21–30 of 57 posts
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I knew there was something I liked about this list. (aren't there enough of those already?)
No. I just think it's odd he hasn't included it that's all.
Why is he using links to Amazon? Any reason why Amazon is preferred over other book stores? Is he getting an money from Amazon? How about supporting smaller local book stores, instead of making billionaires richer?
I really like "Reading Tip #1" in the "Links 2013" page, reproduced below: It's tempting to judge what you read: I agree with these statements, and I disagree with those. However, a great thinker who has spent decades on an unusual line of thought cannot induce their context into your head in a few pages. It’s almost certainly the case that you don’t fully understand their statements. Instead, you can say: I have now…
I find both of these reactions to be equally subversive. Whenever I find myself agreeing with something, I'm unwilling to poke around for holes in arguments or question the accuracy of facts presented. Similarly, whenever I disagree with something, I'm unwilling to concede the strong points of an argument or approach the problem from the presented perspective.
To minimize the effects of these emotional reactions, it helps making my judgments as granual as possible. (Don't judge the person: judge each individual action separately. Don't judge actions, judge consequence and intention separately, etc.)
Furthermore, to minimize the polarizing effects of true-false dichotomies, I instead assign ratings (1-6) for a statement's probability of being true.
For opening myself to contradicting world views, it helps to ask what would have to change in the world for this statement to be true?. Instead of forward-reasoning, where you admit your world view and reason forwards to correct conclusions, this mental trick fixes the conclusion and makes you reason backwards towards hypothetical worlds and asks you to identify their properties. It's then easier to diff your view against the proposed worlds and shift your beliefs accordingly.
Why is he using links to Amazon? Any reason why Amazon is preferred over other book stores? Is he getting an money from Amazon? How about supporting smaller local book stores, instead of making billionaires richer?
Well, it's his blog, and he can even put refferal ids in those links if he likes.
>How about supporting smaller local book stores, instead of making billionaires richer?
You can go and buy those books anywhere. The existence of Amazon links doesn't prevent this. They are just useful to gauge the price, read book details (pages, publisher etc) comments and reviews, find other works by the same author, see the cover, etc.
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If you're going to link to something (which is a reasonable thing to do), you have to pick one and exclude the rest. So regardless of who he links to, you could make the same argument you're making (Why this over that? Is he being paid to promote?). As for the idea of supporting large corporations vs. local stores, it's a complicated economic argument. I don't really know enough to say which is better for the society…
I use www.librarything.com to manage books, find books, read/write reviews, search libraries, link to book stores, ... Isn't Amazon is a tax avoider, union hostile and privacy hostile company?
Why is he using links to Amazon? Any reason why Amazon is preferred over other book stores? Is he getting an money from Amazon? How about supporting smaller local book stores, instead of making billionaires richer?
What have you contributed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I just think it's odd he hasn't included it that's all.
it is odd, but I chalk it up to the fact that bret is a young man who's poured his productivity into a field that's fairly broad already. can't fault him for not being as well read in other areas so far in his life, but i'm sure he's interested in getting around to enjoying literature some day