(Part 2) Best products from r/InsightfulQuestions

To this day there is still no greater book for opening up the world of thought than Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy. This book is indispensable.

Aside from that the best advice, as many here have noted, is to simply read widely and often. Here are some other books I can personally recommend as being particularly insightful:

• Wind, Sand and Stars
  
• Einstein's Dreams
  
• Family Happiness
  
• Borges
  
• Kafka
  
• Tao Te Ching
  
• Book of Job
  
• The Stranger
  
• Prometheus Rising
  
• Shakespeare

There's a difference between reading a book and understanding what's inside. If you want to read complex literature, you have to understand what's going on. A good place to start is Barry's Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory.

You can read the great books, but you won't understand them until you learn some theory and interpretation.

These are not like YA books. Those are baby food. They are one-dimensional and tell a story. You won't find deeper themes or much symbolism or literary quality. They're easy to digest and designed to sell a lot of copies. YA is OK for what it is, but it's the frozen microwave pizza of literature. You'll have to develop new tastes if you want to grow up and get past the baby food.

I got into theory and interpretation when I got my first degree in English literature. Though I didn't really learn to think critically until law school. It was traditional, with plenty of caselaw, slippery slopes and Socratic questioning. Not pleasant at first, but it forces you to think on your feet and adjust to a moving target. I don't know if it can be learned otherwise, but I would look into some legal texts for the layperson.

It is pleasing to use Gödel's theorems metaphorically when speaking of the unknowable but Gödel's theorems actually make very specific statements about formal mathematical systems that are not really applicable in this context.

If you are interested, I suggest Gödel's Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to its Use and Abuse. This goes for the OP as well.

If you'd like a richer understanding of the many factors tied into such a question, try reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.

Douglas Hofstadter talks about something like this in I am a Strange Loop. Here's an interview that talks about it a bit. I recommend reading the book, though you may enjoy it more after reading Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

There are people - including many intelligent ones (scientists among them) - who believe the following ideas or are otherwise skeptical of MMGW (Man-Made Global Warming theory) and some of it's proposed solutions. I am not an expert on this topic by any means and am not suggesting the ideas below are proven/correct, but the fact that intelligent people (and others) can and do believe some of the following would explain a lot of the controversy.

Please don't hate/downvote because I am presenting an unpopular view, note that this is a discussion about why the topic is controversial, not about whether or not it is scientifically correct. Again, I present the below as ideas, not proven facts.

• The earth warms and cools in cycles regardless of CO2 emissions.
  
  
• Heating precedes CO2, and therefore cannot be the cause of said heating.
  
  
• Increases in CO2 and temperature have many positive impacts for plant life and humans.
  
  
• The idea of CO2 "forcing" may be mistaken when countervailing forces are factored in.
  
  
• There is tremendous economic and ego (prestige) gain to be had by supporting the MMGW (man-made global warming) theory, largely by way of government and NGO grants to universities and other groups to study/support the idea. Conversely, risking losing said grants/support to ones academic institution could be very bad news for someone doing so. Related, many jobs in climate research would disappear if not for global warming theory, as would the prestige of those supporting the theory if it turned out not to be correct.
  
  
• Scientists and academics can be very mistaken en-masse and for long periods of time, see for example http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html
  
  
• The solar system is heating up as a whole, not just earth, suggesting some cause other than CO2 emissions to explain any increase in temperature.
  
  
• The solutions proposed by many environmentalists would have tremendous (negative) economic consequences with little if any positive benefit.
  
  
• People disputing MMGW theory are treated like pariahs. Not for example the likening to Nazis (note the word "deniers", taken from the phrase "holocaust deniers"), or accused of being in the pocket of oil companies, even when no connection exists.
  
  
• Other theories for warming exist, see for example http://www.petitionproject.org/review_article.php
  
  
• Much of the pro-MMGW claims are sensationalistic and fear-mongering in nature, see for example "An Inconvenient Truth"'s claims about polar bears, mass flooding, and hurricanes for example.
  
  
• Some high profile people such as [John Coleman (founder of the weather channel)] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13kRznssNCk), Bob Carter and Michael Crichton article and lecture dispute MMGW theory.
  
  
• Some top-notch scientists who study climate dispute the claims put forward by the IPCC, see for example this series, based on this book. See also http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ten-most-important-climate-change-skeptics-2009-7# and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming.
  
  For more material focusing on the skeptical viewpoint, see /r/climateskeptics.

You would probably really enjoy the book Four Systems, which I'm sad to see is out of print. It was a textbook in my Intro to Poli Sci class. It presents four different systems of government -- social democracy, individual democracy, communism and fascism -- each from the perspective of someone who advocates the system. As a freshman I came out of each section (plus the introduction, which covers anarchism) feeling like "Wow, yeah, this actually makes a lot of sense!"

This is not exactly an answer to your question, but this book I would say has a lock on what I would call wisdom.

I generally agree here but I think you might be painting a broad brush on conservative perspectives.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052FF7YM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_88EOzbAX3DX47

https://youtu.be/ONUM4akzLGE

2017 Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQAT-0aSPq-OKOpQlHyR4k5h

I think here the question become do the ends justify the means. In order to allow for a system that is built upon people being chattel for others, it requires actively subjugating them, and society has to be actively molded to allow for that subjugation.

Slaveholding changed southern culture. I think Genovese's Roll Jordan Roll: The world the slaves made does a very good job illustrating this. He states slavery created "a paternalism accepted by both masters and slave--but with radically different interpretations." Which requires masters "to see their slaves as acquiescent." These types of attitudes then shaded most of what is considered "Southern culture" to the point that it created a society of Slavery, that was actively maintained through the rule of law.

There's been many books and articles written about masculinity. Here is the description of one of my favorites:

https://www.amazon.com/Proving-Manhood-Reflections-Sexism-Masculinity/dp/0520212665

Is male chauvinism a natural byproduct of American masculinity, or does it reflect a deeper pain and fear at the heart of gender relations? With sensitivity and honesty, Timothy Beneke, author of Men on Rape, frames the issue of sexism as a problem of masculinity, one deeply rooted in cultural ideals of manhood and forever opposed to the feminine. Men are required to "prove" their masculinity daily from childhood on. They are forced to endure situations of stress and distress that demonstrate their strength and unflappable endurance. In rituals such as sports, sex, and work, men constantly invent and renew their masculine identities as they learn to repress and reject all "feminized" behavior. Pornography, homophobia, and the morning sports section become crucial "proving grounds" where masculinity is tested and asserted. 

Beneke argues that men demonstrate the attitudes that underlie sexism in the psychically related practices of reading the sports page and pornographic magazines. In both, men can test their manhood vicariously. Following the lives and careers of athletes religiously in the sports pages, men celebrate and identify with the physical endurance and strength that is at the core of the masculine ideal from the safety of their living rooms. Gazing at languishing nudes in Playboy, men similarly identify with an ideal of masculine prowess and superiority safe from any threatening manifestations of female sexuality.

I've been an atheist for most of my life. Just because this is how I think doesn't mean I should expect others to adopt my thinking.

Suggested reading: http://www.amazon.com/The-Belief-Instinct-Psychology-Destiny/dp/0393341267

There are billions of religious people in the world. Do you think we are so good at teaching? I wish we were!

A short history of nearly everything.

It's heavy on the science and math but also includes some history and philosophy. What's great about it is it doesn't just tell you the world is 4 billion years old, it tells you how we know that and goes over the evolution of human thought and how we got to where we are today in each subject. It's also easy to read and the audio book version can be finished in a week of just listening to it during your commute.

Telling someone with no philosophy background to try to read 900 pages of Kant is a recipe for frustration.

You might want to read The Gift of Fear...

https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Fear-Gavin-Becker/dp/0440226198

I think so.

Check out this book, it's really good.

better angels of our nature

If you haven't read it; I highly suggest Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett. It's an entire book dedicated to this question.