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

[dead]

Shameless plug:

https://www.louiscordier.com/the_3_book_of_louis/

;p

Socialism by Ludwig von Mises (1930s)

As a Systems Engineer, I've always been fascinated by systems both for computation and involving people. Concepts in business process design/implementation have quite the overlap with automation, and this book provides one of the best discussions I've seen, where its first properly defining the problem, and then moving on to failure modes via a priori reasoning (which is fairly conservative) in relation to centralized hierarchical systems, or bureaucracies.

The title aside, the structural analysis is quite impressive and in the process also explains the basis for many failures within bureaucracies involving people, including corruption, and trends concentrating staff production value towards a least common denominator (negative production value), through social coercion, within the institutions.

This book arguably is a very dense read though, and requires an old dictionary (from around the same time). Many of the words have changed meanings since the writing (towards more ambiguity and more contradiction).

It comes from a time where hyper-rationalism and its principles were followed and respected, and falsehoods and liars ignored or rejected outright; something we can use more of today.

The book also is useful in describing why Socialism, and its various forms is a failed system, and indirectly but inevitably fails in ways that allow no accountability through deceit, and how those supporting and promoting such systems are both supporting their own destruction as well as others (incl family, friends etc).

The systems discussed are safety-critical systems, and its not hard to reason that when you support a system that will inevitably fail (causing death/harm), where you can't transition off the system or know beforehand, then you promote and support the given outcome. Indirect, but still rational and principled.

Sometimes escape is just what people need, especially when they work in high stakes professions. The series was written well, though there were parts that were unbelievable, and the author's writing style was geared more towards children. If you look closely at his writing he often makes use of a technique at the time using double/synonym adjectives to describe important details. Kids pick the one they know, while reading making it more cohesive, quite subtle.

I tend to not like stories where the crux of the plot is a god/wizard did it but that is more personal preference. I'm a big fan of character development and growth through struggle. Superman/Thrice Blessed Man stories don't really appeal.

Personally I thought the Blue-rose Saga/Sparhawk series was much better, and had characters you weren't sure you liked at first (gritty han-shot first types).

Ever read Echoes of the Great Song (bit of a one-hit wonder from the author)?

Quite a number of us have read Adam Smith.

You don't draw too much of a distinction, but Moral Philosophy and Economics are two distinct and separable subjects. Comparing them is comparing apples to oranges.

The former lies solely within the mind and in ones own choices, where one is free to choose, whereas the latter is largely based in observation of external dynamics where continued survival is contingent upon said system.

Additionally, at the time of writing there were many observations made, and the process of boiling down to correct principles is an iterative process. What few seem to realize is Adam Smith's Labor Value Theorem was foundationally flawed (but everything else had great impact), LVT was disproven later (Subjective Value Theorem by Carl Menger iirc), but is still referenced and in use today by Marxists and other related groups.

To contradict that last wall of text, who decides what constitutes harm? What definition is being used for this? If one does not properly define what they mean, they can be right (in their head) because definitions are fluid and contradictory encompassing all possible circumstances while having absolutely no meaning.

Many people call these types of communications insanity or madness because they provide no value or benefit. These are also common talking points/structures found in Socialist and Communist propaganda which don't represent the entirety of the subject or authors, let alone in a rationally principled way.