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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
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
https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-prominent-journal-...
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 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.
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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
The article describes all of this in detail.
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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
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…
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 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 sc…
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) text…
You will probably enjoy CMU Statistician Cosma Shalizi's fabulous review of Red Plenty: http://bactra.org/weblog/918.html
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.