4 ms·

"A Short History of Mostly Everything" by Bill Bryson is next for you.

lmm 3y ago
I hope not. That book is more of a collection of biographies of a handful of random researchers than the details of what they're actually researching.
- ramses0 3y ago
  "it showed me a way of looking at the world at a way larger scale than I had previously done, and was very engaging while at it." It's definitely "sitcom science", especially compared with Guns, Germs, and Steel (I've read both). I found it engaging (check!), and appreciated the earlier chapters that literally start by describing that single-celled organisms + billions of years == some other new form of life (way larger scale? check!) The comforting nihilistic internal response to that book was "doesn't matter if we nuclear war or death by solar flare, or whatever... a billion trillion years from now, it's intimately necessary that something would go from single-cell organism to multi-cell organism". Time marches on, even if we do not.
Vinnl 3y ago
I did actually read that, but it hasn't really stuck with me. I think (but based on faded memories) that it was mostly things I'd already seen in school, with more detail? It didn't really open up new ways of looking at the world for me. Alternatively, I was just too young to realise and appreciate that. It's been a while since I read it.
- ramses0 3y ago
  It's worth a re-read of like the first 15-20%. A quick, fun read, but has that same feel (to me) of GG&S where it talks about microbiology life form evolution underwater, high acidity, low light, high temperature, etc. In that regard, it's like a precursor to GG&S which is "smarts + politics forward" vs a lighthearted approach to "which multi-cell organism has the right conditions to evolve limbs" (and presumably intelligence). ...or just chill out and accept that a world full of mushroom and fungus is just as intelligent and terraforming as humans can be.

lmm 3y ago

I hope not. That book is more of a collection of biographies of a handful of random researchers than the details of what they're actually researching.

ramses0 3y ago
"it showed me a way of looking at the world at a way larger scale than I had previously done, and was very engaging while at it." It's definitely "sitcom science", especially compared with Guns, Germs, and Steel (I've read both). I found it engaging (check!), and appreciated the earlier chapters that literally start by describing that single-celled organisms + billions of years == some other new form of life (way larger scale? check!) The comforting nihilistic internal response to that book was "doesn't matter if we nuclear war or death by solar flare, or whatever... a billion trillion years from now, it's intimately necessary that something would go from single-cell organism to multi-cell organism". Time marches on, even if we do not.

Vinnl 3y ago

I did actually read that, but it hasn't really stuck with me. I think (but based on faded memories) that it was mostly things I'd already seen in school, with more detail? It didn't really open up new ways of looking at the world for me. Alternatively, I was just too young to realise and appreciate that. It's been a while since I read it.

ramses0 3y ago
It's worth a re-read of like the first 15-20%. A quick, fun read, but has that same feel (to me) of GG&S where it talks about microbiology life form evolution underwater, high acidity, low light, high temperature, etc. In that regard, it's like a precursor to GG&S which is "smarts + politics forward" vs a lighthearted approach to "which multi-cell organism has the right conditions to evolve limbs" (and presumably intelligence). ...or just chill out and accept that a world full of mushroom and fungus is just as intelligent and terraforming as humans can be.