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For whatever reason people are often tempted to victimize themselves and assume that everyone has it better than them. Which is an incredibly slippery and dange
by axegon_ 6y ago
For whatever reason people are often tempted to victimize themselves and assume that everyone has it better than them. Which is an incredibly slippery and dangerous slope(looking at the news over the last few years). And with that in mind, "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling is a __MUST__ imo. Once you wrap your head around the facts, a next good choice is "The Black Swan" and "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, despite some (to a certain extent justified) bashing on tech people. Note to self: need to pick up "Skin in the Game".
Completely with you about Spivak, as far as calculus goes.
Physics: recently picked up Walter Lewin's "For the Love of Physics" and it's a masterpiece. Didn't get the chance to finish it because of the pandemic and it got locked in the office but it appears he's managed to cram in an entire university course in one book.
Biology and anatomy - "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins is brilliant entry point for people with limited knowledge on the subject.
Chemistry - no idea, that's the one subject which I hated with a passion since I was a child. Very paradoxical, given that physics was arguably my favorite subject ¯\_(ツ)_/¯...
History - Yuval Noah Harari's books, though somewhat anecdotal as far as history is concerned. I'd say there are way too many to list here and there is way too much to read about all major events in history to fit in just a few books.
- mongol 6y agoAre these textbooks? I think they are more fact-oriented popular literature. I thought textbooks were the expensive kind that are part of university courses curriculum.
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoHalf of the books here are pop science books, they are not textbooks.
- axegon_ 6y ago~ish. All of those are imo perfect introductions to each of those subjects and can give you an idea where your next step should be.
- ampdepolymerase 6y agoNo they are not. It is an absolute disgrace to the other sciences if you put stuff like The Selfish Gene in the same class as Spivak. Do you want people to go around telling CS beginners that Hackers and Painters is an introductory CS textbook? Or to tell a student of complexity theory that the best way to study NP-completeness is through reading Gödel, Escher, Bach?
- axegon_ 6y agoI'm sorry, when exactly did I say they are in the same class? I'm not a biologist in any way, nor I ever claimed to be one. You could say the same about Harari in that respect. I am talking about introductions. It's the same story with Lewin. It's nowhere near The Feynman Lectures on Physics but those are simply not something suitable for self-education(which is what OP has clearly stated).
- hejja 6y agoin the vein of the others you posted, "psycho cybernetics" is another good one I'd group with that genre
- aj7 6y agoHarari: 1) Wheat domesticated us, not us wheat. 2) “People think in stories” Drivel, but popular withe IQ 105-120 set.
- noir_lord 6y agoWhich set do you place yourself in?
- disabled 6y agoThis is definitely an awesome list.