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The Best Books I Read in 2015

gatesnotes.com

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Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#111

Post by hueving »

manish_gill wrote: post #109
tlrobinson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but taking a famous person's list of books and reposting it with affiliate links and no disclaimer is definitely crossing the line in my book.

Why? I'm genuinely interesting in your line of reasoning.

Profiteering in comment sections pollutes the incentives for commenters. Sure the links were useful, but they were much less useful than a person providing a really insightful comment about a typical article that shows up here. I don't want one person making monetary gain over another.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#112

Post by sanderjd »

kbenson wrote: post #93
sanderjd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a sentiment that makes no sense to me. Instead of remembering to not take it too seriously and enjoying the theater (regardless of accuracy), why not remember that the target of such articles is a real person and not an abstract object to be harmlessly ridiculed. Why celebrate meanness?

Is the target a person? I'm pretty sure it was a person't public product. In this case, their public words, opinions and critiques. If your job is to produce works for public consumption and you can't stand a critique of your work, you should find another career. To clarify my earlier point, there are few things as satisfying to read as a witty evisceration of an argument or stance. For a public persona, I don't see…

The thread starter's point (which I tend to agree with) was specifically that this particular article was ad-hominem and mean.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#113

Post by kbenson »

vlehto wrote: post #108
kbenson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the target a person? I'm pretty sure it was a person't public product. In this case, their public words, opinions and critiques. If your job is to produce works for public consumption and you can't stand a critique of your work, you should find another career. To clarify my earlier point, there are few things as satisfying to read as a witty evisceration of an argument or stance. For a public persona, I don't see…

This case was based on: "We should pity David Brooks, because he is not getting laid. And he is slowly losing his sanity." The author is free to write that. But I'm not going to spread the link.

Ah, well I was commenting on the portion shown above. Taken in your expanded context, it's not something I would endorse. That said, I still stand by my (revised) point, regardless of whether it was brought about by a poor example, which is that a witty evisceration of an argument or point of view can be very satisfying.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#114

Post by lazyant »

maaaats wrote: post #39
jbuss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goodreads top books list is just a popularity contest. People vote for the books they recognize.

And that is bad why? At least for me, it's a bigger chance that I would enjoy a book from that list than from a list made by some professional critic.

there's a phycological effect (I don't remember if there's a name for it) where we tend to value or rank more favourably things that are popular or familiar. Tests have been done with groups classifying newly heard songs with and without knowing a fake ranking and the group exposed to the ranking tended to follow it.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#115

Post by [deleted] »

davidw wrote: post #45
unethical_ban wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose some think there is an opportunity for disingenuous posting if there is monetary gain to be had. That said, I agree with you, and knowing I have posted affiliate links without trying, I think any malice attributed to it is misplaced.

With affiliate links, I sometimes make upwards of 10 dollars every few months - enough for a free book once in a while. I'll let you guess how that compares to my salary... I think it's pretty clear from people's posting/comment history whether they're adding them in good faith or not.

[deleted]

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#116

Post by kbenson »

sanderjd wrote: post #112
kbenson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the target a person? I'm pretty sure it was a person't public product. In this case, their public words, opinions and critiques. If your job is to produce works for public consumption and you can't stand a critique of your work, you should find another career. To clarify my earlier point, there are few things as satisfying to read as a witty evisceration of an argument or stance. For a public persona, I don't see…

The thread starter's point (which I tend to agree with) was specifically that this particular article was ad-hominem and mean.

But my comment wasn't meant to be a continuation of that discussion, but a digression. A poor choice for one though, as is obvious now.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#117

Post by mei0Iesh »

bostonpete wrote: post #104
mei0Iesh wrote: post #81

I can't read any of that because I'm distracted by the mental image of Bill telling someone the best books he read, with some conversation, and that person asking some questions while writing notes, then spending hours in front of his laptop, emailing a draft to someone else, who asks Bill a few more questions then returns a draft to someone else who finalizes it and publishes on "GatesNotes" written as if he sat dow…

I think people read these notes for the "big ideas" presented, not for the majestic prose of Bill Gates. Given that, why do you care who assembles and copyedits the information for him?

It's kind of like if you turned on TV to watch the President's speech, and noticed it was a computer-generated 3D representation. It wouldn't be distracting? He's saying all these things, and I can't receive the message because all I see is a puppet pretending to be a man. I'm wondering about who actually wrote it, how many people it took to animate, whether it's even an authentic message or if it's part of some propagandic theatre.

I think if someone is going to use their personal name on a website, they should actually write it. Otherwise, it's deceptive. If it's going to be a team effort, then call it a different name, and don't show a big picture of your face at the top of the screen.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#118

Post by sanderjd »

kbenson wrote: post #116
sanderjd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thread starter's point (which I tend to agree with) was specifically that this particular article was ad-hominem and mean.

But my comment wasn't meant to be a continuation of that discussion, but a digression. A poor choice for one though, as is obvious now.

Ah, I see. Fair enough! I agree that witty arguments are enjoyable to read, I just don't like take-downs so much.

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#119

Post by andreygrehov »

gnrme wrote: post #91
jbuss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goodreads top books list is just a popularity contest. People vote for the books they recognize.

Goodreads rating system is useless anyway. It's 'out of five' which means most people will give a good book a 4 or a 5 star - it's not like IMDb's more nuanced 'out of ten' rating. They also display a bespoke meaning for the stars (i.e. 3 doesn't mean average), so for those that follow that meaning, their ratings will be different.

There is an interesting read as for the ratings on Amazon vs Goodreads vs B&N:

http://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2011/06/amazon-vs-b-v...

Re: The Best Books I Read in 2015

#120

Post by veidr »

MaysonL wrote: post #105
whatever_dude wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You show follow John Carmack[0] or Elon Musk[1] on twitter. They keep making my sci fi queue grow (John more so than Elon though). [0] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk

Speaking of science fiction, I've just been rereading Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution [0] series. Great stuff, and I totally agree with Kim Stanley Robinson's assessment: "He is writing revolutionary SF. A nova has appeared in our sky." [0] The Star Fraction , The Stone Canal , The Cassini Division , and The Sky Road .

Thanks! I just bought The Star Fraction purely on your recommendation... I find gambling like that pays off big, sometimes.

To return the favor, I recommend you try Blindsight and its sequel Echopraxia, by Peter Watts. Those were two of my favorite books of 2015 (the books are older, but I only found them this year).

Unusual, but awesome, SF.

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