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Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

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Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#141

Post by superduperuser »

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #86
magicalist wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on Reddit I was simultaneously subbed to /r/The_Donald, /r/politics, /r/ChapoTrapHouse, /r/Libertarian, etc Maybe you were just enjoying reading shitposts? Nothing wrong with that, everyone has their version of tabloids they enjoy, but these are mostly barely thought through hot takes posted to get a reaction (and surfaced because they were successful at it). There's no reason to think their intersection is going t…

^ A person studying their daily bowel movements for political commentary would be better informed than someone who read those subreddits looking for accurate political news, and they’d have a more honest assessment about the worth of their news sources. I can list plenty of subreddits with worthwhile political discussion, but none of that matters if a persons idea of “balanced” is to find the dregs of fringe and extr…

Would you mind sharing those subreddits with constructive political discussions?

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#142

Post by Bodell »

lambdatronics wrote: post #93

I think it works: I put in "Zero to One", "The Idea Factory" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" -- one of the top results was "We Are Never Meeting in Real Life." This was reviewed on Amazon as "Not For a White Male Forty-Year-Old Software Engineer." https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1WB4G83DRI8PV/re...

I tried various combinations of the books I’ve read over the last couple of years[1]. And either I got stuff already on my bookshelf or sphere of reference[2], or a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (seriously every result had at least one, sometimes several), or children’s books, or adult comic books. Which I guess is by some definition the opposite of adult novels. But a fun and interesting tool to play around with either way.

[1] Underworld, Blood Meridian, The Bluest Eye, Milkman, Pale Fire, Borges, etc...

[2] Chekhov, Ursula Le Guin, Proust, Umberto Eco, etc.

Edit: I scrolled down and read the creators summary of how the search works. And now believe my results really nailed his description: rarest but highly rated by readers of the same books. Which also explains all the Calvin and Hobbes, which I think have a universal appeal.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#143

Post by ars »

superduperuser wrote: post #141
sonotathrowaway wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ A person studying their daily bowel movements for political commentary would be better informed than someone who read those subreddits looking for accurate political news, and they’d have a more honest assessment about the worth of their news sources. I can list plenty of subreddits with worthwhile political discussion, but none of that matters if a persons idea of “balanced” is to find the dregs of fringe and extr…

Would you mind sharing those subreddits with constructive political discussions?

/r/NeutralPolitics tries pretty hard.

The hard part is that reddit is majority liberal, so it's very very hard to find a good balance.

Any random non-political subreddit is going to be liberal slanted. In order to find a conservative slant you have to go specifically to a political conservative subreddit.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#144

Post by madhadron »

This keeping recommending books I have read or books very similar to books I have read. I've added some of the books that show up to try to force that kind of book out, but it brings in more things that are proximate to my reading.

I don't know if I've just confused it or I don't have an echo chamber.

I did find some proximate reading that I hadn't heard of that sounds interesting, though!

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#145

Post by pbhjpbhj »

padolsey wrote: post #21
Kye wrote: post #19

I tried three authors: Mary E. Lowd Kyell Gold / Tim Susman Rukis Croax Does this database not have books from small/independent publishers? edit: One of Kyell Gold's books pops up when I type his name in search after I clicked one of the examples. Still nothing on the others.

Unfortunately there will be some books missing, either because of lacking data on them or lacking intersections with other books, or because they're too new. There's also a difficulty in where to draw the line as every book added can slow down querying (each query traverses a database of over ten million relationships and around 400,000 books). This is a point of improvement that I'd like to work on though.

That's interesting, I thought you'd just look for books in an opposite field - maybe with matching stylistic characteristics - then choose a highly recommended book within that parameter space.

You could ask people to provide the metadata if their book/author isn't present.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#146

Post by spodek »

padolsey wrote: post #2

Hi HN. I made a tool that allows you to discover what books you are least likely to have come across or enjoyed, but are nonetheless highly rated. These books will likely challenge you if you tend to read quite narrowly. Briefly, for each book entered we find the rarest but highest rated intersections and provide those to you. The query can be summarised as: which highly rated books are least read (and enjoyed) by pe…

I like it, even though it doesn't have my two books.

How about a browser extension that tracks the articles, videos, discussion boards, HN threads, etc one reads and in real time suggests other anti-bubble ones?

Not sure if your engine would support it, but I'd use it.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#147

Post by pbhjpbhj »

stanrivers wrote: post #107

Well, my very first recommendation was the Bible. So, I guess I've got that going for me.

The opposite of that is probably the Bible, or maybe Art of the Deal ...

Seriously though, I think the Bible is a bad book recommendation given its a diverse collection of books (statutes [eg Leviticus], erotic poetry [Song of Songs], apocalyptic predictions, communist idealism, segregationist supremacy, creation, etc.) written across a couple of millennia.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#148

Post by xmsam »

psychometry wrote: post #55
padolsey wrote: post #2

Hi HN. I made a tool that allows you to discover what books you are least likely to have come across or enjoyed, but are nonetheless highly rated. These books will likely challenge you if you tend to read quite narrowly. Briefly, for each book entered we find the rarest but highest rated intersections and provide those to you. The query can be summarised as: which highly rated books are least read (and enjoyed) by pe…

I added a few of my favorite books (mostly 20th century lit) and depending on the set got mostly children's books or non-English books. Not terribly helpful.

Ditto here. Mostly children’s books.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#149

Post by mckirk »

fao_ wrote: post #101
JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we need more engines like yours. Instead, Amazon, Spotify, etc. simply steer me toward the more mainstream genre-media that I already know about. Oh you like Grandaddy? You'll like the Pixies. Oh you like the Pixies? You'll like Radiohead. Oh you like the Radiohead? You'll like Nirvana. Please, I want to go the opposite direction.

I listened to over 500 totally different genres on spotify lately, it's not difficult, it just means you have to do slightly more work than blindly listening to whatever spotify shoves you? The trick is to pick a specific genre of music -- soul, rock, whatever. Use spotify's playlists to get a rough idea of the genre and then use the radio feature to suggest more. There are good genre explorers, too -- i seem to reme…

Maybe you're thinking of everynoise.com -- probably one of my favorite sites on the net.

Re: Show HN: An anti-book recommendation tool, to help you escape your echo chamber

#150

Post by sixstringtheory »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #80
gcatalfamo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is surely anecdotal, but I feel your POV applies more to open minded people, while close minded people are more inclined to feel threatened by opposite perspectives.

Sometimes those opposite perspectives really are threatening, though.

True enough. And the response that I think should appeal even to the close-minded: those perspectives don’t go away just because you’re not exposed to them, and you won’t understand enough to push back if you never study then.
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