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Matthew McDowell-Sweet
@msms
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
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Matthew McDowell-Sweet
@msms
I’ve been pulling together my own quake book list recently. It’s not done but it feels pretty close. The first text is Dan John’s Never Let Go. The second is Taleb’s Antifragile. https://www.otpbooks.com/product/dan-john-never-let-go/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile_(book)
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Matthew McDowell-Sweet
@msms
Third I’ve got Keith Johnstone’s Impro. Fourth is Bhante Gunaratana’s Mindfulness in Plain English. https://www.keithjohnstone.com/writing https://wisdomexperience.org/product/mindfulness-plain-english/
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Matthew McDowell-Sweet
@msms
Fifth is The Complete Works of Primo Levi. Sixth is Girard’s Deceit, Desire and the Novel. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/106486/the-complete-works-of-primo-levi-by-primo-levi/9780713999563 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337520.Deceit_Desire_and_the_Novel
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Matthew McDowell-Sweet
@msms
Seventh is Thomas Nail’s Being and Motion. And finally—and most recently—is the /sop Protocol Kit. https://academic.oup.com/book/43685 https://summerofprotocols.com/kit
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