Books

A "quake book" is a text that radically perturbs how one thinks about and acts within the world.

The shift is experienced, individually and ideally societally, as positive (as opposed to the negative shifts associated with ideological or epistemological info hazards.

A quake book may make an existing belief, value or stance especially legible to oneself, or provide irrefutable evidence for something felt at a deep level. It may catalyse a novel perspective or insight, or provoke new questions because it's wrong in a particularly interesting or sacrilegious way. No matter how it happens, a quake book terraforms one's existence upon engagement.

I first heard of them via Ryan Holiday sometime in the mid-2010s. He heard of them via Tyler Cowen.

What are your quake books?

A "quake book" is a text that radically perturbs how one thinks about and acts within the world.

The shift is experienced, individually and ideally societally, as positive (as opposed to the negative shifts associated with ideological or epistemological info hazards.

A quake book may make an existing belief, value or stance especially legible to oneself, or provide irrefutable evidence for something felt at a deep level. It may catalyse a novel perspective or insight, or provoke new questions because it's wrong in a particularly interesting or sacrilegious way. No matter how it happens, a quake book terraforms one's existence upon engagement.

I first heard of them via Ryan Holiday sometime in the mid-2010s. He heard of them via Tyler Cowen.

What are your quake books?
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/information-hazards
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/11/view-quake-read.html

In motion - complex systems, computing and communication (amongst other things) | msweet.net | working on /subset

Black swan - Taleb
The beginning of infinity- Deutsch
Diaspora - Egan

tricks with polynomials. Computational monadologist. Prev: ML HealthCareInc 🦄 | R&D PeopleFund | AI & Stats lecturer

I’ve only read Diaspora and the short stories. Can recommend Axiomatic. Permutation City is probably the one most people have read. It’s on my reading list for this year.

Deutsch's book feels like a pretty reliable quake for a lot of people—haven't read it myself! Should change that... Have read Diaspora—really enjoyed it—but haven't tried any other Egan. Any reccs?