HN Books @HNBooksMonth

In a rebuilding event, we'd have the advantage of knowing it was possible and desirable. This book, for instance, would be worth kingdoms in such a situation - https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Rebuild-Civilization-Afterm...

⬐ kirykl

Just make sure to purchase the paper copy and not kindle

⬐ wahern

Or this one: https://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-Toolbox-Erik-Ober...

> For more than 100 years, Machinery's Handbook has been the most popular reference work in metalworking, design, engineering and manufacturing facilities, and technical schools and colleges throughout the world. It is universally acknowledged as an extraordinarily authoritative, comprehensive, and practical tool, providing its users with the most fundamental and essential aspects of sophisticated manufacturing practice.

Iron mining has been done at small scale for thousands of years.

A population of 10 million is the population of England circa 1812. Machine tools, glass optics. Electricity should be possible. Powered flight, if you had hydrocarbons.

Oil would be a problem. All the easy deposits are tapped. A successor civilization would have a hard time progressing past steam power.

A lot depends on how we crash to 10 million. If all the wells are shut down cleanly, thoroughly documented, then the people blink out existence, then the 10 million could live quite a white just on today's reserves. If we end up at 10 million after decades or centuries of warfare, then there won't be any oil left. (Plus the sea would be a lot higher, and many oil deposits would be in places where summer temperatures would be fatal for humans) Liquid fuels can be made from steam cracking of coal hydrocarbons, but they're expensive.

No nuclear power, no turbines, none of the exotic metals that require electron-beam vacuum furnaces. No pharmaceuticals, no long supply lines, limited manufacturing specialization or economies of scale. Fasteners would be expensive again. Fabric would be expensive. Probably the number one most important thing to get working again is production of artificial fertilizers. Without that you're stuck with organic agriculture and 1 out of 2 people working in the fields.

And somehow I get ten sentences into this comment before remembering about a book I read that made the exact same point about fertilizer: https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Rebuild-Civilization-Afterm...

There's also: "The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm"

https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Rebuild-Civilization-Afterm...

This is the sort of thread that hits me right in the wallet.

Here are some books I've given as gifts recently:

* The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm, Lewis Dartnell[1]

* The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb[2]

* Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse[3]

* The Happiness Trap, Russ Harris and Steven Hayes[4]

* Code, Charles Petzold[5]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Rebuild-Civilization-Afterm...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Frag...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Hermann-Hesse/dp/161382378...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Livin...

[5] https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softw...

⬐ Frogolocalypse

The Black Swan is on my list too.

⬐ nl

Is it really that good?

I've started it a few times. Nassim Nicholas Taleb seems to make sure never to use one word when ten could possibly be used, especially if some of them about himself.

⬐ MagnumOpus

No, it is not. The idea behind the book is as sound as it is simple: shoehorning normal distributions in places where they shouldn't go just to make problems tractable will end in disaster due to an excess of fat tails in the real world.

However, Taleb has been pontificating on that single idea for fifteen years now and has parlayed twenty pages worth of ideas into three books, a collapsed hedge fund and numerous academic positions.

Skim the first three chapters of any of his three books, and you will have learnt all there is to learn from him.

⬐ gooseus

While I can't disagree too much with my sibling comments, I do believe that the shift in mental model is worth the criticisms.

It's a shame his style, wordiness and pretension sometimes gets in the way of communicating a really significant and fundamental concept that I believe everyone should incorporate into their world view.

⬐ None

None

⬐ b_emery

I thought fooled by randomness was much better. Higher information density.

⬐ sundarurfriend

Yep, I haven't been able to finish the book either, and what I've read didn't stand up to all the hype.

Taleb's Antifragile I did, unfortunately, finish, and it's way, way worse.

Now that I think about it, both books have a similar pattern: the first dozen or so pages present an interesting idea, which does give you a fresh and useful mental model in understanding the world. The rest of the book, unfortunately, meanders off into superficial redundant applications of it and pounding into the reader's head how anti-establishment Taleb is.