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

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

#321

Post by emodendroket »

Intermernet wrote: post #319
emodendroket wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are factors working against it, like the length, the popularity of the KJV with its archaic language, long sections of somewhat boring genealogies or religious laws, and so on. But I'd always chuckle at Bart Ehrman's observation that it was very strange how many students he had who said they believed the Bible was the literal, inerrant word of God yet hadn't ever read it -- after all, "wouldn't you want to know…

I wonder what the absolute number of living people who have actually read the bible is compared to the number of people who have read Joyce, Tolkien, Tolstoy, even George R R Martin! There are many texts that are long and arduous, yet they are sometimes worth the effort to read! In many instances the rewards are seemingly unsubstantial but they all provide something that can shape subsequent thoughts in many ways. I…

And of course, some of the authors on your list would be enhanced by being conversant with the Bible. That was kind of what led me to read it in the first place.

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

#323

Post by biophysboy »

martingoodson wrote: post #299
biophysboy wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to give this a more thorough read, but so far this critique strikes me as done in bad faith. I read the book. I'm also in the middle of a biophys PhD, so I like to think my opinion is "extra super special". Here are my comments: Point 1: the chart bottoms out at 7, which falls within the range the book recommends. I'm fairly sure he recommends 7-9, and that the required amt varies from person to person. Anot…

'Point 2: Depression is an incredibly complicated topic. It is a psychological construct, the net result of thousands and thousands of genes, filtered through a modern technological world, and then filtered through inventories, interviews, and assessments. For this reason, I am not at all surprised that Guzey was able to find studies that suggest that sleep deprivation might have some benefit for some people. I would…

If I completely buy Guzeys citation, sleep deprivation works for half of people temporarily. So, kinda useful but not sustainable. It also ignores memory and other effects sleep has on mood.

The point I am making is we can keep throwing new treatments at depressed people, or we can finally recognize the immense heterogeneity of depression, in both its genetic & environmental causes, as well as its many phenotypes (there are lots of ways to hit the inventory threshold). This fact is why this argument over sleeping or not is even happening. It’s not a tangent, in my opinion. This is the central problem.

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

#324

Post by wprapido »

My 2010's read highlights:

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lessons-21st-Century-Yuval-Harari/d...

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Factfulness-Reasons-Wrong-Things-Be...

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Laws-Power-Robert-Greene-Collection...

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity...

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Thomas-Sowe...

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Noonday-Demon-Andrew-Solomon/dp/009...

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Write-Thesis-MIT-Press/dp/02625...

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

#325

Post by lolinder »

yesenadam wrote: post #18
pmoriarty wrote: post #13

On The Shortness of Life by Seneca.[1] Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is also excellent.[2] [1] - https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pd... [2] - https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/...

It seems Frankl has been somewhat exposed/debunked. I loved his book too as a teenager; it pained me to read sources mentioned on his wikipedia page. Would you believe he was at Auschwitz for only a few days, performed medical experiments on Jews himself, and it appears his main thesis about attitude mattering above all else for survival in the camps is simply false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl#Contro…

If true, this is sad and worrying, but be careful with the Wikipedia page: almost every source in that section is the work of one man, which doesn't convey a consensus at all.

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

#326

Post by guzey »

biophysboy wrote: post #323
martingoodson wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Point 2: Depression is an incredibly complicated topic. It is a psychological construct, the net result of thousands and thousands of genes, filtered through a modern technological world, and then filtered through inventories, interviews, and assessments. For this reason, I am not at all surprised that Guzey was able to find studies that suggest that sleep deprivation might have some benefit for some people. I would…

If I completely buy Guzeys citation, sleep deprivation works for half of people temporarily. So, kinda useful but not sustainable. It also ignores memory and other effects sleep has on mood. The point I am making is we can keep throwing new treatments at depressed people, or we can finally recognize the immense heterogeneity of depression, in both its genetic & environmental causes, as well as its many phenotypes (th…

>If I completely buy Guzeys citation, sleep deprivation works for half of people temporarily. So, kinda useful but not sustainable. It also ignores memory and other effects sleep has on mood.

You'll be interested in reading this study: "How to preserve the antidepressive effect of sleep deprivation: A comparison of sleep phase advance and sleep phase delay" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004060050092 and googling the keywords from that study

Also, you again ignored the point I was responding to in that section.

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

#327

Post by dyukqu »

Jane Austen was the first author to came to my mind as I saw this thread. I've read two of her books (Sense and Sensibility & Pride and Prejudice) ~2 years ago. What they made me realise was that people are not absolutely good or absolutely bad. Human character consists of so many gray areas (as americans or... I don't know... english-speaking world puts it), it's not like black/white.

The second one is Science and Method by Henri Poincare. I'm not in a position to fully understand and appreciate this book, but I just want to share a few quotes[0] that stood out for me when I read it:

"The subliminal ego is in no way inferior to the conscious ego; it is not purely automatic; it is capable of discernment; it has tact and lightness of touch; it can select, and it can divine. More than that, it can divine better than the conscious ego, since it succeeds where the latter fails. In a word, is not the subliminal ego superior to the conscious ego?"

"Under this second aspect, all the combinations are formed as a result of the automatic action of the subliminal ego, but those only which are interesting find their way into the field of consciousness. This, too, is most mysterious. How can we explain the fact that, of the thousand products of our unconscious activity, some are invited to cross the threshold, while others remain outside? Is it mere chance that gives them this privilege? Evidently not."

"All the difficulties, however, have not disappeared. The conscious ego is strictly limited, but as regards the subliminal ego, we do not know its limitations, and that is why we are not too loth to suppose that in a brief space of time it can form more different combinations than could be comprised in the whole life of a conscient being."

[0]https://archive.org/stream/sciencemethod00poinuoft/scienceme...

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

#328

Post by rustyshackleton »

Balgair wrote: post #175

Range by David Epstein [0]. It's a good middle point on the understanding of 'mastery' that Gladwell started in the late oughts and whose meme of '10k hours' kinda infected a lot of pop-psych and MBAs. Epstein argues that there are areas where 10k hours work, but limits very much exist. His thesis is that you have to know your environment and that most environments are too chaotic for just grinding out hours. A large…

Econtalk had a good episode with David Epstein as a guest if anyone wants a sampler. https://www.econtalk.org/david-epstein-on-mastery-specializa...

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

#329

Post by Kaibeezy »

jaxOLantern wrote: post #308
Kaibeezy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read Crime and Punishment last year and found it incredibly disappointing, considering its massive reputation. Simpletons, idiots, caricatures, buffoons and victims performing lots of hand-wringing, posturing, dithering, swooning and assorted drama. Hard to identify with or care about any of them. Call it entertainment, but I prefer Dickens.

I understand what you mean, the insight on the mind of a murderer is what kept me going. I found the same unecessary drama/silliness while reading "The Master and Margarita", maybe it's a Russian writing style.

Master and Margarita was on my list, maybe it will stay there a while.

For insight into the minds of murderers x 4.5 billion + a few, I just finished Iain Banks' Look to Windward. I didn't think I saw what was coming when it came, but then at the end, I realized I knew it was there all along.

The Culture series is underrepresented on this thread. Hello, Contact? Whenever it's convenient to send a module, I'm ready to go.

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

#330

Post by biophysboy »

guzey wrote: post #263
biophysboy wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to give this a more thorough read, but so far this critique strikes me as done in bad faith. I read the book. I'm also in the middle of a biophys PhD, so I like to think my opinion is "extra super special". Here are my comments: Point 1: the chart bottoms out at 7, which falls within the range the book recommends. I'm fairly sure he recommends 7-9, and that the required amt varies from person to person. Anot…

Hi, I'm the author of that critique. >Point 1: the chart bottoms out at 7, which falls within the range the book recommends. I'm fairly sure he recommends 7-9, and that the required amt varies from person to person. Another thought I had: metabolism and longevity go hand and hand. I mean, I just read a brand new paper from George Church's Harvard lab, showing that they reversed several chronic ailments in mice by ins…

Hey Guzey, thanks for hopping in. I like your blog.

Walker's book is sloppy. The graph you mention last is egregious. No disagreements here. Honestly I agree with you at least partly on all of your points.

So why did I miss your points? I was trying to give better evidence/info relevant to the topic of each point. My hope was people would read it and continue to respect sleep as an open and very interesting biological question. Maybe it came off as ignoring the points. I understand that. But honestly I don't care about Walker that much - I care about sleep. Its really weird, and we don't understand it.

Out of curiosity, what is your current stance on sleep?

EDIT: after re-reading this comment, I realized it might seem a bit disingenuous, because I did criticize your arguments as bad faith. Clearly I care a little about your take-down of Walker.

I said this because you found claims in Walker's book, found errors in his evidence, and then denied the general claims in your bold-font headings. It seemed like you were dismissing the putative importance of sleep along with dismissing Walker the author. I felt this was uncharitable to the topic, so I gave you the "bad faith" charge.

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