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Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

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501–510 of 532 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#501
post #101

The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed. Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement…

For what it's worth, sapiens was generally hated by academic anthropologists but Dawn of everything is generally hated by everyone else. Graeber was always expressly advocating for one specific (anarchist) viewpoint in his work, and that book suffers mightily for it. Don't take anything in that book as true, because I've read lots of academics losing their minds over how much he glossed over or just ignored contrary…

Dawn of everything is exquisitely quoted, everything has a source and a sound argument, like if Graeber really expected these people to go after him.

Now, about the 'anarchism', I don't feel that at all. He simply is having a non euro-western centric viewpoint, and that's precisely the underlying theme of the book. Most of the time he chooses to highlight a source that has largely been ignored by the academics, for not being European or maintaining the status quo. So he is actually the only one not ignoring contrary evidence.

If the other anthropologists want a good refutation, I welcome their books with their own explanations and analysis of these anthropological findings.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#502
post #104
post #101

The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed. Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement…

>> Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens Can You elaborate on this? - I quite liked Harraris book, especially his ideas about stories driving human cooperation and expansion. Does this false claims invalidates the main message of Sapiens?

The easiest way to perceive the superficiality of Sapiens is to read: Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan, immediately after the former.

Then you have the master to judge the (accidental) student.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#503
I recently finished Chelsea Manning's Readme.txt and I thought it was great. The themes are about two different types of "trans." Transparency in government and trans rights. I think both topics typically attract different audiences but the book was a fascinating look at both. And if you have interest in both definitely worth checking out.

While it wasn't the primary purpose, I also really enjoyed it from a personal perspective to Manning's upbringing. I have not seen the unique dynamic of growing up in a digitally connected America captured as well as it was in this book. The feeling of immense loneliness in real life but a deep connectedness online resonated very strongly with me.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#504

Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf -- I was approached in an airport by a lovely old gentleman who essentially told me to read this book and insisted I take a photo of it so I wouldn't forget. Half a year later, I'm out of things to read and looking for a change (I never read historical fiction before) and gave it a shot. It has opened a world of a completely new genre for me.

Thank you, I had never heard of Leo Africanus.

But I would rather read his original work Cosmographia, rather than a fictionalized biography (same for Ibn Battuta).

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would try the original book on people pleasing: "No more Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover. The title may sound lousy but is a very logical book. The author is a PhD in his 60s and he coined the concept. You can start by listening some podcasts where he was a guest. He's genuine and a great communicator. Definitely underrated.

After a short search for Dr. Robert Glover I'm getting all kinds of "red pill", "pickup advice", "men's rights" links etc, all of which are red flags to me for "incel" kind of stuff. Is that also what I can expect from the book, or did I come to conclusions too quickly?

I think you've successfully protected yourself against very dangerous information.

Had you read this stuff without first conceiving the notions that you did conceive, you would have risked being radicalized by the hateful, racist, misogynistic, islamaphobic, homophobic, Bidenophobic ideas contained in such literature.

It's a good thing that today we have both corporate and state-sponsored mass media available to create and attach these kinds of labels to dangerous information for us. It not only saves us time, but keeps us safe from exposure to harmful information.

I'm glad you were able to catch yourself before being exposed to these dangerous and radicalizing ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What practical lessons did you take from these books?

I hope to write about this in detail sometime. Just giving myself some time for experience to percolate and synthesize into something worth publishing. Meanwhile, I'll give one instance of how it helps practically. Say, I manage engineers, and I have a new intern, who is supposed to behave in a particular way, with particular standards. Their words strongly suggest sincerity, but again and again their actions go in t…

@atomicnature how do I follow you when you write detail about above books?

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#509
post #165

It’s been probably a year since I read The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich, but the ideas in there have really stuck in my head. The WEIRD acronym stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The thesis is that the Christian Church inadvertently created modern society by prohibiting polygamy and cousin marriage. The topic of polygamy is what’s really stuck in my head. Polygamy is…

Ya right. Like any one in their right mind wants to have 10 wives to deal with. Dont get confuse hooking up with marriage. I think Esther Perel has written the best stuff on modern relationships. Read her.

Islam prohibits more than 4 wives and obliges the husband to treat every wife equally, so much so that most men who are even rich enough to marry more than one wife don’t due to of fears of not being able to treat them equally. (rich enough: women need not work in Islam. Their husband, relatives, and the state is obliged to provide for them in this order) That’s the best solution.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?

#510
post #354

I’ve also been getting back into fantasy and sci-fi. I’m reading through the Wheel of Time series right now and it’s the best series I’ve ever read. I’m on book 7 and really glad there’s still 7 books left. If you liked Eragon, then you’ll probably love this series. Contrast that to Dune, which I heard so much praise for and was very very disappointed by. The first Dune book was ok, but it just went downhill from the…

WoT is great, albeit a bit slow in the middle. But the last three books are just amazing, Brandon Sanderson was hired to finish the series and he did it expertly.

A great series I can recommend is Red Rising from Pierce Brown (book 6 just came out, one more to go).

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