Common Sense
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.
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9recommend
61mentions
59people
2009–2025years
15% recommend85% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- This wouldn't be a classic Paul Graham essay without his two great hallmarks -- many passages of provocative valuable insights -- paired with periodic, bewildering attempts to sabotage his own argument.
I'll add some fan mail later if necessary (because I do get value from reading him), but for the moment, here's where I believe he went off course.
1. When he says the best essays are "ineffective," he's chosen the wrong word. They are "premature." They arrive before the world is fully ready to acknowledge their power. But they catch at least a modest following right away. And then their work grows and grows.
2. Essays about new technology can be quite powerful, and that's Graham's wheelhouse, so it's fine for him to talk up this cohort. But any serious survey of legendary essays needs to look wider. The most powerful essays redefine our social, moral, political and religious norms. Here are a few favorites that didn't just win their year; they stood out for centuries.
70 AD: The Gospel of Mark. Chronologically the first book of the New Testament, and look what that unleashed
1778: Common Sense by Thomas Paine. The boldest, fiercest justification for the American Revolution, and one that's still a touchstone today for anyone with a deep interest in the theory or practice of democracy.
1963: Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King. Worth being on the list simply for its effect on the U.S. civil rights movement; even more significant as the unbreakable tuning fork for any civil or human rights movement anywhere.
We'll keep inventing new technologies, because that's what humans are good at, and I'm sure many strong essays will ensue. But it's the redefining of our social institutions that's likely to make the future so incredibly different from today. Anyone who can write a prescient reflection about society's new rules will get my vote for "Great Essays."
- I agree it seems farcicle but it will inevitably creep in regardless with any centralized system, simply as turnover of people's roles to younger overseers without the benefit of experience occurs. Self-limiting and enforcing limits is not unheard of though usually exceedingly rare.
There is such a thing as the rule of law, but as you mentioned when the powerful band together in collusive behavior anything is possible, and its usually for their benefit. The rule of law as we've come to know it generally speaking usually requires appropriate representation with regard to crafting/maintaining those laws but that is not always the case.
Also, without maintaining a market which limits currency sufficiently to allow rational price discovery, you run into the Economic Calculation problem which has no solution. A form of it is inflation/deflation curves based on lagging indicators where you whipsaw closer and closer to the margins until one or the other outcome spirals out. Very dynamical.
> What we are seeing. >> I don't buy this at all as a key factor
We'll have to disagree. Its pretty obvious that previous generations starting at the point of taking the dollar off the gold standard have consistently spent more than revenue (negative cashflow). They've spread the loss in value globally, but its still a loss and worse its in lagging inflation adjusted payouts.
The bill always comes due, and the consequences of policies put in place over that time will be paid by generations who had no say in its creation. Debt can be just as coercive when backed by law (austerity measures).
Incidentally, a very similar issue came up during the French Revolution (Bastille) at least according to Thomas Paine who wrote about it in passing in his Rights of Man (1770s). That and Common Sense are both very interesting reads if you can make the time.
In my opinion, power should be entrusted to the people's representation in a republic with important limitations enforced independently to preserve their responsiveness to the people they represent.
For example representatives who spend more than X% of their time on activities other than representation, time for which they are paid by the taxpayer. Or representing/concentrating more than 80,000 people's voting rights in a single person aren't really representing their constituents in any equitable way. Exceeding either of those limits causes their responsibility and duty to fall in furtherance of maintaining their profession.
- So the winner in a Democracy or Republic should be the one who most successfully implements weaponized propaganda? The one who fills the airwaves and has the loudest megaphone and the money for the most ad buys? That is emphatically not what the founders of the United States intended, however much they may have initially limited the definition of a citizen. They expected the citizens to make reasoned choices, to be educated, to be well-read and to be rational actors. I highly suggest 'Common Sense' by Tom Paine.
- Moneyball is another great one for baseball fans.
Common Sense by Thomas Paine is another good one for people interested in American politics.
- A great list. I'd also add Common Sense by Thomas Paine, which was a huge influence in the zeitgeist of the time.
- "I'm wondering which other books have you read that have had the most impact on you professionally or even personally?"
Professionally: Peter F. Drucker's books.
Personally: "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, "A Treatise of Human Nature" by David Hume, "The Law" by Frédéric Bastiat, "Autobiography" by Benjamin Franklin, "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, "Gespräche mit Goethe" by Johann Peter Eckermann, "The Old Regime and the Revolution" Alexis de Tocqueville, "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill, "The Man Versus the State" by Herbert Spencer, "The Revolt of the Masses" by José Ortega y Gasset, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" by Karl Popper, "On Power" Bertrand de Jouvenel, "1984" by George Orwell, "The State" by Anthony de Jasay, "Sketched With the Quill" by Andrzej Bobkowski, "Metaphysical Horror" by Leszek Kolakowski, "Rationality in Economics" by Vernon L. Smith, "The Machinery of Freedom" by David Friedman.
