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"The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." Not because I remember anything about it, or believe anything it espouses, or even like it all that much, but because it's a useful filter for obnoxious people in meatspace. If someone I don't know too well asks me what my favorite book is, I say Atlas Shrugged. If they react inappropriately, I'll be cordial and treat them with respect,…
Whenever I hear about that author the only thing I can think of is her adoration of a strong man in the person of a killer who kidnapped a little girl and propped up half her body in a car to ransom her back to her father then pushed the half a corpse into the street and drove off with the money. Then I think about her retiring on welfare.
> "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
https://www.alternet.org/2015/01/how-ayn-rand-became-big-adm...
It's not a fair comparison but when someone says their favorite author is Rand I have a similar response as if they had said "Hitler". I can tolerate ideas I hate but see little profit in trafficking too much with sociopaths. Perhaps you don't either else why do you avoid those who are "way too supportive"
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I bounced off of it expecting to enjoy it because I read lots of Pynchon.
That's interesting. I never had a problem ploughing through Pynchon, and as I mentioned I bounced off Ulysses in my early 20s. I am right now in the last pages of my 1st reread of Gravity's Rainbow. I have to say I prefer Joyce now. And I think I liked my recent read of Against the Day over GR, an unexpected development. Gotta say though, GR is still awesome. Fearless.
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> "The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." "huh, ok" > Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my throat on a faux pas. I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you. Edit: tests and trick questions with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world…
OP is playing checkers; the rest of HN is playing chess....
- The beginning of infinity by David Deutsch.
This book really ignited my love for epistemology in general, and the nature of scientific progress and understanding.
Another notable book for me :
Finite and infinite games by James Carse.
I find the book fascinating if only because the concept the author is describing is both intuitive and counter - intuitive at the same time.
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I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, yes you probably don't want to go through life "testing" people in this way as I'm sure there are some unintended consequences of doing so and you probably end up with kind of a boring circle of people around you. On the other hand, I would never want to be friends with someone who thinks someone is an idiot because they liked a particular book. "You liked this thing I don't lik…
Saying it is your favorite book is one thing. Saying it "changed your life" is another and yes, I'd think anyone who's life was changed by that particular book is indeed an idiot. I just don't see myself wanting to continue to engage with that person after a comment like that. Maybe I'm just impatient shrug
i'm with the parent commenter here as i find your response very much telling on how you evaluate things and frankly, more idiotic than someone's life being changed, even by the "intended" interpretation of the book
e.g. would you say that everyone who liked / was influenced by reading "mein kampf" is a nazi?
Impossible to pick just one. I'll give a few that haven't appeared yet: Fiction: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Non-fiction: Rationality - from AI to Zombies (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Probably no books have impacted me quite as much as these two, barring early-childhood books that have impacted me from a young age. Fiction: Worm (by Parahumans) Best "superhero" fiction ever created. Just on…
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Saying it is your favorite book is one thing. Saying it "changed your life" is another and yes, I'd think anyone who's life was changed by that particular book is indeed an idiot. I just don't see myself wanting to continue to engage with that person after a comment like that. Maybe I'm just impatient shrug
Cactacea Shrugged Before I made a judgement about someone making that claim, I'd need to know in what way it 'changed their life'.