Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read

Yeah, see, this is the sort of argument that even freshmen College Democrats think isn't worth arguing.

Yeah, my computer's a result of that capitalistic model. That computer was made in a factory that attracted a lot of controversy for having working conditions so poor that employees literally killed themselves. That factory is the result of a line of thinking that dates back to Henry Ford, which is: let's find exactly the price that we can pay people to get them doing monotonous, soul-deadening work for eight to sixteen hours a day without them walking out. And the more these factories become the norm, the less we'll have to pay, because the fewer other places they can go.

What amuses me about this is that I am not a radical critic of capitalism. As far as people who think capitalism's less than perfect goes, I am so far along being okay with capitalism that my radical friends make fun of me for it. Your treating me like I'm some idiot who doesn't know the first thing about history suggests you haven't had many conversations about this, because trust me, nothing I'm saying is controversial in the least.

The way I see it, capitalism is a very sensible model for creating new things, for innovating, for encouraging systematic change in the directions of optimization and consumer satisfaction. But this model is only as effective, basically, as the freedoms which you're given within it – same as any system, right? In capitalism, the biggest threat is basically that those with the means of production and wealth hold all the reins, and they can inflict horrible suffering upon lots of people without punishment. I'm not just talking about paying people cruel wages to work at factories – I'm talking TV networks producing terrible bottom-of-the-rung shows, and opposing competition from cable networks who'd like to offer quality programming. Or a music industry that is so determined to squeeze as much money as possible out of super-celebrity bands that it's hurt the ability of smaller, local bands to support themselves. The scale at which mass production operates is literally inhuman: that is, it is so large that we are mentally incapable of processing it without a whole lot of effort. And because of that, it's led to a lot of nastiness that's hurt a bunch of people, not even because the people inflicting the pain are evil, but because they can't comprehend the extent of their actions. And, of course, they have incentives to look only at the good their actions create, and not at all at the bad – much like you with your silly "YOU USE COMPUTERS TOO" argument.

Now, the reason I'm not a radical anarchist like some of my friends is that I feel people attempting to revise capitalism can still achieve something from within the system. I also think that capitalism is better enough than the old alternatives that its shittiness can be, not forgiven, but understood within the greater historical context. My radical friends would disagree with this: they'd argue that enough freedom was lost in the 20th century that we're worse off now than ever before. I suspect they're wrong. They'd also argue that capitalism cannot be fixed without outright revolution – I disagree with that too. But I think it's pretty obvious that "capitalism unto itself" is an outdated economic model with some blatant flaws, and that we'll see the world slowly adopting more humane systems. And again, this is not a controversial thought except among those who've rationalized the deaths and sufferings of all the people who go into making this comfortable system for we lucky few.

I'm conflicted about how stuck I am with the system that currently exists, about how little alternative I have. I hope that tech manufacturers figure out a way to offer me good products with much less human suffering behind their manufacturing; I'd pay a premium for that, in fact. And capitalism allows for that too, so I can criticize the state of our capitalist world today without rejecting capitalism outright and going to live in the woods. I like civilization. I just happen to think that capitalism is not quite so civilized as you'd like to believe it is for convenience's sake.

Eric Hoffer - The True Believer. Why people are seduced by mass movements, whether political or religious.

V.S. Naipaul - Among the Believers. A collection of vignettes about Islam in non-Arab countries.

Reza Aslan - No God But God, Beyond Fundamentalism. A non boring history of Islam. An explanation of the difference between jihadic and nationalistic movements in Islam.

Deer Hunting With Jesus - Joe Bageant. Why poor white Americans vote Republican.

Robert D. Kaplan - Imperial Grunts, Hog Pilots, Monsoon, Revenge of Geography. First two are a look into the current state of deployed US Military. Monsoon is about the importance of the Indian Ocean area, and Revenge of Geography is about the importance of geography in shaping geopolitics.

John McPhee - Annals of the Former World. History of North America from a geological perspective.

The downvoting is suprising.

I have a history degree and that list more or less represents some of the required reading for an undergraduate history program.

Unfortunately, our economy influences our culture, media, technology, and celebrity. The book Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything, published 2011, makes the argument that economy is the underlying force that defines everything else. It affects how our media reports stories, for instance, which creates openings for entrepreneurs who want to manipulate that system for their own profit, which in turn has made America's political process into a carnival sideshow, which discourages Americans from paying attention and makes the problem even worse. It also gives business owners an incentive to pay their employees as little as possible, and to oppose any sort of regulation that would force them to give employees any kind of benefits which would cost them time and money.

I wish I could say that technology start-ups are exempt from this, that we enlightened bunch are nice enough and smart enough that we do capitalism right, and there are a bunch of tech companies that really do some great things for employees and charity and that try to minimize suffering. Unfortunately, even among start-ups you have some instances of awful jackassery, and even among the tech legends there is some less-than-good stuff happening. Amazon in particular has notoriously bad warehouse policies, and I've heard reports that even the higher-up employees are routinely treated like shit. There is a culture wherein we expect start-up people to undergo excruciating hours and a lot of stress for even the hope of success, and while I understand why that culture exists, I also think it's not especially healthy that we consider this process to be the norm. There are some people who truly do thrive under such pressure, but there are plenty others who are smart and hard-working and have good ideas who are either crushed by that process, or who are too intimidated by it to try working within it, and that's less than good.

Some things capitalism does are great, and I suspect that they'll remain great as we slowly reform society. But the system as-is is too problematic in too many ways for me to excuse them all, or to forgive capitalism's flaws which allowed this.

I take the word "atheist" at literal face value. I call myself an atheist because I am "a" == "not" a "theist" == "religious adherent". Agnostics are also in that category.

The squabbling about non-theistic definitions is stupidly pointless. Come on guys, we're all not theists here!