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Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#741

Post by hluska »

tb_technical wrote: post #658
hluska wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing wrong with this whole thing is that you think it’s okay to start relationships with a lie. Thats not okay. It demonstrates a lack of integrity. Your friends deserve better.

Perhaps, but they do seem to like me. Should I warn them? Tell them I'm dangerous?

No of course not. You're not dangerous...if so, uh, I am logged into a random stranger's Hacker News account. :)

Kidding aside friend, I get the feeling you've been hurt in the past and that's really sad. I can't change any of that. But I can tell you that you're a pretty cool person in the present and you can attract other cool people by being authentically you. Consider your list of favourite books - you're fricking cool.

If you're authentically you, you will get burned and that's sad. But in a way, you're burning other people to keep from being burned.

Thanks for this talk - I enjoy you.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#742

Post by tb_technical »

dyauspitr wrote: post #723
tb_technical wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, yeah. Any controversial political book will do.

Well how far do you want to go? Saying it’s the turner diaries means you’re left with a peer group that are only potentially violent, white supremacists.

I try to avoid white supremacists if at all possible.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#745

Post by tb_technical »

cactacea wrote: post #475
lolinder wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you. > Edit: tests ... with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world. My 2c Do you see the irony here? I wouldn't personally run the kind of test OP is running, but I think that even in your case the test succeeded: they've successfully separated themselve…

Dunno, testing people like that is such an incredibly unhealthy and misguided way to talk to people that I have a very hard time thinking I'm missing out here. Maybe that's just me though

Unhealthy for who, exactly? People who I won't get along with?

Isn't it better that we don't interact, in this case? People aren't infinitely malleable - and I have no right to demand behavior from others. So, in my mind, it's better for everyone if we're separated from each other.

Do you hang around people that dislike talking to you? I don't recommend that. I don't think anyone recommends that.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#746

Post by whacko_quacko »

"The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins. Very succinct and beautiful explanations for evolution, which in turn explains why chaotic systems under a set of rules tend to spontaneously self organize.

Apart from pop-sci like Dawkins, I'd say the "Discworld" series by Pratchett. Probably the Watch/Sam Vimes books

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#747

Post by slwvx »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #737
llamaimperative wrote: post #16

Henry George’s Progress & Poverty conducted what can only be described as a coup on my worldview, and I am not alone in that experience. It is an incredible argument that will just utterly transform how you understand a walk down the street. If you’ve been seeing references to the Land Value Tax (LVT) here on HN, this is the book that originated the concept. Like most conceptual breakthroughs, it didn’t emerge solely…

Taxing land is definitely not a revolutionary concept. What made George famous is that he wrote a manifesto that blamed the "rich" land owners for all the ills of society, and proposed that solving the problem would be as simple as levying another tax. It sounds good but has little substance or relation to actual economics.

I'd prefer a more substantive critique than an ad-hominem statement

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#748

Post by VirusNewbie »

Anathem:

You could read it as just a fun first contact adventure coming of age book that involves some hard science and some fun space stuff.

However, it also touches on some very core concepts of nominalism vs. realism, quantum mechanics and how it affects our lives, what consciousness entails and it does so as part of its plot.

It's very fun and very interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#749

Post by m463 »

bobetomi wrote: post #373

Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins. He goes into so much detail about training to become an astronaut, his first spaceflight, training and planning for the Apollo missions, and talks about so many of the details and complexities of spaceflight that I had no idea about before. For example, in the early space walks, they didn't consider how difficult it is to use simple tools in microgravity and without a surface to…

> keeping himself still while turning a wrench

Sounds like trying to take lug nuts off a tire you've jacked off the ground. but in space the whole car is off the ground...

Re: Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?

#750

Post by klyrs »

lolinder wrote: post #495
abeppu wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect, but I don't want to be friends. If they're way too supportive - the same rule applies. > Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my throat on a faux pas. I think when cactacea says "huh, ok", this is neither inappropriate, or "jumping down someone's throat", or being "way too supportive" -- so I think by tb_technical's state…

Right, but the end goal of the filter isn't just to have a list of passes and fails. The filter exists because OP doesn't want to associate with people who are overly ideological—one way or the other. If someone silently puts OP in a bucket and never reaches out again, the end goal is still achieved.

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