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Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

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Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#211

Post by MikeCapone »

So many, and I wish I could write a long paragraph on each, but I'm unfortunately short on time. I'm posting any in case just one person who hasn't heard of those checks them out and gets value:

-Godel, Escher, Bach (Douglas Hosfstadter)

-The Mindbody Prescription (John E. Sarno, completely cured my long-term crippling RSI that kept me from using computers and was ruining my life)

-Feeling Good (Dr. Burns, cognitive therapy mostly centered on depression, but I want to learn about this before I have depression so that I can avoid it and do 'maintenance' on myself)

-The 5 Love Languages (Gary Chapman, made me understand a lot more about how people express and receive love, and the problems that arise from mismatched languages in relationships)

-Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman (you guys probably already know this)

-The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker)

-The Snowball (Warren Buffett biography)

-Influence (Robert B. Cialdini)

-Your Money or Your Life (Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin)

-When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace (Le Ly Hayslip)

-The Halo Effect (Phil Rosenzweig)

-The LessWrong.com sequences on rationality

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#213

Post by Kalium »

jpollock wrote: post #75

Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - it changed how I approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was limiting outcomes. :) Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change. However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.

I read that book. It definitely changed how I look at people.

It also made me a lot more cynical. I realized around halfway through that the author was (very skillfully) deploying his techniques in the direction of the reader. Further, the author is long-dead. We cannot possibly have a genuine emotional connection.

This helped me understand that genuine empathy is irrelevant. All that matters to convincing people is that they feel empathized with. How you actually feel isn't important, though for many it's likely to be by far the easiest and most reliable way to get there.

Dale Carnegie provided me with a very useful set of tools that I can use to achieve the outcomes I want. For that I'm appreciative.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#215

Post by nabnob »

onychomys wrote: post #180
ndiscussion wrote: post #30

The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. The gene is the unit of replication, and this affects every process in this universe.

Note, of course, that he was wrong about the gene being the unit of selection. Selection happens at an organismal level. As we've come to understand the interconnectedness of the genome, this has become even more clear. Dawkins' ideas generated a lot of debate among evolutionary biologists in the 1980s, but have largely fallen out of favor. They're just too simplistic to reflect reality.

I thought the modern view of natural selection is that it occurs at multiple levels - gene, individual organism, group selection, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#216

Post by taberiand »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #47

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Bottom line: judge your success in life by how well you make your decisions, not by your outcome. You have full control of your decisions, and often no control at all over their results.

Meditations is what immediately came to my mind also. It's a humbling and reassuring look into the mind of a great leader and stoic; to know that there was this man, the most powerful in his time, who strived - and struggled - to be the best he could, is inspiring.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#217

Post by jhardy54 »

pretendscholar wrote: post #169
nikivi wrote: post #7

One book that changed me was reading Master and Margarita in Russian for the first time. It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end. Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time. The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and it was wonderful to hear his ideas in wri…

>I wish everyone read or watched Alan Watts lectures and books. The world would be a much nicer place if that was the case. Parties would become a lot more insufferable.

Shhh. Let people enjoy things.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#218

Post by fancyfish »

I second the recommendation of Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. He takes this simple concept and expands and applies it to modern tech, politics, the workplace, education, etc:

"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play."

The player in a finite game actually wants it to end, where the play itself is just a means to this end. He is "playing against play." The player in an infinite game wants it to continue, and revels in the game itself.

"Although it may be obvious, it is worth stressing that “play,” as it is used here does not mean merely “playing around.” Play, in this discussion, is a metaphor for any number of complex human engagements whenever they take on a competitive, or cooperative, character. Corporations, for example, not only compete with each other but are in themselves populations of strivers, each trying to supplant another, each struggling for higher incomes and titles. The same applies to schools and colleges where attaining superior grade averages, degrees, and honors absorb the lives of students. Sexuality and marriage are often finite battle grounds with winners and losers. In fact, the features of play–finite and infinite–are essentially the same whether we are children playing jacks or soldiers caught up in a war between nations."

To me it is a concise and broadly applicable way to see the world.

https://jamescarse.com/wp/?page_id=61

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189989.Finite_and_Infini...

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#219

Post by scrumper »

subjectHarold wrote: post #189
scrumper wrote: post #162

Animal Farm was a really important book for me. I picked it up aged about 10 or 11 and I remember being really struck by how easily the pigs were able to exploit the other animals' grievances with humans to secure their own power. It felt like a grown-up story with some quite powerful, disturbing meanings under the covers. So I told my English teacher about it and all she told me in response was to go look up the Rus…

[flagged]

I was ten years old, Harold.
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