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

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

#161

Post by scottlocklin » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

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...

Cantos, Bros Karamazov, Gibbon, Junger, Norwich .... I get suggestions for crummy business self help books, a biography of Elton John, something about crazy ladies talking to their crazy therapists, and something on vegetarianism I had already read and found laughably insane and ill researched. I'll stick with my literary bubble.

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

#162

Post by zahma » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

maxk42 wrote: post #160

The idea is good but the execution leaves much to be desired: I entered two political books on economics and the climate and got a list of cookbooks and a few political books that agreed with the original two books.

True. I am definitely breaking out of my echo chamber (Cannery Row / For Whom the Bell Tolls) if I read a bunch of romantic fiction and Calvin and Hobbes comics. Those genres were the bulk of my suggestions, But I don't want to stray that far...

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

#163

Post by kashyapc » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

I realize, the site's aim is to help you escape the "echo chamber". But I've recently been mulling over this other idea from Seneca (writing 2000 years ago!) on limiting the number of books you read, hard as it is, for an avid reader:

[...] Be careful, though, about your reading in many authors and every type of book. It may be that there is something wayward and unstable in it. You must stay with a limited number of writers and be fed by them if you mean to derive anything that will dwell reliably with you. One who is everywhere is nowhere. Those who travel all the time find that they have many places to stay, but no friendships. The same thing happens to those who do not become intimate with any one author, but let everything rush right through them. Food does not benefit or become part of the body when it is eaten and immediately expelled. Nothing impedes healing as much as frequent change of medications. A wound does not close up when one is always trying out different dressings on it; a seedling that is transplanted repeatedly will never grow strong. [...]

"But I want to read different books at different times," you say. The person of delicate digestion nibbles at this and that; when the diet is too varied, though, food does not nourish but only upsets the stomach. [...]

  — Letter 2 ("A beneficial reading program"); translation by Long and Graver

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

#164

Post by goto11 » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

kashyapc wrote: post #163

I realize, the site's aim is to help you escape the "echo chamber". But I've recently been mulling over this other idea from Seneca (writing 2000 years ago!) on limiting the number of books you read, hard as it is, for an avid reader: [...] Be careful, though, about your reading in many authors and every type of book. It may be that there is something wayward and unstable in it. You must stay with a limited number of…

If you want to follow the spirit of the advice, you should certainly cut down on internet forums before you cut down on books.

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

#165

Post by cgriswald » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

kashyapc wrote: post #163

I realize, the site's aim is to help you escape the "echo chamber". But I've recently been mulling over this other idea from Seneca (writing 2000 years ago!) on limiting the number of books you read, hard as it is, for an avid reader: [...] Be careful, though, about your reading in many authors and every type of book. It may be that there is something wayward and unstable in it. You must stay with a limited number of…

I read that more as advice on focusing your reading. Maybe instead of reading all books on astrophysics, cooking, and interpersonal communications you read a few books on one of the subjects. I don’t think it’s in conflict with breaking your bubble with this site.

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

#166

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

kashyapc wrote: post #163

I realize, the site's aim is to help you escape the "echo chamber". But I've recently been mulling over this other idea from Seneca (writing 2000 years ago!) on limiting the number of books you read, hard as it is, for an avid reader: [...] Be careful, though, about your reading in many authors and every type of book. It may be that there is something wayward and unstable in it. You must stay with a limited number of…

[deleted]

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

#167

Post by onecommentman » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

I think this could be more impactful if it focused on short form/summary/critique recommendations.

Recommending someone from the left to read a book by Solzhenitsyn, or someone from the right to read a book by Maya Angelou is a hefty time commitment with little promise of proportionate intellectual gain for the time invested.

But to have recommendations on good counterpoint short form content (short stories, journal articles, essays) might get someone who is busy with life and career to spend a few minutes. Harder to ultimately monetize, since the business model for the online book market is pretty mature at this point but no one directly directly pays for that single essay. So where are micro transactions?

Anyone who has been in the position where their time was truly valuable instinctively protects their free time from “long form” intrusions. It the book is worthwhile, the essays on the essence of the ideas will be even more valuable (per minute). Most pop books or ideological rants might only need a paragraph. Condensing into short form might lead to the embarrassing disclosure that the emperor has no clothes.

The idea that you have to read a long form text to understand a different perspective sets off alarm bells in my head. I seem to remember that cults would always want prospective recruits to stay at the Center the whole weekend.

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

#168

Post by heavyset_go » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

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…

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.

Last.fm recommendations are great for this.

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

#169

Post by bigbubba » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #60

Me: The Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Dune First result: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Not sure what to make of that...

I got that recommendation several times when putting in a variety of scifi or fantasy. It really likes Scrooge McDuck.

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

#170

Post by sieabahlpark » Sun, Dec 13, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #103

gcatalfamo wrote: post #26

I think there is a genuine need for escaping echo chambers but every attempt is usually aimed just showing the opposite side/narrative. If I am conservative I won’t be open to be shown the most leftist content, and viceversa, while instead I might be open to be shown more balanced views that might gradually carry me out of my echo chamber instead of reinforcing it. edit: this an OT comment more related to the echo ch…

I think in order for the opposite thing to work, you have to approach the material with the understanding that "There are people who believe this stuff as firmly as I believe the complete opposite. If you asked them, they say, with absolute conviction, that I'm nuts. How might that happen? What if they're right? What could I have missed?" This engages System 2, hard. And it's so easy to slip back into System 1 and co…

> I think in order for the opposite thing to work, you have to approach the material with the understanding that "There are people who believe this stuff as firmly as I believe the complete opposite. If you asked them, they say, with absolute conviction, that I'm nuts. How might that happen? What if they're right? What could I have missed?"

Always spoken to a person as if they're wrong. How about seeing this problem from yet a different view too? One in which the answer is, "You first, show good faith before you're critical of my views"

You don't go into a board room telling the CEO he's a fuckwit and that you're right without first getting how they understand something. You're never going to change any mind with this program unless it's compulsory and even then you'll only drive people to be more certain of their views.

I swear HN is about as academic as reddit is, which is to say zero. There is no actual critical thinking about the hypotheticals. Immediately, without provocation, it's that one side is right and wrong and feeling strongly is ultimately equivalent to being that wrong. I'm ashamed I even bother posting on here at all, not that anyone responds of course since this is a dead account.