Top products from r/Foodforthought

1. The Bible: Eh. I can sort of get behind this, but not for the reason he gives. The Bible's just really culturally important. I also wouldn't bother reading all of it. When I reread the Bible it's normally just Genesis, Exodus, the Gospels, and Eccelesiastes. A lot of it (especially Leviticus) is just tedious. The prophets are fun but I wouldn't call them essential.
   
   
2. The System of the World: Newton intentionally wrote the Principia to make it inaccessible to layman and dabblers. I really don't think you should be recommending a book like this to people who aren't specialists. Sagan's A Demon Haunted World will probably fulfill the stated purpose Tyson sets out better.
   
   
3. On the Origin of Species: A good book that's held up remarkably well, but a more recent book of evolution might be better. The Extended Phenotype or The Selfish Gene would both probably do a better job.
   
   
4. Gulliver's Travels: This is a great book. I support this recommendation.
   
   
5. Age of Reason: Haven't read it. I like Paine otherwise though. No comment.
   
   
6. The Wealth of Nations: Similar to On the Origin of Species. It's still a great read that's held up really well and offers an interesting historical perspective. That said, economic theory has made some pretty important advancements in two centuries (the Marginal Revolution, Keynes, etc). Still, if you want to stick to the time you'll probably get more out of reading Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy.
   
   
7. The Art of War: Very good book. I have nothing to add.
   
   
8. The Prince: Same as the above. Fantastic book.

Great read if you're in high school and never been exposed to these ideas

E: I feel like people are taking this the wrong way. If you're young and have a cursory interest in philosophy, pieces like this are great to stoke that interest. If you are more intellectually mature, or are deeper in to philosophy, there are loads of pieces that better explore The Cave, and that better explore the philosophy stuff behind The Matrix. Great example is "Philosophers Explore The Matrix". It's a great shallow dive in to some of the concepts, and then you can find more material to dive deeper later.

For anyone who is interested in reading about the background of the relationship between The United States and Saudi Arabia, there is a great book called "Thicker Than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership With Saudi Arabia".

http://www.amazon.com/Thicker-Than-Oil-Americas-Partnership/dp/0195367057

Beyond oil, the United States has a lot riding on its close relationship with Saudi Arabia, particularly a common "adversary" in Iran, and it (Saudi Arabia) being a relatively stable regime in the Middle East. The book highlights the importance of Saudi Arabia's deeply religious state, which was important for the United States to support, as it was a means to oppose "Godless Communism" in the Soviet Union at the time (when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan). The author delves into why this (importance of religion in Saudi Arabia) is obviously less important now than it used to be (for the United States), and why the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia needs to be reassessed.

While it was difficult for me to pick up on what might actually be hidden in those 28 pages, it sounds as though it may be strong evidence which would implicate Saudi Arabia in the attacks, even more than they already have been. Perhaps it was not worth it to the United States government to reveal information that would harm relations with a government whom they've long needed the support from, especially given our long-running tensions with Iran.

It depends on how "traditional" you want to go. China has been around for thousands of years and Chinese traditional medicine, likewise. The answer is that Western culture as a whole has a lot to learn from traditional cultures especially when it comes to indigenous wildlife and their uses and environmental functions. There's an entire field of study about traditional knowledge and it's fascinating.

Of course, what we can learn about medicine from these cultures won't be found in acupuncture or homeopathy most likely. Instead, it would be found by carefully sifting through all the knowledge built up by these cultures about the local wildlife with a specific focus on plants and their uses.

The good news is that these indigenous peoples are usually far more aware of local plants and their uses than scientists who come and visit. The bad news is that they necessarily have to pass their knowledge from generation to generation through stories, songs, legends, dances, myths, rituals, and constant passing of information through instruction. Combine that with a lack of rigorous scientific understanding and you have a terrible disconnect between native peoples and any researchers who come to study them and their environment.

There is huge, hidden value locked away in indigenous societies and it's really easy to forget about because people don't think these cultures have anything important to offer scientifically when they really just don't know how. There's a great book called Ecologies of the Heart by E. N. Anderson. It's truly an eye-opener and has two chapters dedicated to feng-shui (which was originally used to evaluate a plot of land and where to place various buildings and features on it) and Chinese nutritional therapy. For a very long time Asia thought little of surgery (as opposed to Europe which loved cutting people open very early) and focused much more on diet as a means to heal.

Let us go with your argument and see where we reach ...

First, this resolution never gave Israel the right to kick Palestinian from their land. The independence of Israel never meant not giving citizenship status to the original Palestinians living in their land. Actually, [UN resolution 194] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_194) gives them the right to return back. The right that they were never given by Israel at any time since its creation. But you know what, let us assume that those Palestinians who were kicked out "according to UN resolution 181" deserve the suffering and yes it was hard to loose your land and home but this is UN whenever they decide something in New York, everyone should follow it.

You talk about UN resolutions as Israel respect any of them! According to the same UN, Israel should not be in the West Bank [UN resolution 242] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_242) and call it an OCCUPATION. I do not see why resisting an occupation is something questionable. Of course, there are other resolutions that you may like to read, you can look [UN resolution 3236] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_3236).

It is easy to blame each other for things happened in 1947 or 1948. But if we are serious about finding a solution, we need to accept that occupation still exists and all nations on Earth has the right to live freely.

You may never agree with me, but I suggest you read War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History which is a book written by an Israeli historian Avi Shlaim who is a professor at Oxford.

I find both parties politically incorrect, however, occupying millions of people on a historical pretext of promised land and killing thousands of civilians every time your government has a political game is not really the way for humanity to advance in the 21st century.

I've read Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down", and his writing style for that is a bit sensationalist, too. It was confusing that in this .txt file, near the end, someone wrote that free market, pre-Civil War style schools are "UNavailable only to the
resourceful, the courageous, the lucky, or the rich." (Huh?)

If anyone takes anything from this, though - since I'm assuming everyone reading this post has already gone through said schooling system - is to look into homeschooling yourself now. You can still learn things from people in the community and or teach yourself. Sure, we don't have as much free time as schoolchildren anymore, but that doesn't mean we ought to not try. Inside of a school building is not the only designated place where you are allowed to learn, and after you graduate high school/college/trade school, that doesn't mean you have to be "done."

Gatto's writing, along with others (John Holt, Susan Wise Bauer, etc.) have been used by many who have decided to homeschool their children, but you can can become an autodidact and "unschool" yourself, no matter what age.




Edit: If you like the idea of Ben Franklin's self-education, you might find this book to be a really fun read.

I made a post in /r/Stoicism a while ago when someone asked about books for Epicureanism. I'll just repost it here:

The influences of Epicurus spread through much of the writings of other philosophers and major historical figures. Prominent examples include Isaac Newton, Karl Marx, and Thomas Jefferson. In fact, the pursuit of happiness part from Jefferson's Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was likely heavily influenced by Epicurus.

Anyway, here's some reading material since /r/Epicurus is a barren wasteland where everyone seems to just downvote none stop:

• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius. Here's the translation I have. Most of Epicurus' writings have unfortunately not survived. As a result, this remains the best primary resource for those wishing to study Epicureanism.
  
  
• The Art of Happiness by Epicurus and others. This is a collection of Epicurean writings, including Epicurus' fragments. It also includes some of Lucretius' writings from the above work, plus other stuff that you can read in the Amazon description, so keep that in mind when considering buying.
  
  
• The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt is a narrative of the discovery of the old Lucretius manuscript of The Nature of Things by Poggio, a fifteenth-century Florentine and Roman scholar. Greenblatt analyzes the poem's subsequent impact on the development of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and modern science.
  
  
• The fragments of Epicurus.
  
  And some extra stuff that might be worth checking out:
  
  
• The Essential Epicurus by Epicurus, trans. Eugene O'Connor
  
  
• The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism by James Warren

Here's how I like to think of it: In Tibetan Buddhism there are two types of Bodhisattvas, the capital "B"-Bodhisattvas which have ascended to god-like status, and the lower-case "b"-bodhisattvas who I think of as ordinary people who do good works or teach others valuable life lessons. I cannot speak to the existence or lack there of existence of Bodhiattvas, any more than I can to the actions of angels on earth. But I can say that the world is full of small-b bodhisattvas. And the community of people who came together to help bring her body back to America (I wrote about them a little in my first book http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Market-Brokers-Traffickers/dp/0061936464) taught me a lot about what it means to be a member of society and the value of life and death.

I think Emily was delusional because even if she had achieved some sort of spiritual ascendance, her action caused great pain to her family and friends. By being so caught up in her own personal quest, she forgot her position in society.

I can't do fancy links, but have fun. Enjoy having managers put new wines on the menu, and you show up and are just expected to know about them, when they could come from anywhere in the world (and what about a nose and palette for wine, liquor, beer and food, and how to pair them all together) If you don't think what I need to learn is complicated, why should I think what you need to learn is complicated?:
http://www.amazon.com/Wine-Bible-Karen-MacNeil/dp/1563054345/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372030268&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wine+bible

http://www.amazon.com/Wine-Grapes-Complete-Varieties-Including/dp/0062206362/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372030321&sr=1-8&keywords=wine+books

Here's a great book about what could be the true value and nature of shop class.

If you're actually interested this is the book Dumbing Us Down by John Gatto, that made up my and my wife's mind to homeschool our son. We had a great experience.

Our initial concern that made us consider it in the first place was that he was a really inquisitive child and we feared that his enthusiasm for participating and learning would be crushed by the cookie cutter educational system.

Once we got into it many other benefits became evident.

What did the 70s leftists accomplish? From everything I read, they failed, went back to their rich parents and got handed cushy jobs.

Here is a good book on the subject:
https://www.amazon.ca/Days-Rage-Underground-Forgotten-Revolutionary/dp/0143107976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512061735&sr=8-1&keywords=days+of+rage

>Won't this just cause the "developing" countries to sink further into poverty?

A lot of these workers remit money home to the developing world; remittances sometimes/often outweigh foreign aid. Evidence from modern day skilled migration suggests that migration is a lot more complex phenomenon than we take it for. The UK for example seemed to be facing a rising tide of Polish immigration, but concurrent rising living standards in Poland have drawn back a lot of Polish emigres, who are now going back home. Likewise, a lot of people from China, Taiwan and India in the US decide to go home after some years or decades in the US.

Clemens mentions in this talk some work by economic historians like Hatton and Williamson -- if you have access to a university network or live in a developing country, you can access their research which indicates mass migration ultimately leads to benefits for both the country of emigration and immigration: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0041.pdf and http://www.nber.org/papers/w5259.pdf They also have a book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Age-Mass-Migration-Causes-Economic/dp/0195116518

I personally find these to be the ultimate treat

As they say, history book are written by the winners.

If you want to see more of the ugly parts of (the US) history that the books left out, I suggest A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

Those might work - I haven't checked those out. What I actually got were these (even less expensive). The difference is quite noticeable - I was surprised that I would start getting tired as quickly as I did. I thought it would take 2 or 3 hours.

Oh, as for the lights, I thought you meant inside. Outdoor lights can be timed to coincide with waning sunlight, and also timed to go off at certain hours of the night. Lots of programming already being done with some of the LED lights, I believe over in Europe.

>Hitler's governance and focus on the development of the country is what did not leave Germany handicapped after WWII.

um, what? Hitler ran the german economy into the ground.

These are really effective and last for years if you store them properly.

There's actually a book that covers a lot of this: "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely

I have no idea how it is, as I haven't read it yet, but the bookstore I work in carries this.

I just read that in Predictably Irrational. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248

Some of the problems I have with this article:

• It uses "Big Business" as a proper noun.
  
  
• The author seems to think that four businesses controlling 85% and 2/3 of the beef and pork industries is terribly concerning. I can only imagine how upset they must be about the personal computer industry.
  
  
• The author doesn't understand irony.
  
  
• A random link is made between genetically modified crops and the financial crisis. The article just says that credit default swaps and widespread consumption of GM crops are both less than 20 years old. Apparently we should be terrified of everything that has recently become popular.
  
  
• It jumps right into being terrified of GM crops, even though they have been widely demonstrated to be perfectly safe. No evidence of any way in which GM crops are, or could be, harmful is presented.
  
  The concerns in this article are pretty much bullshit. If people are interested in the subject, Oxford Press commissioned an informative book entitled Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know.