Read “ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. It’s ultimately a work of fiction but there are some mind fuck ideas and perspective shifts there that are worth toying around with as a young man and searching for your own balance between his ideas and your vision of yourself.
Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#62I'd highly recommend "rich dad poor dad." At 18, you're probably too broke to use the information in it but it will lay down a strategy for building wealth as soon as you start getting income. IF I had it 15 years ago, I'd be a millionaire today. There's a lot of decisions I would have done differently had I read it at the time.
Right now, the employed quadrant pays unrealistically high. This wasn't always the case, but Rich Dad Poor Dad over the years made it such that architect and doctors quit their jobs to become stock traders and bakery owners. So there's a lot more demand for people who are willing to sit in an office. It's definitely an Employee's market, at least in 2021, and you'll wear yourself thin trying to hire. Sam Altman also said a few years back that more people wanted to be investors than start startups, so as a beginner investor, you're very likely to end up with bad deals.
I wouldn't say it's a bad book, but read it and apply concepts of economics to it. It gives you a piece of the puzzle but it's incomplete.
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#63Read “ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. It’s ultimately a work of fiction but there are some mind fuck ideas and perspective shifts there that are worth toying around with as a young man and searching for your own balance between his ideas and your vision of yourself.
This is a fun experiment for a single 18 year old.
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#64"A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy [1]. An autobiographical story of Tolstoy's "search for meaning" when he was, I believe, around the same age. A masterpiece in around 80 pages. From a more practical angle, I wish I had had "Early Retirement Extreme" by Jacob Lund Fisker [2] in my shelf at that age. Don't get fooled by the title, this is by no means a "highway to financial independence" book; rather, it's a really deep b…
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#65Read “ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. It’s ultimately a work of fiction but there are some mind fuck ideas and perspective shifts there that are worth toying around with as a young man and searching for your own balance between his ideas and your vision of yourself.
[1] Last time I checked "60 years of challenge" seemed to have a good philosophy on this style
[2] Not salsa, bachata is more intimate and teaches you a thing or two
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#66Read “ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. It’s ultimately a work of fiction but there are some mind fuck ideas and perspective shifts there that are worth toying around with as a young man and searching for your own balance between his ideas and your vision of yourself.
Some were better. Most of the people who joined these communities had a similar pattern in the beginning: men who felt they can't communicate with women or who aren't conventionally attractive learn some canned openers based on stuff they read in The Game, memorize a bunch of "techniques", and basically fake it through "outer game".
After a while, I noticed there were usually two paths they took:
Path One was people who remained stuck in this "outer game" phase where they wear weird stuff to peacock and stand out (a la Mystery), regurgitate a bunch of lines, try to time their "negs" just right. Most of them burned out and/or grew resentful towards women from repeated rejection because the techniques are actually pretty cringe. Sometimes they became very vocal in these forums about how women just want to use them, or how shallow women are, or how much meaningless sex they're having (most of them weren't).
Path Two was people who realized that instead of trying to fake being an interesting and attractive person, they might actually want to become an interesting and attractive person. They evolved to focusing on "inner game". They got a tiny foothold in just approaching women a lot and learned that rejection wasn't the end of the world, and then used that realization to grow as a person, have new legitimately interesting adventures, learn how to groom themselves, and generally just have something interesting that _actually happened_ and _didn't need to be exaggerated_ to have a conversation about. Instead of having to strategize how to bring a woman they're talking to down a notch to make themselves seem "higher value", they actually became "higher value" by improving themselves, and attracting more interesting people while they're at it. There was no incentive for them to lie to women about their experiences or intentions (by omission or otherwise). They could be honest about what they wanted out of life and know that there are plenty of people to meet who are genuinely up for that, too.
I still have a couple of friends who were into that scene, ones who broke out onto Path Two and seem to be doing very well for themselves both in business and relationships. The other ones are long forgotten.
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#67Read “ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. It’s ultimately a work of fiction but there are some mind fuck ideas and perspective shifts there that are worth toying around with as a young man and searching for your own balance between his ideas and your vision of yourself.
I spent a bit of time in the PU community after reading The Game. Many of these places were just toxic: focused on lying to women out of desperation to get sex. Everything from "white lies" about some exciting adventure you had to make you seem like a more interesting person to lying about your intentions, to putting women in very uncomfortable physical situations on purpose. Some were better. Most of the people who…
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#68And stay way from "Anarcho-capitalist" there are not anarchist even if they dream about it...
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#69I'd highly recommend "rich dad poor dad." At 18, you're probably too broke to use the information in it but it will lay down a strategy for building wealth as soon as you start getting income. IF I had it 15 years ago, I'd be a millionaire today. There's a lot of decisions I would have done differently had I read it at the time.
Re: Ask HN: What book should I buy for my 18th birthday?
#70"A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy [1]. An autobiographical story of Tolstoy's "search for meaning" when he was, I believe, around the same age. A masterpiece in around 80 pages. From a more practical angle, I wish I had had "Early Retirement Extreme" by Jacob Lund Fisker [2] in my shelf at that age. Don't get fooled by the title, this is by no means a "highway to financial independence" book; rather, it's a really deep b…
“A confession” was written when Tolstoy was in his early fifties, not when he was 18.