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Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

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Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#41

Post by Osmium »

tcskeptic wrote: post #6

What a ponderous, pretentious load. This strikes me very much as a list of "Books I want everyone to know that I think everyone should read" which is very different from the stated title. Is Origin Of Species really a better choice than almost anything on the topic by Dawkins or Gould for the general purpose of "[learning] of our kinship with all other life on Earth"?

You get an historical context by reading the original, "direct from the source", which you don't get from a more modern, easier to digest version. It also gives you a good reference point to be able to discuss the topic with other people, since the more popular text will've had far more commentary written about it and will have far more people having read it.

I think the historical context also has value just because I think, in our modern age, there's a tendency to dismiss the intellectual achievements of our forebearers. To think that humanity in the past made mistakes just because they were dumb. Which is dangerous, because these mistakes tend to repeat themselves. I think reading these older books can give you an appreciation for not just what's changed with humanity, but what's stayed the same too and I think that can be very valuable indeed.

So ponderous maybe, but I don't think it's a pretentious list. I think there's real value there.

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#42

Post by w0utert »

phaus wrote: post #37
barry-cotter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Iliad is both entertaining and well written, while Plato is intellectually stimulating where he's not just wrong. The Bible is not remotely as well written as the Iliad, nor is it comparable as a work of philosophy to Plato.

I'm in the middle of a philosophy 101 class. I had been meaning to read the works of Plato, but until now I was busy learning other stuff. I have to say that surprisingly, I have lost all respect for Plato after reading Crito (It's Plato's take on what Socrates' reasons for not escaping his execution.) It contains the most illogical, oversimplified, flat-out erroneous thought processes I've ever encountered. If Crito…

I'm not sure why you were expecting to respect Plato for everything he wrote about. Plato may have been one of the brilliant minds of all times and have produced some of the most valuable bits of Western culture, history and philosophy, but even for his own time the guy had some seriously disturbing ideas about what the world should look like. The Republic for example has been a great inspiration for fascist ideas or the promotion of human inequality.

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#43

Post by jacques_chester »

hexonexxon wrote: post #19

should've made it 9 books Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West by John Ralston Saul a critical essay of how the age of reason was distorted to trample all over modern democracy

Which sounds a bit like a riff off Hayek, who riffed off a long and illustrious line of skeptics of rationalism.

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#44

Post by ekianjo »

hackerboos wrote: post #36
ekianjo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adam Smith is not the only person to read to understand Capitalism. No need to be pretentious. > An obtuse comment considering he's a leading scientist. So what? Since when being recognized in one field makes you competent in another? A widespread fallacy.

You were being obtuse because since his opinion differs from yours he must have had problems 'understanding' capitalism.

Yeah, because Capitalism is a system that has put millions/billions of people out of misery and starvation throughout the world (and you can see that, proven again when Communist China started to inject some capitalism in its economy in the 1990s), and summarizing is as simply "greed" just does not do much justice to it.

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#45

Post by jacques_chester »

calibraxis wrote: post #8
msvan wrote: post #4

I'll go ahead and claim that most of these books are pretty dry these days. Historically significant, yes, and everyone should definitely know of them and what they're about. But reading them probably won't make much of a difference to your life. The same information can be found in other places these days, in forms that are more comfortable for the brain to digest.

For some of them, I think it's better to first read works from knowledgeable dissidents. Then when reading those books, it's easier to spot the ideologies contained in them which you otherwise might have missed. (Since we have been trained since childhood to accept these ideologies without even noticing them.) Take Wealth Of Nations' insidious creation myth of markets, downplaying government policy in favor of barter…

Here's what amuses me about the idea of false consciousness.

On the one hand, there's a view that history and the world we live in is a monstrous construct, the brilliant triumph of an elaborate, ruthless and flawlessly clandestine scheme orchestrated by generation upon generation of secret master minds.

The alternative is that history is just one damn thing after the other. A complex system for which "it was caused by Secret Masters!" is a pisspoor explanation. Whether you blame it on the capitalist class, Ascended Masters or Jews, it's all the same. It's weak.

I take Chomsky about as seriously as I take any other species of conspiratard (Illuminutties, birthers, truthers, Adam Curtis ... all the same to me).

Good luck fighting the good fight, comrade. Workers of all countries, unite to read this tedious sophomoric drivel and march in pointless rent-a-crowd parades against vague notions!

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#46

Post by hackerboos »

ekianjo wrote: post #44
hackerboos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were being obtuse because since his opinion differs from yours he must have had problems 'understanding' capitalism.

Yeah, because Capitalism is a system that has put millions/billions of people out of misery and starvation throughout the world (and you can see that, proven again when Communist China started to inject some capitalism in its economy in the 1990s), and summarizing is as simply "greed" just does not do much justice to it.

If only it was as simple as that.

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#47

Post by jacques_chester »

hackerboos wrote: post #29
ekianjo wrote: post #7

"The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (eBook) – “to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself.”" : Someone must have had problems understanding Capitalism, it seems.

>Someone must have had problems understanding Capitalism, it seems An obtuse comment considering he's a leading scientist. To call capitalism an 'economy of greed' isn't without merit. After all raw capitalism is about survival of the fittest where only the strong survive and the weak perish, if it were not for the philanthropy of others. I think the great thing about reading Adam Smith is how seriously misunderstood…

Adam Smith said a lot of things -- he was a philosopher of morals before he wrote about what we today call economics.

While he recommended the necessity of basic state institutions, I think would be a reach to say that he would justify the whole of the modern state, as some people nowadays try to imply. He'd probably be considered thoroughly minimalist by today's standards.

Smith's most important contribution was popularising the observation that greed can lead to positive outcomes, so long as it is hedged with some carefully chosen rules. It's inevitable, so there's no much point getting upset about it. Why not turn it to largely positive ends?

He wasn't first. Bernard de Mandeville was well ahead of him with The Fable of the Bees.

I found Hayek enlightening to read: http://chester.id.au/2012/12/07/review-the-essence-of-hayek-...

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#48

Post by Confusion »

ekianjo wrote: post #7

"The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (eBook) – “to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself.”" : Someone must have had problems understanding Capitalism, it seems.

His comment can be compared to stating "a hurricane is an air movement of destruction, a force of nature unto itself". Such a comment wouldn't be considered as disparaging hurricanes, as that would be silly.

Capitalism is fueled by the inclination of people to reduce uncertainty about the future by owning a lot privately. This inclination is so strong it can be compared to a force of nature. This has important consequences for how to deal with capitalism. See my more extensive comment here: http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci/neil-degrasse-tyson-sug...

Re: Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

#49

Post by [deleted] »

ekianjo wrote: post #44
hackerboos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were being obtuse because since his opinion differs from yours he must have had problems 'understanding' capitalism.

Yeah, because Capitalism is a system that has put millions/billions of people out of misery and starvation throughout the world (and you can see that, proven again when Communist China started to inject some capitalism in its economy in the 1990s), and summarizing is as simply "greed" just does not do much justice to it.

[deleted]
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