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Summer Reading List

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Re: Summer Reading List

#211

Post by cracell »

louprado wrote: post #107
kentt wrote: post #97

I'd consider Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection to be fiction as well. Too long, shouldn't read: if you believe, your back pain will go away. I'm surprised to see the anti-scientific pseudoscience promoted.

There is a drug so powerful that every drug other drug is tested against it: the placebo. If this book saves just one HN reader from opioid addiction then I am glad it made the list.

What if people try it instead of a scientifically supported treatment and then it doesn't work and they give up and get addicted to opioids when a real method would've worked for them?

Don't get me wrong I think the placebo effect is a very useful tool but best to combine it with other methods that work for many back conditions, such as yoga routines that strengthen the back muscles. Of course what works depends on your particular condition which is why anyone with severe back pain should see a medical professional to get advice for their specific problem.

Re: Summer Reading List

#212

Post by pjmorris »

malandrew wrote: post #199
filiwickers wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identity of the author matters because a writer's work is informed by their experience in the world. As a white male, I will view & experience the world differently from Jane Jacobs. Even in a book about facts, a person's relation to those facts reflects their lived experience. This is especially important in fiction books where you are immersed in the experience of main characters. If the authors identity mirrors yo…

I don't disagree with what you wrote, but it's like you didn't even bother to read and parse what I wrote before you responded: > Unless the topic is related to the author's identity (i.e. it's about gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.), I don't see why someone should care about the identity of an author. There are hundreds of thousands of non-fiction topics where the identity of the author is irrelev…

> Why should I care in those cases?

I thought the GP answered your question succinctly as follows:

>> Even in a book about facts, a person's relation to those facts reflects their lived experience.

Re: Summer Reading List

#213

Post by Mz »

malandrew wrote: post #209
Mz wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I, as a reader, just try to find quality interesting content care about the identity of the author. Sorry, it seems really obvious to me and I have heard it said before, so didn't feel I needed to spell it out: Female authors must be better than most to have any shot at getting published. So, women authors who do get published tend to be better authors than most male authors. You aren't required to care. W…

> Female authors must be better than most to have any shot at getting published. So, women authors who do get published tend to be better authors than most male authors. That's one hypothesis. Another equally valid hypothesis is that those that were published were just lucky enough to send their manuscripts to agents and publishers that don't have a bias. A corollary to your hypothesis is that there are publishers an…

FWIW, the essay I linked to was written by a woman. By your logic, you're morally obligated to read it.

I didn't make a moral argument anywhere. You asked "Why should I, as a reader, just try to find quality interesting content care about the identity of the author." And I suggested there is evidence that women authors need to be better to have any hope of getting published at all.

As I noted above, you have no obligation whatsoever to care about the author's identity. I was merely answering your question very literally and in good faith. But, your many remarks here strongly suggest it wasn't actually a good faith question and you trying to do this "gotcha" just makes it clear that your real intent is to completely piss on the idea that anyone should do anything for "moral" reasons (a la supporting diversity).

But, I wasn't making a moral argument.

Re: Summer Reading List

#214

Post by axplusb »

tgb wrote: post #203
ThomPete wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously these lists are subjective but a couple of examples would be: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (Evolution) MindStorms by Seymore Papert (Education) Structure of Scientific Revolution by Thomas Kuhn (Scientific Method/ Philosophy) Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter (Formal Systems) The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen (Entrepreneurship) Innovation and Entrepreneurship Peter F Druckert (…

I took a philosophy of science course in college and still never got what it was that Kuhn was saying. My memory is the professor spent many lectures telling us what he was not saying, but I never figured out what he was saying beyond a "science goes through fads" simplistic interpretation. Is there a good short overview of it?

My take from this book is that:

- scientific knowledge is embedded in some intellectual ether made of underlying hypotheses often not explicitly stated called paradigms

- paradigms follow a Darwinian evolutionary process, i.e. better paradigms evolve out of not-so-good previous paradigms

- paradigm replacements start with an epistemological crisis , i.e. facts that the current paradigms don't explain well enough.

Hope it helps !

Re: Summer Reading List

#216

Post by malandrew »

pjmorris wrote: post #212
malandrew wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with what you wrote, but it's like you didn't even bother to read and parse what I wrote before you responded: > Unless the topic is related to the author's identity (i.e. it's about gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.), I don't see why someone should care about the identity of an author. There are hundreds of thousands of non-fiction topics where the identity of the author is irrelev…

> Why should I care in those cases? I thought the GP answered your question succinctly as follows: >> Even in a book about facts, a person's relation to those facts reflects their lived experience.

Why should I elevate one of their lived experiences (their gender in this case) over all of their other lived experiences? For many topics, experiences attributable to one's gender is all but irrelevant relative to experiences not attributable to gender.

Why not their age? nationality? place of birth? race? sexual orientation? height? native language? myers-briggs personality type? etc., etc.,

Re: Summer Reading List

#217

Post by mtalantikite »

malandrew wrote: post #205
mtalantikite wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when you become aware that an injustice exists you should consciously try to do something about it? One of the easiest ways to do something about it is by buying and supporting work by female authors. And of course a writer's identity will play a role in the work that they produce. No one is writing Toni Morrison besides Toni Morrison, and a Fanon essay is a Fanon essay because he experienced being black in F…

I'm sorry, I don't buy books to solve injustice. I buy them to be informed or entertained. Why stop at choosing books by gender? If it's irrelevant to the subject matter being written on, should I buy books based on someone's nationality? Their religion? Their race? Their sexual orientation? Citing examples of authors where the subject matter is relevant to their identity is not a counter-argument to the point I'm ma…

You don't think a person of color writing about the subprime mortgage crisis would write a different book than a white banker that worked at Bear Stearns? A crisis in which black and Latino applicants were almost 2.5 times more likely to be given a subprime rate in comparison to white applicants? [1]

No one is reducing individuals to their race or gender identity, but unless we're talking about pure science and mathematics books it is a show of ignorance to argue that lived experience has no bearing on the work of the author.

[1]http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2013.771788

Re: Summer Reading List

#218

Post by markdog12 »

axplusb wrote: post #208
GuiA wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for a book about the same subject matter, but more on the academic side?

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond offers an interesting and academically quite solid perspective.

It was an interesting book, lots of good points that contributed to the west's success. But, it's certainly not without its critics. He gives almost no credit to human agency.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha...

Re: Summer Reading List

#219

Post by pjmorris »

malandrew wrote: post #216
pjmorris wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I care in those cases? I thought the GP answered your question succinctly as follows: >> Even in a book about facts, a person's relation to those facts reflects their lived experience.

Why should I elevate one of their lived experiences (their gender in this case) over all of their other lived experiences? For many topics, experiences attributable to one's gender is all but irrelevant relative to experiences not attributable to gender. Why not their age? nationality? place of birth? race? sexual orientation? height? native language? myers-briggs personality type? etc., etc.,

I didn't single out gender. All of those other factors are attributes of lived experience. However, restricting yourself to a confined set of those accumulated attributes is likely to yield a restricted view of the world.

Re: Summer Reading List

#220

Post by markdog12 »

orthoganol wrote: post #67

Sapiens is a very preachy, low-on-citations work... the Goodreads reviews are interestingly divided ("Dude it changed my whole world!" to "This is not a serious work."), but the early sections on pre historical humans are still interesting to read, and seemed mostly correct from what I remember from my college anthropology class.

> Sapiens is a very preachy

Agreed, I also liked most of the book, but some chapters it seemed like the author was pushing a political agenda.

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