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Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

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Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#151
post #32

Greg Egan's Permutation City had a major influence on my own thoughts on consciousness and AI, as did Hofstadter's G.E.B . The Dust Theory in Permutation City is fairly mindblowing, and in a sense takes the ideas behind a Boltzmann brain to even further extremes. Epictetus' Enchiridion helped me massively with depression and anxiety over the past few years. I still read a few excerpts from it weekly. Much of it is se…

+1 for Permutation City. I still ponder that sim that is run out of order and sees the world come by, out of order.

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#152
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wary of most entrepreneurs, investors, and "thought leaders" offering advice as they tend to either be self-serving, productivity porn, or deep-seeming ideas that are easily said but impossible to implement. And, all too often, they only have a platform or "success" because of a huge head start from family wealth or from being an outright sociopath (or both).

Naval was born poor.

Elon was born rich.

I wasn't arguing anything about any particular person, but rather commenting that a lot of the entrepreneurs and investors that get fetishized around here found their "success" from family wealth or by doing some sociopath-level things. There are obviously exceptions, and maybe Naval is one of them, but I've read enough Silicon Valley biographies to become pretty skeptical of this entire genre of business/self-help/productivity hack books/blogs/tweets.

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#153

Here are mine: - "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene - "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker - "Left of Bang" by Patrick van Horne and Jason Riley - "Influence" and its follow-up "Pre-suasion" by Robert Cialdini - "Courage is Calling" by Ryan Holiday (yes it was published this year but I found it helpful) - "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie - "No One Ever Told Us That" by John D. Spooner…

48 laws of power, influence, win friends, and to some degree rich dad, when put together in a list, could tell a story about someone. I’m curious in a non-attacking sort of way, do you consider yourself a sociopath, or to have more manipulative tendencies than those around you?

Most evil people lack self awareness. It's like asking a prisoner if he's guilty. Most say "no."

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#154

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I was overly social, choosing others over myself. I thought it was the way, possibly due to my Christian upbringing. But I learned that to say “I love you”, one must first be able to say “I”. Rational self interest is a good ethical basis for a non-sociopathic human. If you’re a sociopath, it’s horrible, which brings me to my next recommendation: Humandkind by Rutger Bregman (in Dutch: “Mo…

Haha, Mention Ayn Rand on HN, get some downvotes, sadly never any good questions or remarks. I wonder if the downvoters really read it. I feel like just like the Selfish Gene, you can misread Atlas Shrugged. I think a core point is that it makes you ponder if doing something for someone you love is selfishness. Or if true self-sacrifice is doing something you hate for something you don’t believe in. What’s good, what’s evil? It changed me, I believe for the better.

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#155
post #76

A Master's Secret Whispers: For those who abhor the noise and seek The Truth about life and living https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Secret-Whispers-those-living/... Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735211299/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Alman…

Are there other people who think Naval Ravikant has zero original ideas and his real competence is speech?

Why should I care whether an idea is original ?

If he offers me a bunch of true and useful ideas, in a single place, and in a useful form, that seems valuable to me.

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#156
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wary of most entrepreneurs, investors, and "thought leaders" offering advice as they tend to either be self-serving, productivity porn, or deep-seeming ideas that are easily said but impossible to implement. And, all too often, they only have a platform or "success" because of a huge head start from family wealth or from being an outright sociopath (or both).

What % are from family wealth?

I don't know, and the specific percent isn't the point. I'd encourage you to critically read bios of any Silicon Valley idols you might have, with an eye towards this.

My personal epiphany came about 10 years ago. I was in an incubator in SF, and some investor came to give a talk about fundraising. They heavily emphasized that many startups do a friends-and-family round to bridge them to a proper seed round-- nothing major, just get 20k from 5 family members and you should be good until you have something to show angel investors. My two co-founders and I (all from the Midwest) realized that we couldn't even come up with five people to ask for 20k because all of us came from pretty modest families.

These are the types of privileges that get glossed over in success stories. To be successful you, more likely than not, need to either have money or have connections to money. Everyone likes a good underdog story, but those founders are more like lottery winners than anything else.

So, coming from that lens, it's hard to take advice seriously from "successful" entrepreneurs. It's sort of our industry's equivalent of "just stop eating avocado toast and you'll become a millionaire."

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#157
post #40

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I delayed for too long reading this thrilling book. It was like getting a brain massage. So many wonderful lessons in rational thinking packed into a truly enjoyable and memorable story. In response to some questions: It's not a kids book. It's a fan-fiction inspired by the original books, but written with adults in mind. You can read it for free at http://www.hpmor.com/ .

Note to new readers: it's written so well, it's actually very easy to underestimate. Quite a few things which seem to be weaknesses are very much on purpose (main character's personality is one of them). I could go on but it's not at all a spoiler-friendly book - suffices to say that at some point the author posted the equivalent of "are you daft?!" to the readers in the book notes.

You may also want to take a peek at the Contents. The plot will catch you too fast to notice, but most parts of the book are meant to teach a certain lesson. And yes, there exists the no-fiction version, but it's quite a bit longer and drier :)

Re: Ask HN: Life Changing Books?

#159

Moral Politics, by George Lakoff: this book offered a new perspective on not just the discussion and language of politics, but sent me down the rabbit hole of cognitive linguistics and "embedded mind" in books he authored or co-authored, such as "Metaphors We Live By", "Philosophy in the Flesh", and "Where Mathematics Comes From". Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond: Gave me a deeper insight into the geographic un…

Notably, GGS is not held in especially high esteem by academic historians. If you are interested in a widely loved piece of geographic history, Braudel's The Mediterranean is considered a classic.
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