Stats for nerds
2recommend
4mentions
4people
2011–2022years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- * Philosophy
Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation.
Surprisingly readable and insightful, even if you don't buy his metaphysics. Einstein had Schopenhauer's portrait on his wall and considered him a genius.
* Poetry
John Milton - Paradise Lost
Powerful and beautiful writing.
* Fiction
Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel. Funny and a real feast of words (the translation is a work of art in itself)
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain. Haunting and moving
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Dangerous Liaisons. Scandalous, gripping.
Ivan Turgenev - First Love. A masterclass in writing. Short, sensitive and exquisitely told.
Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time. Exceptionally rich and a beautiful study of love. Reading it is like living another life.
PG Wodehouse - the Jeeves series. Hilarious, perfectly frivolous, light and sunny
* Non-fiction
Stuart Russell - Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control. Potential bad outcomes from AI and what we might be able to do about them
Noam Chomsky - Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. How public discourse is shaped and controlled
Karl Popper - The Open Society and its Enemies. How to work against totalitarianism
- Actually I've read (part) of his memoirs[0]. Worths a read. Similar to "Dangerous Liaisons" from Laclos - without the literary value.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20504101-the-memoirs-of-...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/326768.Dangerous_Liaison...
- Actually I think they are being penny wise and pound foolish. Alternately, they are distracted by the new shiny.
Early sources, such as this classic book
https://www.amazon.com/Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/...
frame public relations and marketing folk as cynical manipulators who don't fall for the illusions they create.
The post-modern environment has had about 60 years to develop since that book was written and I think the culture has deteriorated and I believe that, today, the image makers really do live in the "the matrix" they've created and have trouble distinguishing it from reality. (I think of how Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons really fell for his victim Madame de Tourvel.)
My contacts with local business people and people who sell ads for radio and newspapers have convinced me that prices for advertising were too high for a long time because the people who buy advertising get gratification from hearing their name on the radio and the people who advertise won an auction because they get more gratification from hearing their name on the radio more than anyone else.
Years ago somebody who was an "influencer" would try to appear authentic (not an "influencer") but today authentic people will try to look inauthentic ("i pretend to be an influencer even though I don't get paid") to get credibility.
People under this spell will run ads in situations when they clearly shouldn't and they'll be astonishingly resistant to anyone who tries to talk sense into them.
(Your desktop usage does make income for Microsoft since your OEM bought Windows for you. If they annoy you enough you might switch to Linux, MacOS, etc. Unfortunately your OEM probably wants to wreck the value of a $2000 computer they sold you by selling $2 worth of annoying ads.)
- :-). I knew I was in for this comment when I wrote this. But it fits so perfectly, I could not help it. I guess I am getting old. :-). Moonlighting is the TV show that made Bruce Willis famous. His character David and Maddie (played by Cybill Shepard) constantly argued about different issues but the subplot of every argument was their sexual attraction to each other.
Another example would be the relationship between the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons.
