I have been watching you since you started and appreciate the fine line you're running between being "on here" and trying to get us all a bit more "off here" and into philosophy as well. The internet isn't going anywhere, but I think you being on here makes it a bit better, and I realized that it's the information and new thoughts we engage with that make our lives better or worse. Hope your experiment with doing this as income is going well. Much respect.
@@_jaredI read the Nicomacian. I like the thought of Aristotle but here is in conflict with my view of work which is no one should be compelled to work. Anyway I think I understand what you mean by the internet I read the swallows but I must disagree. I believe it has to do with where you are. Since the internet is exactly the place that permits me to do as Aristotle did and use my free time to learn about what I don't know. As I learned something interesting from your video today and for what I want to thank you.
As a 19 year old art school student, my philosophical literature world is just beginning to open up, so I'm incredibly grateful for these recommendations. What propelled me into this realm of reading was Jenny Odell's "How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy." This book completely changed my perspective on life and the internet, and there has not been a day I haven't thought about this work once. It prompted me to reevaluate what it is I pay attention to, and what I spend my life really looking at. If you have ever considered deleting social media, this may be your catalyst. It certainly was mine.
What worries me is (im 38) a lot of people cant seem to understand whats AI generated images or if its AI voice over using lile a famous celebs voice. Ive seen videos with "Sharknado" level of bad cgi and people thinking its real. On the other side I see real footage that people say isnt because they are suspicious of everything now.
Yeah it's mostly the same issue as always of people being stupid not the AI's fault just like it's not photoshops fault when people were complaining about that as it started ramping up in use
Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance. A different perspective on philosophy and in a dark period the perfect antidote to nihilism. To me, it cracked my eggshell and gave me fresh air to breathe.
Excellent introduction to these books. The one that interests me particularly is Chopra’s. Contemporary secular buddhists often use “anxiety” rather than the traditional “suffering" to denote the prime existential human condition. It makes sense, given that most people think of physical or deep emotional pain when the term suffering is used. But modern well-off people are often more likely in their daily lives to experience mental pain, and lack of peace of mind, expressed in consciousness as anxiety. But it also has a long history as a threat to well-being addressed by philosophers, from ancient stoics to modern existentialism. I’m looking forward to Chopra’s take on this.
absolutely yes! so many wonderful concepts in buddhism are absolutely destroyed in translation, imo. "dukkha" translated as just "suffering" rather than "anxiety/stress/the pain of attachment" hamstrings the concept and makes people feel blamed for experiencing that suffering rather than realising a path to freedom from it. similarly, the reduction of "upādanā" to "attachment" in general, which people often take as suggesting that connection and caring about things or people is bad, which seems (and is!) antithetical to other buddhist teachings, and subsequently puts people off of further exploration - "upādāna" is more about fixation, hanging on too tightly, rigidity... it's not that attachment as in caring or being connected is bad, it's that a certain kind of excessive attachment (perhaps better translated as "clinging" or "cleaving" if you must) as in an inability to let go of limited perspectives, habits that aren't serving you (or anyone else), as an excuse to not improve or grow, as a justification for cruelty or ignorance, as a barrier to introspection or to outreach... this kind of "attachment", of clinging to ideas, habits, institutions, individuals, etc, as if you are a child in the womb and they are the lifeblood upon which your very survival depends: this is the attachment of "upādanā". even as it can bring concepts forward to those whom could not otherwise be introduced to them, translation is the death of understanding, especially when it comes to key concepts in very old spiritual and philosophical language. it would be fine if people left those translations as the baby steps they do function as... but they don't, and the result is the confusion of today where "mindfullness", "gratitude", and "loving-kindness" are near-meaningless cringe self-help buzzwords and yoga is just some stretches you do in tight pants to get a toned ass. the problem with translation infects people from both sides, too. i'm a buddhist jew, so, i've got more than my fair share of encounters with the concepts of losing frankly wonderful ancient concepts in translation. not to mention you lose the poetry of the sounds those real words use, which conveys another level that the translations don't. /gets off my soap box
@@captnflint I appreciate what you're talking about here. I've seen the same happening with my Vedanta studies where true meaning is lost. Some suggests that it is due to a type of corruption that happens because the English language is ambiguous and unprecise. I also think about the German words ennui, angst, Weltschmerz; which are similar to each other somewhat, but nuanced in their differences. This is something that is not expressible in English, as can be seen by the descriptions, and generally people use simpler words to try and describe something like these. EG the granularity is missing. So it obviously follows that without words, we won't have an understanding of a concept, and thus something is lost to us /we're less aware, less aware. I mean, the other way around: the moment you discover some new, and you put a word to it, suddenly that world opens up to you to enrich various aspects of your consciousness. It is tempting for me to say that English is a deliberate hijack of this higher consciousness, but it might be that it is not English per se, but rather the degeneration of it (I'm no language expert). So I find it peculiar how there are so few proponents fighting against this decay, and for those that do, very little response from the rest. We seem to be "evolving" sideways, EG things are evolving , but it seems to not be getting better ( which I ponder the correlation to this language decay) www.mentalfloss.com/article/58230/how-tell-whether-youve-got-angst-ennui-or-weltschmerz
@@genomedia44 absolutely. and from my personal perspective - it's in the design. english such as is spoken and spelled today is a real frakenstein's monster: the grammatical framework is germanic, but the vocabulary contains a massive amount of early imports from latin and norman-french. then, as if that wasn't enough of a mess, you add the decision of early english-language printers to adopt and standardize "the king's english" rather than any of the other variants more spoken by the smallfolk, and, of course, the english crown's later legacy as imperial colonizers, and you have a recipe for a deeply broken, frankly kind of miserable language. and early and middle inglysh have so much to offer that was lost or discarded intentionally at various points, which makes it doubly maddening. i think calling modern english a deliberate hijack of higher consciousness is inaccurate only in that implies more sensibility than i perceive there having actually been. modern english is just an absolute crime scene of a language, really.
My mom uses the internet a lot for work and social media, but the concept of search engine utilization is foreign to her. "I don't speak that language," she says. Her first impulse when she has a question about trivia or errata, after asking me or trying to recall what an elder or trusted person said in the past, is to walk around and ask a neighbor, or pick up a phone and call a friend or relative she thinks might know something about the subject. (she's not much of a reader) It still feels very clunky to me, but it's remarkable to observe how answering simple queries was an inherently social act for older people.
People like her make no sense they go about it far less efficient way and seek out anecdotes instead of using a simple search engine and going through the internet to find out the truth which isn't an anecdote
My sleep has improved, I’m with my family more, and my diet has radically improved. I’m way less stressed, and I generally feel good. Leaving tech was a boon for me.
@@_jared virtually everyone I know that was let go from tech job are healthier, happier, and more fulfilled than when they were making their tech salary. Good for you man.
The books that have had the most impact on me are Nicomachean Ethics, On Liberty, and 12 Rules for Life. While I don't recall all the details of 12 Rules for Life, it certainly made me take my life more seriously, ultimately leading me to pursue my master's in Philosophy and Psychology. And as always, great video! I'd love to read some of the books you mentioned.
Awesome suggestions. I've spent a good chunk of my pandemic lockdown reading time on the first topic - internet and what's it's doing to me. A few more books if you want to dig into it deeper. 1. Shallows by Nicholas Carr - Written way back in 2010-11, deep and detailed at how it's changing our brains and our patterns of thought. Won a bunch of awards at the time too I think. 2. Ten Reasons to Quit Social Media by Jaron Lanier - Don't be put off by the title, the author is a pioneer in VR/AR and a very keep observer of how technology is changing people. He lays out in great detail what social media and other forms on online behavior is changing us for the worse at the individual and societal level. 3. The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu - More historical, outlines how stealing our attention evolved to be the dominant business model and such a large industry and it's evolution from printing press all the way to Google and FB. 4. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman - Older book from the 80s or 90s but so good that it reads like it could've been written last year. The author is a great writer too.
Not only do people no longer care about whether what they say is true or false, but they also fail to credit work that isn’t theirs. I’ve noticed this frequently over the past couple of months, and it’s quite upsetting. It might be a generational or academic issue, but one should always use quotation marks for others’ work.
it's everywhere especially in politcs. I am from Brasil and there is a candidate who against equal paymente for men and women, is antivax and everything you could imagine, but at the debates he says that he never said that all though there is videos of him and his voters don't really care because apparently he is going to wash the communism out of Fortaleza which is where i live
If you’re a fiction reader seeking a novel that challenges your perspective on human nature and society, Blindness by José Saramago (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1998) is a compelling choice. Set in a nameless city struck by a sudden epidemic of blindness, the novel plunges into a chaotic world where civilization collapses, and the true nature of humanity is revealed. Saramago’s writing explores deep philosophical themes of morality, fear, and the fragility of order, forcing readers to confront uncomfortable truths about human behavior in extreme conditions. The novel’s allegorical style makes it more than just a dystopian story-it is a profound reflection on society, ethics, and the resilience of the human spirit. Ideal for readers who enjoy fiction with a philosophical edge, Blindness offers a thought-provoking journey into the human condition.
Apart from the stoic response to anxiety, try eating or chew chewing gum. Anxiety is a temporary state induced by false information fuelled by adrenaline. As anxiety takes hold, Cortisol is released. A fun fact. Put two people on one of these funfair rides that are designed to scare. One person will freak out and the other will think it is crazy fun. Both are experiencing an adrenaline rush. By eating you switch off the cortisol rush and confuse the brain. The fight/flight is switched off.
@@gailposada6437 This was my speciality when I was a psychiatric nurse. You can read all the books and do therapy, but unless you control the cortisol flow nothing will change. What eating does is confuse the brain. It's a stupid machine really. When you eat it has to stop the cortisol because it is trying to work out why you are not running away or fighting. Breathing techniques like 7/11 breathing is also good.
What do you do if you have anxiety that causes nausea? Or if the methods you use to sooth anxiety become sensory triggers over time? When I try to sooth anxiety with snacks, gum, flavored water, or even scented candles I end up associating that flavor/aroma with anxiety and finding it repulsive over time, even after I’ve calmed down. Similar to how I have to keep changing my alarm clock sound after a few because I end up training myself to associate the sound with the anxiety of waking up. Even songs I used to love become repulsive after using them as an alarm clock.
@@chauswriting Yes, that's a distraction. Anxiety likes the spotlight, so when you take the energy away, it must compress down and stop. Anxiety is like a faulty car alarm that goes off unexpectedly. To fix it it needs to be worked on. Chewing gum is the one way to help. I used a variety of techniques to help patients. EFT - Emotional Freedom Therapy. This looks really weird but does work. Hypnosis is another tool I used. Basically, it is guided imagery. You need to work on it to get results. One type of therapy or a combination of stuff. Sleeping is good, but not the solution.
Hi Jared, great video as per usual. Knowing you have a child, or were there two?, that your channel is now your sole source of income and now learning about your anxiety, I’d like to tell you to rest assured that your channel is going to continue to grow and will generate you stable income for sure (as stable as a UA-cam business can be). You bring genuine value with your video. I think you have a great future ahead of you. Thank you for the work you do.
Bro looks like he just came off set of a 1978 tv movie where he plays the geologist trying to get the corrupt governor to listen to his “wild” theories
A book I recently read on the BS of the world is The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han. Changed my perspective on many things, especially social media and work.
There is a little book from Malcolm Muggeridge called "The End of Christendom" that I picked up in 1980 or so. I have returned to it many times and have had a better understanding of his thoughts over the decades as I have gotten older and seen and experienced more. It has even been a good book for relieving anxiety.
Great selection, thank you! Thoreau - Walden, Life Without Principle Hesse - Siddhartha Watts - The Wisdom of Insecurity Catton, Jr. - Overshoot Becker - The Denial of Death Howard - Conan (I still gravitate toward solving every problem with 3 feet of cold steel.)
Harnessing ads for your channel, especially the sponsors that you've selected, is a great idea. You know, Jared, you're becoming a national treasure, and the world needs to know it.
Jared. I just discovered your channel and am so happy I found it. You, sir, are doing good work (irony intended, given some of the content in this vid).
I love the vibe of this video, do you think that as an Italian teenager who really likes English, I should get the English version of these books or the translated one? I'm asking you this because I think it is important to really understand these types of books and I'd like to improve my English reding skills as well
Sapiens by Yuval Harrari. I never like history that much, but it changed my perspective completely. The most impactful idea he covers is "intersubjective reality" and the myths that humans tell each other. For example the idea that money has value. At first glance, money has no value because it is just paper (that you can't even write on, because it is not white). However, since we all (inter-) agreed to think (subjectively) that money has value, it does.
You make great points about the internet. I grew up without it, and we all learned to look up things in books. That is something that should still be encouraged. As an analogy, I have worked with carpenters, and one wise fellow said that he will train with hand tools first (handsaws and hammers) before allowing to use power saws and nail guns. Similar to being disallowed calculators when learning math, it forces someone to properly learn the skills.
Another: Understanding By Design. I picked up this book before becoming a teaching assistant (overachiever, you might say). It's great because it boils it down so elegantly. How can you know if a course () is well-designed to produce understanding??? A course is well-designed if it produces understanding. That's the big reveal. Super obvious, right? Obviously the payoff is greater if you read the book and catch all the caveats, but for me, it made me more empathetic and interested in meeting my learners were they were, rather than pouring more energy into my techniques.
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandon and Dr. Oliver Sax changed my life. My diagnosing specialist recommended it (my shrink wanted me to read Aspergirls, which I refused to read because the title was an abuse of language - I cannot think of a more autistic response possible). So at age 40, with the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder to add to the ADHD, I understood my entire life, or at least had an explanation for it that was more useful. - I am not shocked that you have an anxiety disorder. To me, it is a combination of how you time your breaths. your posture, the way you indicate the areas of your face that are the major clues.
I would love to see you read more David Graeber. 'Dawn of Everything' is my favorite of his, but there are many other good ones. If it helps, Graeber was a massive fan of Ursula LeGuin!
On the Reasons of Love also by Harry Frankfurt (author of On Bullshit) and Kierkegaard's Lily of the Field and Bird of the Air both great reads on what matters and anxiety, respectively.
Rory Sutherland's alchemy changed my views on the world and the human condition more than anything else I read (even though I studied philosophy in uni). I highly recommend it, since he's an ad man he has a unique perspective.
We have more information, but in five seconds you can find an opposing viewpoint backed by just as many "experts" and research papers. By having access to more information than ever, we are ironically further from the truth than ever.
Jason Read’s The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work is another really good philosophical text on work. I have on my shelf Frederic Lordon’s Willing Slaves to Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire, which Read cites a lot in his book.
A book that opened my eyes is "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt. It helped me understand people (and myself) when it comes to political perspectives. It's an excellent book.
For me the books of Rober Greene embody that. I just found that every book of his I read changes and expands my interpretation of how things actually work. He has a way of getting you closer to reality I guess.
I’ve never heard anyone else, ever, refer to the book I happened to pick up so many years ago in B&N - On Bullshit. It was on a whim as someone who minored in philosophy it instantly caught my eye and was not disappointing. Thank you for that. Edit to add - hope you get a sponsorship with 80,000 hours. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. They are of the same minds about doing a job that matters.
@@_jared Sound exiting! I sometimes feels anxious more or less, as I think everyone of us. And theme can be explored from many intresting points of views, from existentialism, identity to ambiguity and humanism.
I love your work and would like to make a suggestion : could you do a top 10 of the philophy book of 202x. I barely never think of philosophy as a « living » subject or a contemporary subject. I always think of Aristotle ans Sartre but never that there are something meaningful going on. Thanks
Currently reading VULTURE CAPITALISM by Grace Blakely, and it sounds as if the Elizabeth Anderson book could be a great “next read” - Thanks for mentioning it.
One thing that I found to calm my anxiety is regular exercise, like running, swimming, or just doing push-ups whenever I feel I'm falling prey to it. I heard somewhere a quote saying that you cannot calm the mind from within the mind, it can only be calmed by the body, by doing physical activities that would change the hormonal response and regulate your mood.
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt is a must read too
So this might not be the most useful comment for English speakers, but one book that I‘d love to see translated into English (from Brazilian Portuguese) is „A terra dá, a terra quer” by Antonio Bispo dos Santos. He was a quilombola political and philosophical leader - quilombolas are members of rural communities that were founded by formerly enslaved people. Antonio Bispo wrote about how quilombolas, based on polytheist cosmologies, do not see themselves as “human” in the biblical sense of a hierarchy between humans and other living beings. Gave me a lot to think about our use of the category “human” in an exclusionary and not always progressive sense.
On Bullshit is a great little book I have kept on my nighstand for years. My kid thinks it 's hilarious, but I'll give it a quick 5 minute read here and there a few times a week.
About Bullshit: As part of my bachelor in psych we had to replicate studies. Our group did a study on "illusory pattern perception" and how it is linked to irrational beliefs like religiosity or belief in the supernatural. A study we looked at but didn't decide on replicating was how "bullshit resistance" is linked to certain types of thinking (a little bit of intelligence is mixed in) and illusory pattern perception. It was fascinating to research that. And a lot of work programming the online survey. Will make sure to read Frankfurt's book. (Which is a weird name. But sure, Frankfurt (FFM) is, in fact, known for its bullshit.
I love listening to your videos. Books that have changed how I view the world? Outliers: This book gave me MASSIVE perspective on how the world works. The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners: I frequently think about how once you’ve seen what’s bigger than you that you can never again unsee it. Trust the Process by Sean McNiff: Helped me understand that there is value in the (creative) journey. The Mission of Art by Alex Grey taught me to consider art as a spiritual process. The Dark Night of the Soul by Gerald May M.D.: how spiritual growth is painful. Yoga- The Greater Tradition by Dr. David Frawley: An extremely concise book explaining the 8 limbed system of yoga. Travels by Michael Crichton gave me permission to think differently And Falling off the Map by Pico Iyer opened me up to the world of travel writing and how similar/different we all are.
I cannot recommend Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance: Toward a Library and Information Policy highly enough. I originally read it as part of my first class in my Masters in Library Science. I have reread it and several of his other library Science books many times since. And each time I find new insights. Another one I would recommend The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. His concept of the paradigm shift both figuratively and literally changed how I see the world.
Arnold Bennett's How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. I downloaded it for free on Kindle in 2014 and have read and re-read that book many times. I saw it in hardback in an antique shop, and should of bought it! Only recently found your channel, and I'm enjoying many of the videos I've seen thus far. Take care.
I never BS. I always care about framing reality for comprehension. Sometimes there is no good short version, so I write a longer version, and no one reads it. The truth does not adjust itself to the available attention span. It can only finally work the other way around.
1 Watership Down, Richard Adams - Stories are what we crave. Our cognitive engines require meaning. Stories are how we actuate meaning. Bonus book: The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand. 2 The Hitchyker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adam - Another Adams. Need I even say something? Life is messy. Everything is arbitrary. Make the most of it. There are no turning backs. 3 The Bible - It's the book upon which Western culture has developed. You need to understand it in order to attack it. Like politics. 4 The Lord of The Rings - "In Old Entish, it takes a long time to say anything, so we don't speak unless it is worth taking a long time to say it". 5 Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman - Your mind is full of plotholes and your brain doesn't care. It will produce as much as it can and if you wanna be efficient about it, better understand it. Bonus book: Noise, same author. 6 The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway - Life is suffering. It is also marvelous. And itt will pummel you with no mercy or respect. Either live through it or die. Bonus book: Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Have you read any Byung-Chul Han? I'm just getting into him and a lot of his philosophy about work and burnout and exploitation are really resonant with some of the ideas you talked about here.
Jared, but how can I even distinguish truth from falsity online? Everything is constantly being critiqued and I don't know what to believe, it seems like the only way to move forward is armed neutrality, but that just perpetuates the suffering of the thing the discussion is about in the first place. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Hi Jared, I appreciate your thoughtful videos. I also work in Tech (electrical engineering), and the philosophical aspects of Tech are an interest of mine. Do you have any favorite books about Technology and its impact on individual lives?
The Internet is like that famous river in Texas, the Powder River. They even wrote a song about it, a rather famous folk song. There's a line from it that goes, "It's a mile wide and an inch deep..." I think they were writing about the Internet.
Spinoza said that an is and an ought are one because our survival instinct is. And, because we need other people to survive, then we ought to live a moral life or at least not an antisocial life.
Now something more substantive: How do you justify not working if your work is in some way related to your leisure? This seems like an especially difficult question for those of us who do work that we find fulfilling and stressful.
Obviously you probably don’t want to give too many personal details, but a little more specificity could help me understand the question. It does sound like a good question; I just want to fully grasp it.
@@_jared Sure! If I may, I will use your situation as an example with the provisional warning that I do not pretend to know it in any depth. Imagine I read Aristotle both for its own sake and for the sake of producing essays about Aristotle. These two ways of valuing Aristotle do not entail any immediate difficulty-they are just two things I do at different times. However, two difficulties seem to arise. First, if I think reading Aristotle is something valuable in itself, then its hard to justify not "working" (since I also read Aristotle for that purpose sometimes) unless there is some other serious intervening reason. Second, I also seem to be habituating myself into two ways of valuing the same activity. Imagine, for example, if in the midst of my leisurely Sunday reading of Aristotle I cannot help but think of how I might use the material for an essay later. Sorry for the long message, but does that make some of the tension clear?
@@SerfOnEarth Yes, I see. I don't have a perfect answer for this, but part of what I have done is choose some reading (for instance) that I don't produce any content on, whether on Substack or UA-cam. I choose those in advance and do my best to shut off my productivity mind while reading them.
Ruthless Elimination of Hurry was an incredible book for me on how our society sees and values work and how Jesus sets an example to combat that. Would highly recommend it and I'm pretty sure it's written at like a 6th grade reading level. So it's not difficult to read and understand
Were you affected by anxiety when you were a TA? I heard your reasons for not wanting to teach in a university, but you are so talented, and you would be able to teach, read, research in that vocation. I don't know if having anxiety while teaching is a reason you abandoned that profession. You reach more people on this platform, but you have not been teaching an in-depth course. Perhaps teaching a course is what @Starfish meant when he/she mentioned a podcast.
Consilience by Edward O. Wilson - it would be interesting to hear your take on the 'bigger picture' (if you haven't already done it). The review of the history of the subject was fascinating, but he continued on banging his sociobiology drum, and then seemed to back the meme ideas of Dawkins. And that's where the house of cards, on a great base, fell down.
I'm always thinking about quit being a teacher in order to make more money but I always circle back to "What I do matters and it doesn't make me miserable" 😅.
Expert Political Judgment. I am a rationalist who works as an engineer, which is helpful right until either (a) I lack the experience to form a rational opinion that hedges against the unknowns or (b) I really need to be an empiricist to form the right opinion. I'm a "fox" according to the author's definitions... but not always. This book made me self-aware in this way. It also helps me understand and appreciate my elders, that they may not know everything I know, but they have gotten pretty good at hegding.
I don't think there is really bs jobs and normal jobs. I think the economic situation defines which products and services are more needed. In my opinion the other phenomenon that defines the thing is the Maslow pyramid. Plus every product and service we consume is someone's work (more directly or indirectly). So calling jobs bs isn't always fair.
Perhaps I'm the outlier, but the majority of books that changed how I see the world were fiction. I'll put Les Miserables at the top, and maybe add a dash of The Jungle.
That’s also been true for me - I made a choice to highlight philosophy here, but there are a few fiction works that really made me look at the world in a different way.
Brave New World was a big one for me. I just got done writing a long term paper about it but man, as a sophomore in Highschool when I read that for the first time, it drastically changed my world view
'Atlas Shrugged' by Rand - 'The Law' by Bastiat - 'Anatomy of the State' by Rothbard - 'Basic Economics' by Sowell - 'Principles' by Dalio - 'How to Have Impossible Conversations' by Boghossian and Lindsay. All of these have nudged the trajectory of my thinking. I'm sure there are many others - but these are just off the top of my head.
I have been watching you since you started and appreciate the fine line you're running between being "on here" and trying to get us all a bit more "off here" and into philosophy as well. The internet isn't going anywhere, but I think you being on here makes it a bit better, and I realized that it's the information and new thoughts we engage with that make our lives better or worse. Hope your experiment with doing this as income is going well. Much respect.
i hope you start a podcast someday. That would be awesome
Dude ABSOLUTELY has the voice for it
I hate to break it to you, but you are already watching his “podcast”.
I actually have plans for one, but it is a matter of time management and logistics.
Honestly, just close your eyes and it’s a podcast. Noting visual here that is a necessity
@@_jaredI read the Nicomacian. I like the thought of Aristotle but here is in conflict with my view of work which is no one should be compelled to work. Anyway I think I understand what you mean by the internet I read the swallows but I must disagree. I believe it has to do with where you are. Since the internet is exactly the place that permits me to do as Aristotle did and use my free time to learn about what I don't know. As I learned something interesting from your video today and for what I want to thank you.
As a 19 year old art school student, my philosophical literature world is just beginning to open up, so I'm incredibly grateful for these recommendations. What propelled me into this realm of reading was Jenny Odell's "How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy." This book completely changed my perspective on life and the internet, and there has not been a day I haven't thought about this work once. It prompted me to reevaluate what it is I pay attention to, and what I spend my life really looking at. If you have ever considered deleting social media, this may be your catalyst. It certainly was mine.
Really enjoyed this video, as usual. Just wanted to say that the flow from one book to another is seamless. You wrote a really good script!
What worries me is (im 38) a lot of people cant seem to understand whats AI generated images or if its AI voice over using lile a famous celebs voice. Ive seen videos with "Sharknado" level of bad cgi and people thinking its real. On the other side I see real footage that people say isnt because they are suspicious of everything now.
Yeah it's mostly the same issue as always of people being stupid not the AI's fault just like it's not photoshops fault when people were complaining about that as it started ramping up in use
Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance. A different perspective on philosophy and in a dark period the perfect antidote to nihilism. To me, it cracked my eggshell and gave me fresh air to breathe.
Excellent introduction to these books. The one that interests me particularly is Chopra’s. Contemporary secular buddhists often use “anxiety” rather than the traditional “suffering" to denote the prime existential human condition. It makes sense, given that most people think of physical or deep emotional pain when the term suffering is used. But modern well-off people are often more likely in their daily lives to experience mental pain, and lack of peace of mind, expressed in consciousness as anxiety. But it also has a long history as a threat to well-being addressed by philosophers, from ancient stoics to modern existentialism. I’m looking forward to Chopra’s take on this.
Thank you for this. Thinking of suffering as rather anxiety, opens a whole new understanding to me
absolutely yes!
so many wonderful concepts in buddhism are absolutely destroyed in translation, imo. "dukkha" translated as just "suffering" rather than "anxiety/stress/the pain of attachment" hamstrings the concept and makes people feel blamed for experiencing that suffering rather than realising a path to freedom from it. similarly, the reduction of "upādanā" to "attachment" in general, which people often take as suggesting that connection and caring about things or people is bad, which seems (and is!) antithetical to other buddhist teachings, and subsequently puts people off of further exploration - "upādāna" is more about fixation, hanging on too tightly, rigidity... it's not that attachment as in caring or being connected is bad, it's that a certain kind of excessive attachment (perhaps better translated as "clinging" or "cleaving" if you must) as in an inability to let go of limited perspectives, habits that aren't serving you (or anyone else), as an excuse to not improve or grow, as a justification for cruelty or ignorance, as a barrier to introspection or to outreach... this kind of "attachment", of clinging to ideas, habits, institutions, individuals, etc, as if you are a child in the womb and they are the lifeblood upon which your very survival depends: this is the attachment of "upādanā".
even as it can bring concepts forward to those whom could not otherwise be introduced to them, translation is the death of understanding, especially when it comes to key concepts in very old spiritual and philosophical language. it would be fine if people left those translations as the baby steps they do function as... but they don't, and the result is the confusion of today where "mindfullness", "gratitude", and "loving-kindness" are near-meaningless cringe self-help buzzwords and yoga is just some stretches you do in tight pants to get a toned ass.
the problem with translation infects people from both sides, too. i'm a buddhist jew, so, i've got more than my fair share of encounters with the concepts of losing frankly wonderful ancient concepts in translation. not to mention you lose the poetry of the sounds those real words use, which conveys another level that the translations don't.
/gets off my soap box
@@captnflint I appreciate what you're talking about here. I've seen the same happening with my Vedanta studies where true meaning is lost. Some suggests that it is due to a type of corruption that happens because the English language is ambiguous and unprecise. I also think about the German words ennui, angst, Weltschmerz; which are similar to each other somewhat, but nuanced in their differences. This is something that is not expressible in English, as can be seen by the descriptions, and generally people use simpler words to try and describe something like these. EG the granularity is missing. So it obviously follows that without words, we won't have an understanding of a concept, and thus something is lost to us /we're less aware, less aware. I mean, the other way around: the moment you discover some new, and you put a word to it, suddenly that world opens up to you to enrich various aspects of your consciousness. It is tempting for me to say that English is a deliberate hijack of this higher consciousness, but it might be that it is not English per se, but rather the degeneration of it (I'm no language expert). So I find it peculiar how there are so few proponents fighting against this decay, and for those that do, very little response from the rest. We seem to be "evolving" sideways, EG things are evolving , but it seems to not be getting better ( which I ponder the correlation to this language decay) www.mentalfloss.com/article/58230/how-tell-whether-youve-got-angst-ennui-or-weltschmerz
@@genomedia44 absolutely. and from my personal perspective - it's in the design. english such as is spoken and spelled today is a real frakenstein's monster: the grammatical framework is germanic, but the vocabulary contains a massive amount of early imports from latin and norman-french. then, as if that wasn't enough of a mess, you add the decision of early english-language printers to adopt and standardize "the king's english" rather than any of the other variants more spoken by the smallfolk, and, of course, the english crown's later legacy as imperial colonizers, and you have a recipe for a deeply broken, frankly kind of miserable language. and early and middle inglysh have so much to offer that was lost or discarded intentionally at various points, which makes it doubly maddening. i think calling modern english a deliberate hijack of higher consciousness is inaccurate only in that implies more sensibility than i perceive there having actually been. modern english is just an absolute crime scene of a language, really.
My mom uses the internet a lot for work and social media, but the concept of search engine utilization is foreign to her. "I don't speak that language," she says. Her first impulse when she has a question about trivia or errata, after asking me or trying to recall what an elder or trusted person said in the past, is to walk around and ask a neighbor, or pick up a phone and call a friend or relative she thinks might know something about the subject. (she's not much of a reader) It still feels very clunky to me, but it's remarkable to observe how answering simple queries was an inherently social act for older people.
“Knowing who may know that” used to be a good way to know people and a social web but also was a good way to keep up with people from time to time.
People like her make no sense they go about it far less efficient way and seek out anecdotes instead of using a simple search engine and going through the internet to find out the truth which isn't an anecdote
Has anyone else noticed that Jared looks much better since he left his tech job?
My sleep has improved, I’m with my family more, and my diet has radically improved. I’m way less stressed, and I generally feel good. Leaving tech was a boon for me.
@@_jared Im in tech .. I always look wrecked
@@_jared virtually everyone I know that was let go from tech job are healthier, happier, and more fulfilled than when they were making their tech salary. Good for you man.
The books that have had the most impact on me are Nicomachean Ethics, On Liberty, and 12 Rules for Life. While I don't recall all the details of 12 Rules for Life, it certainly made me take my life more seriously, ultimately leading me to pursue my master's in Philosophy and Psychology.
And as always, great video! I'd love to read some of the books you mentioned.
I just found your chanel and I am planning to stay and just wanted to say hi. Greetings from Sofia - the capital of Bulgaria 😉
Awesome suggestions. I've spent a good chunk of my pandemic lockdown reading time on the first topic - internet and what's it's doing to me. A few more books if you want to dig into it deeper.
1. Shallows by Nicholas Carr - Written way back in 2010-11, deep and detailed at how it's changing our brains and our patterns of thought. Won a bunch of awards at the time too I think.
2. Ten Reasons to Quit Social Media by Jaron Lanier - Don't be put off by the title, the author is a pioneer in VR/AR and a very keep observer of how technology is changing people. He lays out in great detail what social media and other forms on online behavior is changing us for the worse at the individual and societal level.
3. The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu - More historical, outlines how stealing our attention evolved to be the dominant business model and such a large industry and it's evolution from printing press all the way to Google and FB.
4. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman - Older book from the 80s or 90s but so good that it reads like it could've been written last year. The author is a great writer too.
Best wishes with your reading choices. I hope you get some great reads.
Not only do people no longer care about whether what they say is true or false, but they also fail to credit work that isn’t theirs. I’ve noticed this frequently over the past couple of months, and it’s quite upsetting. It might be a generational or academic issue, but one should always use quotation marks for others’ work.
it's everywhere especially in politcs. I am from Brasil and there is a candidate who against equal paymente for men and women, is antivax and everything you could imagine, but at the debates he says that he never said that all though there is videos of him and his voters don't really care because apparently he is going to wash the communism out of Fortaleza which is where i live
If you’re a fiction reader seeking a novel that challenges your perspective on human nature and society, Blindness by José Saramago (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1998) is a compelling choice. Set in a nameless city struck by a sudden epidemic of blindness, the novel plunges into a chaotic world where civilization collapses, and the true nature of humanity is revealed. Saramago’s writing explores deep philosophical themes of morality, fear, and the fragility of order, forcing readers to confront uncomfortable truths about human behavior in extreme conditions. The novel’s allegorical style makes it more than just a dystopian story-it is a profound reflection on society, ethics, and the resilience of the human spirit. Ideal for readers who enjoy fiction with a philosophical edge, Blindness offers a thought-provoking journey into the human condition.
Incredible book as are all his others. Unflinching look at human nature.
Love you Jared. Many thanks and best wishes to you and your family.
Apart from the stoic response to anxiety, try eating or chew chewing gum. Anxiety is a temporary state induced by false information fuelled by adrenaline. As anxiety takes hold, Cortisol is released. A fun fact. Put two people on one of these funfair rides that are designed to scare. One person will freak out and the other will think it is crazy fun. Both are experiencing an adrenaline rush. By eating you switch off the cortisol rush and confuse the brain. The fight/flight is switched off.
dude whattt, you're about to change my life. thank you
@@gailposada6437 This was my speciality when I was a psychiatric nurse. You can read all the books and do therapy, but unless you control the cortisol flow nothing will change. What eating does is confuse the brain. It's a stupid machine really. When you eat it has to stop the cortisol because it is trying to work out why you are not running away or fighting. Breathing techniques like 7/11 breathing is also good.
What do you do if you have anxiety that causes nausea? Or if the methods you use to sooth anxiety become sensory triggers over time?
When I try to sooth anxiety with snacks, gum, flavored water, or even scented candles I end up associating that flavor/aroma with anxiety and finding it repulsive over time, even after I’ve calmed down. Similar to how I have to keep changing my alarm clock sound after a few because I end up training myself to associate the sound with the anxiety of waking up. Even songs I used to love become repulsive after using them as an alarm clock.
Does sleeping do the same thing? Whenever I feel like my anxiety is in overdrive, I sleep to turn off my brain.
@@chauswriting Yes, that's a distraction. Anxiety likes the spotlight, so when you take the energy away, it must compress down and stop. Anxiety is like a faulty car alarm that goes off unexpectedly. To fix it it needs to be worked on. Chewing gum is the one way to help. I used a variety of techniques to help patients. EFT - Emotional Freedom Therapy. This looks really weird but does work. Hypnosis is another tool I used. Basically, it is guided imagery. You need to work on it to get results. One type of therapy or a combination of stuff. Sleeping is good, but not the solution.
Hi Jared, great video as per usual. Knowing you have a child, or were there two?, that your channel is now your sole source of income and now learning about your anxiety, I’d like to tell you to rest assured that your channel is going to continue to grow and will generate you stable income for sure (as stable as a UA-cam business can be). You bring genuine value with your video. I think you have a great future ahead of you. Thank you for the work you do.
Bro looks like he just came off set of a 1978 tv movie where he plays the geologist trying to get the corrupt governor to listen to his “wild” theories
A book I recently read on the BS of the world is The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han. Changed my perspective on many things, especially social media and work.
There is a little book from Malcolm Muggeridge called "The End of Christendom" that I picked up in 1980 or so. I have returned to it many times and have had a better understanding of his thoughts over the decades as I have gotten older and seen and experienced more. It has even been a good book for relieving anxiety.
Changed the way I see the world: "The Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan
Your channel seems great!
Great selection, thank you!
Thoreau - Walden, Life Without Principle
Hesse - Siddhartha
Watts - The Wisdom of Insecurity
Catton, Jr. - Overshoot
Becker - The Denial of Death
Howard - Conan (I still gravitate toward solving every problem with 3 feet of cold steel.)
Welp, my TBR pile just grew by six. One book I liked a lot years ago is "Feel the Fear (And Do It Anyway)" by Susan Jeffers.
I like Chopra book too. I am an anxious being... one that learned to use anxiety for my good. Nice video!
I love your work man!
I too have anxiety. It's without a doubt the cross I have to bear, but I hope to find the tool to help my carry it.
Harnessing ads for your channel, especially the sponsors that you've selected, is a great idea. You know, Jared, you're becoming a national treasure, and the world needs to know it.
I found great value in this video. Thank you, Jared!
Jared. I just discovered your channel and am so happy I found it. You, sir, are doing good work (irony intended, given some of the content in this vid).
I love the vibe of this video, do you think that as an Italian teenager who really likes English, I should get the English version of these books or the translated one? I'm asking you this because I think it is important to really understand these types of books and I'd like to improve my English reding skills as well
Always so excited to get new videos from you! A fellow (although admittedly younger and way less knowledgeable) lover of books and improving life :)
Sapiens by Yuval Harrari. I never like history that much, but it changed my perspective completely. The most impactful idea he covers is "intersubjective reality" and the myths that humans tell each other. For example the idea that money has value. At first glance, money has no value because it is just paper (that you can't even write on, because it is not white). However, since we all (inter-) agreed to think (subjectively) that money has value, it does.
You make great points about the internet. I grew up without it, and we all learned to look up things in books. That is something that should still be encouraged. As an analogy, I have worked with carpenters, and one wise fellow said that he will train with hand tools first (handsaws and hammers) before allowing to use power saws and nail guns. Similar to being disallowed calculators when learning math, it forces someone to properly learn the skills.
Another: Understanding By Design. I picked up this book before becoming a teaching assistant (overachiever, you might say). It's great because it boils it down so elegantly. How can you know if a course () is well-designed to produce understanding??? A course is well-designed if it produces understanding. That's the big reveal. Super obvious, right? Obviously the payoff is greater if you read the book and catch all the caveats, but for me, it made me more empathetic and interested in meeting my learners were they were, rather than pouring more energy into my techniques.
found ur video on genz not reading.. then got rec'd this... just subscribed
guess we can say jared finally learned how to read
😅🤣
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandon and Dr. Oliver Sax changed my life. My diagnosing specialist recommended it (my shrink wanted me to read Aspergirls, which I refused to read because the title was an abuse of language - I cannot think of a more autistic response possible). So at age 40, with the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder to add to the ADHD, I understood my entire life, or at least had an explanation for it that was more useful.
- I am not shocked that you have an anxiety disorder. To me, it is a combination of how you time your breaths. your posture, the way you indicate the areas of your face that are the major clues.
I would love to see you read more David Graeber. 'Dawn of Everything' is my favorite of his, but there are many other good ones. If it helps, Graeber was a massive fan of Ursula LeGuin!
4:24 Literally was gonna pause to pick my dropped jaw. Cracked me up LOL!
On the Reasons of Love also by Harry Frankfurt (author of On Bullshit) and Kierkegaard's Lily of the Field and Bird of the Air both great reads on what matters and anxiety, respectively.
Rory Sutherland's alchemy changed my views on the world and the human condition more than anything else I read (even though I studied philosophy in uni). I highly recommend it, since he's an ad man he has a unique perspective.
We have more information, but in five seconds you can find an opposing viewpoint backed by just as many "experts" and research papers. By having access to more information than ever, we are ironically further from the truth than ever.
I just discovered your channel. Love your voice and the contents you discuss :) Great video
Thanks!
Jason Read’s The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work is another really good philosophical text on work. I have on my shelf Frederic Lordon’s Willing Slaves to Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire, which Read cites a lot in his book.
Spot on. Bullshit does not care about the truth, it’s a quasi-lie nonetheless.😮
A book that opened my eyes is "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt. It helped me understand people (and myself) when it comes to political perspectives. It's an excellent book.
For me the books of Rober Greene embody that. I just found that every book of his I read changes and expands my interpretation of how things actually work.
He has a way of getting you closer to reality I guess.
I’ve never heard anyone else, ever, refer to the book I happened to pick up so many years ago in B&N - On Bullshit. It was on a whim as someone who minored in philosophy it instantly caught my eye and was not disappointing.
Thank you for that.
Edit to add - hope you get a sponsorship with 80,000 hours. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. They are of the same minds about doing a job that matters.
Absolutly briliant in a short video, anxiety is theme I would like to you to maybe explore more in the video if you wish!
Already thinking about that, actually!
@@_jared Sound exiting! I sometimes feels anxious more or less, as I think everyone of us. And theme can be explored from many intresting points of views, from existentialism, identity to ambiguity and humanism.
I love your work and would like to make a suggestion : could you do a top 10 of the philophy book of 202x. I barely never think of philosophy as a « living » subject or a contemporary subject. I always think of Aristotle ans Sartre but never that there are something meaningful going on. Thanks
Currently reading VULTURE CAPITALISM by Grace Blakely, and it sounds as if the Elizabeth Anderson book could be a great “next read” - Thanks for mentioning it.
One thing that I found to calm my anxiety is regular exercise, like running, swimming, or just doing push-ups whenever I feel I'm falling prey to it. I heard somewhere a quote saying that you cannot calm the mind from within the mind, it can only be calmed by the body, by doing physical activities that would change the hormonal response and regulate your mood.
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure
by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt is a must read too
So this might not be the most useful comment for English speakers, but one book that I‘d love to see translated into English (from Brazilian Portuguese) is „A terra dá, a terra quer” by Antonio Bispo dos Santos. He was a quilombola political and philosophical leader - quilombolas are members of rural communities that were founded by formerly enslaved people. Antonio Bispo wrote about how quilombolas, based on polytheist cosmologies, do not see themselves as “human” in the biblical sense of a hierarchy between humans and other living beings. Gave me a lot to think about our use of the category “human” in an exclusionary and not always progressive sense.
On Bullshit is a great little book I have kept on my nighstand for years. My kid thinks it 's hilarious, but I'll give it a quick 5 minute read here and there a few times a week.
About Bullshit: As part of my bachelor in psych we had to replicate studies. Our group did a study on "illusory pattern perception" and how it is linked to irrational beliefs like religiosity or belief in the supernatural.
A study we looked at but didn't decide on replicating was how "bullshit resistance" is linked to certain types of thinking (a little bit of intelligence is mixed in) and illusory pattern perception.
It was fascinating to research that. And a lot of work programming the online survey.
Will make sure to read Frankfurt's book. (Which is a weird name. But sure, Frankfurt (FFM) is, in fact, known for its bullshit.
Glad to see Bullshit Jobs made the list, David Graeber was a splendid thinker and was taken from us far too soon.
A fantastic book I (re)read recently was 'Rest' by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. Insightful, engaging and overwhelming at times.
I love listening to your videos. Books that have changed how I view the world?
Outliers: This book gave me MASSIVE perspective on how the world works.
The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners: I frequently think about how once you’ve seen what’s bigger than you that you can never again unsee it.
Trust the Process by Sean McNiff: Helped me understand that there is value in the (creative) journey.
The Mission of Art by Alex Grey taught me to consider art as a spiritual process.
The Dark Night of the Soul by Gerald May M.D.: how spiritual growth is painful.
Yoga- The Greater Tradition by Dr. David Frawley: An extremely concise book explaining the 8 limbed system of yoga.
Travels by Michael Crichton gave me permission to think differently
And Falling off the Map by Pico Iyer opened me up to the world of travel writing and how similar/different we all are.
Epictetus really changed everything for me.
I cannot recommend Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance: Toward a Library and Information Policy highly enough. I originally read it as part of my first class in my Masters in Library Science. I have reread it and several of his other library Science books many times since. And each time I find new insights.
Another one I would recommend The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. His concept of the paradigm shift both figuratively and literally changed how I see the world.
Arnold Bennett's How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. I downloaded it for free on Kindle in 2014 and have read and re-read that book many times. I saw it in hardback in an antique shop, and should of bought it! Only recently found your channel, and I'm enjoying many of the videos I've seen thus far. Take care.
Should have bought it
I never BS. I always care about framing reality for comprehension. Sometimes there is no good short version, so I write a longer version, and no one reads it. The truth does not adjust itself to the available attention span. It can only finally work the other way around.
Camus has helped me cope with depression and anxiety that resulted from trauma than any therapist😅
What're those Library of America books on the shelf above your shoulder?
Those are all Le Guin volumes.
@@_jared awesome, I’ve got all seven they’ve put out so far too!
🙏🙏 Thank you, thank you, thank you for correctly calling him The Buddha! 🙏🙏
How did you get out of IT? I'm in it now, takes care of my family for the most part, but I would love out.
1 Watership Down, Richard Adams - Stories are what we crave. Our cognitive engines require meaning. Stories are how we actuate meaning.
Bonus book: The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand.
2 The Hitchyker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adam - Another Adams. Need I even say something? Life is messy. Everything is arbitrary. Make the most of it. There are no turning backs.
3 The Bible - It's the book upon which Western culture has developed. You need to understand it in order to attack it. Like politics.
4 The Lord of The Rings - "In Old Entish, it takes a long time to say anything, so we don't speak unless it is worth taking a long time to say it".
5 Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman - Your mind is full of plotholes and your brain doesn't care. It will produce as much as it can and if you wanna be efficient about it, better understand it.
Bonus book: Noise, same author.
6 The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway - Life is suffering. It is also marvelous. And itt will pummel you with no mercy or respect. Either live through it or die.
Bonus book: Lord of the Flies, William Golding
Have you read any Byung-Chul Han? I'm just getting into him and a lot of his philosophy about work and burnout and exploitation are really resonant with some of the ideas you talked about here.
Yes. I’ve read several of his works.
Jared, but how can I even distinguish truth from falsity online? Everything is constantly being critiqued and I don't know what to believe, it seems like the only way to move forward is armed neutrality, but that just perpetuates the suffering of the thing the discussion is about in the first place. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Great video 👍! only part I can't agree with is that If you say tech job is b*shit in general, then there is no job that's not b*shit.
Hi Jared, I appreciate your thoughtful videos. I also work in Tech (electrical engineering), and the philosophical aspects of Tech are an interest of mine. Do you have any favorite books about Technology and its impact on individual lives?
The Internet is like that famous river in Texas, the Powder River. They even wrote a song about it, a rather famous folk song. There's a line from it that goes, "It's a mile wide and an inch deep..." I think they were writing about the Internet.
These books would go wonderfully with the music by Regnum Umbrae, I think
Problem with the internet is advertising.
During undergrad I took a class focused solely on Nicomachaen Ethics.
Spinoza said that an is and an ought are one because our survival instinct is. And, because we need other people to survive, then we ought to live a moral life or at least not an antisocial life.
Now something more substantive: How do you justify not working if your work is in some way related to your leisure? This seems like an especially difficult question for those of us who do work that we find fulfilling and stressful.
Obviously you probably don’t want to give too many personal details, but a little more specificity could help me understand the question. It does sound like a good question; I just want to fully grasp it.
@@_jared
Sure! If I may, I will use your situation as an example with the provisional warning that I do not pretend to know it in any depth.
Imagine I read Aristotle both for its own sake and for the sake of producing essays about Aristotle. These two ways of valuing Aristotle do not entail any immediate difficulty-they are just two things I do at different times. However, two difficulties seem to arise. First, if I think reading Aristotle is something valuable in itself, then its hard to justify not "working" (since I also read Aristotle for that purpose sometimes) unless there is some other serious intervening reason. Second, I also seem to be habituating myself into two ways of valuing the same activity. Imagine, for example, if in the midst of my leisurely Sunday reading of Aristotle I cannot help but think of how I might use the material for an essay later. Sorry for the long message, but does that make some of the tension clear?
@@SerfOnEarth Yes, I see. I don't have a perfect answer for this, but part of what I have done is choose some reading (for instance) that I don't produce any content on, whether on Substack or UA-cam. I choose those in advance and do my best to shut off my productivity mind while reading them.
It takes a real man to admit that he has anxiety 🙌🙌
"We're a lot less wise".... indeed!
Ruthless Elimination of Hurry was an incredible book for me on how our society sees and values work and how Jesus sets an example to combat that. Would highly recommend it and I'm pretty sure it's written at like a 6th grade reading level. So it's not difficult to read and understand
It's crazy how you feel like you have to work all the time while I'm 28 and I work to have as much free time as possible.
Were you affected by anxiety when you were a TA? I heard your reasons for not wanting to teach in a university, but you are so talented, and you would be able to teach, read, research in that vocation. I don't know if having anxiety while teaching is a reason you abandoned that profession. You reach more people on this platform, but you have not been teaching an in-depth course. Perhaps teaching a course is what @Starfish meant when he/she mentioned a podcast.
It never got in the way of me teaching. It’s more of a constant background thing - though I manage it much better than I once did!
Flawless Things (Contains information that will start a revolution in philosophy and health.)
Consilience by Edward O. Wilson - it would be interesting to hear your take on the 'bigger picture' (if you haven't already done it). The review of the history of the subject was fascinating, but he continued on banging his sociobiology drum, and then seemed to back the meme ideas of Dawkins. And that's where the house of cards, on a great base, fell down.
I'm always thinking about quit being a teacher in order to make more money but I always circle back to "What I do matters and it doesn't make me miserable" 😅.
u rock!
Expert Political Judgment. I am a rationalist who works as an engineer, which is helpful right until either (a) I lack the experience to form a rational opinion that hedges against the unknowns or (b) I really need to be an empiricist to form the right opinion. I'm a "fox" according to the author's definitions... but not always. This book made me self-aware in this way. It also helps me understand and appreciate my elders, that they may not know everything I know, but they have gotten pretty good at hegding.
I don't think there is really bs jobs and normal jobs. I think the economic situation defines which products and services are more needed. In my opinion the other phenomenon that defines the thing is the Maslow pyramid. Plus every product and service we consume is someone's work (more directly or indirectly). So calling jobs bs isn't always fair.
Algo comment + W Jared
fuck! I am jealous of that voice you've got.
That Aristotelian work view seems very at odds with what most theologians put as the Biblical view of work/stewardship/gardening.
I have a totally irrelevant question. 🙈
Which translation of Critique of Pure Reason would you recommend? (English)
I still don't understand how you get the time to read as much as you do
Perhaps I'm the outlier, but the majority of books that changed how I see the world were fiction. I'll put Les Miserables at the top, and maybe add a dash of The Jungle.
That’s also been true for me - I made a choice to highlight philosophy here, but there are a few fiction works that really made me look at the world in a different way.
Brave New World was a big one for me. I just got done writing a long term paper about it but man, as a sophomore in Highschool when I read that for the first time, it drastically changed my world view
Momma Henderson is watching.
AIs really are supreme bullshitters, often times.
'Atlas Shrugged' by Rand - 'The Law' by Bastiat - 'Anatomy of the State' by Rothbard - 'Basic Economics' by Sowell - 'Principles' by Dalio - 'How to Have Impossible Conversations' by Boghossian and Lindsay.
All of these have nudged the trajectory of my thinking. I'm sure there are many others - but these are just off the top of my head.