Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
Completely shaped my worldview from 13 to now.
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
591–600 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#592* Factfulness and Thinking Fast And Slow. The latter helped me internalise that my thinking, like most humans, is biased. Even being aware of those biases doesn’t always help. We need to go above and beyond to overcome our biases. Factfulness goes into detail about what those biases are and how they lead to a distorted world view. Rather than taking the easy way out by blaming journalists/politicians/rich people, he turns the focus onto us and our biases and speaks about how to look at the world in an objective fact based manner.
* The Dictator’s Handbook. One simple axiom - leaders do what is necessary to stay in power. Using that idea they explain the basis of all political systems, whether autocracy or democracy or somewhere in between. I didn’t really understand politics before I read this. CGPGrey has a video where he summarises the book. [1]
* (Only for Indians) India After Gandhi. You can’t really understand your country if you don’t know it’s history. History stopped in 1947 according to our history books, and most people are blissfully unaware of what came after. They don’t know how close India came to losing democracy or how easily it could happen again. They don’t understand the dangers of promoting one language at the expense of others because they don’t know that it’s been tried before. Every Indian needs to know so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past over and over.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#593I read through the bible every year and each time it shapes my thinking. For example, I was reading Exodus this morning about how we should care for the foreigner. I imagine several thousand years ago this was pretty radical. It also seems very relevant today.
Not only that, but the 4th commandment (of the 10) was changed to include their experience in Egypt related to "foreigners" and the sabbath.
Exodus 10:11,12 (NASB)
"...but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; [in it] you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy."
Then notice the change in Deuteronomy, it's specifically to address the experience of being a "foreigner" and being mistreated in Egypt.
Deut 4:14,15
"...but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; [in it] you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day."
It's really sad when people who claim to be "Christian" do not understand that the most foundational teachings of God in the bible include caring for foreigners in a very personal and special way.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#594[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#595Mostly all about life, not technology, but all the books below have science behind them and many references and studies. I have read every one of these books, some multiple times. These are the books I would make required reading if I gave a class on life, they cover sleep, nutrition, exercise, brain health (depression/happiness), memorization and learning.
* Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
* Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
* Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (evidence based, ~1,000 references)
* The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep (sleep debt)
* Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
* Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
* Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#596Black Elk Speaks
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#597I always viewed reading a book as collecting a soul. If you fully grok a book, you grok the authors thoughts. Being able to put yourself in another persons mindset is crucial. Speaking of "groking", Stranger in a Strange Land , Time Enough for Love and The Fountain Head have probably had the most impact on my mindset. Each book is rather different, but in general the idea of all three is > You have to be in life for…
Welp. And this is why I think Ann Rand was deeply evil and The Fountain Head was a horrible work of propaganda. It's not okay to be greedy, nor is it okay to be selfish. And these ideas are responsible for much of the harm in the world. It is okay to know what you need and advocate for your needs, to take care of yourself. But that is not being greedy or selfish. And to do it effectively means you have to be able to…
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Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#598"Getting Things Done" by David Allen didn't change the way I think about everything, but it definitely changed the way that I looked at a lot of things. It's often panned today as being "common sense", but I think that's a mischaracterization - at the time it became popular, it ran counter to the conventional wisdom of how to manage your time and attention. Reading it made a profound and lasting impact on how I approached my work.
From a technology standpoint, "The Pragmatic Programmer" changed the way I looked at programming. When I read it the first time, I was a Visual Basic programmer, with only a passing familiarity with the world outside the Microsoft ecosystem. After reading that I began to explore Perl, then Python, and installed Linux and learned it. For my career as a developer, then team lead, and then manager, that book changed me more than any other book I've read in the field.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#599"Debt: The first 5000 years" completely changed the way I view money, society, and relationships. "The selfish gene" changed the way I define life, opened my eyes to virtual life, and morality of selfishness vs. altruism. "Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life" changed the way I view the life and material existence. Whereas before I viewed them as two separate domains, after I see them as a spectrum. C…
My pick is "Tao of Pooh," which is kind of a westerner's ELI5 of Taoism. I can't overemphasize how useful Taoism has been for me as a lens through which to understand and participate in the world. (And there really isn't much mysticism to it)
I second Tao of Pooh. It’s genuinely insightful and I plan to read it again. However no one I recommend it to seems to take it seriously. They think it’s a parody of some sort because it seems unlikely that a “serious” text would involve Winnie the Pooh.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#600"The Image" by Daniel Boorstin. It's kind of about what living in a world of mass-produced images does to our sense of space, time and reality. So much of our experience is of things that were created by other people to persuade us to do something, and that's a pretty recent thing. More here: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/12/th...