I'm no expert myself, but: An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic by Graham Priest. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/an-introduction-to-nonc...
Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
311–320 of 399 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#312"The Method of Paired Comparisons" is a 1980s dissertation which discussed a strange form of statistics called paired comparisons. It is the fundamental math behind the ELO system (chess matchmaking) and other tournament designs. It was originally for psychology experiments. My ELI5 version is... Imagine data of the form Alice > Bob (Alice beat Bob in one match). Because many matches take place, the data can be contr…
> "The Method of Paired Comparisons" is a 1980s dissertation which discussed a strange form of statistics called paired comparisons. The H.A. David one first published 1969, second edition 1988? Or a different one?
That sounds familiar. I'm going by memory, but I'm pretty sure H A David was the author.
I guess I read the 2nd edition. 1988 sounds like a familiar copyright date.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#313Trying to think about the future of warfare and the nation state, I picked up this gem that was hiding in a voluminous tome: The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbitt
It had so many implications, especially about the future emergence and dominance of the "market state" that I couldn't stop thinking about Neuromancer et al.
Another gem I have found myself rereading more than once, is Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#314The hidden persuaders by Vance Packard I read this book as a kid, it changed how I view the world and I've never forgotten it's lessons. It shows how the ad world is working hard to persuade you. It convinced me to always question what are represented as facts by ads or the media. A healthy skepticism has served me very well. Most people never deeply question and Packard is correct that there's an entire industry try…
There's plenty of alarmism in The Hidden Persuaders—I think it's fair to say that Freudian 'depth psychology' and subliminal imaagery turned out to be less of a threat than once feared—but once you read what he says about "good guys" versus "bad men" in childrens' TV https://books.google.ie/books?id=29jhBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT76&lpg=PT... you'll never look at Scooby-Doo or the 1960s in the same way again. In that respect I think Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo36... may be something of a successor to Hidden Persuaders, but I haven't been able to read it myself yet.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
International cooperation is only really feasible with a hegemon. Pick a hegemon. You should pick the US.
Ask all the countries the US invaded or where it initiated coups for its own interests... most of South America and the middle East saw themselves at the receiving end of such events. I personally would prefer the US over China but I'd also prefer NO hegemon, especially when that hegemon tends to abuse its power.
> I personally would prefer the US over China but I'd also prefer NO hegemon, especially when that hegemon tends to abuse its power.
There's the question of whether this is structurally possible. IR theorists disagree on this issue although I favor the realist view which is that international conflict is more or less inevitable and having a central powerful mediator of conflict is necessary for peace.
Multi-polar worlds can be catastrophically unstable as they enforce no singular set of rules. A multi-polar world with a hegemonic focal point can (hopefully!) construct bounds on state behavior while still avoiding some of the evils from deigning to be unipolar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemonic_stability_theory
US forpol has a lot of mistakes and flutters around too much per administration, but they are still uniquely positioned to act as a hegemon with at least some pretense of domestic freedom and mutually beneficial economic cooperation.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#316"The Method of Paired Comparisons" is a 1980s dissertation which discussed a strange form of statistics called paired comparisons. It is the fundamental math behind the ELO system (chess matchmaking) and other tournament designs. It was originally for psychology experiments. My ELI5 version is... Imagine data of the form Alice > Bob (Alice beat Bob in one match). Because many matches take place, the data can be contr…
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Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#317"The Symmetries of Things" [1] by John H. Conway, Heidi Burgiel, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss.
A fantastic and beautifully illustrated expository work describing symmetry groups such as the 17 wallpaper groups in the plane (think Escher), and other tiling groups in for example the hyperbolic plane. Love the use of orbifold notation as opposed to crystallographic notation.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Symmetries-Things-John-H-Conway/dp/15...
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#318Not exactly a book, Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States . (1) It raises some concerns that folks in this forum are probably interested in and could do something about. Things like forcing US companies doing business in China to transfer dual-use technologies, the lack of US suppliers for certain goods, like high tenacity polyester…
And canada could shutdown NYC power.
"Blame Canada"
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#319Nice little book about betting, risk, math and computer programming.
https://www.amazon.com/Calculated-Bets-Computers-Gambling-Ma...
Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
#320Not exactly a book, Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States . (1) It raises some concerns that folks in this forum are probably interested in and could do something about. Things like forcing US companies doing business in China to transfer dual-use technologies, the lack of US suppliers for certain goods, like high tenacity polyester…
As an American, we need to bolster our manufacturing in areas where IP to manufacturing output ratio is high. What I mean is, thrift manufacturing of useless gadgets we see on Amazon front page is trivial and does not add any value. Advancing semiconductor manufacturing for example is hard, and that's exactly why we need to do it. China has prowess in centralization and consolidation of their sub-supply chain - but t…
> China has prowess in centralization and consolidation of their sub-supply chain - but that can be done in Thailand (Casio started making their $10-20 watches in Thailand since 2016, for e.g.), Vietnam, Indonesia, India, etc. Making cellphone cases by the millions is not adding any intellectual value in the society. These problems have been solved.
On this – China's One Belt One Road initiative specifically targets many of these countries to come together into a consolidated economic alliance that includes trade routes and infrastructure subsidies plus a basket currency pegged to the GDP from the region.
That's clever for a number of reasons. One of them is that it captures the revenue from precisely these alternative manufacturing bases that could otherwise be competing with China.
It may or may not be successful depending on how aggressive China is or whether or not they keep up the same business practices and culture that make companies want to take manufacturing out of Shenzen in the first place.
There's a massive political opportunity for the US but I think there's a lack of strategy in the administration to seize it.