The P2P Reading List (2023 December)
Read the best books first, otherwise you will find you do not have time.—Henry David Thoreau
Finally, I am back from my holiday break. What else could I have brought than great books?
Same as Ever by Morgan Housel
Humans try to predict everything from the weather to stock prices. But what about the other extreme? What are the things that never change? Morgan Housel illustrates how human nature and our cognitive biases interweave history. I respect how Morgan Housel does not pretend he knows everything. To "compensate", he asks very good questions instead. An insight for me was how rare events for the individual can be probable for a population.
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
We take language for granted. But do we know where it comes from? Steven Pinker argues that the mind creates language: the utterances leaving our mouth are the physical manifestations of a "mental language", what he calls Mentalese.
But it is not nature vs nurture, but nature and nurture. Evolution equipped us with the hardware and firmware to avoid starting from scratch. But the software updates hinge on learning.
The Great Mental Models by Shane Parrish
You need tools for carpentry, cooking, and engineering—but what about thinking? Shane Parrish, author of Farnam Street, gives you a toolbox you can rely on. It's nice to have things beyond a hammer in your toolbox.
The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry
The World-Ending Fire was my first encounter with Wendell Berry. As I grew up in a small village, the essays revolving around the beauty of rural Kentucky brought me back home (particularly: The Rise). The work of local culture and The Agrarian Standard urges us to protect the local. They are a call for environmentalism and emphasize the resilience of the local (think: supply chain problems during covid). With local culture, he alludes to an apprenticeship-like model to achieve mastery. Unexpectedly, I also found an interesting narrative on growing up ("parents become our friends").
Breaking Through by Katalin Karikó
Remarkable insights of pursuing True Science in a brutally honest style weaved into the realities of socialism-era Hungary I could relate to. The most recent and relevant handbook of how to be a true Scientist today that I know of. I will reread it as much as I can.