If you could only recommend *one* book that everyone should read, which will fundamentally alter the way they see the world, what would it be? #asknostr
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Replies (101)
Four Agreements
So many options, but this guy
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
Nintendo Power Super Mario Bros 3 Strategy Guide 1990
The unknown craftsman
soetsu yanagi
😂💀
the origin of species 🦧
Lonesome Dove
"Digital Sovereignty" (audiobook) is the only truly new thing written about bitcoin in probably 10 years, and it also fixes the internet
Fanfares
Digital Sovereignty
8,000 sats - The book that fixes the internet ⚡
The sovereign individual
Isn't it the case that when you already live in a largely christian community you sort of get the gist of bible by osmosis? Does actually reading it change you view of the world in the most massive way? As opposed to reading something more unexpected, contrary to the popular belief...
Haha! I like the click bait title and also how you put it when you said that the realization of the ever persistent clown world is a sobering one and that's absolutely true! Nothing new under the sun, and the solutions to overcoming clown world haven't changed either. Problem is some folks think they're smarter and choose to ignore em
Love the movies, never read the book though
Atlas Shrugged
Never watched the movie, only read the book 😂.
1984
I disagree and I will tell you why. There is a difference between knowing what and knowing why, as the saying goes, the man who knows what will always work for the man who knows why. Point is; do you want to trust that the people around you understand everything the bible says or do you want to understand it for yourself? More so given man's tendency to sweep inconvenient truths under the rug, or distort facts that are contrary to his agenda, would you not want to go directly to the source materials for yourself?
I hear you that you want to read it for yourself to get the 100% of it, but then does it really "fundamentally alter the way they see the world" as walker asked?
Daemon
"This Perfect Day" by IRA Levin
It's a fascinating story about a 24/7 sedated society... and a few individuals trying to break out.
This Perfect Day (Novel) • IraLevin.org
Info about Ira Levin
It's a great holidaybook. Loved it.
The Sovereign Individual
Absolutely it does. It does that for me every single year. If you haven't tried it out, I would highly recommend you do. Ball is in your court at the end of the day
I don’t think there is one
I also looked it that way at first until I realized he didn't actually say that and he did say ONE book. If it's one then it would be that one
Oh I did, I read the bible, I also read other religious texts.
The Map by David Fischer
And it didn't fundamentally alter your worldview when you read it?
welcome to the monkey house
Part of me wants to say "Being and Time" by Martin Heidegger. But expecting most people to grok it is a big stretch.
Hume's Treatise on Human Nature is a bit more approachable, though fwiw it did leave him so dejected that he spent years just playing backgammon in the park when he realized what ontological skepticism gave him in terms of knowledge, or lack thereof.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason probably puts you somewhere in the middle and not quite so dejected, just a little...rigid (like Kant himself).
On second thought stay away from scholarly philosophy books if you can read only one. You really need a few to see why they're all wrong but that they all give you a new perspective on the same basic truths. Maybe just pick up Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy (don't worry, it's one book). It'll entertain you for awhile, and it's chock full of various perspectives from a guy who I'd really rather had been able to live for 500+ years for all he gave us in the space of humor, metaphysics, psychology, politics, and life in general.
Daemon without Freedom(tm)? That's cruel...
Provérbios!
meditations by marcus aurelius
Bitcoin Standard
I’ve heard from numerous people this book changed their life. Definitely planning on reading it at some point
“In search of the miraculous” by P. D. Ouspenski. Basically alters your world view by altering your inner view. That is the direction: how you view yourself => how you view the world.
The Bible
This book has convicted me to read books more in the last year than I have in the last ten. “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman.”The crazy thing about this text is it was written in 1985. It is mostly a critique on television and the methods used to consume certain types of information, but the internet has made his predictions seem as if he were writing while looking into a crystal ball. I’ve NEVER been more convicted to stop listening, watching, or memeing critical information. The medium is the message. What message are we choosing to consume.
The Machiavellians, by James Burnham.
To be fair, that is an anthology published in a single volume.
Look no further 👇 #anunnaki
Yeah, it didn't change my worldview fundamentally. There were definitely many things I learned, etc.
Perhaps you are the exception to the rule then
Wake up, they're controlling the narrative, read Brave New World to see the sinister plot unfolding before our eyes
The Sovereign Individual
The creature from Jekyll Island
the social conquest of earth by edward o. wilson
At the urging of my uncle I began reading the Bible every day, twice a day. I was 12 years old when I began.
I would read and then pray and contemplate.
I read and contemplated so much more than was ever discussed in my church, family, or community.
Over the next 6 years, until I graduated high school, I read the Bible cover to cover twice, and then the New Testament 3 more times.
One of my daily prayers was to be given the wisdom to understand. In time I started noticing that my interpretations weren’t always the same as everyone else’s.. but in my heart I knew they were for me.
By the time I was in my early twenties I stopped going to church. It was clear to me that I the God I knew was taking me beyond the community. It was so disorienting at scary at first. But in time as my intimacy and understanding continued to develop and expand I knew I was on the right path.
By the end of my twenties I could no longer call myself a Christian. I couldn’t abide by the label or all that came with it.
My journey has been deep and dark at times, and yet my intimacy and faith has only grown more rapidly than I could have ever imagined.
My understanding has overlaps with Christianity. I absolutely love and continue to model myself after Jesus. But my understandings are often heretical, and are impossible to unsee for me.
So should you read the Bible for yourself?
I believe so, and do so without letting any man, woman, or institution tell you how you should interpret it. Let only God speak to you through it.
ok.. John
Under rated story. We’re going to be the old heads wanting to still drive 50 years from now
Can’t Hurt Me.
This book broke my 12 year old brain.
At that point I realized the government is full of shit and can’t be trusted.
Well, ONE book...people can read it a bunch of times til they get it.
Also, not sure anyone ever called me high IQ for majoring in Philosophy before 😆. Though it does seem a more useful major now than it was regarded as at the time.
That resonates, I like that you make the journey and personality your own not relying on someone's interpretation. I know that religion was quite suppressed during communism, so when you went to the church it may have received the suppressed version (even after the fall of sssr)?
Out of interest - have you tried reading any other religion books for comparison?
I guess I was thinking of it more as if someone read one book, rather than only one I recommend.
That said I tend not to worry so much about maximizing reach, so much as delivering signal to those who are primed to process it. The majority of people never actually shape anything, but get dragged along behind the leadership of the select few men of action.
Good one!
Good one!
Anarchy State and Utopia - Nozick
Dao De Jing
Breath, James Nestor
This looks tempting
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant has a section on happiness which is fantastic. Free to read online. 
Almanack of Naval Ravikant
HAPPINESS IS LEARNED — Almanack of Naval Ravikant
PART II - HAPPINESS The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is revers...
The Fountainhead
The Law
Second this. Profound book.
The Problem Of Political Authority by Michael Huemer.
Huemer argues that political authority is an illusion. Starting from common moral intutions (don't steal, don't hurt people), he demonstrates that no one has the right to rule and no one is obliged to obey a government merely because it issues commands.
The state possesses no special moral status that justifies coercion or obedience, and that common moral intuitions against private coercion (like theft or kidnapping) should apply equally to the state.
He dismantles major theories of political authority, such as social contract theory, hypothetical consent, democratic majoritarianism, and consequentialist argument.
Instead, he proposes that society can function effectively without a central monopoly on force through competitive private agencies for security and dispute resolution, aligning with an anarcho-capitalist framework.
Fooled by randomness
How to Slay a Wizard - Owen Benjamin
Barren Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict between Labor and Usury - E. Michael Jones
"Dogs Would Live Longer If ... The Black Book on Veterinarians" by Jutta Ziegler
3 body problem - it will make you feel so small. In a way it makes you confront the inevitability of the end, so you might as well live the best life you can.
The Bible
The Bitcoin Standard
The Bible should just be a given. Otherwise these kinds of questions are pointless. Of course everyone should read the Bible. Of course it's the greatest book ever written.
But it's fun sometimes to think of number 2 and what it means to people.
1984
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Based
Genesis
The midnight library
Michel de Montaigne - Essays because they encourage radical self-exploration and the acceptance of human uncertainty.
Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World by Pat Buchanan
It will have you questioning many load-bearing myths
Denationalization of Money
The Creature of Jekyll Island
Currently reading it and it's awesome. It's about the creation of the FED and it'll blow your mind. You CAN NOT see our monetary system the way you used to after.
Even after studying money, Bitcoin and Austrian economics...
that wasnt the question though
Principles of Economics by Carl Menger
1984
you should read facebook
but im blind, master
yeah that is what someone would say if never heard of other sacred texts other than the bible lol
but yeah bible is a good one its just not the only one talkin about the same wise shit there is a huge ammount of analogies between sacred texts more people should look into them
wtf bro go and see a doctor lol
I would agree with you that I experienced a contracted version of Christianity.
After I left, to continue my journey alone, I did grasp at other religions for some sense of structural stability. I studied a number of them, large and small, and attended the various gatherings. Each rasped against my spirit in the same way Christianity had. After each attempt the quiet whisper became a little more obvious and was saying something like “what you seek is not in religion, it’s an absolute surrender.” A trust fall into the vast bottomless unknowable.
In comparison to that, every ‘ism’ or ‘anity’ is contractive, limited, and acts as an intermediary.
I suspect anyone who’s had a profound moment that led to a conversion or dedication to any religion, had exactly that experience of unbounded, surrendered ‘isness’, ‘forgiveness’, and ‘innocence’. But the mind is so quick to try and label and understand and attach to something in the world as the cause, or the way to ‘get back to that experience’.
The Bible
Screwtape letters was an eye opening one. CSL! 👍
The Creature of Jekyll Island
Sorry, should have been clearer. I meant I pick the book of John. Didn’t realize your name was John lol.