The Blinklist -what's on yours?

[Stavros]

Elon Musk has published his 'Blinklist'= 10 books he thinks you should read.
Elon Musk book recommendations: His reading list (blinkist.com) (https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/9-books-elon-musks-reading-list-will-reinvent-life)

I drew this list up without much thought and based in part on the books I can see that are not in store given I am running out of room. Would like to know yours.

(In no order of preference, and not always year of first publication, and it could be 20 or 100)

1. Alan Ryan, On Politics (2013). A comprehensive survey of European and American political philosophers, each chapter on the men concerned (for they are all men) is an eloquent and concise summary of their views, with the judicious assessment that Ryan brings after more than 4 decades of thought. The UK has been blessed since 1945 with four outstanding political philosophers -Quinten Skinner, John Dunne, John Gray and Ryan, whose book has the status of a Bible in this subject.

2. Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (2000). If you want a basic, narrative history of China since the Opium Wars, this fits the bill to sit alongside more analytical classics such as Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Benkamin Schwarz) and The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (Harold Isaacs).

3. Kenneth Robinson, The Dilemmas of Trusteeship (1965). Rather than read some massive tome on the British Empire, Robinson, an historian of the British in Africa, in less than 100 pages offers a summary that will have you thinking about Empire thematically, before you sink your brain into some detail. A very underrated little book, but a gem.

4. Rashid Khalidi, The One Hundred Years War on Palestine (2020). A compelling study that traces the universal betrayal of the Palestinians since Herzl, and essential reading for today. A fine balance of narrative and analysis to sit alongside the more dense history of the PLO by Yezid Sayigh (Armed Struggle and the Search for State).

5. Daniel Yergin, The Prize (2009 updated edition). The 'epic' story of oil and gas told in epic fashion, and while it doesn't use any original sources, it weaves together the huge importance of petroleum in terms of politics, geography, economics and indeed, culture. And what a prize it has been -for those lucky enough to trouser its trillions.

6. Stephen Richards, The Prime Ministers (2022). This comprehensive survey is a useful short cut for those who don't want to labour through thousand of pages of British history (Dominic Cavendish needed 3 thousand just for the 1970s, why I do not know).

7. George Steiner, Language and Silence (1969). Erudition was George's middle name, and just as his lectures were rhapsodic, theatrical and teeming with ideas, so these essays range far and wide on history, literature and politics. Although I was aware of the Holocaust before reading this in the 1970s, it was the first time I encountered it in any detail, which is one reason this has been one of my favourite book of essays.

8. Carl Dahlhaus, Richard Wagner's Music Dramas (1979). A concise examination of the man's work, providing context, musical analysis and an insight rare and valuable give the mountain of trash written about this genius of musical theatre. A model of how books on composers ought to be written.

9. Richard Lannoy, The Speaking Tree (2016). First published I think in the 1970s, this study of Indian history and culture is breathtaking in its scope and knowledge. There is a tree in the middle of India that spoke to Alexander the Great, warning him of the folly of trying to conquer India -there is a lesson there for all of history, and not just India. And written with such poise too.

10. Orlando Figes, A People's Revolution (2017). Figes is not much liked by some people, but this study of the Russian Revolution(s) has a broad sweep but brings into play many of the factors that created the upheavals of 1917-1923 with winners and losers all over the place. It helps to establish what became the USSR, and subsequently Russia, and this is a good entry into the subject which has plenty of other good examples to choose from.

[filghy2]

Elon Musk has published his 'Blinklist'= 10 books he thinks you should read.
Elon Musk book recommendations: His reading list (blinkist.com) (https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/9-books-elon-musks-reading-list-will-reinvent-life)

Looks like a surprisingly normal list for a right-wing conspiracy theorist, though I haven't read any of them. I was expecting books about the Great Replacement Theory or the threat of 'wokeism'. It's very ironic that he's listed 'Merchants of Doubt', given that scientific denialism is exactly what his political cronies traffic in.

I've only read two from your list: 'On Politics' and 'The Prize'. Both good reads. I wouldn't know how to reduce all the books I've read to just 10.

[Stavros]

Looks like a surprisingly normal list for a right-wing conspiracy theorist, though I haven't read any of them. I was expecting books about the Great Replacement Theory or the threat of 'wokeism'. It's very ironic that he's listed 'Merchants of Doubt', given that scientific denialism is exactly what his political cronies traffic in.

I've only read two from your list: 'On Politics' and 'The Prize'. Both good reads. I wouldn't know how to reduce all the books I've read to just 10.

Musk has edited as I have. If there are books he knows will excite criticism he hasn't listed them. I did try to spread the subject areas, but also just relied on an instant set of thoughts, but not including fiction, poetry or biography. It would still be an eclectic list if it was 100, but in any sort of list I would take it as given that people like me would put the complete works of Shakespeare, the novels of Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf on the list, but if it was a desert island list I really don't know. If it was books that were influential, then I would certainly choose Plato, The Symposium, which I read when I was 16, not having been introduced to dialectical reasoning before, it really did change the way I think. Reading Last Exit to Brooklyn in the 1970s was also influential, indeed a revelation given there was no transexual porn at the time other than picture magazines.

[broncofan]

Very interesting list Stavros. They all look like good reads. I have to admt I have not read any of them but I do not read a lot of nonfiction even though I should. The only one on your list I might not be able to read is the book about Richard Wagner because I assume it requires more knowledge about classical music than I have. The musical analysis would be lost on me unfortunately.

As for Musk's list, I have to say I am skeptical that he has read the books he says he has. First, as Filghy said, if he read Merchants of Doubt he clearly did not absorb its lessons. Not only do his political cronies traffic in denialism, he has as well. When renowned vaccinologist Peter Hotez refused to debate RFK Jr. on the covid vaccine, Musk implied it was because he had something to hide. Instead, Hotez explained it would be giving oxygen to discredited ideas. Without belaboring the point, Musk has frequently tried to sow doubt and confusion in areas that are well settled. He implied both hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were effective treatments against covid. If either have the slightest efficacy (doubtful), pfizer has an antiviral treatment that showed 90% effectiveness in clinical trials against hospitalization from covid. By arguing for at best marginally effective treatments when a very effective treatment exists, he was trying to imply that regulators and the scientific establishment are involved in a conspiracy to lie to the public and withhold treatment. I think he also said something about covid being a "plandemic". Whatever his merits are as an entrepreneur and ceo, Musk should have no credibility as a general thinker. That's maybe putting it more strongly than most would, but that's what I think.

The book that looks interesting on his list is Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom. First, I have heard good things about Bostrom's work. Second, I don't think I can read more than one book about the dangers of AI. Finally, I would recommend people do not read the Peter Thiel book. It's just that I have read many similar types of books when I worked in finance. Many of them were well written but typically the main idea is there on the first page, is so broad as to resist application, and doesn't provide much illumination. Yes, it's better to have a product with no close substitutes and which completely revolutionizes the way things are done. It's better to have no competitors and high barriers to entry. I really don't want to have to hear Peter Thiel tell me that.

I don't think I can manage an entire list but maybe in the next couple days I'll look through my kindle and book purchases and find some nonfiction books that I've found interesting.

[broncofan]

Having read the reviews on goodreads, I actually think the book I would read from Musk's list would be Human Compatible. It is also about the dangers of AI but sounds like it veers into more abstract philosophy less than Bostrom's book and is less convoluted.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44767248-human-compatible?ref=rae_7
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20527133-superintelligence?ref=rae_0

I've included the link to the reviews. There are frequently very well written reviews on this site and the best ones tend to give a fair account of the merits and demerits of a book. Human Compatible is portrayed as a well written, straightforward and clearly explained book about the dangers of ai whose intelligence greatly exceeds that of humans. Bostrom's book, on the other hand, while generally well reviewed, veers a bit into the type of speculation that sounds like science fiction and would be a difficult read for anyone not very well versed on the subject.

The other ai book from his list, Life 3.0, talks about the benefits of AI and not its existential risks. Completely different but relevant as well.

[filghy2]

'Wealth of Nations' is another example where Musk doesn't seem to have absorbed the messages from the book he claims to have read. Adam Smith's primary purpose in writing the book was to debunk mercantilism, which was the prevailing economic idea of his time. Yet Musk is supporting a candidate whose main economic idea is mercantilism.

Also, Smith was not the 'markets good, governent bad' thinker that the right like to portray him as. Smith himself thought his most important book was 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments', which takes a more nuanced and rounded view that emphasises social and ethical factors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

[Stavros]

'Wealth of Nations' is another example where Musk doesn't seem to have absorbed the messages from the book he claims to have read. Adam Smith's primary purpose in writing the book was to debunk mercantilism, which was the prevailing economic idea of his time. Yet Musk is supporting a candidate whose main economic idea is mercantilism.

Also, Smith was not the 'markets good, governent bad' thinker that the right like to portray him as. Smith himself thought his most important book was 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments', which takes a more nuanced and rounded view that emphasises social and ethical factors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

Exactly this! Was it not Smith who argued that when merchants get together they don't compete, they fix the price of commodities amongst themselves? And what about an early version of the Labour Theory of Value?

There is also the argument that Rothbard put forward, that most of The Wealth of Nations Smith poached from French thinkers of the time.

[Stavros]

Very interesting list Stavros. They all look like good reads. I have to admt I have not read any of them but I do not read a lot of nonfiction even though I should. The only one on your list I might not be able to read is the book about Richard Wagner because I assume it requires more knowledge about classical music than I have. The musical analysis would be lost on me unfortunately.

As for Musk's list, I have to say I am skeptical that he has read the books he says he has.

I know of a CEO who appeared on Desert Island Discs on the BBC whose choices were made for him by his staff, with I think one exception, so I would not be surprised if this is what happened with Musk.

In the list I tossed off, as it were, I chose the Wagner because though it won't mean anything to a reader who does not know the works, it was important for me to read about the actuality of Wagner's concept of a 'total work of art' -in Act 2 of Lohengrin, for example, Dahlhaus explains how the music at a certain point takes over from the chorus to explain what is happening -the point being that the singers are not accompanying the orchestra, or the orchestra accompanying the singers -the two are part of a whole (that also should include the production) and you can't really separate out one from the other.

Again, if it is about changing perspectives, I should have included The Romantic Rebellion (1973), by Kenneth Clark, which changed the way I looked at, and appreciated French art between David, Delacroix and Ingres, though the book also looks at Turner and some others in that period who are not French. It ranks alongside the study of the Italian Renaissance by Bernard Berenson, and also some of the books on art by Robert Hughes, who wrote a perceptive book on Goya and once told an American collector in New York the Andy Warhol paintings he paid millions for were not really worth a dime -much to the anguish of the man concerned.

[broncofan]

'Wealth of Nations' is another example where Musk doesn't seem to have absorbed the messages from the book he claims to have read. Adam Smith's primary purpose in writing the book was to debunk mercantilism, which was the prevailing economic idea of his time. Yet Musk is supporting a candidate whose main economic idea is mercantilism.

Also, Smith was not the 'markets good, governent bad' thinker that the right like to portray him as. Smith himself thought his most important book was 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments', which takes a more nuanced and rounded view that emphasises social and ethical factors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
I took some undergrad economics classes, one being international economics, so I'm going by memory. You'll tell me if I'm off base. Mercantilism was the prevailing idea, which was that countries improved their well-being by maintaining a trade surplus. The idea was that if you export more than you import, you are less dependent on foreign industry, and money is also flowing into your country through exports.

Smith showed that if a country specialized in goods it had an advantage in producing, it could benefit more from trade than it would by attempting to produce goods that it produced less efficiently. It could trade for anything they were less efficient at producing and by focusing resources on what it was efficient at producing, maximize the amount of value it had with which to barter. Ricardo added to this by showing in a two country model that a country did not need to be more efficient at producing either good, it could benefit by focusing on the good it was relatively more efficient at producing.

I hope this is right because it's what I remember from the course. It sounds like promoting trade and discouraging barriers to trade and xenophobia might be a takeaway, in which case I would say Musk's public messages stray very far from that principle. It says we live in a world in which cooperation yields better results than isolationism and nationalistic attempts at "self-sufficiency". In fact, Musk is pretty openly xenophobic, is terrified of a "border crisis" and has no notion of the global economy as cooperative.

As someone who has not read Wealth of Nations but heard people espouse what they think its main principles are, I've heard the most about the so-called invisible hand and why laissez faire economics produces more efficient outcomes than more pervasively regulated economies. I'm not sure if that isn't more applicable when comparing a full command economy to an economy with very few subsidies and little regulation. It's pretty hard to have a coherent fully free market view given what could qualify as a regulation of industry.

[broncofan]

In the list I tossed off, as it were, I chose the Wagner because though it won't mean anything to a reader who does not know the works, it was important for me to read about the actuality of Wagner's concept of a 'total work of art' -
On lists such as these, it's perfectly reasonable to have some books that may require a bit of previous knowledge. I have tried to listen to classical music and sometimes I appreciate it and other times I feel impatient. It wouldn't surprise me if temperament and attention played a role in what one likes, but I also regret that I had no musical training. Not even a piano lesson as a child. I don't feel deprived overall, but if having struggled with an instrument would have given me a better appreciation for more varied forms of music, I wish I would have.

[filghy2]

I took some undergrad economics classes, one being international economics, so I'm going by memory. You'll tell me if I'm off base. Mercantilism was the prevailing idea, which was that countries improved their well-being by maintaining a trade surplus. The idea was that if you export more than you import, you are less dependent on foreign industry, and money is also flowing into your country through exports.

Smith showed that if a country specialized in goods it had an advantage in producing, it could benefit more from trade than it would by attempting to produce goods that it produced less efficiently. It could trade for anything they were less efficient at producing and by focusing resources on what it was efficient at producing, maximize the amount of value it had with which to barter. Ricardo added to this by showing in a two country model that a country did not need to be more efficient at producing either good, it could benefit by focusing on the good it was relatively more efficient at producing.

I hope this is right because it's what I remember from the course. It sounds like promoting trade and discouraging barriers to trade and xenophobia might be a takeaway, in which case I would say Musk's public messages stray very far from that principle. It says we live in a world in which cooperation yields better results than isolationism and nationalistic attempts at "self-sufficiency". In fact, Musk is pretty openly xenophobic, is terrified of a "border crisis" and has no notion of the global economy as cooperative.

As someone who has not read Wealth of Nations but heard people espouse what they think its main principles are, I've heard the most about the so-called invisible hand and why laissez faire economics produces more efficient outcomes than more pervasively regulated economies. I'm not sure if that isn't more applicable when comparing a full command economy to an economy with very few subsidies and little regulation. It's pretty hard to have a coherent fully free market view given what could qualify as a regulation of industry.

That's a good summary of the gains from trade argument. There are arguments for exceptions, but crude economic nationalists aren't interested in those. If you claim to believe in the invisible hand of the market domesticly, it is incoherent to oppose international trade and immigration because the argument is essentially the same.

People like Musk never get beyond the invisible hand because their only interest in economics is to rationalise self-interest. Taking your economic ideas from something written 250 years ago ignores all of the advances in economics since then, eg on market failure. It's like basing all of your ideas on physics on what Isaac Newton wrote.

[broncofan]

Most of the professors in Law school are left-leaning. The one typical exception is whoever the professor is at each school for Law and Economics. i took the course and don't remember much about it but there were some nifty graphs and theories about how to craft legal rules that would promote pareto efficiency.

The most interesting part of the course was when, almost grudgingly, the professor introduced a few ideas from behavioral economists that attempted to take into account how people actually make decisions. Why people have bounded rationality and rely on heuristics rather than taking into account all relevant info. Or don't have great willpower and so their discount rate for future benefits might be very high.

The entire purpose of that course (law and econ) is a bit suspect because most laws are concerned with neither maximizing utility nor matters of distribution but just outcomes. Efficiency is a relevant public policy goal and the law does take into account some public policy concerns if they are not outweighed by justice concerns. But there were interesting points that i took away from the course. One may have been fairly obvious but it was that if the detection rate for a crime is low (or the enforcement inconsistent), then general deterrence requires more extreme punishments. Such punishments are unjust in individual cases but have the salutary social effect. Depending upon the values of the society, it may be better not to have great deterrence to avoid making an example of individuals

I have gone through some of my amazon purchases and I have a few books I'll be offering up, but they were mostly things I found interesting. For instance, I read the book Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene years ago. It was about how complex an activity reading is, and how remarkable it is we can do it given that it required our brains to co-opt functions that had other evolutionary uses. He discusses the fact that a region of our brains is responsible for invariance with respect to objects. This means that we can recognize the same object even if viewed in different lighting or at a different angle, or rendered in different dimensions (you can see why this would be essential for reading). Considering how our brains take information into our optic nerves and transform that information into coherent perceptions, invariance is essential and without it, the world would be even more confusing than it is. Anyhow, there were a lot of useful insights in the book. I think, for instance, if someone were dyslexic they would have more interest in the subject and he had a lot of thoughtful things to say about the origins of dyslexia as well. If I find anything else I'll let you guys know.

[filghy2]

The most interesting part of the course was when, almost grudgingly, the professor introduced a few ideas from behavioral economists that attempted to take into account how people actually make decisions. Why people have bounded rationality and rely on heuristics rather than taking into account all relevant info. Or don't have great willpower and so their discount rate for future benefits might be very high.

If you haven't read it already, this book by Daniel Kahneman provides a really good outline of this subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

The basic idea if that humans evolved with two different modes of thinking: one that is fast, instinctive and emotional; and another that is slower, more deliberative and logical. The fast mode has advantages (eg when confronted by a dangerous situation) but it can also lead to irrational decisions.

[broncofan]

I haven't read it. I have heard good things though and it's the kind of book i'd find interesting. It will be the next nonfiction book I read.

[Stavros]

I haven't read it. I have heard good things though and it's the kind of book i'd find interesting. It will be the next nonfiction book I read.

As a law student, were you/are you not exposed to those two major statements of American capitalism -John Rawls A Theory of Justice, and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia- ? I think they have been influential though I don't know if either of them would make a list of yours. Same goes for Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most influential books most people have not actually read (I would put Edward Said's Orientalism in the same bracket, and though it was influential in Middle Eastern Studies, like most of Said's work, it is highly over-rated).

There is a chapter on Rawls in Ryan's On Politics, but for those without access to it, this review by Ryan of a book derived from Rawls is a succinct intro to the study that is too coy to identify private property as the villain of history, or the more radical idea Andre Gunder Frank and a co-author once proposed, that the whole of human history since the dawn of the Neolithic Age, has been the 'cumulation of accumulation'.
Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like? by Daniel Chandler - review by Alan Ryan (literaryreview.co.uk) (https://literaryreview.co.uk/beyond-the-veil-of-ignorance)

There was a vogue for studies in social sciences that challenged established positions in philosophy and social policy -think of Ivan Illich's books from the 1970s- 'Deschooling Society' or 'Tools for Conviviality', these days books by people like Stephen Pinker or Yuval Harari. It is remarkable how many supposedly intelligent people cling to Capitalism by trying to find ways to balance a sense of fairness with the simple reality that Capitalism is not fair, but a system that generates a slave mentality and a bondage to private property that sees no equilibrium between equalities of opportunity and equalities of outcome, when the outcomes are pre-determined to benefit a small class of privileged people. And so on.

[Stavros]

Another list. On this one -William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln, David Lloyd-George, Germaine Greer, Tony Benn, George Orwell and others.

‘It was an awakening’: Diane Abbott, Nicola Sturgeon, Rory Stewart and more on the books that shaped their politics | Politics books | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/29/it-was-an-awakening-diane-abbott-nicola-sturgeon-rory-stewart-and-more-on-the-books-that-shaped-their-politics)