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Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

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131–140 of 434 posts

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#131
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bhagavad Gita is a tremendously beautiful and profound work, and it's a tragedy that it (and the whole Mahabarata , really, of which the Gita is only a small part) are not more widely read in the West. However, I see its core messages as deeply problematic. The entire work is a justification of violence, obedience, and traditional social roles. It's simply amazing to me that Gandhi, the most famous advocate of no…

It justified violence as the last resort which can be taken literally in the story or as a metaphor for when someone hits rock bottom in their life. War is one of the worst things to be a part of and personal demons can feel like a battle. I actually praise it for choosing a topic that shouldn't exist in an ideal world but it knows that that's not reality and war is sometimes required (Vedic scripts would say we're i…

Even if the war was unavoidable (which I don't think it was), Arjuna's participation in it (which was the subject of the Gita) was not.

Arjuna had thrown down his weapons and refused to fight until Krishna intervened with his godly arguments to make Arjuna fight despite his disinclination to do so.

If Krishna had instead used his superhuman persuasiveness to argue for non-violence to each of the war's participants, perhaps the entire war could have been averted.

Regarding the Matrix and Hinduism, while there are undeniable parallels, and while Hinduism might be able to lay claim to being the first major religion to posit the illusionary nature of the world, there are also parallels to other philosophies and religions.

For instance, one can see parallels between the Matrix and Plato's allegory of the cave, and to Gnosticism.

Also, it's important to mention that Hinduism is not a single religion, but might better be thought of as an umbella term for dozens if not hundreds of different religions, some of which have radically different views.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#132
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also reread Foundation recently and realized an underlooked aspect of it: beyond the psychohistory and the mentalics, it is perhaps the best look at how the future of nuclear tech was perceived by the sci-fi mainstream before Hiroshima.

The Foundation series was from the 50s, it was not pre-Hiroshima.

It was published in Astounding starting in 1942. It was later reedited in book form in the 1950s.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#133
post #76

Since 2007, I've taken detailed notes on every book I've read, then posted them on my site with my top recommendations up top: https://sivers.org/book My top recommendations here for the Hacker News crowd - with a nudge for the under-rated, are: The Time Paradox - by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd https://sivers.org/book/TimeParadox Profound idea that everyone has a primary time focus: either Future-focused, Present-f…

^^^^

Derek's book 'Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur' was definitely up there for me.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#134
post #94

Out of Control by former Wired editor Kevin Kelly. This book was a labor of love and it shows--every chapter explores some fascinating new topic on the intersection of biology and technology. Even though the book was written 25 years ago it feels completely fresh. I'm sure anyone who reads this site would enjoy it. David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity. If you know him, it's probably because Deutsch did some pion…

I really need to pick up Solaris.

I felt like Sapiens rewired my brain in a way. Homo Deus only drove in the message that we are nothing but algorithms

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#136
post #64

Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina, because it made me a better father; Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, because it taught me of the importance of something that I’d occasionally dismiss as a nuisance; Pain Free and Pain Free at Your PC by Pete Egoscue, because it completely changed the way I understood posture, pain, and how repetition influences my body; and Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, because it…

Re: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, this critique of the book is worth a read: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

Glad someone posted this. This book gets so much praise. But like any popsci book, there are huge incentives for the author to exaggerate and manipulate to produce a clear and marketable message. Just consider that if there was no interesting story to tell about sleep, of course there would be no book.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#137
post #66

2010 - Outliers, Malcom Gladwell 2011 - In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan 2012 - Born to Run, Christopher McDougall 2013 - Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss 2014 - Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon 2015 - Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins 2016 - Black Swan, Nicolas Taleb 2017 - Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman, Richard Feynman 2018 - The Prophet, Khalil Gibran 2019 - Three Body Problem (series), Liu Cixin These…

I’m finishing the Four Hour Work Week.. this book just reads like a “get rich quick”/scammy collection of snippets. It’s conflicting at times (“money isn’t the end-all be-all” v/s “how I made 10k$ a month sipping piña coladas”). The only useful takeaway was not to waste your life 1) wasting time and 2) working, which is fair.. but the message is wrapped with so much ego I ended just being annoyed through most of the book.

Re: Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?

#140
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The co-author of this book is (seems to be) Deepak Chopra who acquired quite a fame for his liberal use of quantum physics terminology (quantum woo-woo) and for producing thoughts and ideas which typically turn out be not very coherent under a closer scrutiny ( https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra ), i.e. for "sounding deep while saying nothing" I wonder how his co-authorship affects contents of the book. I bo…

Thanks for mentioning this. I don't go near anything that guy touches. Will be skipping this book.

He was added as a foreword author after the main author had already died, just FYI.
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