What books have had an impact on the way you view the world? What has changed your way of thinking?

What books have had an impact on the way you view the world? What has changed your way of thinking?

Obligatory 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond.

Sounds like a CJ jung (the symbols and black black of man, read it by pieces in German. .. maybe do a full read on it once in a more comfortable language for me) ripoff?

Mine was VALIS or is The exegesis of Philip K Dick.

you very likely wouldn’t be here if you lived the life like he wants you to live

Geographic determinism is a thing of the past. It was a prevalent theory sometime in the mid 20th century or a bit earlier.. Jared Diamond should have known better, given that he is a geography professor. Guns, Germs and Steel is generally a frowned upon book. The only value it has is that it can invoke some thoughts you previously haven’t considered. But that does not make them right.

So what exactly is wrong with geographic determinism? Is there some other reason Mongolia isn't known for its naval prowess?

>you very likely wouldn’t be here if you lived the life like he wants you to live

Not true, Peterson's hermeneutics provide adequately for this type of transactional activity.

Phenomenology of Spirit.

...

Mongols never natively occupied any areas near the sea. The steppes suited them. Everything in their lives was connected to a horse.
THey did try to conquer Japan twice though. One time the Kamikaze typhoon destroyed their fleet, the other time Japanese had time to prepare and defend themselves as the Mongolians landed. 2 failed maritime excursions weren’t exactly a great motivation for future expansion of naval power.
But I think that question is too modern.. By the time Mongols existed, there were already other great powers in the area, preventing them from living near the seas for long periods of time. A better question would be, why didn’t the Chinese conquer the world with their big ass ships like the Western powers did a few centuries later? Chinese naval expeditions (as far as Africa and Indonesia) are well documented, but somehow it didn’t interest them that much.

Geographic determinism doesn’t explain, for example, why the economic performance of Chinese Indonesians are better than that of native Indonesians in Jakarta.

Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment senior year of high school
Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling freshman year of college
Descartes' Meditations junior year of college
A bunch of essays from Leibniz junior year of college

Summarise that book for me

>One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey
Peaceful read. Made me not so attached to fast paced American lifestyle.
>Camp of the Saints
Helped me sympathize with some right wing immigration viewpoints.
>Suttree
Just a general sense of there is no meaning - create your own purpose if you want.

I've seen the film of one man's wilderness, is the book also worth reading?

Absolutely, very comfy book. Characters and dialogue are almost nonexistent - it's just him in the wild. Here are a couple quotes I took down that I liked:

>I thought of the sights I had seen. The price was physical toll. Money does little good back here. It could not buy the fit feeling that surged through my arms and shoulders. It could not buy the feeling of accomplishment. I had been my own tour guide, and my own power had been my transportation. This great big country was my playground, and I could afford the price it demanded.

>I just season simple food with hunger.

>>you very likely wouldn’t be here if you lived the life like he wants you to live

What?

Anthony de Mello - Awareness

Focusing on my view of society rather than just powerful literature:

The bell curve – not because of muh race but because I think the fundamental ideas in it are true, and they provide a very powerful framework for thinking about all societal issues.

Bridget Jones' diary – trashy, but it paints a depressingly accurate picture of what life is like for single women in their 30s who fell for the feminism meme.

Submission – made me very worried about what is going to happen in Europe over my lifetime

Weird list I know but those are the ones that stick in my memory as having a really significant effect on the way that I thought.

Might give it a read, I think everybody quite likes the idea of just buggering off one day and going it alone in the wilderness like Thoreau or McCandless. If you're looking for more like that then I'd recommend "the long way" by Moitissier – he was about to be the fastest person to sail round the world solo but decided to go around again because he loved it so much.

>I just season simple food with hunger.

That's a good quote

> Geographic determinism doesn’t explain, for example, why the economic performance of Chinese Indonesians are better than that of native Indonesians in Jakarta

Pretty much a textbook example of how retarded the anti-Diamond camp can lower itself.

Geographic determinism is about studying how different milieux impact the evolution of human groups. It's a comparative study.
Of course it can't be used to compare different groups in the same fucking city. It's not applicable there.

Similarly, Economic performance is only one of the characteristics used as a comparative criterion in GD (and it can have multiple expressions).

Thanks for the rec. And yea, it really is in all simplicity about buggering off alone in the wilderness.

Doesn't Diamond explicitly reject the idea that different human groups might have evolved differently due to their geography though?

>not because of muh race but because I think the fundamental ideas in it are true, and they provide a very powerful framework for thinking about all societal issues.
so basically,
>muh race

have you read it? All the way through that is…

philosophical investigations

yeah, bad example, I was in a hurry and didn’t think through that example before posting.

Nonetheless, geographic possibilism holds more water than determinism.. Environment sets the limitations, but does only partially shape the culture. Culture is rather a sum of probability - a path of opportunities and decisions made by humans which shaped future generations. Some societies got more lucky than others, if you view the world from an economic viewpoint.

The man who would save western civilization

If we survive 50 years, we'll have him to thank.

Childhood is idolizing geographic determinism...
Adulthood is realizing genetic determinism makes more sense.

He kind of looks like Milo in this picture.

He really does.