(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best world history books

No problem! As for some good reading that is pretty non-technical but still really delves into the manned space programs, I would highly recommend "A Man On The Moon", by Andrew Chaikin. It is appreciated as being one of the best breakdowns of the Apollo Program, and is a great read filled with a ton of interesting information.

Also, ANY of the astronaut auto-biographies are fantastic. As for a few examples, Eugene Cernan's "The Last Man On The Moon" is a great and candid read in my opinion, as is Neil Armstrong's "First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong". Chris Hadfield's "An Astronauts Guide To Life On Earth" is also excellent and very candid and open as well, covering a lot of stuff about STS and ISS. "Failure Is Not An Option", written by former NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz, is also a great read that gets into a lot of the NASA mission management from Mercury to Apollo, and likewise with astronaut Deke Slayton's great bio titled "Deke!", since Slayton was NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations after he was grounded due to a heart issue, making him largely responsible for crew assignments at NASA during Gemini and Apollo.

Another good one is "This New Ocean" by William Burrows. It covers the history of humankind's fascination with spaceflight and rocketry, from the ancient myths of Daedalus and Icarus and the early chinese experiments with fireworks right up to the STS shuttle and ISS, and goes into not just mission specifics, but the historical geo-politics and geo-military wranglings that really defined the first "Space Race" with the Soviets.

Actually, here is a link to a list of a bunch of good books written by or about astronauts and the space programs, and just about every book on this list I would recommend.

Also, if you have not yet seen it, I STRONGLY recommend that you check out the fantastic HBO mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon". Produced and directed by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard with a star-studded cast, this 12-episode critically acclaimed mini-series is extremely accurate historically, and covers the entirety of the Apollo Program, from before the Apollo 1 fire to Apollo 17's final steps on the lunar surface. It is basically like Tom Hanks and Ron Howard's other fantastic mini-series "Band of Brothers", but rather than covering WWII, it focuses on Apollo and the race to the Moon. I cannot recommend that mini-series enough, as it is brilliant produced, directed, and acted, and, above all, historically accurate.

Density =/= Strength.

You could technically epoxy and lead to the same density as steel; but you'd likely need WAY more of the material to have the same strength as even 4130.

While that example is ridiculous the same basic principle applies to steel alloys. Steel is basically just a crystaline form of iron. But if you try to just use iron only then the crystals don't align properly to get the most strength, plus it's often easy for Oxygen to work its way in and start eating apart the iron. To counter this over the course of centuries—but mostly in the era since the industrial revolution—people found that by adding some other elements to the mix of iron and using different heating and cooling cycles that you could get the iron atoms to better align into a stronger crystalline structure. It's really the balance of the very small amount of other elements that alloy iron turning it into steel. A small—but often very precise—change in materials or heating/cooling process can radically change the properties of the steel. Throw in some chromium and instead of forming oxidizing as rust, it oxidizes as sapphire; and you get stainless steel. Put in some more carbon and the steel is flexy. Put in too much carbon and it shatters. And all sorts of other cool effects just by tinkering with the mixture.

So what about 4130 vs High-Tensile Steel.
First, while bike manufacturers like to bash it, 4130 on its own is actually a great material. Aircraft quality. Easy to melt and work with, and has a great flexibility/strength to weight ratio. But some of the higher-tensile strength alloys can allow for even more flexibility/strength, but are often harder to manufacture. The higher flexibility/strength alloys mean you can make the walls of the tubing thinner and still have the same overall strength as 4130 of a thicker gauge tubing. And this is why we think high-tensile is lighter than 4130...because you can have the same dynamic strength with less material, therefore the tubes are thinner walled, use less material and are therefore lighter.

You can actually find a great overview of iron, steel, and steel alloys in this book: Stuff Matters - Exploring Marvelous Materials. Which I found easy enough to pick up an e-copy from my local library.


tl;dr: Stronger alloys allow you to use less material to make the same strength tubing.

There are two books that I have read that have done a great deal to help me understand the dynamics that allowed Europe to rise to dominance starting in the 17th century: Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Why Nations Fail. The former talks about the geographical and ecological considerations that stifled development outside of Europe. The latter talks about the role if extractive institutions, set up by colonial powers, that remained after decolonization and prevented previously-colonized nations from developing. I can't do their arguments justice here, but if you are sincerely interested in changing your view I strongly recommend reading those books. I'll try to address your specific points:

> it seems to me that those of European heritage have made the most long-lasting and significant contributions to mankind. To name a few: space travel, internet, modern technology and medicine.

All of these marvels are founded in the scientific method, which developed during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment has been successfully exported to multiple non-European countries, most notably Japan. So, it's not just Europeans who are able to appreciate Enlightenment values. But the Enlightenment did start in Europe. So, to believe that the Enlightenment proves that Europeans are superior you must prove that the cause of the enlightenment was the innate character of Europeans, and not any contingent factors. That is...very difficult to do. And, yes, the burden of proof is on you, here, since the null hypothesis is that the biological distinctiveness of Europeans is unrelated to the start of the Enlightenment.

> I realize Arabs of ancient times also contributed a lot in the realms of mathematics and medicine.

Yes. Different civilizations have become world leaders at different points in history, which makes the idea of some kind of innate superiority of one civilization really hard to believe. It just so happens that the Islamic Golden Age occurred at a time when it was impossible to communicate over large distances, while the European Golden Age (which we are now in) occurred at a time when communication is instantaneous and we can project military power across the entire world. In other words, the global dominance of Europeans is historically contingent, not an immutable fact of biology.

>One argument I frequently hear to counter this position is that other nations have failed to develop due to colonization and exploitation.

This is an excellent argument, and is, essentially, correct.

> if they were on the same level as Europeans intellectually and strength wise, why couldn't they have found the means to fight back and turn the tables?

Although they were at the same level as Europeans "intellectually and strength wise", they were not at the same level technologically. Europe was in a golden age, Africa, India, and China were not. Again, the key here is that the European Golden Age occurred at a time when it was possible to travel the oceans and project military power worldwide. That was not the case in the Islamic Golden Age or the Indian Golden Age, which explains why those civilizations didn't conquer the world in the way the Europeans of the 19th century did.

>Instead of Europeans doing what they've done to others, why couldn't it have been the other way around?

Guns, Germs, and Steel does the best job of explaining this. In short: Europeans were blessed with livestock that could be domesticated and a consistent climate that allowed them to produce lots of food more efficiently that other regions of the world could, which allowed them to spend more time on other things, like technology. Again, the full argument is the length of a (very good) book, so I suggest you pick it up to get more details.

https://www.amazon.com/Human-Accomplishment-Pursuit-Excellence-Sciences/dp/0060929642

This is the book in question.

> European people's relied on circumstance?

Once it is a happening. Twice it is coincidence. Thrice it is a pattern. The European land is the best as far as evolutionary benefits goes. Best nutrition, weather, resources etc. Yes. This is why we are here today. This is why by the evolutionary process the achievements of Europeans number 90-95% of all.

> How much of it was won through the spoils of war instead of self innovation?

Precisely? No clue. However when are the means more important than the end? And by what metric do you judge war to be inherently negative? By war men know the fullness of life. By war we reveal the worst of humanity yes, but also the best minds, the most innovative discoveries and forms of progress.

> This "my people" shit just seems like a way for people who haven't accomplished shit to feel a part of the accomplishment of their ancestors.

The idea is simple. Our ancestors fought, bleed, sacrificed and constantly pushed for better. We live on their shoulders and the greatness that was their existence. What we have today: safe and prosperous societies, those things came about because of their goodwill. The conclusion is that we should strive to be as best as we can be. To honor them and ourselves. To match their greatness and eventually surpass it. That is the idea of "my people". A never ending passion to better yourself and what is yours. I believe this is what everyone of all people on Earth should be doing. Love for your own does not need hatred for others.

> However culture is learned and not predetermined by your genetics.

To some degree yes. However genetics dictate the level of intelligence of the individual. They tell about the likelihood for addictions, the speak of capability to understand and innovate. Genes are everything. If the genes of humans coded for roughly the same capacity all across the board then how come there are still groups of people in Africa that are living in mud huts? Surely if the biological capacity were there, they would have evolved beyond that point a long time ago. 5,000 years ago. Culture is an expression of genetics.

It's awesome to see someone interested in sociology (especially sociology of religion) in high school.

Before you start doing research, you need to think about what your actual question is. What is it about the sociology of religion that interests you? Are you interested in explaining religious variation? Are you interested in how different people experience religion? Are you interested in studying how religion influences people's behavior or beliefs? Think of something in the social world that you don't know, but want to know. The answer will guide how you approach research.

Also, not all of the sociology of religion is quantitative with large sample sizes. There's been some great qualitative work with small sample sizes done in the past. Nancy Ammerman has done some awesome qualitative work. One of my favorite sociology books is Baptist Battles which offers a window into the fundamentalist/progressive conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention in the 80s.

If you are interested in more population level, quantitative stuff, take a look at Putnam and Cambell's American Grace. It's not really an academic book, but the research is solid and it's a great example of the kind of findings quantitative sociology of religion can produce.

If you find that interesting, then you should take some statistics courses and begin to learn statistical software like STATA, SPSS, R. A lot of that software is really daunting to learn at first. We had to learn R in my first year statistics course in grad school, and it had PhD students scratching their heads. Still, getting even a very basic understanding of something like that will get you a head start on research. You WILL need to learn a statistical software in order to quantitative research. If you feel comfortable with doing some basic statistics, check out The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) for some cool public use data.

Also, if you want to do research you need to read research. People here have suggested classic works like Berger's Sacred Canopy or stuff from Weber, Marx and Durkheim. That stuff is cool and all, and if you continue to be interested in sociology you will have to read that. However, nobody doing research today is trying to emulate what Berger, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim did. I suggest looking through some of the articles in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion to get a sense of the kinds of research sociologists of religion are doing now. Don't get too bogged down in ancient stuff said by old dead white guys.

One last thing -- absolutely nobody expects you do any kind of research in high school. All the stuff I mentioned are things I learned in grad school and I would consider way above what would be expected from a typical high school student. If you find it overwhelming and confusing that's totally normal. Research is overwhelming and confusing all the time.

I think your students will be lucky to have a teacher who is so excited to teach them! There's a lot to say here, so I'll just add a couple of points to the discussion.

TIP 1: A BOOK

Steven Strogatz (Cornell math professor and renowned mathematical expositor) has recently come out with a new book called Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe. I haven't read it yet, but based on what I know about it, I suspect you'd find a ton of inspiration from this.

TIP 2: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

General framework

Students can easily be overwhelmed by the technical aspects of the subject, but everything we do in calculus can be contextualized via a simple (but brilliant) framework.

(This is something I emphasize in my tutoring, but you might find it helpful when planning classroom lessons as well. One option might be to open the course with a brief overview of calculus based around this framework, perhaps in the first class. Then, each time a new idea is introduced, it can be placed within the framework that you established at the outset.)

1. Approximations (approximate difficult nonlinear problems by easy linear ones)
   
2. Limits (refine your approximations until infinity turns them into exact values)
   
3. Shortcuts (develop systematic shortcuts for calculating important limits)
   
   Approximations, and something close to the idea of a limit, were put to use in ancient Greece (see the work of Archimedes). Thousands of years passed before the third stage was developed and calculus came to fruition - for that, we needed the analytic geometry of Descartes and Fermat.
   
   Altogether, this framework enables us to turn difficult problems about changing quantities into easy problems about geometric quantities. Let's see how this plays out in the two main branches of the subject.
   
   Differential Calculus
   
   The central problem is to find the rate at which a given quantity is changing (with endless applications). We can reframe this as a question about slope. How can we find the slope of a nonlinear curve? For example, how could we find the slope of the parabola y=x\^2 at (3, 9)? This is not obvious at all, but calculus makes it easy, as follows.
   
   
4. We only know how to find the slopes of lines, so let's draw a line that appears to have the same slope as the parabola (the tangent line). Can we find its slope? We'd need two points, but the only point on the line that we know for sure is (3, 9). It seems we're stuck, but we won't give up! Instead, we'll approximate by a secant line.
   
5. We can improve our approximations and watch to see which value they approach... They're approaching 6. We call this the limit, and it must be the answer!
   
6. That was a lot of work. Can we find a shortcut? Whether we use (3, 9) or (4, 16), the process should be the same. Instead of repeating it every time we use a different point, is there a way we could represent multiple values at the same time? Algebra to the rescue. We can use (x, x\^2) as a placeholder. After a little algebra, we get that the slope is 2x. So, what's the slope at (4, 16)? This problem is now as easy as multiplying by 2: 2*4 = 8. From here, we can do something similar for other basic functions (power functions, exponential functions and logarithms, trig. functions and inverse trig. functions) as well as combinations of those functions (sums, products, compositions), and then we'll have shortcuts for all the functions of precalculus.
   
   Integral Calculus
   
   The central problem is to find the accumulated change in a continuously changing quantity. We can reframe this as a question about area! (This can be motivated by considering speed vs. distance.) How can we find the area of a curved (nonlinear) shape? For example, how could we find the area underneath the parabola y=x\^2 between x=0 and x=3?
   
   
7. Apart from the circle (whose area was determined by methods similar to the methods of calculus), we only know how to find the areas of shapes whose sides are straight line segments (like triangles, rectangles...). When it comes to finding areas, the simplest of these shapes is the rectangle, so let's approximate using rectangles.
   
8. We can improve our approximations and watch to see which value they approach... They're approaching 9. We call this the limit, and it must be the answer!
   
9. That was a lot of work. Can we find a shortcut? Here, the fundamental theorem of calculus is the shortcut we're looking for. We can apply it once we build up an inventory of antiderivative formulas for important functions.
   
   Applications
   
   As an example, consider solids of revolution.
   
   
10. Choose an approximating element (e.g. a disk or a shell). Approximate by summing the volumes of these elements.
    
11. Take the limit, so the sum becomes an integral.
    
12. Evaluate the integral using a shortcut (the fundamental theorem of calculus).
    
    That's the idea. I hope it helps!
    
    Edit: Included extra language to clarify the bit about approximating by rectangles.

And done!!!

1. Blue the best for obvious reason.
   
   
2. Summer what’s better than beer pong? Pool beer pong.
   
   
3. Usual Food the best because it’s a local thing.
   
   
4. Gift for another for my love of Disney animation.
   
   
5. Book to read great insight into the human race.
   
   
6. Cheap because yummy.
   
   
7. For the doge because adorable.
   
   
8. Useless yet so awesome.
   
   
9. Movie because it’s my favorite.
   
   
10. Zombie to destroy their brains.
    
    
11. Life changing to adapt to in work life.
    
    
12. Add on because my kids are always getting sick.
    
    
13. Fandom because it’s an awesome show and these are in apparently.
    
    
14. Pricey for when the lights go out.
    
    
15. Sharks because it’s badass and my daughter would love it.
    
    
16. Good smells one of my favorite scents.
    
    
17. Childhood feels spent so many playing games on this.
    
    
18. Writers was helpful for me once upon a time.
    
    
19. Obsessed my life of Disney is strong right now.
    
    
20. Weird because lol.

>humans just made this up and chose what to include and what not to include.

Humans made what up?

1. the bible? The bible is literally a library with different forms of writing. You can't read a myth as if it's history or a poem as if it's an account of scientific explanation - you especially can't read Genesis 1 like that because the scientific method didn't exist yet. I will (and did in my previous post) agree that they "chose what to include and what not to include". But, it's not as if they just randomly chose certain texts. They chose what they believed resembled their situation accurately and truthfully. It wasn't one person's history, rather it's the history of a people - first the Jews then the (orthodox) Christians.
   
   
2. religion? Experiences of "the Divine" exist, as such. Whether or not you believe in the Divine doesn't neglect the fact that religious experiences exist. Religions, broadly and generally speaking, are that which house a "lens" to interpret those experiences: the "why" and "meaning" of such things. Why did this happen? (Not how! science can and should attempt to answer that) Is there a meaning to this? The experiences of the given followers also influence the given religion. It's a mutual circle.
   
   >why would a being so powerful choose such a misunderstood way to communicate if his goal was to save us?
   
   This question is making some assumptions:
   
   
3. God is a being.
   
4. God has a goal for humanity.
   
5. This goal is "saving us".
   
   Number 1 is false to any classical monotheist. Here's a blogpost I wrote about the "nature" of God and evil. Here's a reddit comment I wrote which also touches this. I only link these because I don't have the time to figure out how to write it out again in my currently allotted time (work soon). However, I will suggest two books for you that are better written and that heavily influence(d) my thoughts: God Without Being: Hors-Texte, Second Edition (Religion and Postmodernism) 2nd Edition by Jean-Luc Marion. He is a French Philosopher. The second book is The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart. He is an American Eastern Orthodox Theologian. The second of the two books will be a little bit easier to understand as it's written for a wide audience.
   
   Number 2 could be false, but I personally think it's true. So, I'm going to assume this with you.
   
   Number 3 is wrong in the sense of the goal being to save us from eternal damnation. Read my comment (or blogpost) to get a better understanding. Long story short, to quote St. Athanasius: "God became man so that man might become God".
   
   But, to answer your question: Humans live and participate in different contexts. Whether it be historical, societal or even religious contexts. That is burden of our "imperfect" nature. Based on that alone, we will of course misunderstand things. I can say more, but I'm running out of time.
   
   >my point was that if we open up the floor to interpretation...just everyone making up their idea of what is right.
   
   Interpretations aren't just made up. To interpret properly is to situate and figure the given materials in their proper contexts and stories. This happens from science to art. I suggest reading up on Hermeneutics. I could suggest a couples books (sorry, I'm just bad at explaining things in a quick easy-to-digest way. Especially when it comes to topics our minds literally can't comprehend). New Testament People God V1: Christian Origins And The Question Of God by NT Wright which sets up what he calls a "critical realism" approach to scripture. Phenomenologies of Scripture, which is a collection of articles detailing how to approach the bible and related topics as they "give themselves". I'm currently reading both. The first is a more historical-critical and literary approach to the bible and the second is more a philosophical approach. Both really good so far.
   
   >but I suppose in that case I reject both your idea of God and the existence of God.
   
   You cannot deny "the existence" of God because that's an absurd statement. God is not a thing or even "highest power" that exists in some "realm" called "the supernatural". If that were the case, "Existence", as such, would be ontologically prior to "God" which doesn't make sense. The Divine/God/Brahman/whatever is that which provides "Existence" to "exist". God does not exist. Once again, I highly suggest reading my blogpost (I don't have ads or anything so I won't get paid) because it's better articulated. Better yet, read the book I mentioned by David Bentley Hart. I can send you (I think) a PDF if you want. I've provided a short reading and long reading. If you want a video instead, I can probably find one!
   
   Sorry about all the books I recommend. Reddit is not a place I can expound on philosophical ideas, especially when we both have different working assumptions that we need to clear. That's why I'm focusing on challenging your viewpoints on certain things because we just fundamentally disagree. We can't discuss/debate things without first agreeing on something.
   
   Also, I've enjoyed engaging with you. You seem open-minded enough and that's a good thing. So, thanks.

Not books, but I recommend CGPGrey's videos on topics such as the formation of the commonwealth for some anecdotal discussion of how modern states are structured. Crash Course World History is another good series that gives extremely quick (~10-15 minutes) overviews of a variety of topics historians like to discuss.

As for books - many of the more interesting books are on specific topics. Guns, Germs, and Steel is an interesting discussion on why some societies do better than others. Stuff matters is a neat discussion of how modern materials came to be. Honestly, I think it is more fun to pick a topic that interests you and dig into that topic specifically. You will probably learn about other things as necessary along the way. One of Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcasts, Controlling the Past, discusses this very idea.

Some of my favorite "history" books aren't even sold as "history" books. The Emperor of all Maladies is a fascinating look at the history of cancer. As a kid I loved David Macaulay's Building Big, which discusses large structures in America. And an embarrassing amount of my knowledge on other countries comes from folktale anthologies.

If you are interested in international politics specifically, I would suggest looking for books on the UN and NATO (two of the biggest international organizations right now).

A good place to start I think is reading Shamanic Voices by anthropoligist Joan Halifax. It isn't a how-to guide or anything, but gives intimate accounts of Shamanic practices throughout the world. It includes records of rituals performed by Maria Sabina that you may find especially interesting.

After that, I'd recommend Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by reliigious history professor Mircea Eliade. Its a bit thick but is very thorough in its treatment of Shamanic practices through the millennia and around the world, including descriptions of numerous techniques used for entering trance states, cosmologies, symbolism, initiations, and powers claimed by Shamans. This is an academic work, however and won't give you step by step instructions (if that is what you are looking for).

If you are looking for something a bit lighter, Supernatural by Graham Hancock is an interesting read. In it he looks at parallels between drug-induced experiences, Shamanism, fairies, and reports of extraterrestrials. If I had known that last part before I read it I probably would have skipped this book but he actually made some very interesting points that I think makes the book worth reading. Also, he relies heavily on Joan Halifax's book as a source and spends a decent amount of time discussing Maria Sabina and psilocybin usage.

The beginner how-to department is an area I'm less versed in but I've heard good things about this book and its companion. Personally I'd generally recommend getting oneself intimately familiar with current and past Shamanic practices through the academic works on the subject and then creating a personalized system - though commercial how-to guides can certainly provide some practical hints and inspiration.

For understanding modern world history, Eric Hobsbawm is the best starting point.

• The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848
  
• [The Age of Capital: 1848–1875] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Capital:_1848%E2%80%931875)
  
• [The Age of Empire: 1875–1914] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Empire:_1875%E2%80%931914)
  
• The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991
  
  Hobsbawm is a Marxist historian and it shows in his work. But even the deeply conservative Niall Ferguson wrote that "his great tetralogy . . . remains the best introduction to modern world history in the English language."
  
  The other modern world history I want to mention is [The Birth of the Modern World] (http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Modern-World-1780-1914/dp/0631236163/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374136637&sr=1-1&keywords=birth+of+the+modern+world). It offers another perspective on the "long 19th century" and, as it is written by a very conservative historian forty years after The Age of Revolution, a nice contrast/counterbalance to Hobsbawm's work.
  
  [A History of the Middle East] (http://www.amazon.com/History-Middle-East-Peter-Mansfield/dp/0143034332/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374137117&sr=8-1&keywords=history+of+the+middle+east) is a great introduction to Middle Eastern history and politics which is unbiased, factual, and comprehensive.
  
  [The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985] (http://www.amazon.com/Great-Chinese-Revolution-1800-1985/dp/006039076X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374137415&sr=1-2&keywords=great+revolution+china) is an excellent book on the birth of modern China. In it, John King Fairbank tries to show the dynamism of Chinese society and that western forces have had much less influence than the western historians who have framed the traditional story seem to believe.
  
  US History
  
  
• [The Radicalism of the American Revolution] (http://www.amazon.com/Radicalism-American-Revolution-Gordon-Wood/dp/0679736883/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374137693&sr=1-1&keywords=radicalism+of+the+american+revolution)
  
  
• [The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846] (http://www.amazon.com/Market-Revolution-Jacksonian-America-1815-1846/dp/0195089200/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374137774&sr=1-1&keywords=the+market+revolution)
  
  
• [What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848] (http://www.amazon.com/What-Hath-God-Wrought-Transformation/dp/0195392434/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374137821&sr=1-1&keywords=what+hath+god+wrought)
  
  
• [Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877] (http://www.amazon.com/Reconstruction-Americas-Unfinished-Revolution-1863-1877/dp/0060937165/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374137863&sr=1-1&keywords=reconstruction)
  

I am a particular fan of the Atheist Experience. It is a weekly call in show that takes calls from theist and atheists to discuss whatever is on their mind.

I am currently reading [Sapiens](sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062316117/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Y-SKBbFXAPM0Y). This books takes a deep dive into the origins of humanity. It's not particularly about religion but it does make some mention of it. I really like this book because it addresses why Humans are the way we are, what seperated us from our ancestors, how the way we think influences every aspect of our society today.

Talk Origins is an excellent resource that has cited knowledge for just about any topic you could think of.

I am not gay and don't have any real insight into that situation nor have I done much reading or research into that. I do know that the Bible is not friendly to the LGBT+ community, particularly those of the Baptist variety.

Never stop looking for the truth. Evaluate whether the facts you find mesh with your beliefs, if they don't, evaluate your beliefs to see if that is something you can actually believe in.

Remember your parents may never come to accept you as you. I hope they are able to see past their beliefs to still love you but they might not. I have been unable to convince my Father, who is an otherwise brilliant man, that evolution is an actual fact and that the earth is older than 6,000 years old. And I might not ever be able to. You cannot allow your families unwillingness to seek truth and accept you as you to dictate your life. The people I consider my family now are unrelated to me, my brothers and sisters are the ones I have chosen.

Remember, even if you conclude that Christianity is the truth, there is not a single atheist I know that will condemn you for being you. We may argue against beliefs we view as false, but that will not change your value as a human being.

tl;dr seek out facts, evaluate your beliefs against the facts. Repeat till you die. Find people worthy of your time that respect you for you, not their vision of you.

Oh wow that is so awesome of you! My kindle stopped working a few weeks ago :( I loved that thing. Idk what happened to it but it wouldn't turn on even though it was charged. But I would love a fancy HD one. I had the old kindle fire which worked really well but I want to see the new bells and whistles! I love reading on the kindle because it's like carrying an entire library with me in my bag. It'd be nice to be able to read while I'm on vacation! I've been wanting to read this book for a while. I looove science and this is a collection of true stories that have to do with the periodic table of elements. I like hearing the history and the strange things in science!

Thank you again for the contest, it is so kind of you 186394!

Ah, you beat me to sharing this by a few minutes. I've deleted my top-level post, but I'll keep it as a comment here, because my reaction was opposite to yours.

A fun interview to take you into the weekend: "[UK interviewer] Andrew Neil DESTROYS Ben Shapiro!" Lest you're thinking that quote is too boo-outgroup...

Shapiro was the one who tweeted it.

I'll cop to my bias prior to writing this. I've been hoping to see someone else post this, because Ben Shapiro is not my favorite, and this interview really doesn't present him at his best. I find myself enjoying this a bit too much to really be a credible neutral source, but I'll take a shot at summarizing nonetheless.

I had no idea who Andrew Neil was prior to this. Some context I have since heard: he is one of the leading conservative commentators in the UK, previously working under Rupert Murdoch and writing for the Daily Mail, currently chairman of a media group that runs some of the most influential center-right media in the UK. He's provided some passionate commentary in defense of western values, and is famous for hard-hitting interviews with a wide range of people. A great moment between him and Alex Jones: "This is half past eleven. You're watching the Sunday Politics. We have an idiot on the program today."

So what happened? This is one of the only times I'll actually encourage watching the video over reading a summary, because it's fast-paced and frankly pretty entertaining. Neil comes into the interview pretty aggressively, pushing back against a lot of Shapiro's positions and focusing especially on the contrast between Shapiro's commentary about the ways discourse is being degraded and the ways Shapiro himself degrades discourse at times. Shapiro responds largely by firing off questions and accusations about Neil's motives.

A couple of highlights:

1. Neil asks Shapiro about titles of videos like "Ben Shapiro Destroys The Abortion Argument" and "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Transgenderism". Shapiro responds by saying he can't be held accountable for what random people post on YouTube, not mentioning that the videos in question are, well, posted by The Daily Wire itself.
   
   
2. He asks about the recent Georgia anti-abortion law in pretty harsh terms, asking for a defense or response from Shapiro. Shapiro's response: "My answer is something called science. Human life exists at conception. It ought to be protected," then asking why Neil won't admit he's on the left and his questions are motivated by bad faith. I was disappointed with Shapiro's answer here, since I'm broadly pro-life myself and would like to see the position represented well, but "something called science" doesn't really do it for me.
   
   
3. In the end, Shapiro tersely cuts the interview short after one too many hardball questions. Final words from Neil: "Thank you for your time and for showing that anger is not a part of American political discourse."
   
   All told, it's a pretty fascinating crossover between American and British politics, and probably not Shapiro's finest moment.
   
   ---
   
   That was my top-level comment. I'll take a moment to respond to your main question as well: Why throw old things at him? Because the UK isn't as familiar with him as the US, and snark is still a huge part of his brand. I'm fully and deeply on board with the message that there's too much hate in politics, but even as he writes condemnations of that hate, I see Shapiro as a vector for and intensifier of it. The video titles above are a good example, alongside his pinned tweet ("Facts don't care about your feelings"), his comments in the interview... this sort of combativeness is a huge part of his brand. If he's approaching things from that combative of an angle, I expect to see him prepared with thoughtful responses to combativeness directed at him. He didn't do that here.

Someone shared that a "Hate Watch" subreddit has this comment linked.

When I went to see it, they only have this small thread within this larger conversation linked. It would have been just as easy to link to the conversation, as a part of the conversation. It's obvious that they're disinterested in what r/AltRight is about -- rather, they're seek only echo chamber indignation fodder.

I was once a Leftist -- but also cared about intellectual integrity (which would explain my move Right). For the Leftist who thinks they've got all the information when their leaders lead, you should know that they're giving you a square inch of a building sized mural -- they are intentionally handling and deceiving you.

Here's something I said in a different part of this conversation. A part the Propaganda Ministers don't include.

[–]AltRightNow 1 point 23 hours ago
Until you get to the White contributions, I would say exactly the same thing. We're always painted as hating everyone else, instead of loving ourselves and appreciating others.
It's true that African, Jewish, and Latin peoples have made some fine contributions to the world. And I'll give credit where credit is due. But that doesn't change the fact that most of the essential contributions to civilizing society are overwhelmingly White. And I'll give credit where credit is due.
permalinkembedsaveparenteditdisable inbox repliesdeletereply

[–]AltRightNow 1 point 18 minutes ago
This book lays out the accomplishments of civilization. I hear that a "hate watch" r/group has this conversation linked. Someone in there might be ready for something more than chanted rhetoric. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060929642/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2FSDR5QBR3PE4

Not sure if this is the definitive theory, but I read that women became the "subjugated sex" during the transition between nomadic society and agrarian society.

The reasoning goes that for the survival of a nomadic/hunter-gatherer society, women would usually forage while men would go out and hunt. As opposed to hunting which was quite physically intensive and required being out long stretches of time in the wilderness, foraging could be done whilst caring for the young - thus childbirth/taking care of the young by no means prohibited them from participating from gathering necessary resources for the survival of the village.

When farming came about the labor to produce crop, changed - requiring large amounts of intense physical labor and not at all conducive to child rearing. So women were often relegated to the home to care for their kids while the men went out and farmed. Thus, their role went from being crucial to the village economy to being shunned completely from it, once the transition to agriculture occurred. In that way men became the breadwinners - and as a result commanded a far more important role in the economies of agrarian societies.

Elaborating on that - as farming allowed nomadic tribes to settle into smaller towns and cities, laws and practices set up by the municipalities enshrined these biases through traditions, religions and other ethic codes.

I don't think this is a definitive answer and glazes over a lot of areas, but I think it's a good starting point. A good place to read up on this is the People's History of the World which has a whole chapter dedicated to the subject. -

http://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-World-Stone-Millennium/dp/1844672387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345854393&sr=8-1&keywords=People%27s+history+of+the+world

Well, for starters I'd check out E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Theories of Primitive Religion, which summarizes most the reasons for the modern break with Dennett's sources in classical anthropology and sociology. The only edition currently in print is pretty expensive, so it's probably best to look for a library copy.

The direction more recent scholarship points towards is a modern status quo that offers no definitive set of theories as to the origins of religion, which is perhaps part of why Dennett and co. have been so eager to revive the Victorian models.

In the meantime, Dennett is explicit in rejecting more recent historians of religion, like [Mircea Eliade][1]. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Eliade as an authoritative source on the origins of religion -- he provides some very interesting research and synthesis, but is, on the whole, too interpretive -- yet it's telling that Dennett is willing to reject a major modern theorist without offering anyone to stand in his stead.

Increasingly, serious researchers have tended towards specialization, so it's difficult to give you a list of authors that deal with the phenomenon of religion as a whole. For the history of the Christian tradition, I'd recommend [Elaine Pagels][2] and [Jaroslav Pelikan][3]. For the Judaic tradition, and particular Jewish mysticism, [Gershom Scholem][4] -- who also makes some very interesting observations on the relationship between religious experience and religious tradition in general, cf. "Religious authority and mysticism". On ancient Greek religion, I'd suggest [Karl Kerenyi][5], [Walter Burkert][7], [Martin P. Nilsson][8], and E.R. Dodds' [The Greeks and the Irrational][6]. Eliade is, on the whole, as strong an authority as you will find on the general topic of Shamanism, and his book takes us a good ways back towards he earliest forms of religion presently known.

That's a pretty good start, anyway.

I should say that there's nothing necessarily wrong with most of the modern research Dennett presents in Breaking the Spell. The problem is that, despite his protestations to the contrary, they seem to have been chosen with a particular interpretive paradigm in mind.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Pagels
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Pelikan
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gershom_Scholem
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Ker%C3%A9nyi
[6]: http://www.amazon.com/Greeks-Irrational-Sather-Classical-Lectures/dp/0520242300/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249408287&sr=8-1
[7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Burkert
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_P._Nilsson

It's a basic reversal of classical theism. The ironic thing is that modernity gave birth to a fundamentalist literal reading of the bible that hardly existed before (enter the demiurge, or what new atheists like to call the sky daddy or whatever). Modern fundamentalist literalists read Genesis as literal. Literal six day creation. Literal Adam and Eve, literal worldwide flood with a literal ark with literally two of all the animals. Early Christians almost exclusively read these stories as allegory intended to communicate spiritual truths.

 

Classical theism (crudely explained by me, not a philosopher but a reader of such) believes not that God is part of nature, but that nature is part of god. That all being, everything that is or will be proceeds from one infinite god. God encompasses everything and is the uncaused cause of everything. This is also a picture of God in Hinduism, and in Zoroastrianism, and much of Judaism, and there are writings to this effect in classical Islamic philosophy as well. As I said, I explain it crudely but if you want arguments made by an actual living classical theist and philosopher (who covers the question of how to define God from the different angles of all those religions) I can make some book recommendations. Warning though, he has some pretty harsh things to say about naturalism and materialism. But all of his attacks are rooted in actual logic (though he does get a bit personal at times with some of the new atheists because hey, they're not exactly nice to those they criticize). I always hesitate to recommend his books though because the arguments are difficult to follow if you're unfamiliar with certain sophisticated metaphysical disciplines it can be difficult to follow his work as some familiarity with such is assumed. But I mean if you're reading Spinoza those probably won't be a problem. The guy I am talking about definitely doesn't believe in an anthropomorphic god and pretty harshly ridicules the concept. Check him out.

 

His name is David Bentley Hart. He's an eastern orthodox Christian so I know many will be biased against him from the start. But he's at least an entertaining read and he is one of the top scholars of religion (not just Christianity) out there right now. Yale recently commissioned a translation of the New Testament from him. But yeah, he also deeply studies many eastern religions in addition to Christianity and has a deep respect for them. He's not just looking confirm his beliefs. He's not looking to convince people. He has openly said he doubts and questions his beliefs constantly. He's also a Christian universalist. He's an interesting guy to read if this stuff piques your interest.

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-David-Bentley-Hart-ebook/dp/B00E64EH0K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494054794&sr=8-1&keywords=the+experience+of+god+david+bentley+hart

Religion: False but necessary.

​

According to a 2015 University of Auckland (New Zealand) study published in the journal Nature, religious belief in judgment after death was a positive (correlative) predictor of the eventual size of 96 past pacific island civilizations. Where a culture lacked this religious idea, the population rarely grew beyond the size of a few villages as a result of "political complexities." Common moral values are required to build a society greater than Dunbar's Number, and the historically best proven way to achieve this is via religion. In fact, the decline of the this common moral value (more commonly referred to as "Social Capital") has been lamented at length by the renowned Robet Putnam and more recently Ben Shapiro (Book). Those authors argue that the depopulation of common meeting places (like churches, pubs and Elk lodges) where community is formed is to blame for the recent disenfranchisement and political apathy we are seeing in the United States.

​

Plenty of foolish things are done in the name of religious beliefs. The same can be said of many ill-founded scientific causes like eugenics and phrenology. My point is that we've only made it this far as a result of the common values shared between us and reinforced by our involvement in community -- and that churches are a huge, if empirically irrelevant, vehicle for that community. Not a roadblock.

It is frustrating. But live life knowing that you know something that everyone else is oblivious of, it actually is pretty neat. Most teenage types have no obvious stake in the big picture so they don't care. Once they start paying taxes and realizing they are working for nothing a good chunk of the week they will start to care more. That's when they start watching TV and getting sucked into left-right politics. Just realize knowledge is power, it really is. If I can suggest some things to read to help you, if you have some extra cash or whatever, look for these on abebooks.com or amazon or whatever:

• "Propaganda: The Formation Of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul - this book will blow your mind if you can get through it. Its an easy to read book but its very dry reading. He lays out what propaganda is, how it works and its effects on people in very general terms easy enough to apply to your own situation. It would be a good thing to use in class when the teachers are pushing obvious propaganda, this book makes propaganda OBVIOUS. Here is the PDF of the book, but the physical copy is much easier to read and to bring to school etc
  
  
• "The Impact Of Science On Society" By Bertrand Russell --- another mind blower, written over 50 years ago. This guy was "in" on what can be referred to as "social engineering", he lays out how science is used to manipulate people. Here is the PDF of this, its more expensive to buy because it's rare
  
  
• "Rule By Secrecy" by Jim Marrs --- I'm reading this right now, it goes in depth into the "untold history" of modern society. It's cheap on Amazon if you buy a used copy
  
  
• "Foundations: Their Power and Influence" by Rene Wormser ---- This book is hard to find, I cannot find a PDF anywhere. This is probably the most important book to read. It goes into how the big foundations(Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie) were, as of 1954, working in tandem to slowly merge the USA with the Soviet Union into a world government, how they control education, media, and helped shape culture as found out by the Reece Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations which was an investigation into why the executive branch of the US had been given so much power in the 30s. If you can get through it, another dry one, it will make you think twice about "education" and going to college etc. You'll realize its all compromised to literally brainwash you into a "global citizen" mindset, the whole green movement, the feminist movement, the "free love" of the 60s etc were all products of the programs exposed during the hearings described in this book.

jakenichols: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

It is frustrating. But live life knowing that you know something that everyone else is oblivious of, it actually is pretty neat. Most teenage types have no obvious stake in the big picture so they don't care. Once they start paying taxes and realizing they are working for nothing a good chunk of the week they will start to care more. That's when they start watching TV and getting sucked into left-right politics. Just realize knowledge is power, it really is. If I can suggest some things to read to help you, if you have some extra cash or whatever, look for these on abebooks.com or amazon or whatever:

• "Propaganda: The Formation Of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul - this book will blow your mind if you can get through it. Its an easy to read book but its very dry reading. He lays out what propaganda is, how it works and its effects on people in very general terms easy enough to apply to your own situation. It would be a good thing to use in class when the teachers are pushing obvious propaganda, this book makes propaganda OBVIOUS. Here is the PDF of the book, but the physical copy is much easier to read and to bring to school etc
  
  
• "The Impact Of Science On Society" By Bertrand Russell --- another mind blower, written over 50 years ago. This guy was "in" on what can be referred to as "social engineering", he lays out how science is used to manipulate people. Here is the PDF of this, its more expensive to buy because it's rare
  
  
• "Rule By Secrecy" by Jim Marrs --- I'm reading this right now, it goes in depth into the "untold history" of modern society. It's cheap on Amazon if you buy a used copy
  
  
• "Foundations: Their Power and Influence" by Rene Wormser ---- This book is hard to find, I cannot find a PDF anywhere. This is probably the most important book to read. It goes into how the big foundations(Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie) were, as of 1954, working in tandem to slowly merge the USA with the Soviet Union into a world government, how they control education, media, and helped shape culture as found out by the Reece Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations which was an investigation into why the executive branch of the US had been given so much power in the 30s. If you can get through it, another dry one, it will make you think twice about "education" and going to college etc. You'll realize its all compromised to literally brainwash you into a "global citizen" mindset, the whole green movement, the feminist movement, the "free love" of the 60s etc were all products of the programs exposed during the hearings described in this book.

Sapiens is a general history book about humanity, not so much traditional countries' history. It explores things like how did agriculture and warfare start, why is homo sapiens the only surviving human species etc.

For fun reading about history, I recommend anything written by Robert K. Massie. This is not general history; he wrote mostly about Tsarist Russia, but Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War is a good starter for pre-WW1 European history.
I say "a good starter" because Massie's approach is very biographical - he mostly tells the story through the lives and actions of the decision makers, with less "modern" emphasis on economic factors etc. But he's a really good writer and it's the kind of history book you can read on a beach.

Ok, first off I'm not trolling nor am I a theist dumb dumb but here me out.

I'd argue that Atheism IS a form of religion and is in fact the next logical progression after Christianity.

I recently read an interesting book that got me thinking about this, The Evolution of God (http://www.amazon.ca/Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918). The author talks about the progress from caveman religions all the way up to the modern day Christianity. In each religious iteration there is a reordering of the deities, a streamlining of the gods if you will. First we started out with many many gods that each control there respected domains and each time the major religions simplify these down. From multiple pagan gods to the set of gods worshiped in the roman/greek times to the set of god/angles/saints of the catholic religion to modern religions that just believe in a single divine god down to atheism that have cut out a single god all together.

However reason I would say the atheism is still a religion is that many of the beliefs from Christianity are still present but there is a lack of a single point of worship (unless you count Dawkins for some). Atheists still have the need to congregate together and to share there belief system and even try to convert others to their belief (for example putting atheist signs on buses, sticks in bibles at book stores, even arguing with your teacher when they bring up atheism is a religion, etc).

This is just something I've been pondering for the last while and its not intended to piss anyone off, what do you guys think?

Whoa. There is a lot here.

1. I was experiencing panic attacks. I tried various ways of dealing with it, but as it turned out, I think I just needed something constant in mylife reminding me that its not all about me... if that makes sense.
   
   
2. I don't really understand what you mean by not believing in souls, you have no spiritual needs. Spirituality to me is just human, from superstitions (e.g. fortune cookies, beards for the playoffs) to full on shamanism. For me, its not about magic or souls or anything like that. Its about having a structure and mechanism, for tapping into that spiritual side.
   
   
3. Yes. I read this book. I also have some exposure to Buddhism, albeit 15 years ago.
   
   
4. Well nothing in particular. Laziness I suppose. I am convinced that most "spiritual" people who don't attend church don't because they like having Sunday mornings to themselves.
   
   There is a lot of chest-beating on the part of the religious right; nobody misses an opportunity to feel superior (kind of like r/atheism here). I'm sure that would turn a lot of people off. For the most part, however, I think that real thoughtfulness is just not incentivized in modern American society. So people just don't consider church important, even if they call themselves religious. And I fell into that category. I just fell into an egocentric mode.

I think @omeow gives a good answer. Not less calculus as Calculus is the bedrock of so many different areas of maths and science. If you want a good book on this Steve Strogatz's lastes "infinite powers" is awesome: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Infinite-Powers-Calculus-Reveals-Universe/dp/1328879984

​

That said, statistics is becoming increasingly important. We need to train everyone, not just Maths grads in more stats. I think if you want to guaruntee a job coming out of an undergraduate degree then Stats is a pretty good bet. Also if you're looking for a primer on stats then David Spiegelhalter's book "The art of statistics" iss a great one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Statistics-Learning-Pelican-Books/dp/0241398630/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+art+of+statistics&qid=1569697929&s=books&sr=1-1

As other contributors to this subreddit have pointed out: there is no single volume of global history that is considered a standard overview work, but I'd like to address the second part of your question:

How could you feasibly go about getting an overview about History, with an eye towards diving deeper into certain aspects that catch your interest?

The simple, pessimistic answer is this: You can't. Even though I have spent years studying history at university I would never claim to have an overview of global History through all eras. And I'm pretty certain that you'd be hard pressed to find someone who does, even if you polled distinguished professors with decades of experience in researching global history. At most I'd be merely uncomfortable - in my particular case - claiming that I have a decent grasp on trends and general goings-on in 19th and 20th European political history, but knowing that there are big and glaring holes I know about and countless other gaps and holes I am not even aware of not being aware of. This stems from the way history is researched and written about, which in turn is determined by the what history as a discipline actually tries to be.

History is a staggeringly ludicrous and gloriously arrogant undertaking, since - in essence - history as a discpline might have any human endeavour big or small as its subject matter, as long as we have sources deemed fit for historical studies - mainly written ones, supplemented by archeaological findings, pictures, video and many others. This leads to a multude not only of questions asked, but of ways to ask questions.

You will find books attempting to give an overview about the decline of one political entity, the impact of events worldwide on a tenously defined trend like "The Birth of the Modern World", the history of particular political projects causing untold suffering in the "Bloodlands", a microhistorical analysis of the thoughts and environment of a particular miller in Italy and many, many more.

The questions you ask and how you ask them shape what portion of history you carve out to examine. Is the author trying to extract the strand of one particular subject (which might be anything from the transatlantic slave trade to eating habits) from a longer time period? Is the author endeavoring to examine a short period of time, trying to give readers insight into all different aspects of this period they deem important? Or is the author switching approaches regularly in a complex attempt to answer a particular question?

In short: trying to get an overview is - in my opinion - impossible, since there are always new ways to approach answering a question, new questions to ask or new ways to ask older questions. So we might as well not bend over backwards to try and achieve the impossible.

But there is no reason to give up trying to read history, since the very way history as a discipline operates is very conducive to leading curious readers from one subject to the next.

So here is my proposal: Don't try to get an overview; you will only end up frustrated and drowned in material. Let your interests guide you naturally. Find a starting point you know about and are interested in and just see where you end up. If you start with wanting to learn about how the 19th century "transformed the world" (as already mentioned by /u/LordOssus) any line of inquiry the authors don't dive too deeply into - or merely mention in passing - might lead you to a vast library of interesting things. In just one "hop" you might go to the changing consumption habit of European societies, from there on to the Slave Trade, the Suffragette Movement, World War I or the political history of Africa before European powers established footholds on the continent. Or a myriad of other directions, to be honest.

In simply following what catches you eye you will, step by step, broaden and deepen your knowledge, which is basically all you can do. So you might as well have fun while you're at it.

Jim Marrs made me want to be a Freemason. I'm not joking. He wrote a book called "Rule by Secrecy" (find it here)alleging to trace all the major conspiracy theories in modern America back to their roots (spoiler alert: it's aliens.)

I read the book in college, out of skeptical curiosity (spoiler alert: it didn't convince me) and he has an entire section about the Freemasons. He described the beliefs of the Freemasons- Universality, equality for all, the tolerance of all faiths and beliefs, the imposition of a global single government (the "one world government")- and the ushering in of a "new world order" of unified humanity.

It was supposed to be sensationalist, alarmist, and get you totally against the Freemasons. I read it and said "huh, this all sounds pretty great. I can get behind these ideals."

George Washington. Ben Franklin. Teddy Roosevelt. Two of my Great-Grand fathers. My Grand-father. And countless other smart, admirable, and worthy men.

They all knew something. I wanted to know it too.

And, now I do, and I also learned that Jim Marrs doesn't know shit.

>Firstly, a higher IQ is closely correlated to factors beyond genetics.

Wrong. The American Psychological Association puts the heritability of intelligence at around 0.75 for adults. Based on the available research, I'd say intelligence is somewhere between 70-80% heritable.

>Diet and education are by far the most important.

Not even close:

>The role of nutrition in intelligence remains obscure. Severe childhood malnutrition has clear negative effects, but the hypothesis that particular “micronutrients” may affect intelligence in otherwise adequately-fed populations has not yet been convincingly demonstrated.

Look, I don't doubt that nutrition has some role to play in the development of intelligence, but to claim that nutrition is more important than genetics is absurd.

>Both suffer in poor communities.

As Murray and Hernstein wrote: "The average black and white differ in IQ at every level of socioeconomic status (SES) , but they differ more at high levels of SES than at low levels." Impoverished whites do better on tests like the SATs than upper-middle/upper class blacks.

>But beyond that, in the amount of time the various human races were separated from each other, evolution simply couldn't have made people THAT different.

Obviously, you haven't read the book The 10,000 Year Explosion. It argues that human evolution rapidly increased thanks to civilization.

I think that the cognitive differences between the races are quite minimal when compared to the physical differences. Still, it seems quite evident that the cold northern environments of Asia and Europe would select for intelligence and cooperation. The idea that evolution worked its magic on skin color, facial structure, bone density, penis size, etc. but stopped at the brain is a farce.

>We know there is no mechanism in Asians' bodies that makes them smarter than anyone else.

Yes, but nobody has ever claimed there is a mechanism in Asians' bodies that makes them smarter than anyone else. What people claim is that the races have a different distribution of gene frequencies, and some genes that are correlated with intelligence are more common among some population groups.

>But, I like how you think 100,000 Japanese Americans to represent the entire Asian community in the United states

I was specifically talking about Japanese-Americans.

>then compare them to the plight of 39 million African Americans living today.

My point was that there are Americans who have had it much worse than blacks and yet they've been able to thrive. Of course, I attribute this mostly to their higher average IQs.

>And yes, there are poor Asian communities riddled with crime. Look at the LA neighborhoods rife with Asian street gangs.

There will always be a large number of low IQ members of any race or ethnic group. Still, I'd bet the poorest 90% Asian neighborhood will be safer than the average 90% black neighborhood.

I think it's because people run from their old faith, they don't want to understand it. When I look back I'm sure I wasn't really a believer at no point, I simply did what my parents wanted me to (going to church etc) and made the best of it, I had a lot of fun being a ministrant, found a lot of friends blahblah. But I never really believed those things. So I never even had to start asking my faith. Then we had religious courses at high school, and the teachers taught us mostly christianity, the other religions were only shortly mentioned and treated like potentionally dangerous cults. That was a rebelious time in my life, so I started to look into different religions and ask the teachers questions. Needless to say, I wasn't very popular with our religious teachers. But it was growth, as you put it.

The most objective sources I would recommend you are not Hitchens or Dawkins, those are biased. Try to look up books on comparative religion. I'd highly recommend the four volume History of Religious Ideas by Mircea Eliade, or Masks of God by Joseph Campbell. And you might want to read a history of the Catholic Church, it's always good to know one's history.

Rule by Secrecy by Jim Marrs is a good starting point. It's not really about hidden cabals, but instead elucidates the existence and workings on known secretive groups. For example the CFR, Trilaterals, and Bilderbergers are quite real and any intellectual discussing forgein policy, such as Chomsky, will bring them up. They are the shot callers including Queens, US presidents, and the stupid crazy rich. Marrs can be a little out there as far as aliens and stuff, but this book is mostly a research about these organizations that call the shots. Everything is indexed and footnoted, as Marrs is an investigative journalist by education and career.

Next I would recommend The Creature from Jekyll Island. The federal reserve is the most important institution involved in our economy and every American should know about it, love it or hate it.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head. My books are packed for a move but I'm sure you'll get some good comments.

If you are honestly interested in this, I highly recommend reading The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. This book reviews much of what historians know about how the modern idea of the christian god came to be. It regularly compares what the bible says to what historians think really happened in history. It is a great read and is written in a way that probably wont offend a christian who appreciates good scholarly work.

This is a loaded question. As you can expect, there are many reasons, some of which are still being debated.

One main thing to remember about the Native Americans is that they, until the first Europeans began to come (1500s ish?) and interact with them, didn't have any contact with the the rest of the world. Contact between Asia and Europe and even Africa spread many cultural ideas and innovations. The native Americans didn't have the Silk Road. Simply put, it's hard to be as advanced as the rest of the world when you're working all by yourself.

Why didn't the inuits in the north trade and diffuse "advancement" with the Iroquois in modern New York, or with the Incans and Mayans? An interesting (and probably true) theory is that this is due to the axis of the americas versus the axis of the rest of the world.
Throughout the rest of the world, people spread and migrate easily because they generally are moving on an east to west axis with much less change in latitude. The Americas are relatively narrow in comparison to the "Old World," and most "spreading out" would be done on a north-south axis. This is MUCH harder to do on a large, noticeable scale because different latitudes come with different temperatures, climates, etc. People in modern day New Mexico did not have the necessities to travel to modern day Alaska, and vice versa.

It's important also to note that while the native Americans as a whole weren't as "advanced" as the rest of the world, certain societies (specifically the Incas and Aztecs) built massive and advanced cultures and civilizations that awed even the Spanish conquistadors.

Edit: I'm so happy that everyone is mentioning Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. This is truly a great book that broadens your world view!!

I'm on a similar side, my parent's are not technically atheists, but they just don't care and my dad openly mocks me for going to church. I also don't like going to church, because the Catholic Church is kinda corrupt in my opinion. I'd suggest finding an academic bible-study meetings, I've been invited to one community and I was blown away how warm and intelligent those people were, also very decisive about making a positive change in the world and in themselves.

When it comes to doubts, I get them aswell. What works for me is to look at the theories that don't say - "God exist, therefore His commandments work", but "God's commandments work, therefore there is something transcendent behind them".

Nice fuel for thought on the Old Testament - also the new Shapiro's book seem to be on a similar page. I didn't read it yet, but I've seen a lot of interviews with him where he states that judeo-christian values are what made the Western society far better than it is. Speaking from a Polish perspective, my nation was literally supported by God with overthrowing russian communist rule and becoming independent.

> How do you explain the beginning of human civilisation? Did it automatically start?

We were discussing the origins of the universe, not human civilization. Why the hard left turn? However, unlike the origins of the universe, which we know almost nothing about, the development of human civilization is better understood. I imagine you’re a young person. Can I suggest that you read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, and Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind? They’re both brilliant. I’d send you copies of both if you were in the US.

The short version is that we evolved as social, tribal, animals. We were nomadic, hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years. But, after the discovery of agriculture, we could settle in one place. This allowed specialization of work. People no longer had to do everything. Hunting was done by those good at hunting, for the whole group. Farming was done by those good at farming, for the whole group. And, maybe most importantly, this created more time to innovate. To test out new ways of doing things without jeopardizing the tribe. Out of this, civilization was born.

> I've seen this before about religious people being more charitable. It is entirely possible it is true, but what are the studies counting and are they based on self-reporting or other forms of data?

" In our book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Robert Putnam and I show that there is a strong connection between being religious and being charitable. Not surprisingly, the most highly religious Americans contribute their time and treasure to religious causes. But they also give to secular causes—at a higher rate than do the most secular Americans."

I highly recommend both Sapiens, and also The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (which Bill Gates calls "the most inspiring book I've ever read")

They'll make you think (a lot) but they're good reads and super interesting.

>The research is actually more complicated than that. Research shows that religious people are NOT more happy. However, people who report having friends in church are more happy. (I believe some of that research is here- https://www.amazon.com/American-Grace-Religion-Divides-Unites/dp/1416566732 ) So the intervening variable appears to be connections at church, not a feature of religion/non-religion. (Non-believers who report having friends at church are just as happy, strong believers who do not report so are no more happy).

​

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: This is the best book I have read in a very long time. This is about how our cultures, religions, and values were formed based on biology and psychology theories. I know that sounds boring but it is very interesting.

A Higher Loyalty: If you believe Comey your opinion will not change and if you do not believe Comey your opinion will not change. Meh, skip it.


[Dune] (https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Frank-Herbert/dp/0441172717/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524527285&sr=1-1&keywords=dune) I do not read a lot of Sci-Fi but with the expected move coming u in a few years I thought I might get ahead if it. It was interesting but not exactly action-packed.

Leonardo Da Vinci The Walter Isaacson biographies about "geniuses" Steve Jobs, Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein are all interesting.

The Selfish Gene is of course great, but I thought Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker was a better written book.

However, a new and really really great book is "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Just a gorgeous book, and full of history that any biologist should know.

Okay, how about production and disposal of Lead Acid batteries? None of the large scale battery technologies are environmentally friendly. Environmentally friendly batteries are just like Cold Fusion, perpetually 10 years into the future.

What countries in South America produce that Lithium and what kind of environmental impact does that cause? Where are all of these other batteries produced and where do they go when they hit their life expectancy?

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does a terrible job of protecting the environment most of the time but they do enough to make things like batteries and PV panels to expensive to produce in the US at the scale other countries with no protection can.

My assertation isn't should we make the shift to "renewable" energy but rather how quickly and in what way should we make the transition. History is always the best determiner of the future and history tells these transitions are never quick or complete. I suggest reading Energy and Civilization, A history or Energy, A Human History.

Joe, 26, Albuquerque, New Mexico (though spending a few days in Pasadena, California visiting family for the holidays)

Picture of me from Thanksgiving

1. My parents got me a book they thought I'd be interested in (The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee) and a bottle of Glenlivet 12-year single-malt scotch. Home run on both counts!
   
2. Moving to Albuquerque - my parents helped me pack up my life into a U-Haul and we made the 14 hour drive to start the newest chapter of my life. :)
   
3. I'll be ringing in the new year with my California friends!
   
4. Current celebrity crush is Rain Dove because holy shit.
   
5. I'm working on a demo app with a friend of mine who is teaching herself how to code. We're re-implementing tetris, with graphics, on pc, mobile, and web, with a tie-in to a leaderboard website (REST API) and a few other bells & whistles.
   
6. I finally got around to watching Stranger Things last month, so still in love with that - especially the soundtrack. Also the band Autoheart (in particular their single Oxford Blood - featuring Rain Dove in the video!)

I can finally participate, because I have a real use for ebooks ;D

The Disappearing Spoon looks wonderful. :)

Thank you for the contest! You're the shit.

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

PS - /u/DDE93 this list has all the links.

Well every thing on the planet that has cells, has DNA, right. DNA is the blueprint that tells each cell what to do, be, perform, etc. So you and I have 99.9% the same DNA cause we're both humans. You and I have 60% the same DNA as both a chicken and a banana.

But start going up the mammalian ladder and our DNA similarities get higher and higher because- 2 legs/2 arms/1 head/2 lungs/1 backbone/hair/carry our young/warmblooded etc everything that categorizes us as mammals comes from a very very similar set of DNA. Again, every cell has this code in it so that it knows how to perform its job.

Us and cats are 90% similar. It just happens that us and chimps/bonobos have the most DNA in common. Not something we purposely set out to prove, but once we mapped the genomes and stuck all of them side by side, that is where the data arranged itself.

Back to DNA - this is why stem cells are so fascinating, we can alter the DNA and tell the stem cell how to be, what to be, cause we already have all the DNA mapped so we're really just copying off of original DNA.

If you are interested in DNA and its complexity and how we figured all of it out, I highly recommend The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. You will understand it so much more and appreciate all the folks who moved along the science until now. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

>Just to add to this things to consider before solar.
>
>1. Getting an energy audit.
>
>2. Adding insulation based on energy audit results.
>
>3. Do you live in a place like CA coast or desert? If so, consider adding a gray water system and or rain water collection system. * You live in the deep south so this might not be applicable to you.
>
>4. Read the Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil. https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Civilization-History-MIT-Press/dp/0262035774
5. Install solar. It will be awesome for you to drive a car on energy you produced on your house.

people will have their problems with these but they are good additions or jumping off points for further research.

A People's History of the World

A People's History of the US - I don't remember if this book talks about Latin American relations specifically but it would be hard to tell this story without at least talking about it tangentially.

(i thought there was one for latin america but I'm not finding one in that series but if there is one, pick that up)

and of course pretty much anything by Chomsky, especially:

Manufacturing Consent

Caution: this is not only a long book but a DENSE one as well. Noam is not known as a storyteller. This book is no different. Every sentence is packed with gravity. It's looking specifically at the media's relationship with the US's relationship with Latin America but that's a good lens to go at that field of study.

In most of his work he focuses a lot on the Monroe Doctrine and its aftermath so you can pick up almost any of his work and you'll get some of it. Especially the earlier stuff.

Nazi is a shortened form of the German word, Nationalsozialistische or National Socialism in English](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Etymology). So Fascism is Socialism, but schools propagandize that socialism is far left consequences and fascism is a result of far right consequences. The reality is the terms "left" and "right" came from the French parliament where the socialists sat on the left side and the fascists were on the right, not because of some political spectrum.

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe- Theory of Socialism and Capitalism- this book analyzes the differences between all types of socialism, including fascism, and compares them to capitalism and shows why capitalism is more advantageous.
  
  
• Liberal Fascism does a great job of showing the liberal ties to both fascism and other forms of socialism throughout history. Fantastic read, but be weary, the author gets a little hawkish in the last chapter.

for an overview of what it presents, go here. Video version. Basically the concept of Yaheweh evolved over about 6 centuries out of the old caananite pantheon, which included el, ashera (el's lover) and baal. Due to a combination of xeonphobia (thanks to being invaded over and over) and political unrest, certain prophets were given sounding boxes more than others, while other prophets were silenced.

Editors and redactors then went in and changed certain historical details or laws present in the torah and history books (see my previous post on Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2), king Josiah 'discovered' the book of deuteronomy (read: wrote a new set of more-totalitarian laws to unite the kingdom), and created stories and myths that made it seem like Israel's biggest problem was always turning to false gods, away from Yahweh (who merged personalities with El), the war god.

another good read that is the archaeological parallel to the karen armstrong book is "The Bible Unearthed" by Finklestein. It points out the archaeological findings of the transformation from polytheism, to monolateralism (belief in multiple gods but showing preference to one), to monotheism. It also points out the fact that there is no credible evidence for a large portion of the 'history' in the bible, such as the exodus, the wandering in the desert, the mass genocides; "Israel" was a people group that was already there, and just gained a new national identify thanks to very creative myth-weavers.

Finally, I'm currently reading "The Evolution of God" by Robert Wright (a journalist) who pulls together and condenses a lot of this information into one. He's an expert at literature surveying and information condensing.

Not OP, but based on the words on top of each page, it looks like it's taken from Charles Murray's book "Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences".

Presumably, pages 252 and 296. Just guessing.

Well, you're trying to believe in the god of your times. Go back, way back, to even primitive hunter-gatherer societies, and start tracing the evolution of god from that point.

You'll have a better appreciation for what god has been to different people over the years, and you won't be so bound to the particular flavor of god you were indoctrinated with. You may end up deriving a different belief in god, or no belief at all.

Your best bet is to read some of the newer work in global, transnational, and comparative history, especially in relation to empire.

Buy these two books:

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History

and

C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World (this covers 1780-1914, but trust me, you're gonna want it).

Look through their bibliographies and citations when you come across something you're interested in. Then ask again when you have ideas about more specific topic areas.

Anything by Stephen Jay Gould

The Scars of Evolution -- What Our Bodies Tell Us About Human Origins by Elaine Morgan.

The Ten Thousand Year Explosion

Anything by Richard Feynman. Not always science, but brilliant and entertaining.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is on my list to read.

Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 by Charles Murray (of The Bell Curve fame).

Alt-Hype made a great video which referenced Charles Murray's work and convincingly debunked the popular leftist argument that non-White civilizations greatly surpassed White Europeans technologically in the past. As you'll see in the video, virtually all of the technological developments that were made before the White European Industrial Revolution were relatively insignificant in comparison. And even the so-called "Dark Age" of European history really wasn't as backwards and primitive as popularly claimed by the left. As soon as civilization reached Europe, Europeans have pretty much always been on par with India, China, and the Middle East. And then White Europeans left everyone in the dust with the Industrial Revolution. And only a couple of Northeast Asian countries have caught up to White Western countries in the last few decades.

Depends on what you liked about it I guess. It's a bit unique in the way it covers so many topics.

If you liked the stuff about evolution, check out https://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/

If you liked the history:
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393354326

If you like true crime:
https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Beside-Me-Ann-Rule/

Or if you just liked how it went from topic to topic and you could never really predict what would be next, try this podcast:
https://stownpodcast.org/

The unfortunately-titled book, Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart, is a pretty direct refutation of some of the New Atheist tropes.

For a somewhat more difficult read, his latest book, The Experience of God, takes on some of the more metaphysical misunderstandings that New Atheists (and many theists) make about what God actually is.

For a much easier and shorter summary, in a sense, of The Experience of God, take a look at DBH's article in First Things, God, Gods, and Fairies which covers similar ground in a much more introductory way (and has the benefit of being freely available).

Is the question "Why is calculus considered so important?"

If so, I would say the reason comes down to what Calculus is capable of. It is, at its core, a language for describing how things change. It also provides a set of intuitions about how things change which is critical for almost any area of applied science and mathematics.

3blue1brown recommended a book recently that I've been reading which makes these points better than I can called Infinite Powers. I highly recommend it if you'd like to gain more inspiration around the importance and wonder that Calculus presents. It's a very easy and quick read.

Edit: rereading your question, maybe you're asking "why is it dis-proportionally represented in the US when compared to the UK?" ; my doesn't really help there, but I'd still stand by the book recommendation!

"This New Ocean" is an excellent, highly readable overview of all spaceflight, including the Apollo Program. It won a Pulitzer Prize, too.

https://www.amazon.com/This-New-Ocean-Library-Paperbacks/dp/0375754857

Amazon.com Review

More comprehensive than The Right Stuff, more critical than Apollo 13, This New Ocean is a near-perfect history of the men (and occasional women) who have "slipped the surly bonds of Earth." Eminent science journalist and space expert William E. Burrows covers just about everyone in history--from Daedalus to John Glenn--who ever designed or flew a rocket, trying to "ride the arrow" to the moon and beyond. It's a trail of testosterone from start to finish, but it makes for an engrossing read. One of Burrows's most interesting points is that without the cold war we never would have made it into space. He writes, "...the rocket would forever serve two masters at the same time, or rather a single master with two dispositions: one for war and one for peace." Werner von Braun, Robert Goddard, and other rocketry pioneers may indeed have wanted to explore space, but they knew the only way to get there was on the military's back.

Burrows extensively researched his subject, and he seems to want to include a little bit of everything; too much detail bogs down the narrative in places. Then again, he is no apologist for the space programs of the United States and the former U.S.S.R., and to tell their complete stories requires laying a great deal of political and scientific groundwork. When it comes to the great, memorable moments in space history, Burrows really shines. In telling the stories of Sputnik's first orbit, Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, Challenger's fiery death, and Sojourner's Martian road trip, he captures both the gee-whiz technological accomplishment and the very human emotions of the men and women involved.

--Therese Littleton

>Its as if fascism is making a comeback but people aren't calling it that.

You might enjoy the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The LA Times hired him on a while back to write an Op-Ed column for them. It was enough to make Barbra Streisand write in to cancel her subscription! Here is Goldberg's response to that flattery. Her main complaint was that replacing Robert Scheer with Jonah Goldberg made the paper less diverse even though Goldberg is basically a demographic carbon copy of Robert Scheer aside from Goldberg being a conservative.


Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg

>“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

>Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

>Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

>Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

>Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

Intelligent critiques of progressivism do exist. Glenn Beck doesn't provide any, though. This is a good book. I don't agree with everything Prof. Watson says, but he does a good job of examining some of the philosophy behind the progressive movement. And despite its dumb title (which I think is a little hyperbolic, though not completely off-base), Jonah Goldberg's book does a decent job as well.

Trigonometry was developed for astronomy, so the history of trigonometry is more or less coextensive with the history of astronomy. I haven’t read it but this book looks promising, https://amzn.com/0195095391

Or you could try finding a book about the history of celestial navigation, something like https://amzn.com/1575240955

Or for something with a more explicit focus on trigonometry, https://amzn.com/0691175993

• • 
    
    Strogatz has a new pop math book about Calculus, Infinite Powers* https://amzn.com/dp/1328879984
    
    
• • 
    
    It’s not quite what you are asking for, but let me recommend Lockhart’s book Measurement*, https://amzn.com/dp/0674284380

Hitler ran on a family values campaign against President Paul Hindenburg and characterized himself as returning to Prussian/Junkers conservative values.

His funding largely came from the Junkers/Industrialists, who saw him a a return to those exact values.

More importantly, The Prussian/German conception of conservatism is no where NEARLY as constrained as the US libertarian/conservative view, by way of example we need only look at arch-conservative Chancellor Otto Von Bismark - who was - certainly one of the top 4-5 politicial/military geniuses of our species, in the last 500 or 1000 years.

What was he notable for among many other things. Implementing more or less Universal Healthcare in Germany....in 1883 - in an effort to short-circuit one of the socialist political points in a parliamentary election.

Of course if you've read Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" or any of the more recent "revisions" to fit Hitler in a "liberal" light, then I'm sorry to say - you've been misinformed.

No, but the best predictor of party is, statistically speaking, religiosity.

Source.

My favorite text on science as a whole is Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, by Ludwik Fleck. He describes the evolution of scientific ideas (and the cultural morass surrounding them) in elegant anecdotes that are, to me, more effective than many other philosophers of science that came after him.

In terms of recent popsci, The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee was exceptional.

Stuff Matters: https://www.amazon.com/Stuff-Matters-Exploring-Marvelous-Materials/dp/0544236041
Chemistry (material sciences) book about the solids that make up our daily lives. It sounds boring, but it's far from it. I couldn't help but share in the author's passion, and his creativity and talent really shine in this book. Also, see the sequel on liquids.

https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918

From the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy.

• The Disappearing Spoon
  
  
• A Short History of Nearly Everything
  
  These are two I've read and suggest. The first is about the history and events surrounding discovery of the elements. The second is just a nice history of various science topics.
  
  Enjoy, and have a nice couple weeks off.
  
  -- C

Yeah there's four books all together.

I also highly recommend this and also this which is more encyclopedic and hence terse, but still a very excellent read.

Except you know, preservation of values and moral virtue. If you’re actually curious you should take the chance to read this book sometime
https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908/ref=asc_df_0062857908/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385575011665&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17354138199487605660&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004568&hvtargid=pla-607118584930&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=77500929574&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385575011665&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17354138199487605660&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004568&hvtargid=pla-607118584930

>"I have had many people ask me if there is a book which does for world history what my book A People's History of the United States does for this country. I always respond that I know of only one book that accomplishes this extremely difficult task, and that is Chris Harman's A People's History of the World"

-- Howard Zinn

Another candidate would be Leo Huberman's Man's Worldly Goods: The Story of The Wealth of Nations.

I'm currently reading this good book on the history of genetics, that's certainly my impression. Very surprising.

In America, that's where .. a fairy recent phenomenon too, but one that seems to be making great strides among libertarians and conservatives .. thanks to Jonah Goldberg for that. :-(

I’m on the opposite end of this because he’s in my daily podcast rotation for the last 2 years, so I’ve definitely seen a ton of bad content (typically his religious commentaries are just dumb), but I’ve also seen him go very deep into topics to the point where I really respect his effort.


While his books he wrote in his 20’s are terrible (Porn generation, etc), his most recent book is actually pretty interesting since it’s a primer on the history of western philosophy

He’s definitely got bad times, but it irks me when everyone pretends like he’s an idiot. I respect him a ton.

To be honest after learning about Operation Gladio it's hard to believe anything.

I doubt they'd assault the Embassy tbh, that'd be insane - they'll just pressure Ecuador into handing him over, or let him go and just focus on destroying Wikileaks. Although tbh, most people don't know about the stuff on Wikileaks anyway - bread and circus is as successful as ever, still "The beating heart of Rome lies not in the marble of the Senate but the sand of the Coliseum".

It disgusts me that Julian Assange is holed up in an Embassy seeking refuge from the law enforcement forces of my own country, whilst men like Bob Diamond and Fred Goodwin walk free, rewarded even!

Have you read The People's History Of The World it's pretty good, I can pm you it in pdf.

Also the Julian Assange Show is pretty awesome. As is Culture in Decline and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward by Peter Joseph.

The old Zeitgeist films are pretty awful though - don't bother watching those.

It reminds me of the preface to V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, where he explains why he wrote the graphic novel, describing how bad the Thatcher administration had gotten, with some ministers openly suggesting they quarantine HIV sufferers in camps on remote islands and so on. And using belligerent foreign wars to drum up nationalist fervour and retain power as you described.

The drones are making extra-judicial killing a fact of life, and that's just the DoD ones that we know about - the CIA ones don't have to declare what they are doing. And I don't trust the CIA left with little oversight..

It seems more and more like the future is a mix of Huxley, Moore and Gibson's dystopias. But as we come down on the steeper, bad side of Hubbert's peak and face the spectre of Climate Change it hardly seems likely that things will improve :/

The real problem is that a lot of the people who deserve criticism and backlash use rhetoric that starts to tread into the Nazi camp.

You use Shapiro as your example so let's take one of his main talking points: "The West is great." Well what do Nazis have to say about the matter? "The Nazis said that since Western civilization, created and maintained they asserted mostly by Nordics, was obviously superior to other civilizations, then the "Nordic" peoples were superior to all other races..."

So yeah. The rhetoric isn't that much different. So why are we so concerned with splitting hairs over what we label these clearly terrible people who are basically saying the same thing that Nazis did?

History of Religious Ideas (3 Vols)- Mircea Elidae Link

Treasures of Darkness - Thorkild Jacobsen Link

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia - Jean Bottero Link (damn I got this for $20 a few months back, great book though)

Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study - Ian Hodder & VA Link

Egypt Before the Pharaohs - Michael Hoffman Link

Probably the most well-known example of recent and ongoing human evolution is lactase persistence (aka lactose tolerance). Ordinarily humans lose the ability to digest lactose fairly soon after being weaned. However, among populations of pastoralists more than once a beneficial mutation has appeared and spread that conferred the ability to digest lactose throughout adulthood. But there are still large human populations (most notably East Asians) for whom lactose intolerance is still the norm.

For more on this, and other topics related to your question, I highly recommend The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending.

History of religious ideas by Mirca Eliade. The book is structured around several ideas by the author that are both catchy and outdated, but still skimming through all three volumes is the best way to put things into perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918

The book I linked explores that possibility. Some of the things the author goes into is how Yahweh started as simply one god in a large pantheon, and then the Jews started to worship him more than the other gods (the other gods still being recognized and significant) until the Jews turned to monotheism. Fascinating book.

Ohhhh, look at the pretty green cover of this ebook! Look at it. You know you want to :)

Socialism/Communism

A People's History of the World

Main Currents of Marxism

The Socialist System

The Age of... (1, 2, 3, 4)

Marx for our Times

Essential Works of Socialism

Soviet Century

Self-Governing Socialism (Vols 1-2)

The Meaning of Marxism

The "S" Word (not that good in my opinion)

Of the People, by the People

Why Not Socialism

Socialism Betrayed

Democracy at Work

Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (again didn't like it very much)

The Socialist Party of America (absolute must read)

The American Socialist Movement

Socialism: Past and Future (very good book)

It Didn't Happen Here

Eugene V. Debs

The Enigma of Capital

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

A Companion to Marx's Capital (great book)

After Capitalism: Economic Democracy in Action

Capitalism

The Conservative Nanny State

The United States Since 1980

The End of Loser Liberalism

Capitalism and it's Economics (must read)

Economics: A New Introduction (must read)

U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776 (must read)

Kicking Away the Ladder

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Traders, Guns and Money

Corporation Nation

Debunking Economics

How Rich Countries Got Rich

Super Imperialism

The Bubble and Beyond

Finance Capitalism and it's Discontents

Trade, Development and Foreign Debt

America's Protectionist Takeoff

How the Economy was Lost

Labor and Monopoly Capital

We Are Better Than This

Ancap/Libertarian

Spontaneous Order (disagree with it but found it interesting)

Man, State and Economy

The Machinery of Freedom

Currently Reading

This is the Zodiac Speaking (highly recommend)

How on earth did you cut back on cofee? I'm bonkers without my 2nd, 3rd... 5th cup. Not to mention he headaches!!

Congrats to you. Here's an item that fits the bill. Thanks for the contest!!

If you're interested in Calculus, Steven Strogatz just wrote a book called Infinite Powers which goes through the historical development of the concepts starting from the Greeks. He gives detailed explanations of methods used by Archimedes to "prove" concepts, or at least to gain intuition about certain questions before formalizing them, and then walks through their development over the years. It's written to be accessible for non-mathematicians but it certainly not one of those pop-science books that just deals with over-simplified explanations of very high-level ideas.

Another contemporary source that could be useful is "American Grace: How Religion Unites Us and Divides Us." I read it for a Politics of Religion class (not Soc specifically) but it was a good book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1416566732/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

I'm not a materials engineer so I can't verify all the statements made in the book, but I found this pretty interesting: Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World.

> So that would just be books recommended, not written yet.

Remind me in 4 months and I'll you my dissertation on the relationship between industrialisation and social change.

Well, the ones I own that are relevant to industrialisation are as follows:

Eric Hobsbawm Age of Revoltution: 1789 - 1848 - Also add in Hobsbawm's next two text books, Age of Capital: 1848-1875, and Age of Empirel: 1875-1914

The Ascendancy of Europe: 1815- 1914

The Birth of the Modern World: 1780 - 1914

Roger Osborne: Iron Steam and Money

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, Deborah Cadbury

Britain's Industrial Revolution: The Making of a Manufacturing People, 1700 - 1870, by Barrie Trinder

Shropshire's Industrial Revolution, by Barrie Trinder

Books on the textile industry that I've used this year (not done much focus on the textile industry, more the Luddite movement)

The Genesis of Industrial Capital: A Study of West Riding Wool Textile Industry, c.1750-1850

The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 by T.S.Ashton

And just because I mentioned it (can't find the links) the Luddites are covered well by:

"The Risings of the Luddites, chartists and Plug-drawers" by Frank Peel

"The Early English Trade Unions: Documents from the Home Office Papers in the Record Office" by A.Aspinall

"The Luddites: Machine Breaking in Regency England" by M.I.Thomis

"Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England" by Frank Ongley Darvall

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

Not a chemistry fan, but I found this really fun and interesting.

David Bentley Hart is unparalleled in terms of knowledge, wit, imagination, eloquence, and is perhaps the greatest living Christian thinker today.

He just put out a translation of the New Testament through Yale University Press which is incredible.

His newest book is called The Experience of God and it is mind-boggling.

Atheist Delusions absolutely eviscerates pop atheism.

His theological magum opus, The Beauty of the Infinite has been called the greatest work of theology so far this century.

The Doors of the Sea is required reading for anyone who struggles with the issue of evil.

His work is sublime.

There is actually a really great book about this point, definitely worth a read.

If you really like History (or you want to understand the world in a very useful way), find a copy of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and see where it takes you.

You are taking the story, or at least one of the stories, of the garden of Eden literally. Hence, all your questions are unanswerable questions. Or at least unanswerable with any certainty.

I like the idea I first read in Yuval Harari's book Sapien: A Brief History of Humankind

The garden of Eden story is about man going from a hunter gatherer to a farmer. As a hunter gatherer he would work a few hours a day hunting animals for food. The women would spend some time each day collecting nuts, fruits, other edible plants. They would then spend the rest of the day basically relaxing. When man began to cultivate the soil, to grow crops, he now had to work from sun up to sun down, toiling all day long. Women as a part of the hunter gatherer society, needed to keep up with the men as they did the hunting. With all the daily traveling women had thin, fit bodies and were able to give birth rather easily. They needed to give birth and still keep up with the men. Once women no longer used their muscles as they did in the hunter gatherer life style, the birth canal got smaller and having babies became much more difficult, more painful, and much more deadly for the mother and the child.

When viewed this way, and I'm sure I did not give it justice the way Harari did in his book, the garden of Eden story is a beautifully poetic and metaphoric account of our human history.

​

Evolution keeps disease-causing genes around because in their recessive genotypes (non-disease causing) there is some benefit that we cannot readily see. For example, cystic fibrosis, in its pathological phenotype, will cause people to sweat out all their salt, cause organ failure and death. But if that cholera hits, those with the recessive CS genotype will be able to withstand bouts of diarrhea much better. I highly recommend The Gene, which goes over the history of how humanity came to discover heredity, DNA, etc. Well written, fascinating story. First science page turner I've read.

Yeah I agree.

It's also really, really unnatural.

A lot of people don't believe it, but with every human step we actually had to work more. Initially a farming society might have worked less than a hunterer & gatherer society, but after a few decades they actually had to WORK MORE than earlier, mainly because of the growing living standard and society. Same goes for the industrialisation.

If you compare our live to that of a stone-age civilization, you'd actually find that we work far more than them. Obviously that has granted us a FAR higher living standard, but it's still unnatural.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Z3M16F84J3NM&keywords=a+short+history+of+humankind&qid=1556869021&s=gateway&sprefix=a+short+history+of+human%2Caps%2C255&sr=8-1

For anyone interested, Sapiens is a good book to start.

Indeed!
If you are still curious, though, I suggest this book. I haven't read it, but the author is known for discussing medical topics in an interesting way that is understandable by non-experts.

https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Immigrant-and-Native-Households

> No single program explains immigrants' higher overall welfare use. For example, not counting subsidized school lunch, welfare use is still 46 percent for immigrants and 28 percent for natives. Not counting Medicaid, welfare use is 44 percent for immigrants and 26 percent for natives.


> The welfare system is designed to help low-income workers, especially those with children, and this describes many immigrant households. In 2012, 51 percent of immigrant households with one or more workers accessed one or more welfare programs, as did 28 percent of working native households.


> The high rates of immigrant welfare use are not entirely explained by their lower education levels. Households headed by college-educated immigrants have significantly higher welfare use than households headed by college-educated natives — 26 percent vs. 13 percent.

You said, "scientific and intellectual progress could be heightened with more people [from those in Central America]". What data are you using to base such a claim? 97% of all innovations have been from Europeans from 800BC to 1950AD.

Dr. Kevin MacDonald has an excellent book on this subject called 'The Culture of Critique'.

And a reminder that King isn't wrong, he just said what you're not allowed to say: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Accomplishment-Pursuit-Excellence-Sciences/dp/0060929642

It certainly can happen here. It will call itself something innocuous like the "Green New Deal."

https://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=liberal+fascism&qid=1550012805&s=gateway&sr=8-1

> 80% of the greatest things in the world

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Accomplishment-Pursuit-Excellence-Sciences/dp/0060929642

Its more likely around 90 % + range.

Atheism is most common among the following populations: white, college-educated, non-southern, younger (Generation Y/Millennials).
The best source of this data is here:
http://amzn.com/1416566732
You should be able to google to find articles about the absence of women and minorities in the atheist movement, at least in the US.

I haven't read Vaclav Smil's work yet, but I just ordered his new book Energy and Civilization: A History. Thanks for the recommendation!

There are two great books that talk about exactly this.

1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind which focuses on social issues.
   
   
2. Story of the Human Body which focuses on biology and medical issues.

Here’s a great book for you https://www.amazon.com/Right-Side-History-Reason-Purpose/dp/0062857908

It is somewhat true, read Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism. I found it intriguing, he traces all the stances of Fascism and relates it to the liberal beliefs like abortion and other things.

Because no one has said it yet, The Evolution of God by Robert Wright (http://www.amazon.com/The-Evolution-God-Robert-Wright/dp/0316734918) is a great book that covers this topic thoroughly.

I haven't had a "me" book in a month or so since we're working through Come As You Are slowly. It's hard for me to read more than one book at a time so that's bogged me down mentally. I had started Sapiens before that, but set it aside for now. I should probably try to compartmentalize books better and pick it back up.

Chris Harman's "A People's History of the World" is a great book for those interested in materialist understanding of history. Not only does he put ordinary people, rather than kings and leaders, in the middle of history, but he also emphasizes the structural changes behind historic events.

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-World-Stone-Millennium/dp/1844672387

Do you know what Jonah Goldberg's claim to fame is? Nothing. His mother persuaded Monica Lewinsky into hanging onto a semen stained dress. Jonah got a writing gig riding on his mother's coattails.

Here's a good piece from Harper's debunking the piece of crap that Liberal Fascism is.

If that's not amusing enough I suggest you check out the Amazon tags for Jonah's book. They include such masterpieces as:

books written while high on cheeto dust

ein volk ein reich ein bag von cheetos

cheetohnacht

cheeto macht frei

cheeto-erotic asphyxiation

cheetohouse five

gulag archipecheetoh

mein fuhrer i can type

The Disappearing Spoon has been on my list since they made it a monthly deal - it looks so interesting! Thanks for the ebook contest. :)

Eliade e omul care a adus shamanismul si ezoterismul estic in cercul filozofilor occidentali. Este puternic subestimat omul asta, ce-a facut, ce-a scris si chiar profunzimea micilor povestiri.

Asta am auzit ca-i deosebit de interesanta: http://www.amazon.com/Shamanism-Archaic-Techniques-Ecstasy-Bollingen/dp/0691119422

Any standard work on the subject, whether literary or archeological, would point away from the basic framework of your interpretation. (The best evidence, of course, is always the Bible, properly interpreted in its context, itself).

The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195167686/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_TbmWBbGQ5HYF1


The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (The Biblical Resource Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/080283972X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_9dmWBbD268FCN

Stories from Ancient Canaan, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0664232426/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_BemWBb5ADVYJF

The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures https://www.amazon.com/dp/019060865X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_5fmWBb77Z4SP3

The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions (Oxford Handbooks) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198783019/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_KgmWBb7AE7EC5

History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226204014/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ahmWBb97P6K64

Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Harvard University Press Reference Library) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674015177/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_.hmWBbFMA52Z7

None of these propose an exact duplicate of this simplistic model, but they triangulate to something very similar.

"...in the last 50-100k years"

Make that the last couple of thousand years. Specifically the Ashkenazi Jews seem to have evolved higher than average intelligence because of cultural and sociological factors.
http://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465002218

Why Evolution is True

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark


Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (free online!)

Guns, Germs, Steel

The God Delusion

Misquoting Jesus (Conceptional this is very compatible with Mormonism--the Bible not being translated correctly so we need the BoM!--but the specifics about what got mistranslated are devastating as Mormonism doubled down on the mistranslated parts. oops.)

Don't even both learning anything more about Mormonism. Just be widely read and you'll soon see that the Mormon version of history is in incongruent with reality. This will cause cognitive dissonance and when you're ready to resolve it, go back and read independent sources about Mormonism and it will be very obvious that the narrative they indoctrinated into you as a child doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I've been reading the book Sapiens, by Yuval Harari. It explains a lot about human behavior on a grand scale. Tribalism is part of our genetic makeup.

https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Civilization-History-MIT-Press/dp/0262035774


Good stuff.

Some good starting points

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nature-Economics-Survival-Mattered/dp/0865716730/

https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Economic-History-Geerat-Vermeij/dp/069112793X/

https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Civilization-History-MIT-Press/dp/0262035774/

https://www.amazon.com/Overshoot-Ecological-Basis-Revolutionary-Change/dp/0252009886/

https://www.amazon.com/Environment-Power-Society-Twenty-First-Century/dp/0231128878/

https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X/

http://bpeconomics.org/

https://biophyseco.org/

> -Unrelated but WTF is that about reading a law book at age seven? PLEASE.
>

I mean... Here's the thing. I have (weirdly distinct) memories of reading this book when I was about ten or so... But like.. I'm not still talking about it 20 years later, and I sure AF didn't really understand what I was reading. Did I have that book, and was I 'reading it' in third grade or whatever? Yeah, but still.

You can try Mircea Eliade - History Of Religions.

If you want to read about Judaism and Kabbalah I recommend you to check the resources from /r/kabbalah.

Egypt was a powerful neighbor of the Israelites, so loan words would be expected. I don't know the scholarship of the historicity of Moses, only that the scholarship of the Israelites indicates they evolved in place, just as their religion evolved from polytheism through monolatry to monotheism. The Evolution of God by [Robert Wright](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wright_(journalist).

Ah yes, the 'ol "Space Elevator" lines.

Another person who alludes to these is Bill Burrows in his book This New Ocean, which puts it right on the cover.

The hypothesis of this book is that human beings have evolved more in the past 10,000 years than in any other period of the development of man. It's interesting that you picked that exact time frame.

> Wow. You sir are basically just compassionless. You assume the worst in people who were fighting against horror and oppression, and force them to adhere to your narrow world view for some ideal "truth" that doesn't actually exist.

Compassionless? Because I'm willing to call a spade a spade? Because I'm willing to call out a lie rather than preserve someone's feelings? You've got a rather strange concept of compassion, one that I'm not interested in.

> You haven't shown me why I should believe the authors wanted their texts to be taken literally. Your points basically amount to "They are liars because I want them to be liars." I'm astounded at the delusion you exist in.

You want another example? Have you heard of Jonah Goldberg? He's primarily a political pundit, and a reactionary one. Not too long ago he published a book, non-fiction, entitled Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. He's not engaging in allegory, here. He's claiming that fascism as conceived and run by Mussolini and Hitler is an inherently liberal concept that has been at working secretly in the US for some time. This idea is quantifiably false and his historical analysis has been pretty much laughed off by the historical and political analysis communities alike. The book isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

But he wrote it and published it. We have every reason to think that he believes every word in it. And what's more, he used it to galvanize like-minded political partisans in the US. Nobody takes him seriously except his target audience. It's a lie, and they believe it.

Sound familiar?

I can’t take credit. The book “Sapiens”, by Yuval Harari uses it to describe the way human beings use imaginary ideas to control our collective and individual behavior:

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062316117/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Q.JkDb8CW5K7E

History of Religious Ideas, Vol 1, Vol 2 and Vol 3. by Mircea Eliade A comprehensive comparison and history of different religions, religious ideas and ways in which myths work. Was a real eye-opener

_

LE - Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray

If you would like to read history on the largest time scale possible try Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. It's a short book and will put all your other reading in context.

Currently reading A People's History of the World. Recommended if you have an interest in class struggle and patterns in history.

Check out the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393354326/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521472428&sr=1-1&keywords=guns+germs+and+steel+by+jared+diamond.

You also read Jared Diamond, am I right?

Great Book.

The Ashkenazim supposedly have an average IQ a standard deviation above the norm. Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending claim that this is because among the Ashkenazim only those who excelled in banking and trade thrived the last 1000 years of pogroms, having 5 times as many children as Ashkenazim working in unrelated fields. As you can imagine their claims are controversial though.

Most shamanic cultures believe that the shaman has the power to fly into the upper world and converse with spirits there. Siberian shamanism has been dated back as early as 30,000 years, certainly much longer than the Icarus myth.

Source

Please read actual scientific work on the societal effects of religion such as this and this before you make such statements.

In his book Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond addresses this. He says that no large carnivores have been domesticated because feeding them would take more effort than they're worth. The only large domesticated animals are herbivores. He actally has quite a discussion about which animals were domesticated and why.

The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Well written and explained book about genetics, medicine, and progression of our understanding of biology.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476733503/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_4.ZQDbBHFP3J4

This comes off as political tut-tutting. Here is my take.

(1) The popular take-away from GC&S is precisely what Romney put forth, namely, that: "the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there." Pointing out that the availability of iron ore does not constitute a significant difference just seems petty.

(2) Romney's culture-heavy explanation from the recent editorial is obviously pandering, but Jared Diamond is also guilty of pandering, in that he's unwilling to consider that there might be biological differences between groups. Romney and Diamond are environmental determinists: cut from the same cloth. So Diamond is close to hypocritical in calling Romney out.

Im just now starting to read Mercia Eliade, Idk if this book covers types of shamanism. (I’m highly certain it will) I just bought this book yesterday.

Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691119422?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Looking forward to

• writing more tests for my half-finished interpreter
  
• getting my work-in-progress video game to the point where it actually resembles something
  
• if not too stressed try and read Tonal Pitch Space and Liberal Fascism

The article makes the mistake of assuming that fascism is a right-wing phenomenon. It is actually a left-wing psychosis, as rather amusingly pointed out in Liberal Fascism, a book which details how it was so-called progressives who supported euthanasia, fascism, state power over the individual and so forth.

Bill Gates recommends this book. I wanted to but have not (yet) read it. https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Civilization-History-MIT-Press/dp/0262035774

My two cents....

Whoever labeled libertarianism as far right is completely off. Libertarianism itself tends to reject a left/right scale.

On that matter, fascism also rejects a left/right scale. In the 30s, fascism was considered by Americans and Europeans alike to be a wonderful new idea, a novel third way. Fascism was essentially authoritarian and totalitarian, to accurately describe it, rather than being placed on any political spectrum.

Authoritarian/totalitarian government can have a policy of rigid socialism, or also of free marketeering--the fact is just that either policy, or any other policies, are enforced by a central authority and the population is forced to participate, with no choice of it being voluntary.

In my mind, libertarianism is the anti-fascism, and fascism is present significantly in the platforms of both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.

A good, thoughtful book on the topic is called Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. Pick it up for 86 cents plus shipping: http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346780346&sr=8-1&keywords=liberal+fascism

I've heard that Malkin's book In Defense of Internment is pretty spectacular. This site provided some refutations.
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg should be a riot too.

It's a book by Charles Murray and it's exceedingly well-researched. Go read it. Maybe you'll learn something.

> Citation fucking needed.

https://www.amazon.com/Human-Accomplishment-Pursuit-Excellence-Sciences/dp/0060929642

Jim Marrs - Rule by Secrecy

Here it is.

Rule by Secrecy

shhhh

“Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari night have what you’re looking for.

https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=sapiens&qid=1566280973&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Homie you must have gotten the cliff notes version.

Amazon Link

For the record I listened to it on Audible so I didn’t know it had 464 pages, I just knew it was about 15 hours long.

https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/ref=sr_1_1

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062316117/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_9xo3Cb2Y2WCV5

Don’t know if this was a troll but it says in “Sociology and Religion” now.

Work you way through this series: https://www.amazon.com/History-Religious-Ideas-Eleusinian-Mysteries/dp/0226204014

• 1. Modern Man in Search of A Soul – Carl Jung
     
• 2. Maps Of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief – Jordan B. Peterson
     
• 3. A History of Religious Ideas (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3) – Mircea Eliade

About the space race, This New Ocean

>I'm very liberal minded.

You mean modern American liberalism (which isn't liberal in the slightest), or do you mean Classical Liberalism (ie, modern day Libertarianism)?

Perhaps you're the one who needs to read up on the roots of your political philosophy.

http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318974177&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

Liberal Fascism

He was on par with Mussolini and the other socialists in Europe. Read people. Get an education. http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

Read it.

...or "national socialism"

http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841

Case in point.

Counter point: Read Liberal Fascism

Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Some scientists certaintly think so. See The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

Give Michael Harner a try, followed by Mircea Eliade.

https://www.amazon.in/Gene-Intimate-History-Siddhartha-Mukherjee/dp/1476733503

A People's History of the World analyzes world history through a Marxist lens.

David Bentley Hart's, The Experience of God.

A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium.

National Socialism AKA Fascism is a Far-Right political ideology. Although there has been some attempt to associate them with the left (primarily from far-right wingers who resent being associated with Hitler), the consensus of most scholars is that fascism is a Far-Right ideology.

According to the book Sapiens the Maori wiped out around 60% of NZ's native species before Europeans arrived. Similar story with the Aborigines in Australia.

Yes they like to claim they lived on the land harmoniously, but they first caused a lot of damage before they learnt to do so.