Haven't been able to put it all into practise, but they opened my eyes to what's possible, and provided some motivation to make the best use of the space we've got.
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
This book has had a profound impact for years now on how I look at myself and those around me. I never saw shame as it's own entity beforehand and simply thought it was part of culture and the way things are. Now I see it as something to avoid like the plague for the sake of myself and those around me.
I'm planning on starting The Founding Fish this evening, a recommendation from a friend. It will be my first McPhee book and I'm very much looking forward to it.
I recently read Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari and it nearly broke my mind. It was on Obama and Bill Gates' reading lists that year and it is phenomenal. It's like one of those books that took some ideas I had been kicking around for years and blew the whole thing wide open.
If you want to get a taste, go look up 'The Legend of Peugot' from the book.
There was also a sale on the ebook for $3 on Amazon this weekend -- not sure if it's still going.
There are a lot of fantastic ideas (whether one agree or not with the author) in this book. 2 that come to my mind:
- we tend to think that our species was a result of evolution - a concept that's somehow nice and smooth. In reality, the author argues, at each step of the evolution, the 'better' species simply exterminated the previous one. Think about that ! We (or our ancestor) just exterminated those poor Neanderthals that we so fondly think of now
- when he describes a corporation and applicable law (I think it's about Peugeot) comparing the lawyers to shamans. It really makes you realizes how most things and laws of what govern our world are just pure invention and it's very similar to religion actually
Please don't... every time a thread like this shows up on HN, I end up impulsively buying some of the recommended books. I'm usually very happy about the purchase, though. :).
Humor aside; not sure if favourite of all times, but definitely impacted my thinking a lot:
- "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" - https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/ - read this when it was still a bunch of posts by 'Eliezer on LessWrong. It cleaned up my thinking quite a bit, and introduced to couple new ideas from economics, sociology and epistemology.
- SICP, obviously.
- "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" - from the father of the whole genre of self-help/personal development, and one whose books are still probably the only good ones in this genre, Dale Carnegie. They explain exactly what it says in their titles.
Sapiens is an okay book, but it’s all over the place. On one hand it kinda says that in many regards we have hypothesis at best (ie we don’t know) to follow it with [sometimes] wild theories.
There is no way you can cover as much ground as the author wanted in a book this size. It got diluted and turned into the classic “X best seller” crap.
For me, it was probably the most important book I have read in the last 10 years, if only to expand my thinking to stop making assumptions about everything. To me, rather than a textbook claiming authority over an entire field, it was a demonstration of the exercise of searching for reason for the way things are beyond "that's the way it is", for things I took for granted in an extremely religious upbringing.
I had a different experience. There is a lot of speculation in the book and normally I would not mind it that much, but again you have to practice what you preach (which the author does not).
Again, it’s an okay book. I wouldn’t say the best in the last 10,5,2,1,0 years but worth reading, if only to form your own opinion and learn a few interesting factoids here and there.
- "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" - probably the most influential book I've read in my life, profoundly changed the way I think. It's a collection of LessWrong essays on science and rationality.
- "On Intelligence" and "I am a Strange Loop" - how mind works.
- Fun autobiographies: Ghost in the Wires (Kevin Mitnick), iWoz (Steve Wozniak), Catch me if you can (Frank Abagnale), Just for Fun (Linus Torvalds), Elon Musk, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- How companies work: Creativity Inc (Pixar), In the Plex (Google)
- On writing: Art of fiction/nonfiction by Ayn Rand, Story by Robert McKee, Save the Cat, Step by Step to Standup Comedy.
- Other: The Selfish Gene, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Serious Creativity, Hackers & Painters, Hacking Growth, Angel (on angel investing, by Jason Calacanis).
Also collections of essays by Paul Graham [1] and Scott Alexander [2]:
The Selfish Gene has been the most influential book on my life. Especially when Dawkins makes the point about pre-darwininan philosophy needing rethinking. His point being that natural selection/evolution is such a profound notion that it should be embedded into the underpinnings of philosophy itself.
You know, when I first saw (many years ago) an animation of DNA replication my first though was: hey, this looks like code.
Imagine my suprise seeing this Dawkins fellow comparing DNA to code in the beggining of the “The Blind Watchmaker”. Great minds... something something.
Hah, I remember learning about how DNA works in secondary school. You know, there's this "reading frame" that reads "triplets of nucleotides"... just like a CPU reading machine instructions! Might have had something to do with me reading an intro book to x86 ASM at that time.
For me the comparison of gene and meme blew me away. In short: There are not one but two things in you yearning/working to be reproduced: your genes (not body) and your memes/meme complexes. Thosr memes that are not good at getting reproduced die out, just like for genes.
The book is now around 40 years old but still stunning in its insightfulness.
It may be interesting at the end of this thread to take an inventory of the publishing dates of listed books. Will most be modern? Will many come from learned past of our elders?
It is hard for me to select a favorite. However as a voracious reader there is only one author for whom I have found myself re-reading his books multiple times: Robert Sarah.
He has published two books:
The Power of Silence (extended reflection on silence and the human condition)
God or Nothing (autobiography + reflections on current affairs)
Very interesting that you point to a Meditation book (The Mind Illuminated) and a Stoic book (A Guide to the Good Life).
I've read both, and I like both philosophies. While they both share similarities (non attachment, living in the present), it seems that in Vipasana you wouldn't try to get rid of a bad thouhgt by using your rationality. You would just observe it.
While Stoicism demands engaging rationality to overcome the emotion or bad thought.
Have you thought on how to reconcile the two? This is something I've been pondering for a while.
I think early Buddhism and Stoicism can be cobbled together into a workable philosophy, and I think Vipassana is also complementary with a number of Stoic practices.
Like you've identified, a recurring apparent disagreement between the two philosophies is how to relate to positive and negative phenomena: In the stoic view, positive phenomena should be enjoyed, but we should be clearly aware that they're impermanent so that we're not disappointed when they inevitably end. Likewise, we should bear negative phenomena with the knowledge that we could always be experiencing something even more negative.
In Buddhism, there's also guidance for relating to positive and negative phenomena in a different way, but it doesn't appear to agree with the Stoics. In Buddhist thought, we should use concentration careful attention to our inner experience to cultivate equanimity toward both positive and negative phenomena while growing a deep sense of inner fulfillment.
I don't think these are actually that different: in both philosophies, the end state — whether that of a Buddhist arhat or a Stoic sage — is to be pretty much happy with whatever's going on, and the path is essentially to become aware of the bad in the good and the good in the bad. Really, I think the main difference is that the Stoic philosophy is phrased and framed in a more accessible way, but the practices complement each other well.
Concretely, imagine your dog is sick and will probably die. Stoicism tells you to appreciate every moment you have left with your dog but to vividly imagine your experience of him dying to lessen the blow when he does, and to prepare yourself for (and convince yourself of!) that eventuality. Buddhism would suggest you meditate on the mental talk, mental imagery, and emotional body sensations associated with your experience of the trauma. These are, in my mind, complementary ways to cultivate equanimity, and are even better used together than separately.
Reading this so far has been one of the most rewarding learning experiences of my life. If you are interested in how philosophy, religion, and civilization has emerged and grown in our species, than you will be constantly delighted while reading this. The Durants are equal to none.
It is a bit unfortunate that the Durants crammed all non-Western history in a single volume while devoting ten to European history, but it was a product of its time. Still, it is certainly well written and few historians attempt this sort of "complete" history these days.
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. The sheer breadth of the ideas covered in this book is breathtaking, and there are some truly mind-bending ideas explored in this book. If you're looking for a good general science book I highly recommend this one.
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom. Few thinkers have thought about this issue as deeply as Bostrom, and it was fascinating to hear his thoughts on AI.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Pretty traumatic read but essential if you really want to understand a dark and overlooked chapter of American history
I would love to hear more commentary on Bostrom. From the parts I've heard (in podcasts - still haven't read the book), it is a lot of talking about technology that is nowhere near where we are today, and thus (to me), a waste of time. But I am open to being convinced otherwise...
Bomber Command by Max Hastings. This book explained the change in Allies attitudes around bombing during WWII from "only barbarians bomb civillians" to the mass fire bombing of heavily populated cities. It was also eye-opening to read about the massive death rate in bomber command. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bomber-Command-Pan-Military-Classic...
The Art of Electronics, and especially the student manual that accompanies it. I read these a long time ago, and at the time it was a pretty good introductionto electronics, especially if you bought some cheap second hand test equipment and had a few breadboards and components to do the lab work. I'm not sure if it's aged well. There are a bunch of people on HN who still do electronic work who could recommend better newer books.
> I'm not sure if it's aged well. There are a bunch of people on HN who still do electronic work who could recommend better newer books.
Not a professional in this area, but between various HN comments I've read and YouTube channels like EEVblog, I've seen the third edition of this book recommended multiple times as the best book. It's actually sitting on my to-buy list because of that.
Command And Control, by Eric Schlosser. A history of America's nuclear weapons program and it's many near-disasters.
Raven, by Tim Reiterman. Biography of Jim Jones by one of the journalists who'd reported the story the longest.
Liquid Intelligence, by Dave Arnold. Everything you need to know to understand cocktails and make good ones.
On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee. An exhaustive reference on the history and science of food and ingredients. Every page has something surprising and useful.
Empires of Light, by Jonnes. Titan, by Chernow. The Wright Brothers, by McCullough. His Excellency, by Ellis. The Wizard of Menlo Park, by Stross. I Invented the Modern Age, by Snow. Dealers of Lightning, by Hiltzik. Margin of Safety, by Klarman. Masters of Doom, by Kushner. Andrew Carnegie, by Nasaw. Infidel, by Hirsi Ali. Buffett, by Lowenstein. Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Hafner. Shoe Dog, by Knight. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Rhodes.
91 comments
[ 7.2 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadHaven't been able to put it all into practise, but they opened my eyes to what's possible, and provided some motivation to make the best use of the space we've got.
If you want to get a taste, go look up 'The Legend of Peugot' from the book.
There was also a sale on the ebook for $3 on Amazon this weekend -- not sure if it's still going.
Can you perhaps mention some examples?
- we tend to think that our species was a result of evolution - a concept that's somehow nice and smooth. In reality, the author argues, at each step of the evolution, the 'better' species simply exterminated the previous one. Think about that ! We (or our ancestor) just exterminated those poor Neanderthals that we so fondly think of now
- when he describes a corporation and applicable law (I think it's about Peugeot) comparing the lawyers to shamans. It really makes you realizes how most things and laws of what govern our world are just pure invention and it's very similar to religion actually
Humor aside; not sure if favourite of all times, but definitely impacted my thinking a lot:
- "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" - https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/ - read this when it was still a bunch of posts by 'Eliezer on LessWrong. It cleaned up my thinking quite a bit, and introduced to couple new ideas from economics, sociology and epistemology.
- SICP, obviously.
- "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" - from the father of the whole genre of self-help/personal development, and one whose books are still probably the only good ones in this genre, Dale Carnegie. They explain exactly what it says in their titles.
2. The Gene: An Intimate History - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276428-the-gene
3. I Contain Multitudes - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29083367-i-contain-multi...
4. Stuff Matters - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19553030-stuff-matters
5. Rework - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6732019-rework
Again, it’s an okay book. I wouldn’t say the best in the last 10,5,2,1,0 years but worth reading, if only to form your own opinion and learn a few interesting factoids here and there.
- "On Intelligence" and "I am a Strange Loop" - how mind works.
- "Rework", "Zero to One", "Start Small, Stay Small" - insightful startup advice.
- Fun autobiographies: Ghost in the Wires (Kevin Mitnick), iWoz (Steve Wozniak), Catch me if you can (Frank Abagnale), Just for Fun (Linus Torvalds), Elon Musk, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- How companies work: Creativity Inc (Pixar), In the Plex (Google)
- On writing: Art of fiction/nonfiction by Ayn Rand, Story by Robert McKee, Save the Cat, Step by Step to Standup Comedy.
- Other: The Selfish Gene, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Serious Creativity, Hackers & Painters, Hacking Growth, Angel (on angel investing, by Jason Calacanis).
Also collections of essays by Paul Graham [1] and Scott Alexander [2]:
[1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/2no0sqybnxurpcd/Paul%20Graham%20-%...
[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/i43lqpdyd4qa255/The%20Library%20of...
The book is now around 40 years old but still stunning in its insightfulness.
The Innovator's Dilemma
Thinking Fast and Slow
Godel Eschel Bach
Hard Things about Hard Things
It is hard for me to select a favorite. However as a voracious reader there is only one author for whom I have found myself re-reading his books multiple times: Robert Sarah.
He has published two books:
The Power of Silence (extended reflection on silence and the human condition) God or Nothing (autobiography + reflections on current affairs)
Some are pretty short reads as well. I just read "Information and Society" and enjoyed it.
• Sapiens
• Thinking Fast and Slow
• The Mind Illuminated
• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
I've read both, and I like both philosophies. While they both share similarities (non attachment, living in the present), it seems that in Vipasana you wouldn't try to get rid of a bad thouhgt by using your rationality. You would just observe it.
While Stoicism demands engaging rationality to overcome the emotion or bad thought.
Have you thought on how to reconcile the two? This is something I've been pondering for a while.
Like you've identified, a recurring apparent disagreement between the two philosophies is how to relate to positive and negative phenomena: In the stoic view, positive phenomena should be enjoyed, but we should be clearly aware that they're impermanent so that we're not disappointed when they inevitably end. Likewise, we should bear negative phenomena with the knowledge that we could always be experiencing something even more negative.
In Buddhism, there's also guidance for relating to positive and negative phenomena in a different way, but it doesn't appear to agree with the Stoics. In Buddhist thought, we should use concentration careful attention to our inner experience to cultivate equanimity toward both positive and negative phenomena while growing a deep sense of inner fulfillment.
I don't think these are actually that different: in both philosophies, the end state — whether that of a Buddhist arhat or a Stoic sage — is to be pretty much happy with whatever's going on, and the path is essentially to become aware of the bad in the good and the good in the bad. Really, I think the main difference is that the Stoic philosophy is phrased and framed in a more accessible way, but the practices complement each other well.
Concretely, imagine your dog is sick and will probably die. Stoicism tells you to appreciate every moment you have left with your dog but to vividly imagine your experience of him dying to lessen the blow when he does, and to prepare yourself for (and convince yourself of!) that eventuality. Buddhism would suggest you meditate on the mental talk, mental imagery, and emotional body sensations associated with your experience of the trauma. These are, in my mind, complementary ways to cultivate equanimity, and are even better used together than separately.
2. Models
3. The 4-hour workweek
[1]https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ...
Reading this so far has been one of the most rewarding learning experiences of my life. If you are interested in how philosophy, religion, and civilization has emerged and grown in our species, than you will be constantly delighted while reading this. The Durants are equal to none.
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom. Few thinkers have thought about this issue as deeply as Bostrom, and it was fascinating to hear his thoughts on AI.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Pretty traumatic read but essential if you really want to understand a dark and overlooked chapter of American history
The Unfinished Parable of the Sparrows https://blog.oup.com/2014/08/unfinished-fable-sparrows-super...
1. 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', R. Rhodes
2. 'Apollo: Race to the Moon', C. Murray, C. Cox
3. 'The Prize', D. Yergin
4. 'Are Your Lights On?', D. Gause, G. Weinberg
5. 'Becoming A Technical Leader', G. Weinberg
The Art of Electronics, and especially the student manual that accompanies it. I read these a long time ago, and at the time it was a pretty good introductionto electronics, especially if you bought some cheap second hand test equipment and had a few breadboards and components to do the lab work. I'm not sure if it's aged well. There are a bunch of people on HN who still do electronic work who could recommend better newer books.
Not a professional in this area, but between various HN comments I've read and YouTube channels like EEVblog, I've seen the third edition of this book recommended multiple times as the best book. It's actually sitting on my to-buy list because of that.
Raven, by Tim Reiterman. Biography of Jim Jones by one of the journalists who'd reported the story the longest.
Liquid Intelligence, by Dave Arnold. Everything you need to know to understand cocktails and make good ones.
On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee. An exhaustive reference on the history and science of food and ingredients. Every page has something surprising and useful.
Design of Crystal and Other Harmonic Oscillators by Parzen delighted me with its practical depth and detail.
- Thinking fast, and slow
- 7 habits of highly effective people
- Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
- Getting Things Done
- Choose Yourself
Empires of Light, by Jonnes. Titan, by Chernow. The Wright Brothers, by McCullough. His Excellency, by Ellis. The Wizard of Menlo Park, by Stross. I Invented the Modern Age, by Snow. Dealers of Lightning, by Hiltzik. Margin of Safety, by Klarman. Masters of Doom, by Kushner. Andrew Carnegie, by Nasaw. Infidel, by Hirsi Ali. Buffett, by Lowenstein. Where Wizards Stay Up Late, by Hafner. Shoe Dog, by Knight. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Rhodes.