6 ms·
It's not you, it's your books
- Tichy 19y agosubmarine alarm
- omouse 19y agoGood catch. There are quite a few submarines in this one.
- ced 19y agoWhere?
- Tichy 19y agohttp://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html At least a reasonably interesting discussion ensued on HN. But other than that, I don't think those books are as big an issue in dating as the article tries to make them to be. Hm, except perhaps if you happen to be a "bookslut"? Impressive how they even manage to tailor the article towards the intended audience of their client (I presume).
- ced 19y agoI knew what he was talking about. The article just strikes me as uninspired rather than promotional.
- Alex3917 19y agoI feel vaguely guilty when I read fiction, as if I'm wasting my time playing videogames or watching TV. It's gotten to the point where I can't really enjoy novels anymore. I still occasionally read trashy non-fiction though; today I've been reading To Cork Or Not To Cork by George Taber. I wonder what this says about my future relationship prospects.
- xlnt 19y agoJust because some TV, video games, novels, etc, are not worthwhile doesn't mean you should be averse to rich media in general. The format is good, and good things can be put in it.
- ken 19y agoI think he's not so much concerned about the medium (or even content) as he is the read-only-ness of it. We do hold authors in much higher regard. But this brings up another question: why does there seem to be this general obsession with the consumption of this particular medium? I would say they're in love with the form, but they don't mention doing any writing. I would say they're in love with great art, but they don't mention any other forms. (Is it a NYC thing? Manhattan always seems downright foreign to me.) Imagine asking the people quoted in this NYT article about the last manga they've read or the last modern symphony they heard or the last painting they made.
- asdflkj 19y agoIt's the same reason we aren't showing each other pictures or playing each other music right now. Written word is the best way to convey almost all kinds of complex information. If you have the time, that is.
- xlnt 19y agoi think video and pictures are useful for a lot of information (less than writing, but a lot). but in general they are more expensive to do well. but examples include charts, maps, and graphs, and also pictures of scenes usually work better than describing what it looks like in English.
- asdflkj 19y agoI said "complex information". This is vague, but you can see the truth of this in a following way: take any topic, such as maps, which you mentioned. What's more complex, a map, or knowing how to make a map? The former will be a picture, but the latter will be mostly text. As far as I can tell, this is the rule. As you go up in complexity, text becomes more and more suitable. By the way, I mostly agree that books are overrated. The reason is that most books are not very complex. Text is the wrong medium for the ideas of their authors.
- amohr 19y agoI admit it. I read the Character of Physical Law just to pick up chicks.
- martythemaniak 19y agoHeh, I actually an "Atlas Shrugged" experience - I knew a pretty girl and after adding her on facebook I noticed the book was at the top of her favourites. That really did change the way I thought of her. But more generally, I can't make my mind up one way or another about this. I've seen the kind of relationship the last part of the article talks about - very long term, very stable with interests like books, movies, music etc being completely irrelevant - so that makes me think its quite right. At the same time, there's gotta be some baseline - how can a music lover go out with someone that thinks highly of (say) Paris Hilton's music? Or a normal person with a objectivist? ;)
- acangiano 19y agoHere's the problem. You are considered ignorant if you don't know anything about Pushkin. But it's perfectly normal or accepted to ignore who Enrico Fermi, Alan Turing or Paul Erdős were. We're all ignorant about something but, in society, literary ignorance is frowned upon much more than scientific ignorance.
- boucher 19y agoI disagree. If you use name recognition as a proxy for knowledge (which is probably a poor metric), than you're probably as likely to have heard of Turing as your are Pushkin. The set of people who have heard both is likely to be much smaller, and by inference, more knowledgeable. On the other side of the argument, you could argue its easier to understand the contributions of someone like Pushkin than someone like Fermi. But this too is probably true only on a superficial of level.
- prakash 19y agonot really, depends on who you hang out with;-)
- gruseom 19y agoYou are considered ignorant if you don't know anything about Pushkin. In Russia, sure. But the Pushkin example is completely atypical of our society. When was the last time you heard Pushkin mentioned among non-Russian non-specialists? The obscurity of Pushkin is actually the point in this case. If she had said "He hadn't even heard of Shakespeare!" the implication would have been "He's a lout", which is quite different. "He hadn't even heard of Pushkin" is more along the lines of, "He doesn't pass the minimum test for my exacting, boutique tastes".
- mixmax 19y agoI noticed that too - I had absolutely no idea who pushkin was until I asked wikipedia. I do, however, know all the people you mention, and why they are known. People are just different, and so is their taste in books. The idea of finding partners based on book preferences is interesting though. I would love a dating site where I could search for women based on their reading habits. I mean if I could search for women that liked Neal Stephenson or Bob Woodward I would be thrilled. So could someone here please make it? Please...
- prakash 19y agoReminds of me Joel Spolsky's quote, to which I agree with to some degree. "You can learn a lot about somebody by the books they've read. And I've always thought that if you read all the same books I read, you'll come to think like me, too." http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html
- SteveC 19y agoI'm always suspicious of adults who list Harry Potter as their favourite book.
- Tichy 19y agohave you read it?
- rglovejoy 19y agoI've read all of them. They're a lot of fun, but I think it's important to go beyond them and read the books that inspired J.K. Rowling. Joseph Campbell's works on legends and mythology are particularly instructive.
- Tichy 19y agoI won't claim that they are the best books ever, but I think they have some merits that make their success understandable.
- demallien 19y agoThe brilliance of the Potter books is more in the way that they start off as being extremely accessible to children, but by the time the series finishes, they are truly adult-level books. It's a good way of getting children through that speed hump - most young children read, but many stop during adolescense. Harry and Co help with this problem.
- mtts 19y agoAgreed. Adults who list Harry Potter as their favorite book (which is not the same as admitting Harry Potter is a fun read) by doing so fairly explicitly state that the universe of a children's book, however well written it is, is pretty much all the intellectual stimulation they care for. Nothing wrong with them, most likely, but certainly not people I'd want to invest emotionally in. YMMV, of course.
- Tichy 19y ago
- mynameishere 19y agoMusic is considerably more important than books, since it's typically hard to avoid the other person's taste, good or bad. "Urban contemporary", "country" music, and anything involving death grunts can cause problems.
- jacabado 19y agoI've learnt this lesson the hard way. Now my favorite book in social networks is "Why Most Things Fail" by Paul Omerod. I'll recommend it to everyone, but specially to those with some interest, and little knowledge, in Economics.
- GavinB 19y agoIf he renamed it "Why Most Things Fail -- and 10 Easy Things You Can Do To Avoid It Happening to YOU," it would be on the front page of every social media site . . . I need to read less about copywriting.
- bgutierrez 19y agoI once dated a girl who said to me: "Barnes and Noble? What's that?" and "I've only read two books in my life." But she was the one that broke it off. Now I'm marrying someone that I worked with in a bookstore.
- kirubakaran 18y agoCongrats!
- iowahansen 19y agoI read Hacker News. Does that mean I can only date geek chicks? What if there aren't any?
- nazgulnarsil 19y agoMy girlfriend loved Harry Potter when we first met but I've since turned her on to much higher quality stuff (fantasy and otherwise) and she seems to be responding well. At least she doesn't have any literary pretensions like some girl who prides herself on having read pushkin probably does. If you pride yourself on having rad certain authors you're reading them for the wrong reasons. You don't read great literature because it's "Great Literature". You read it because it is good. I suppose it's to be expected. Even in the intellectual world Sturgeon's Law applies. 90% of everything is crap. (Btw, if you havn't you should read Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human)