>Read books published before 1900 This is going to bias a reader, who is ill-prepared to approach their reading on a socially-critical level, towards patterns

>Read books published before 1900 This is going to bias a reader, who is ill-prepared to approach their reading on a socially-critical level, towards patterns of thought that are socially archaic. Cutting out pre-20th century work is going to cut out almost everything written by anyone who wasn't a well-off white man, unless one makes a purposeful effort to look into translations of Eastern works. There are plenty of books publisher in the last 100 years that are valuable. With this rule, you leave behind Sinclair's The Jungle, Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, and every Hugo Award winner. (Shadow rec: John Chu's short story "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere" @ https://www.tor.com/2013/02/20/the-water-that-falls-on-you-from-nowhere/ https://www.tor.com/2013/02/20/the-water-that-falls-on-you-f... ) I think there's some truth and some good advice in the essay, but I'm somewhat wary of how committed he (presumably, he) was to his argument despite having little to show in ways of citation and support. It reads to me less as an overview of empirically tested knowledge than a synthesis of other writings and conversations whose veracity I find indeterminate and whose origins I would be very interested in discovering.