Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#271

Post by grawprog » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

Farenheit 451. It made me look at the things we have in the world today differently. I personally think it came closer than 1984 at predicting the future. The attitudes of the general society in that world reminded me of the way certain topics, information and discourse have become taboo and society has become the arbiters of what information is deemed allowable. The way everyone is expected to numb themselves with drugs, their giant tv screens and their ear buds and anyone that would rather learn is looked at with suspicion.

I never actually read it until around the time the iPhone came out and everyone was walking around with those white earbuds. I remember sitting on the bus reading and I looked up and stared around at the people on their phones with their white earbuds and all I could think was holy fuck Ray Bradbury was right.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#272

Post by yoodenvranx » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

For me the answer is any random book from Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchet. Both authors basically shaped my understabding of humour and the state of the world.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#273

Post by pokler » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

Two come to mind for me.

The first is Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky. This was the first political book I had ever read and it completely rocked my world. I knew the US was involved in some nefarious stuff, but never to that extent. Completely changed the way I read news / history & how I react to current events.

The other book is Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#274

Post by 6cd6beb » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #205

citilife wrote: post #193

I always viewed reading a book as collecting a soul. If you fully grok a book, you grok the authors thoughts. Being able to put yourself in another persons mindset is crucial. Speaking of "groking", Stranger in a Strange Land , Time Enough for Love and The Fountain Head have probably had the most impact on my mindset. Each book is rather different, but in general the idea of all three is > You have to be in life for…

Welp. And this is why I think Ann Rand was deeply evil and The Fountain Head was a horrible work of propaganda. It's not okay to be greedy, nor is it okay to be selfish. And these ideas are responsible for much of the harm in the world. It is okay to know what you need and advocate for your needs, to take care of yourself. But that is not being greedy or selfish. And to do it effectively means you have to be able to…

"It's ok to be greedy/selfish" is a clickbait title for the statement that you look out for yourself first and foremost whether you admit it or not, and you want things innately.

In a well regulated capitalist environment, those drives are yoked in a way that the paths through which you become rich and powerful and sexy are the same paths through which you improve the lives of others around you.

In a poorly regulated one you get dupont and enron, but show me a silver-bullet government theory and I'll show you an unrealistic fantasy.

>A mindset of "greed is good" and "it's okay to be self" does not even try to understand the difference between "need" and "want"

You're assigning that. Honestly I don't think most of Ayn Rand's critics have read her books.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#275

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

wooly_bully wrote: post #20

elpakal wrote: post #3

Guns, Germs and Steel by Diamond. Also Foundation Trilogy by Asimov because of the incredible creativity needed to tell that story

Strongly disagree. The geographic determinism theory of GG&S is frustrating and ignores significant factors in the rise of the West. This review is something I generally send out to people after they've read GG&S, and strongly recommend Eric Wolf as an author. He puts many of the points I would make significantly more eloquently: https://www.livinganthropologically.com/eric-wolf-europe-peo...

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#276

Post by jyriand » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

richardjdare wrote: post #168

gglitch wrote: post #9

I imagine I’ll take heat for this, but the first answer that comes to mind is A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari. It has been justifiably criticized by many people on many grounds, but as with OP and Freakonomics, certain of the concepts in that book frequently appear in my thoughts 20 years after I worked through some of it. I don’t associate it with truth; but some of the mental models have really stuck with…

I've wanted to read A Thousand Plateaus for a few years. The first time I tried it, all that stuff about wolves and geology just lost me. I will have to try again. Honestly, I found it harder than Heidegger's Being and Time, which I worked through while listening to Hubert Dreyfus's lectures on iTunes U a few years ago. Whenever I read about Deleuze and Guattari I get this feeling they are on to something - I just do…

One thing with Thousand Plateaus is that you don't have to read the book in sequence. You can start with random chapter. That's the only thing I remember from the book.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#277

Post by matwood » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

6ak74rfy wrote: post #210

jpollock wrote: post #75

Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - it changed how I approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was limiting outcomes. :) Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change. However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.

I'd concur that the book was a huge eye-opener for me. Earlier, I used to think that I only needed to be right (for e.g., while making technical design decisions) and just say it out when I disagreed. This book taught me that the way you put forward your thoughts also matters. You can be right without being a dick and without screwing up your relationships with others. I followed up this book with Stephen Covey's 7 H…

Agreed. Relationships are how we get things done in life. Reaching consensus, asking for help, motivation - all based around relationships with others.

Since How to Win Friends is already mentioned, I'll add Musashi here. There are so many lessons it's hard to pick them all out, plus I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#278

Post by jcranberry » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #131

jcranberry wrote: post #67

The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky. At the time I didn't realize that it changed me, but looking back on it, the perspectives I learned from it fundamentally how I viewed and understood other people.

It’s so good. I just finished reading the Constance Garnett translation and it’s just gripping all the way through. Well, I guess apart from Zossima’s life story in the middle, but that definitely has its place. The Gutenberg HTML of it is definitely a labour of love and extremely high quality: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html . I converted it to a nicely formatted epub for Standard Ebooks a…

I was surprised no one else mentioned at least one book by Dostoevsky, actually. At least, at the time of commenting.

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#279

Post by sksareen1 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

For what changed my outlook on life? Xenocide - Orson Scott Card. The 3rd book in the Ender's Game saga, it spend a lot of time exploring how people with fundamentally different perceptions and interpretations of the world around them led them to conduct themselves in ways that conflicted with each other, but were virtuous and the right thing to do according to them.

Was a big help in helping me understand how empathy can help to resolve issues and how fundamentally different we all can think - be it medieval humans or alien beings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenocide

Re: Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?

#280

Post by wnissen » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

6ak74rfy wrote: post #210

jpollock wrote: post #75

Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" - it changed how I approach teamwork and conversations. It made me aware of how my behaviour was limiting outcomes. :) Frankly, it made me aware that I was being an asshole and that I should change. However, it wasn't necessarily the book, but the course that I found really useful.

I'd concur that the book was a huge eye-opener for me. Earlier, I used to think that I only needed to be right (for e.g., while making technical design decisions) and just say it out when I disagreed. This book taught me that the way you put forward your thoughts also matters. You can be right without being a dick and without screwing up your relationships with others. I followed up this book with Stephen Covey's 7 H…

7 Habits made me think about certain things differently, but I had many people tell me that it really changed their life. Didn't do that for me, but "change your life" is a really high bar. Definitely How to Win Friends did.