I know that non-fiction would be "good for me." Particularly reading more in topics I'm less knowledgable about, like finance and business and politics. Personal growth. However, I do find that fiction helps expand my perspective and even, somehow, knowledge, but it's different from non-fiction, less direct. I don't read for that, explicitly, although I do like the effect. But I read because.. I guess, because it's nice for my brain to be somewhere else. I don't know. But non-fiction has never done it for me.. my mind just gets.. bored, I think, trying to absorb what someone else wants me to know. Even when I find the topic interesting.
I guess there are people who like non-fiction and people who like fiction and they often cross-over but I think most people lean one way or the other. I can see there being positives and negatives to either side. People who equally read both must be rare? Or maybe it's just my impression.
I think this depends heavily on which non-fiction, particularly when contrasted with which fiction you're currently reading.
I don't think reading the same self-help books as a bunch of CEO's who see themselves as bold outsiders to the system will actually benefit you; it didn't make them self-aware.
Fiction contains information and ideas; it helps you expand your horizons, and that's generally a good thing. As long as you're not reading a very limited subset of fiction, it will be beneficial.
Apart from that, taking the time to grok the architecture or top-rated issues of open source projects helps to make you a better developer - or at-least avoid obvious mistakes when coding some new feature of your own.
Couching the list in a kind of self-help framing is a little odd.
Techbro culture also discounts experience, which is how you get silly articles like this that claim you can beat "insiders" by reading 25 books. Please.
Napoleon kill the first French republic and actually reduce the size of territory control by France. Napoleon is IMO one of the most overrated historical figure.
One can argue that Hitler or Mao were also impactful people, but do we want to learn from them ?
I'm here to make a trillion-dollar startup that dominates the competition, not any of that wishy-washy nonsense.
I would be too scared to add them to that list because then I could not read crap books, and even crappy books sometimes contain useful ideas.
18 americans.
24 people in the global north.
24 men.
Your ideas are shaped in large part by your identity, which includes your socio-economical background, race, gender, sexual proclivity, country, and on and on.
When you are only exposed to ideas from the same homogeneous group, your view of our heterogeneous world becomes deeply flawed. Diversity of identity is paramount for a diversity of ideas.
They want to know how to survive in a tough world.
Even if you don’t want diversity of ideas, you need it to form an accurate picture of reality.
I don't think we really need a proliferation of diverse ideas. Put 10 people in a locked room with 10 different ideas, and you're probably going to find them arguing, not out, in a few hours.
Don't get me wrong being stuck after 1 idea is bad, but I don't feel that's where we are today.
- Thinking in Systems - by Donella Meadows
- Dead Aid - Dambisa Moyo
- Day of Empire - Amy Chua
- Mistakes Were Made (not by me) - Caroll Tavris
- Brotopia - Emily ChangIsn’t reading books just learning from experts?
This year has been quite enjoyable and I have found my reading tastes evolve over time. For a while I was reading books like the ones on this list, self-help, business/management/leadership focused, and memoirs. I then got bored and moved into fantasy, and now I have been getting into history.
There are levels to reading.
(That said _The Wide Wide Sea_ is good). 1/25.
It's also pretty notable how few of these choices are fiction of any sort. They're mainly non-fiction books describing conventionally successful people and organizations.
That really made me laugh. What an insane takeaway.
However, as a nitpick, I don't think you're going to "beat the experts" as a "contrarian outsider" by reading books like Man's Search For Meaning and Lee Iacocca's autobiography.
Aside from the dubious value of building one's brand as a "contrarian", you're not going to get any information the experts don't have if your reading list looks like you grabbed the first 10 books you saw at the business paperback section at the airport book store.
That's not to say these aren't valuable books. But it's IMO a truly odd collection if your lead in is talking about contrarianism.
Completely separate point on the topic of branding as contrarian: One of the authors, Thomas Sowell, is mainly known for being politically conservative in a predominantly liberal field. That might unintentionally reinforce the impression that "contrarianism" means "I align closely with my in-group but my in-group is not the largest in-group." Whereas I would suspect that we wouldn't call a protestant in a predominantly Catholic country a "contrarian" or vice versa. But perhaps it's about trying to rebrand belonging to an unpopular identity with a kind of renegade status.
ewuhic•2mo ago