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Five Books: The best books on everything

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Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#61

Post by harry8 »

nindalf wrote: post #5

The Economist does something similar with their Economist Reads column. Their topics are more esoteric though. The best books to understand - The Scottish Independence Movement - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/05/02/wha... - Poker - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha... - Florida - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha... - Investing - https://www.e…

The economist writers are like chatGPT of journalism. It all sounds fine and you think it's great right up to the point it's on a topic you know /anything/ at all about. Suddenly every single time, just on the topics you know just something of it has no depth, no understanding and has no idea what facts it just made up.

The writers are clearly intelligent and literary it's just they genuinely don't care to understand the subject of their writing. Try it for yourself. Pick anything you know a bit about then read the economist on it. It's a partial crib sheet at best.

I pick investing above and think that list is shallow. Any takers for Florida, poker, Scottish independence, banned books?

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#62

Post by nl »

deevus wrote: post #33

I was recently recommended the sci-fi space opera "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. That was an absolute blast to read. If you're into computer science, you'll really dig it. There is a summary with no spoilers at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5jTNUSIR18

Vinge is probably my favorite SciFi author.

His "True Names" is everything you need to know about "cyberspace", written in 1981 but still seems modern today:

> True Names is a 1981 science fiction novella by American writer Vernor Vinge, a seminal work of the cyberpunk genre. It is one of the earliest stories to present a fully fleshed-out concept of cyberspace, which would later be central to cyberpunk. The story also contains elements of transhumanism, anarchism, and even hints about The Singularity.

> True Names first brought Vinge to prominence as a science fiction writer. It also inspired many real-life hackers and computer scientists; a 2001 book about the novella, True Names: And the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier, included essays by Danny Hillis, Marvin Minsky, Mark Pesce, Richard Stallman and others.[1] It was awarded the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#63

Post by kragen »

i struggle to find categories on the front page containing falsifiable assertions

where are the best five books on linear algebra, on signal processing, on control theory, on equid phylogeny, on group theory, on energy-efficient architectural design, on civil engineering?

they do have https://fivebooks.com/best-books/artificial-intelligence-gpt... to be fair, and all five seem to actually exist, but kahneman is in the list?

some of the lists on https://fivebooks.com/category/technology/ look more promising

for example, they do have a list of five books on programming. but it includes 'clean code', by that unqualified blowhard bob martin? the cs for data science list looks possibly okay

and their recommendations for philosophy of technology come from... evgeny morozov? are they deliberately trying to get terrible recommendations?

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#64

Post by dvsfish »

autarch wrote: post #21
activitypea wrote: post #2

I've been looking for something like this, hopefully other users can weigh in if the curation is any good.

I looked through the sci-fi and fantasy sections and there were some odd choices. For example, Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation was recommended as a "climate change novel" book. It's hard for me to see how this makes any sense. Other weird suggestions: * Ender's Game under Best Apocalyptic Fiction * Parable of the Talents under Best Sci Fi Books on Space Settlement - this is real stretch since the book takes place enti…

I wondered about Annihilation too.

I mean... I guess the climate did change, but it didn't seem like that had anything to do with anthropomorphic climate change, which is surely the implied idea of the category

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#65

Post by abrookewood »

the__alchemist wrote: post #60
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m still looking for the next such author. Sadly I think I have expired the list since I haven’t found any new great ones in the past six years. I’ve read pretty much all the classics though.

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time trilogy is in that window, and it's fantastic. They might have been a one-off; his Shards of Earth book is not on its level.

This series is excellent!

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#66

Post by yaksha »

deevus wrote: post #33

I was recently recommended the sci-fi space opera "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. That was an absolute blast to read. If you're into computer science, you'll really dig it. There is a summary with no spoilers at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5jTNUSIR18

Big fan of Rainbow's End from Vernor Vinge, it's take as a neat future reality was very interesting and feasible.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#67

Post by WanderPanda »

harry8 wrote: post #61
nindalf wrote: post #5

The Economist does something similar with their Economist Reads column. Their topics are more esoteric though. The best books to understand - The Scottish Independence Movement - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/05/02/wha... - Poker - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha... - Florida - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha... - Investing - https://www.e…

The economist writers are like chatGPT of journalism. It all sounds fine and you think it's great right up to the point it's on a topic you know /anything/ at all about. Suddenly every single time, just on the topics you know just something of it has no depth, no understanding and has no idea what facts it just made up. The writers are clearly intelligent and literary it's just they genuinely don't care to understand…

Seems like you just described journalism in general, or do you think the economist is particularly bad in this regard?

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#68

Post by f5ve »

harry8 wrote: post #61
nindalf wrote: post #5

The Economist does something similar with their Economist Reads column. Their topics are more esoteric though. The best books to understand - The Scottish Independence Movement - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/05/02/wha... - Poker - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha... - Florida - https://www.economist.com/the-economist-reads/2023/04/16/wha... - Investing - https://www.e…

The economist writers are like chatGPT of journalism. It all sounds fine and you think it's great right up to the point it's on a topic you know /anything/ at all about. Suddenly every single time, just on the topics you know just something of it has no depth, no understanding and has no idea what facts it just made up. The writers are clearly intelligent and literary it's just they genuinely don't care to understand…

It's true that the writers of the economist are frequently glib. This is compounded by their very strict style guide and editors. Everything sounds paradoxically very distinctive and generic, and it reads like it's all written by the same person. So I can relate to your GPT comment too.

But they very rarely get the big picture wrong. Geopolitics, global economic trends, American politics from a distance, etc. I don't think 5 books on this or pop science that are why most people read it.

So I agree with you, but I also like the paper a lot.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#69

Post by consilient »

latexr wrote: post #10
leto_ii wrote: post #6

I find this to be simplistic pop intelectual nonsense. This is not how to learn anything. It's way more meaningful to understand and pursue your own actual interests than to humble brag by ticking the "correct" readings. Not to mention that talking about the best anything is basically meaningless, except for very tightly constrained achievements (e.g. we can talk about the best sprinter, but who's the best philosophe…

I’m having a hard time parsing your complaint. > This is not how to learn anything. You don’t learn anything by reading books? So if you have an interest in astronomy you don’t learn by reading books on astronomy? How do you learn, then? Must one go study to become an astronomer as the first step? Won’t you have to read a book on it at some point? > It's way more meaningful to understand and pursue your own actual in…

> Must one go study to become an astronomer as the first step?

Ideally yes, but failing that you learn from textbooks. Popsci books, at their best, get people interested and maybe manage to convey a few only moderately distorted factoids. They don't teach anything of substance.

Re: Five Books: The best books on everything

#70

Post by harry8 »

WanderPanda wrote: post #67
harry8 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economist writers are like chatGPT of journalism. It all sounds fine and you think it's great right up to the point it's on a topic you know /anything/ at all about. Suddenly every single time, just on the topics you know just something of it has no depth, no understanding and has no idea what facts it just made up. The writers are clearly intelligent and literary it's just they genuinely don't care to understand…

Seems like you just described journalism in general, or do you think the economist is particularly bad in this regard?

Sure there's always Gell-Mann amnesia [1] And we put less stock in USA Today or Yahoo! news stories than the NYT. Or at least used to.

The thing that is particularly bad with respect to the economist is that there are many intelligent, thoughtful, educated people who haven't spotted just how terrible it is. The economist is also particularly bad given they push an agenda then fit the reporting they plagiarise to match that agenda with no references and no byline.

"Chat GPT write me an article with respect domestic politics of country X that supports the next possible war between the west and country Y." Chat GPT doesn't write as well as the economist oxbridge grads however the actual content is no worse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...

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