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comment by veen
veen  ·  3467 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Let's have a conversation! Been a while since we did "what have you been reading lately?"

I picked up Nicholas Carr's The Glass Cage on an Audible sale recently. So far it's a nice book on the history of automation and the way people and society respond to it. I already knew some of the stories in it, though.

Finished Debt: The First 5000 years which has more than a few interesting conclusions (e.g. that capitalism works best if we think it will collapse soon, and that the periods in which capitalism was at its most stable, rampant speculation and crises occurred). If you don't mind a lot of history (the second half of the book is mostly that), it's a great read.

Also finished Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson, on kleinbl00's recommendation. What a fantastic book, with a great ending as well.

Right now I'm a third into Atul Gawande's Being Mortal. I was expecting a bit more philosophical book, instead of a book that explains why nursing homes are terrible in regards to quality of life (which I already knew). I hope the rest of the book is a bit more interesting.

On my reading list: more Jon Ronson, Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett and maybe Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert Putnam if I have the time. Looks like I'm gonna have to buy three more Audible credits...





kaygee  ·  3466 days ago  ·  link  ·  

These all sound fantastic. I have Debt sitting on my Kindle but never got around to actually reading it, think you just sold me on doing that soon.

user-inactivated  ·  3466 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I skimmed a bit of Being Mortal and found it harsh and, yeah, not terribly helpful.

veen  ·  3466 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll listen to it some more and if I still don't like it, I'm just gonna return it. It can get better, right...?