It’s one of those things that make perfect sense once you think about it. Great book, very important premise and a short and concise explanation. Can’t recommend enough.
This is a very strange book, and I can’t say I liked it very much, but there is some useful philosophy inside (and perhaps a lot if you or someone you know is struggling with low self-esteem).
Like that just does not seem like the ideal artifact. We should be able to store them somewhere. We should be able to have architecture diagrams that we can review and discuss that generate that code to spec.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) by Gerald Jay Sussman and Hal Abelson. SICP is my all-time favourite programming book. It's also where I learned about the power of wishful thinking when coding. SICP uses wishful thinking as a design tool: write code as if the abstraction already existed. Pretend. Then, once the ideal abstraction has taken shape, you go ahead and implement those functions. This meta-level is what made SICP so valuable. Ultimately, it's a book that teaches how to think about code and problem solving. I'm tempted to even say that SICP is more a work of art than a pure coding book, but I won't go there. A beautiful book.
This book is a beautiful introduction to simulations of natural systems. We get concise prose, clear illustrations, and carefully chosen systems with a guided tour through the math. All done in the Processing language, which is fun and easy to pick up. The reason I like this book so much is probably due to timing. In 2013, I was on the verge of abandoning software development. I was fed up. (That's a story for another time.) Instead, I planned to go into cognitive psychology full-time as a researcher. This book brought back the joy in programming for me. Sometimes, a good book is the book that motivated you.
However, in our non-ideal biophysical reality, present levels of urbanism are unlikely to be sustainable without cheap fossil fuels, and the human cost of that could be horrific unless we address it urgently.
The ideal of this period's justice which is much more shaped by Christianity is the purpose of the trial is the spiritual interior correction of the soul of the sinner.
LLMs themselves are the perfect captive reader: they never get bored or confused, never miss a reference or have an emotional reaction, never ask themselves why am I reading this?, never close the tab.
When does our animal brain make decisions for us before our more analytical brain has a chance to think through the consequences? From Nobel laureate Kahneman, this is one of the most important psychology books ever written.
do not define an objective which is designed to serve human beings without considering psychological factors because you might be able to solve your problem very very cheaply and efficiently by changing the psychology not by changing the technology
Well, it's in line with my overall philosophy. I think competition leads to progress. If you want to create an ideal process for selecting the most qualified people for certain specific tasks you have in mind, what can be better than a competition?
Tweets from 1765-1799 by a 4’9” hunchback physicist, friends with Goethe and Kant, admired by Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, etc. Such wonderful random thoughts, beautiful perspectives on thinking for yourself, observing nature, language, freedom, philosophy, religion, and more. Hundreds of initial insights, especially inspiring because they’re undeveloped.
An unconventional guide to the craft of indie consulting and life in the gig economy, mixing philosophy, pattern language, and very practical guidance for building a client-based solo career.
There's this very good quote from Sam Altman who... He can be a hyperbeast sometimes, but one of the things he said, and I think I agree, is that superhuman persuasion will happen before superhuman intelligence, right? And if that's the case, then these things before we get this AGI ASI stuff, we can embed superhuman persuasion towards our ideal or whatever the ideal of the model maker is, right?
So, she thought of herself as rational. She thought of rationality as what she was doing, but she was actually doing a kind of mythopoetic psychological work as well.
His thoughts on human psychology and the way he crafted his stories are why I liked this book. I have to admit, there is a lot in it that I need to absorb. I'll surely be re-reading this one sometime soon. It's one of those books that one ought to read multiple times in life because I'm certain that every time we read it, it will offer something new.
I came across this book accidentally, but I'm so glad I did. Pierre Hadot was a French philosopher who could not only philosophize but also write simply—an ability not common among top-tier philosophers, if I may say so with respect.
A simple and tested method for communicating and connecting with anyone, Supercommunicators is an exploration of the psychology and neuroscience of communication — and how to use those skills at work, home and in life.
Best books I read in 2024: Just a note that these books weren’t all necessarily published this year (though some were). Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers by Marissa A. Harrison Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
Best books I read in 2024: Just a note that these books weren’t all necessarily published this year (though some were). Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers by Marissa A. Harrison
Either can work. Both have tradeoffs and implications. If you try to import either philosophy wholesale, it will break in unexpected ways; if you try to mix and match, it will probably be an unfettered nightmare.
There are few books like this, that discuss software design in a simple and approachable way, while leaving the reader novel and practical concepts to use.
a good overview of SRE at Google. For those who worked at places with oncall, much of the first part of the book will likely be very familiar. Keep in mind that your mileage might vary: what works at Google scale, might not be the ideal fit for your use case.
Investment Philosophies (Wiley, 2nd Ed): This is the best book for this class, and provides background and evidence for each investment philosophy, with a listing of the personal characteristics that you need to make that philosophy work for you.
Excellent character-study/drama about the price of fame, the sincerest forms of flattery, and a little meta-fictionally, the psychology of the theatre and Broadway being usurped by Hollywood
But understand that it’s ultimately a moral and political argument, not an empirical question of the ideal population or the exact level of housing demand in Santa Monica.
This is a great book for anyone interested in learning about neuroscience—and I’d recommend it as well for many of my more neuro-crazed psychology professor colleagues.
Cultural psychology, studying emotions through the lens of culture. Your emotions are created by your culture. You should not be too sure that you share the emotional experiences of individuals from other cultures. Culture and emotion make each other up. Great insights!
Despite having read a few bookshelves worth of academic psychology texts, I enjoyed Yale professor Paul Bloom's survey of the field. Because understanding psychology cannot be divorced from understanding its history, I enjoyed Bloom's birds-eye view of the field from the past to the present day.
which is that we don’t know the meaning of life, but the more we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, digital and biological, the more we’re able to understand what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe. So I have a philosophy of curiosity.
The psychology of how and why we believe. How we learn and change. The craft of doubt and persuasion. Insights into the social definition of truth. Epistemology. Certainty is a feeling not based on facts. Well-written with a nice balance of story-telling and deeper dives.
It's mostly readable, though there are quite a few places where the translator calls for more research and this reprint, naturally, doesn't say whether it's been followed up *. In any event, I found this fascinating.
Although his training is not in economics, Richard Reeves draws on economic research, as well as research from the fields of sociology, psychology, and political science, to tell an under-told story. The book explores the problems faced by boys and men, the roots of those problems, and possible policy solutions.
Best philosophy of love relationships I’ve ever found. Like meditation teaches you that moods pass, this experienced marriage counselor says this applies to relationship communication as well. When angry or insecure, don’t vent, don’t share that. Let the feeling pass. Your anger doesn’t reveal some real truth. Everyone in a romantic relationship should read this.
This 1992 book changed everything about my life. It’s my Bible. Most of my beliefs come from it. I read it many times at a formative age, but re-read it now 30 years later, taking notes. It’s not a perfect book. It’s too verbose and full of expired American references. But its core messages are the wisest, most effective life philosophy I’ve ever encountered. You choose how you feel. Your emoti…
This is my list of the 10 best nonfiction books. These are the pillar books that have helped shape my thinking and approach to life. In my opinion, these are 10 nonfiction books everyone should read.
This is the only one I’m not crazy about. My academic BS detector got tripped a few times while reading it, and it turns out that there are a number of better measurements emerging in moral psychology.
Beginning of Infinity, Rational Optimist, Skin in the Game are all amazing. If you want more eastern philosophy, try Siddhartha, I am That, Jed McKenna.
Beginning of Infinity, Rational Optimist, Skin in the Game are all amazing. If you want more eastern philosophy, try Siddhartha, I am That, Jed McKenna.
Part autobiography, part startup + life philosophy, and part product book, I could have categorized this in a few sections. However, the strength of this book is clearly the advice and insights for how Scott's 7+ year journey led to a fantastically successful exit to Adobe for his startup, Behance. The middle of the book is a great mix of anecdotes and tactical things you can apply if your startup is in "the Messy Middle" to turn the corner for your product.
If you need to beef up your understanding of the philosophy of how to be customer driven and really understand who you're building for, this is a great book. Alan does a great job of digging into the jobs to be done concept and helping you understand what it means. The main flaw of the book is it does little to tell you *how* to do it.
If you're looking for inspiration and understanding how inspiration comes to you. This is an interesting hybrid investigation of how to come up with ideas and the underlying psychology of doing so.
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