I agree this is a problem. In retrospect, reading Yudkowsky's Sequences was far more valuable to me than reading various pre-1900 philosophers' works firsthand.

I agree this is a problem. In retrospect, reading Yudkowsky's Sequences was far more valuable to me than reading various pre-1900 philosophers' works firsthand.

https://twitter.com/PradyuPrasad/status/1757745612072894477

This is generally true but there are pre-1900 works that impacted me very differently from reading second hand accounts:

- The Ancient City by Fustel de Coulanges (1864)
- Nietzsche (1880s)
- The Federalist Papers (1787-1788)
- Capital by Marx (1867)
- The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico by Díaz del Castillo (1568)