The new inquisition by Robert Anton Wilson
Wonders of the Natural Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
141–150 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#142Honestly, Anthem. While I think it's a pinch silly oversimplification of things, it makes good arguments against central planning and for individuality and liberty. It really struck a chord in an impressionable 16 year old.
Ayn Rand is reasonably good at diagnosing certain problems, but for her solutions, its hard to tell the poison from the cure.
Also, she has no sense of "Standing on the shoulders of giants", and how an eco systems make some things easier and harder.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#143"Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much" - by Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir. Access to scarce resources induces a particular scarcity mindset, which the authors -- both behavioural economists at Harvard and MIT respectively -- show with a large variety of well-chosen examples. The kicker is that time is one of those resources. In other words, I may be economically well-off, but if I'm short of time, I ado…
Read that one a few months ago. Definitely recommended.
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#144The Goal (by Eliyahu) - changed the way I thought about business operations and about how efficiency can be detrimental to throughput
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#145Non-Fiction (Science) - *The Selfish Gene* by Richard Dawkins - *The Righteous Mind* by Jonathan Haidt - *Thinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman Non-Fiction (Social) - *The Art of Not Being Governed* by James C. Scott - *The Unwinding* by George Packer - *People's History of the United States* by Howard Zinn Fiction - *East of Eden* by John Steinbeck - *Sometimes a Great Notion* by Ken Kesey - *The Brothers Kara…
What can we expect to gain from these books? What did you get from them?
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#146“The Design of Everyday Things” changed the way I see literally everything. You’ll never look at doors the same way again, and prepare to forever be frustrated by poorly designed objects, and delighted by incredibly well designed ones. There is no better book on the philosophy of UX, imho.
not only UX. programmers can actually learn a lot about building software if they see the meta in the book (replace door w/ interface. think about the mental model your library user is going to build for your library. make things easy to use when the correct pattern is employed and impossible if improperly done. minimize cognitive load) the book is brilliant
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#147The Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker. A mammoth book but this is because it covers so much. Everyone time I put it down I was left with something to reflect on human nature and how far we've come!
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#148One book that changed me was reading Master and Margarita in Russian for the first time. It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end. Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time. The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and it was wonderful to hear his ideas in wri…
Great quote, Watts is truly inspirational. What a happy surprise when Ctrl+F takes you right to the first comment ;)
If anyone doesn't have the time or attention span to commit to a full-blown book, The Joyous Cosmology [0] and Become What You Are [1] present some of Watt's ideas in a more condensed format. The former is a ~30 page essay freely available online. The latter is a collection of ~15 very short essays (1-12pg each) - a perfect replacement for smartphone scrolling when confronted with 5-10 minutes of free time.
https://holybooks-lichtenbergpress.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content...
https://www.amazon.com/Become-What-You-Alan-Watts/dp/1570629...
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#149One book that changed me was reading Master and Margarita in Russian for the first time. It was the first book I started reading I could not put down until the end. Gained a lot of appreciation for literature at that time. The other book that I enjoyed and changed me was ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’ by Alan Watts. I was a fan of Alan Watts works through his lectures already and it was wonderful to hear his ideas in wri…
When you mentioned Alan Watts and his quote, I thought I'd share a small animated clip that presented that quote well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoTmNU_5A0
Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?
#150Why Nations Fail really helped give me deep intuitions around politics. It taught me that political stability is immensely hard to achieve and very rare. I've since come to see every situation as a political situation. This helps me reason about my environment much more clearly.