years later, Y (Graeber) makes statement S' that refutes S and says Y -> S' and negates ~ (X -> S). Now what I'd expect is a Z, that counter-refutes Y. For example, Z -> S''. Instead, you're going back to saying yeah, we all know X -> S, so how can Y -> S' be ever true...
A starting point for ideas on rational arguments etc is https://www.lesswrong.com/library
I would expect at least one specific example.
Brad De Long - a left leaning professor of economics has written extensive, quality take downs of Graeber. Search for him and Graeber. Here is one.
https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/11/monday-smackdown-in-t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bradford_DeLong
Another one by Noah Smith, again another left wing economist on why Debt is a poor book :
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt-...
I think Debt is a terrible book but that's not a convincing or even substantive review. Even more bizzare is the author admitting to dunking on the book without even having read it!
Does Noah Smith consider himself left-wing? I've always tagged him as "right-wing but not totally insane" as he often seems to be explaining bits of reality to his audience who consider them politically incorrect, like renewables and climate change not being a hoax, or him explaining that being 'woke' is okay, as long as you aren't rude to white men.
Oof not someone else that fell for Brad de Long's bs.
Here's the ceremonial link for whenever this crap is linked:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707
Wow, I didn't know Graeber posted on HN. May he rest in peace.
I followed the stoush between DeLong and Graeber closely, and my strong impression is that Graeber was thin-skinned, vengeful, often inaccurate and unable to stand criticism. DeLong was a bit trolly, but nothing a competent, stable writer shouldn't have been able to handle. This impression is also borne out by my own reading of Graeber's work, and his reprehensible actions as a working academic:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-...
I have the same impressions of Graeber in this back and forth but it doesn't change the fact that Graeber has a point
I mean making a Twitter bot to spam someone "stay away!" every day seems a lot more thin-skinned and vengeful than Graeber's response here. And Graeber points out that most of the "factual errors" pointed out by DeLong do basically nothing to detract from the main theses Graeber makes in his book.
It's clear DeLong has it out for him and the "takedown" is just a collection of "gotchas" on minor details pasted together to try to attack the overall validity of the book
I concede that deLong gleefully trolled Graeber. And not much more.
As suggested by its title, "Debt" is an anthropology book about the history of debt. And by extension the origins of money. Not economics.
Adam Smith and his contemporaries hypothesized that barter proceeded money. Modern economics textbooks and pundits continue to repeat this misbelief. Academics even admit the tale is often repeated as form of short hand narrative.
Charlemagne was quaint?
Too bad that the book about debt and how it became intertwined with our culture and morality relies on a spurious conflation of basic terms. Adam Smith wrote a whole book on The Theory of Moral Sentiments but the beliefs that Graeber choses to ascribe to him are invented whole cloth.
And for a book written by an anthropologist, the picture of China we get is a culture existentialist caricature.
> Charlemagne was quaint?
At least as quaint as Sher Shah Suri.
Belated followup. I reread the bits which reference and quote Adam Smith. (Revised edition.) Because maybe I'm being clueless.
Sorry, I'm just not seeing it.
FWIW, I wouldn't expect Smith to have access to reports from the New World, or even the inclination to connect the dots (play anthropolgist). So maybe you think Graeber is too harsh there. But I certainly expect Adam's academic successors to adjust as necessary.
Also FWIW, I wouldn't care so much about barter-money genesis fables, recognizing that pop-science lags academic best avail science by decades or more, were it not for the outsized influence that economic spokesmodels have on real world policy.
With that kind of assumed power, relished and hoarded, the pundits have that much more responsibility to be intellectually honest. In my future perfect world, of course.
You don't have to explain more, beating a dead horse. But I am keen to know which explanations -- what is money? where did money come from? -- you favor.
The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics. David Graeber rightfully argues that Neoliberalism sells itself to the masses by constructing this "quaint" tale of uncivilized barter-practicing foraging tribes turning into coin/money using farmers into debt based industrial-financial empires.
I am sure there are many factual inaccuracies in the book (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully manages to do is show the reader that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest). And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?"
> The purpose of the book is to make the general-audience reader realize the problems with the conceptual-historical framework of neoliberal economics and politics
And misrepresenting mainstream economics is the way to do that?
> (I am not an expert so I wouldn't know either way). But what he successfully
This is a bizzare take. It's like claiming Graeber gets the premises wrong but somehow the conclusions he draws are correct?
> that there are many many different economic systems practiced throughout history, and many of them very highly sophisticated (and not quaint as you suggest).
But somehow these grand sophisticated economic systems did not find takers outside their niches. This is what makes rui stones and cloth bolts quaint curiosities compared to coinage and credit when discussing the 5000 years of debt.
> And once the reader realizes this, there is only a short step to the question, "is neoliberalism really the best we can do or one of the other systems better for us?"
Too bad he spins nonsensical conspiracy theories to do that. And you agree that it's a work of political rhetoric and not dispassionate scholarship.
Anything by Douglas Rushkoff. I particularly enjoyed Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires.
Another good one is Irrational Man by William Barrett. The only truly comprehensive look at existentialism I've read.
Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
The Body - Bill Bryson
The Way of Kings - Sanderson
So Good They Can't Ignore You - Cal Newport
I really enjoyed The Body (and pretty much all Bill Bryson). He has my preferred blend of information and humor.
Yeah. Too bad he has retired and might not write another book. Can you think of anyone who comes close?
> Guns, Germs and Steel is basically a modern eugenicist theory, racist and dumb.
Um, run that by me again? It’s been a while since I read it but doesn’t the book specifically argue that the Europeans conquered the Americas because of geographic factors rather than because of race? Do I have the main thrust of the book completely backwards?
I’m not sure what their claim is based on as your memory is broadly correct. The two criticisms I’ve read basically come down to it being oversimplified (e.g. ignoring the degree to which European successes depended on local allies) and that it ends to being too passive about the decisions made at key points which weren’t accidents of geography even if some of the capability to conquer arguably was.
Here’s a reasonable summary:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/guns-germs-an...
https://www.livinganthropologically.com/archaeology/guns-ger...
There’s hours of reading in the Reddit r/AskHistorians FAQ:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
You're correct and the grandparent is wrong. I'm seeing a lot weird hate for this book by people who haven't read it. I'm guessing there is someone with a ideological bone to pick that spread a mind virus about the book.
Like any book of its scope, there are obviously things that can be criticized ... but at least read it, and state those objections clearly.
> someone with a ideological bone to pick
Not really "someone", more like most anthropologists. E.g. David Wengrow and David Graeber's takedown in Dawn of Everything
Or
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503687
Did you read that book? I did, and Graeber certainly doesn’t think GGS or Diamond is racist
Yes I have read the book. I can't seem to access the rest of the parent tree (did our comments get shadow-banned?) but I think I was just trying to provide support for the abundant criticism that book has gotten
However, I don't think there's anything in the book that suggests Graeber and Wengrow DON'T think Diamond is a racist. The few professional anthropologists I'm friends with hold such a view (obvy with more nuance) and I get the impression this type of criticism for Diamond is the norm not the exception in the field
Anyways now that I am explicitly supporting the accusation here's meat to add to the bone:
> Timothy Burke, who teaches African history at Swarthmore College, writing in Cliopatria, says that Diamond's problem is "that a term like 'race' can still serve some useful purpose in describing variations between human populations: I’m not going to make a definitive statement on that subject here. But just to give the example of the Africa chapter, Diamond clings to the term 'blacks' as racial category within which to place most pre-1500 sub-Saharan Africans except for Khoisan-speakers and “pygmies,” even as he explicitly acknowledges that it is an extremely poor categorical descriptor of the human groups he is placing in that category."
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/03/guns-germs-an...
> Arguments such as these have made him a darling of bourgeois intellectuals, who have grown tired of looking meanspirited and self-serving when they make their transparently desperate efforts to displace histories of imperialism back on its victims. They need a pseudointellectual explanation for inequality in order to sustain the bourgeois social order that guarantees their privilege. This they found in Guns, Germs and Steel.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455752.2013.84...
> This approach distances Diamond’s analysis from much of the current literature on cultural interactions in modern history - indeed, his suggestions for further reading omit almost all of the standard literature on the history of imperialism and post-colonialism, world-systems, underdevelopment or socio-economic change over the last five hundred years. Thus the large debate that is currently going on over historical explanations of the wealth and poverty of nations in a global context is here reduced to a sub-set of the ultimate question about bronze tools and geographic connectedness - ‘technology may have developed most rapidly in regions with moderate connectedness [Europe], neither too high [China], nor too low [India]’ [p. 416].
https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/51
(this paper is called Fuck Jared Diamond lol)
Yeah the original comment is (rightly) flagged dead
"Racist" is an extremely lazy label; it shuts down any interesting or well-motivated conversation.
It's especially silly in this case because the "traditional racist" explanation to Lali's question is genes, and Diamond's whole point is to provide a different answer to the question. Many people think he has gone too far in the direction of geographical determinism, but that's hardly a racist POV -- it's more like the opposite.
To be clear, what I was saying is NOT that anyone who disagrees with Diamond has an "ideological bone to pick". There are plenty of people who disagree with him honestly -- it's inevitable because it's a work of synthesis that "stomps on" many academic subfields. He makes leaps to the "big picture" that don't meet the standard of evidence for many (although I don't think there is any false advertising of rigor)
What I was saying that the "racist" label applied to Diamond is evidence of someone who wants to shut down conversation, probably because he doesn't conform to that person's ideology. If they understand what he wrote, they wouldn't make such a claim (especially not as a one line Internet comment)
---
These critiques linked by a sibling are better, and show evidence of having read the book!
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
---
It's weird that you say there's a lack of evidence that Graeber and Wengrow don't think Diamond is racist. If that's what you take away, it seems like a pretty big misunderstanding.
The problem that Graeber and Wengrow have with Diamond (and "big history" authors like Harari) is that they assume that inequality is inevitable and we have little agency as human societies to do otherwise.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/opinion/graeber-wengrow-d...
I actually love this point and 100% agree -- we should be consciously shaping our society to be more egalitarian, and not just let evolution and capitalism play out.
However it's also true that Dawn of Everything doesn't propose solutions. It's an amazing critique, including accurate claims of Eurocentrism and male bias, but it doesn't lay out a path forward. It gives evidence for many egalitarian societies, but falls short on how we apply those lessons to our own.
----
The original post in this subthread reminds me of
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128061
i.e. people read things and don't pick up on nuance -- all information (e.g. a book on the entirety of human history) is eventually reduced to a single bit of "racist" or "not racist"
The book is not racist. But the presented evidence is cherry picked and there's plenty of misrepresentation.
I read the first of "The Murderbot Diaries" series by Martha Wells after seeing it recommended several times. Short, snappy and very modern, I intend to continue reading the series to see where it goes.
"You're Not Listening" by Kate Murphy.
Having read more books on "how to communicate better" than I should admit to, Murphy's easy yet highly usedul read reminded me just how important listening is, just how important people feeling like they've been heard it.
I'm honestly not doing it just, and pardon the cliche but it was a game changer for me.
https://www.harvard.com/book/youre_not_listening/
p.s. This was my second answer. Sorry?
$100M offers by Alex Hormozi. The writing itself isn't all that polished, but the content is great. It's been very useful in thinking through my own business positioning and offerings.
- You Are Worth It: Building a Life Worth Fighting For by Kyle Carpenter
- What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry
- The Star Principle: How It Can Make You Rich
- Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success
- The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
- Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and TensorFlow
- The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eger
Listened to a lot of audiobooks this year, and can recommend:
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan (Biography and background to the development of the ICBM)
The American War in Afghanistan: A History by Carter Malkasian
One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs (about the Cuban missile crisis)
Chip War by Chris Miller (about the semiconductor industry and it's place in geopolitical competition)
In the fiction category I thouroughly enjoyed the "Green Bone Saga" by Fonda Lee:
The story sits somewhere between Asian mafia clan drama, crime and magical fantasy. They were the kind of books where I buy both audio and paperback to keep reading wherever possible..Price of Time by Chancellor. Out of the new books I read, will be a classic of financial history. It isn't technical, it isn't a complete critique of QE but it is the most understandable, fully-explained critique...also well-timed (again, Chancellor wrote a book in 1999 about financial bubbles).
“The Persuaders” by Anand Giridharadas https://thepersuadersbook.com/
How to open a door to more effective conversations with real people you care about and interact with in your communities.
I devoured Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers this year. I rarely read a book in a single sitting.
Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers. Tight and well written, not dated at all.
Top three (sorry)
Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism by Kathryn Tanner. A really good look at how capitalism has been expressed in our modern world, and how Christianity should not enable the worst excesses of capitalism.
The Power Broker by Robert Caro. This one actually took me about 6 months between reading and Audible, because it is in some ways too detailed, but the naked use of power for maintaining power for a singular vision is illuminating. Even in an antagonistic biography, Moses leaps off the page as a bright, energetic, flawed human. I enjoyed this a lot.
Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women by Lucy Peppiat. A persuasive, intelligent, and solid look at how Christianity in America has taken many unfortunate turns away from reading Scripture as a document of equality and elevation, and toward a document of hierarchy and repression. I think Peppiat does a good job of discussing all theological avenues of thought and while clearly disfavoring some, not stooping to ridicule, caricature, or personal attack.
I've been reading a lot of history books. For me, reading history is like reading fiction but better. It still transports me to a different place. But the characters are more realistic. My suspension of disbelief never breaks. And I learn about things which really happened.
If you just want to dip your toe in reading history, the Cartoon Guide to the History of the Universe series is a reasonable place to start. I think it prioritizes entertainment over accuracy some, but it's pretty entertaining! https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-History-Universe-Volumes-1-7/...
Someone I know factchecked a different book, A Brief History of the Human Race, and said it did really well: https://acesounderglass.com/2017/04/18/epistemic-spot-check-...
I read A Brief History of the Human Race based on their recommendation and I can def recommend it also. So here's the link on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Human-Race/dp/039332645...
After learning about the macro contours of history, I started reading more about specific things which seemed potentially interesting. I liked all of these, roughly in this order:
* Venice: https://www.amazon.com/Venice-History-Thomas-F-Madden/dp/014...
* Lincoln and contemporaries: https://www.amazon.com/Team-Rivals-Political-Abraham-Lincoln...
* The United Nations: https://www.amazon.com/United-Nations-History-Stanley-Meisle...
Reading history is a great way of getting a broader perspective.
Learning about history is underwhelming when you do it as a kid because when you're young, everything is new to you. You don't gain an appreciation for how interesting the past really was.
But as an adult, you have a well-developed model of how the world is supposed to be, so history becomes really interesting because you realize that lots of historical events actually violate your model. (Did you know that when Venice first heard about the USA, they didn't bother establishing diplomatic relations because they thought the experiment would not last? Turns out it was the Venetian state that soon disappeared! Sometimes it feels like I'm highlighting an interesting fact like that on practically every page. There's a lot that gets left out of popular narratives.)
A German Officer in Occupied Paris: The War Journals, 1941-1945.
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.
(in terms of genre, I guess you'd call it urban fantasy, kind of, but it's really more of a classic fable - in structure, not in story - told in an original way)
* Prompt and utter destruction : Truman and the use of atomic bombs against Japan: the decision making process of the US leadership leading up to August and why the US / Truman thought the use of atomic weapons was 'necessary'. Related: American Prometheus, a bio on Oppenheimer.
* Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin: the story of the people of Eastern and Central Europe during the early 20th century.
* Man's Search for Meaning: An Holocaust survivor explains on how to find hope and meaning even in the darkest of times.
* Why civil resistance works: the strategic logic of nonviolent conflict: Examining on how most resist movements in the last one hundred years have tended to be more successful when they eschew violence.
* The origins of Canadian and American political differences: On how two very similiar-seeming countries right next to each other could diverge in their cultures. (I'm Canadian.)
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Queen's Thief series by Megan Turner. I went into it not expecting much but came away from it surprised in a number of ways.
It’s older, but I read The Wonder by Emma Donoghue. The movie just came out on Netflix too so the timing was great. She wrote Room previously and really enjoyed it
not released this year, but quite new:
Bobiverse Series by Dennis Taylor https://www.goodreads.com/series/192752-bobiverse
Project Hail Mary by Weir Andy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493401-project-hail-ma...
The first bobiverse book was cool and unique, others were just juicing the same thing with no real plot twists and great ideas
Anarchy, State, and Utopia - Robert Nozick
When you question competence of state, usefulness of bureaucracy, purpose of police, laws and basically dependence society on state.
The coolest book I’ve ever read is The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil. I believe a sequel updated to today’s technology is due for this year as well.
My favourite three- - Heartwood by Rowan Reid - Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - The Call Of The Reed Warbler by Charles Massy
https://buchdesmonats.okoyono.de/
The Great Core Paradox - Never did I think that reading about the perspective of a dungeon monster would be so enjoyable.
Refugee Scholars in America. Their impact and their experiences by Lewis A Coser
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell because it's creepy AF
The World of Yesterday Memoirs of a European by Stefan Zweig
I’ve been reading Babel by R F Kuang and greatly enjoying it.
Glenn Greenwald - No Place to Hide
Reason why isn't necessarily because of the specifics of the 2013 leaks, but because he documents the interaction between government and press (and how he was demonized and threatened afterwards). Tl;dr the government blackmailed journalists to keep the story from getting published
Also (on a related note because both are about obscure bureaucracy), Kafka's Castle. Kafka bored me at first, but he writes situations that are just a little "off" in a way that's really unique. It's incredibly hard to describe and definitely very surreal, he takes certain aspects of human nature and amplifies them to the point of absurdity
Qualityland written by Marc-Uwe Kling
Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee.
i embarked on a full reread of the discworld series, and really nothing can compare to pratchett!
The Bible
lenin by victor sebestyen
I seriously doubt this appeals to the modern Hacker News crowd, but it might appeal to a couple of you:
Published in October 2022, The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 4B is dazzling. It's like a guide to expressing (in non-obvious ways) all kinds of problems as some variation on Exact Cover (or Boolean Satisfiability) and using wicked tight little general-purpose backtracking solvers to solve them.
If you want a peek, watch Knuth's 2018 lecture on Dancing Links Exact Cover:
https://youtu.be/_cR9zDlvP88
Did you mean Volume 4 Fascile 5 ? 4b is Combinatorial Algorithms.
No, I mean https://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming-Combinatoria...
Classic: Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. One of the best books I’ve ever read. Entertaining and deep thoughts included! The only philosophical, sci-fi comedy book you need.
Read Voltaire's Candide https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19942
I loved Hitchhiker's & also Candide, +1!
Or Independent People if you want a slightly more modern version.
> By JFK Jr.
He's been dead for like 20 years. I think you mean RFK Jr.
Yes thank you for the correction
Nope, that’s just what “they” (ask Yeezy he know who), WANT you to think. The truth is JFK Jr is the night manager at an Arby’s in South Dakota.
This book is garbage.
did u read it?
Pretty sure you can get that same level of knowledge from smoking bathtub meth and watching YouTube videos at 19x speed.
https://rumble.com/v1ol9bg-robert-f.-kennedy-jr.-on-dr.-fauc...
I recommend watching this
I’ll preface this by saying that I have no problems with fauci and so I’m definitely not the target market for this book.
I wonder, though, what would make a person want to read a book about someone that they hate? I can’t imagine a more useless use of my time than that. Even if the book was true (which I highly doubt given some of the other notable books by the same author “Profiles of the Vaccine injured”, “A letter to liberals”, and “The Wuhan Coverup”), what do you gain? Sounds like concentrated rage-fuel to me…
"what would make a person want to read a book about someone that they hate"
I would/am reading history books about Hitler, Stalin, etc. You want to understand how something so atrocious can happen and how such people can rule over so many, not just rule, and how so many would follow them and love them. It is pretty valuable to try to understand that.
> Sounds like concentrated rage-fuel to me…
That's what you gain. You get a cardboard villain to hate.
Thank you for sharing your recommendation, but I'm afraid that this book contains misinformation and promotes conspiracy theories that are not supported by evidence. I would kindly ask that you refrain from posting recommendations for this book in the future, as it is not in line with the standards and guidelines of HN.
Sorry for the posting and thank you for the reply. I would recommend you read this book as RFK Jr references many of the facts in this book. More and more evidence is being revealed to directly support RFK's assertions. Please send me a few of the "conspiracy theories that are not supported"? Have a pleasant day.
Not OP but https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr%2e has a summary.
I have just checked the text of the guidelines and I see reference to «flamebait» and «political or ideological battle [which] tramples curiosity».
But the post in question does not necessarily match the above, though in a way possibly leaning.
It may still just reflect a point of interest.
Is guzik a moderator like dang?
No, it's just a random commentor trying to police the community. A sort of cosplay dang without the charm or authority.
And I'll thank you for not running in the hall.
Where the hell do people get off?
Isn't RFK Jr. one of the people that believes that vaccines cause autism?
Well that’s also 5G, it’s more of a synergistic thing. Bill Gates talked all about it on the podcast “Batshit Crazy Rantings for the Easily Misled”.