2009 points|apitman|5 years ago|1165 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19087418
Ask HN: What books fundamentally changed the way you think about the world?
152 points|gtrevize|7 years ago|214 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13803787
Ask HN: What are the books that changed the perspective of your life?
88 points|arjitkp|9 years ago|118 comments
It's very theological and possibly hard to get into, but I'll try to summarize it a little for a more secular crowd:
1. Theologically, you have already been given all the advice you need. There's no point to asking Al-Ghazali for advice; but you, the beloved son seeking advice, refuse to read and follow God's words. When you follow your desires [1], the correct advice tastes bitter.
2. A sign that God has turned away from an individual is that the individual spends all their time on unimportant things.
3. A common form of chasing unimportant things is knowledge. Knowledge is a tool, not an achievement. It is arguably sinful to chase knowledge that is left unused.
4. Knowledge without action is insanity, action without knowledge is wasteful. They are always coupled.
5. Prayer alone does not qualify one for Heaven (plenty of Islamic citations included). It's actions that lead to Heaven, often in the form of resisting desires [1] and acting upon given knowledge.
[1] Footnote on "desire": There's not really a good English word for "nafs", as it has both positive and negative connotations. Desire is not simply sexual. It includes desire for financial safety and freedom from work. Desire to sleep late into the night under a warm blanked. Desire to avoid fighting in wars. Desire to not give to charity when poor. Desire to be seen and respected as an intellectual.
And so the act of working and feeding your family with honest work is the kind of action that puts one in heaven. The act of giving to charity when one is poor. The act of night/dawn prayer (there's a whole chapter on night prayer). The act of humbly receiving advice from someone of lower 'rank'. The act of not sucking up to kings or showing off. The seeking of knowledge, especially the burdensome kind of knowledge that puts responsibility on yourself.
No more Mr Nice Guy - "Nice guys" do things to guilt people into reciprocating. When it doesn't happen in the way they expect (e.g. love), they get bitter. If you want something, say it. If you expect a specific kind of reciprocation, make it explicit.
How to win friends and influence people - I remember it as: if you want people to help you, be considerate of their needs and feelings. Seek mutually beneficial agreements. This is so unlike the way conflict resolution is portrayed in movies. It was an important lesson for teenage me.
The Secret Life of Trees - Trees are really cool! You should read The Overstory instead though, because it's a really good (fiction) book that touches on the same topics.
Salt, fat, acid, heat - The lesson is the title. Balance these 4 things, taste often. My cooking improved drastically after reading this book. It's recommended all the time for a reason.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck - Konmari for social obligations. If it's not useful and doesn't bring joy, don't do it. Not worth reading past the first chapter, but still a great concept.
Remarkable book that gave me a coherent framework to think about life. The title simply does not do it enough justice, it's not just about the "flow" state, it's about his mental framework for how to organize your life with flow as the centerpiece of your experience.
I've used the copy on my desk so much, dipping in and out I now remember most of the chapters, sub-sections and so on. I'm starting to feel I'm using this book the same way many religious people use their Bibles, Gita etc..maybe I'll eventually memorize large parts of it.
2. Why we do what we do by Edward Deci
It's an older book about human motivation and how it works, it changed the way I think about how to get myself or other people to act meaningfully and I'd say that touched almost all aspects of my behavior.
The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - Everything you want to know about the practice of electronics, as opposed to theory, once you're going to design electronics.
The Programmers Stone - https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/r0/index.ht... - Teaches the concept of Mappers and Packers, I'm a mapper, and I've worked with packers, once I knew this, and used it to help bridge the gap.
Flatland - Edwin A. Abbott - A bridge towards higher dimensional thinking from back in elementary school.
The Boy's Second Book of Radio and Electronics - Morgan, 1957. - https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/T... - This is the book that cold started me into electronics in 1973, in 4th Grade.
The Engineer's Notebook series - Forest Mims III - Once I was in electronics, gave a ton of useful tips.
What do you care what other people think - Richard Feynman, a good set of lessons about expectations and motivations of others, as told by one the folks on the Manhattan project.
Computer Lib / Dream Machines - Ted Nelson - A great exposition of what computers could be used to do, We're nowhere near catching up yet.
George Gilder: When Bandwidth Is Free - Interview in Wired Magazine - https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gilder-4/ - It was here (I think) that I first heard his call to waste transistors in pursuit of performance, that the BitGrid came into mind as a viable idea.
The Cluetrain Manifesto - Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger - Changed the way I view the internet and advertising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in...