Weekly Non-Fiction Reading List 3.27.23
This week, I finished four books by some amazing authors. We have two books that will help you be a better thinker and understand irrational people. Then, we have a great book about how gamification is in our everyday lives and manipulating us. We also have a book from an amazing woman who escaped North Korea. Enjoy!
Each of the links to the books are affiliate links, so if you use my link to purchase any of these books, some comes back to support what I do (and it also helps fund my reading habit).
Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better by Woo-kyoung Ahn
I always have a book like this in my rotation because we always need refreshers on our thinking errors. I came across this new book and decided to give it a read. Woo-kyoung Ahn did an awesome job with this book. If you’ve read a lot of these books like I have, there won’t be a lot that’s new, but it’s definitely different. She has a ton of anecdotes that makes the topic more engaging and simple to understand. Other books mainly cover studies around the topic, and this one does too, but the stories make it easier to understand.
If you’re new to this topic and want to become a better thinker, this is the book for you.
You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All by Adrian Hon
What an awesome book. I thought this was just going to be another book saying “technology bad” and explain how social media is just trying to get us hooked in various ways. Adrian Hon killed it with this book by diving deep into a ton of different areas where gamification is being used in different ways for both good and bad. He has a background in creating games, so it was really interesting learning about the thought process that goes into them, but this book was surprisingly philosophical as well by discussing the ethics behind different organizations using gamification.
I really liked how he discussed how workplaces use gamification to get more out of employees while not giving anything back to them and better ways of doing this. I definitely recommend this book and hope it gets the attention it deserves.
While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America by Yeonmi Park
This is a book that I’m extremely torn on, and I could write pages about the good and bad about this book. So, I’ll try to keep it brief, but before I get started, I will say that everyone should read this book. This was my introduction to Yeonmi, and I definitely want to check out her other work. She’s an incredible woman who escaped North Korea, and her story is inspiring, and she also has great values.
I’ve been curious about North Korea and have wanted to hear it straight from someone who lived there. I can’t remember how I came across this book, but it was at the exact right time because I usually don’t read books like this. I was hesitant because I could tell it was going to be an anti-woke book, and those are often all the same.
I’m a leftist, but I’ve written about how I often feel politically homeless because I’m very pro-free speech and disagree with some of the things people would call “woke”. I often find the perspectives of immigrants interesting, especially people like Yeonmi who came from such a terrible place. They have this appreciation for America that many of us will never fully understand.
Throughout this book, you’ll hear bits and pieces of Yeonmi’s story along with the “woke issues” in the United States. From her time at Columbia to becoming an activist and speaker invited to speak in front of and mingle with the liberal elites.
I won’t get too far into it, but my criticisms of the book are narrowed down to the fact that she does what many anti-woke books do and picks out the worst of the worst and then either intentionally or unintentionally misconstrue what many progressives actually want.
The most difficult part of this book for me was how Yeonmi discusses meeting all these liberal elites who heard her story, say they want to or will help the women of North Korea and then don’t because they make money from China. Then, she goes on to praise capitalism and compares what “woke leftists want” to North Korean or Soviet socialism. She doesn’t seem to be able to connect the dots that those liberal elites she dislikes who haven’t helped her are the result of capitalism and selfishness. Meanwhile, many of us progressives want a democratic socialism like we see in the Nordic countries that keep being rated highest for happiest countries, and these are countries that have capitalism, but they also have things like free healthcare.
Anywho, this is way longer than I wanted it to be. This is a phenomenal book, and I’ll read more from her. I just think she got drunk off the Jordan Peterson anti-woke kool-aid, but she still has a good head on her shoulders. I agree with most of what she says in this book about being strong and not getting offended so easily, but I don’t think she realizes how much leftists like myself and her have in common when it comes to a lot of these topics. We’re not fans of Hillary Clinton and the liberal elites either.
Know-It-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture by Michael P. Lynch
This was my annual read of this book, and I believe this was my third time reading it. It’s an amazing book that everyone should read. I always find myself reading it when I’m fed up with dealing with irrational people who believe weird things and fall victim to group think. Lynch’s book helps me understand what’s going on with them and have a bit more compassion because a lot of the irrationality and tribalism is just part of human nature.
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