Book starts out by telling us that there is an infinite amount of riches just around the corner for all of us if we just hang in there and read the rest of the book. So already the book is a con and knows it's a con and is hoping that we don't know that it is a con.
Book rambles for a few paragraphs about how some dude who lost his arm, lost his arm because of the "flow of his thoughts." If thoughts made that much of a difference then everyone that ever cut me off in traffic would have died horribly and I would be a mass murdering psychic. A guy if you cut him off he'll use his powers to make you steer your car into the nearest concrete wall at top speed. I think everyone that drives would also be that same character. So this is horseshit, that's what I'm getting at.
There was a brief example about how the same suggestion could merit two wildly different responses depending on who you make the suggestions to. Well yeah, haven't you ever yelled "Suck my dick!" at a group of murderous dudes on the street corner as you drive by? They don't give the same exact reaction as when you yell it down the hallway at the nursing home.
The book points out that through the power of suggestion ancient healers were able to convince people that they weren't sick anymore by putting them through nightmarish rituals. Maybe you could consider that a healing if they forget about their aches and pains, but how do you heal the trauma associated with having minced squirrel guts and lizard tongues muddled with assorted wild berries and then smeared all over your body by a chanting mad man?
There is an example of a lady that wanted a Cadillac car. So she follows the mumbo jumbo from the book about how to imagine you are in the car until you have it. Sure enough she ends up with her uncle's Cadillac car. The uncle passed away and left it to her in his will. So either this was just an unfortunate incident, or her thoughts literally killed her uncle. Since this book wants you to believe in magic, I'm going to say that her thoughts killed her uncle for his car.
There's some marriage advice in here as well. For the nagging wife it recommends that you praise her for her positive points and show her more attention. I think that you should just imagine having the whole bed to yourself each night and your thought will force her car off a cliff with her in it. It worked really well for the Cadillac lady.
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Book Review: Victims of Groupthink (1972)
Well this book will certainly teach you how stupid our government is, if nothing else. Most of the worst military and political blunders that the book goes over all feature a few common elements. The group that precided over all the decisions was composed of a bunch of circle jerking, high fiving morons that didn't even consider the negatives so long as they all felt good about each other.
The book has several relevant pictures, yes I did enjoy them. Thank you for asking. Sometimes I just need something else to look at besides the walls and walls of text that trap my eyes like a prison cell. Though pictures are all in black and white. They aren't the kind of black and white that looks smoky and mysterious. They just look like documentary style photos. So the book loses credit for having boring photos.
The general idea behind the hypothesis presented in the book is that if you are with a group of people that you admire and want to do well with, you will ignore evidence in order to do what the group thinks is best. D.A.R.E. tried to convince us that this was called peer pressure when we were growing up. They wanted to make sure that we didn't start doing drugs or boning because our friends thought it would be cool. But I started doing drugs and boning because I thought it would be awesome. It was awesome! Seems like D.A.R.E. was a campaign against all things awesome.
My copy has a bunch of starring and underlining in it. So somebody thought they were really learning a lot from it. Or maybe I did all that when I was in a scholarly drinking session. Those are rare for me, but they are usually brought on by Scotch.
If you've ever read Ayn Rand then you already know that groups are shit and individuals are the best. This book doesn't find that individuals are the best way to go, but it does show that group ideas and rationalizations will override the individuality of each member of the group.
I think anyone that has ever had to do a group project already knows that groups are shit. Just reduce the amount of workload and giver everyone an assignment on their own. See what we are made of just one to another. Don't test us on how well we can work with other people. Although this book does make me wonder, if you are always making the wrong calls in a group of people that you like, will you ascend to total mastery of the universe if you are in a group with people that you can't stand? I can't stand anyone really, so maybe that's what I need. A group of random people that I can't stand. Or, just a group of random people.
The book has several relevant pictures, yes I did enjoy them. Thank you for asking. Sometimes I just need something else to look at besides the walls and walls of text that trap my eyes like a prison cell. Though pictures are all in black and white. They aren't the kind of black and white that looks smoky and mysterious. They just look like documentary style photos. So the book loses credit for having boring photos.
The general idea behind the hypothesis presented in the book is that if you are with a group of people that you admire and want to do well with, you will ignore evidence in order to do what the group thinks is best. D.A.R.E. tried to convince us that this was called peer pressure when we were growing up. They wanted to make sure that we didn't start doing drugs or boning because our friends thought it would be cool. But I started doing drugs and boning because I thought it would be awesome. It was awesome! Seems like D.A.R.E. was a campaign against all things awesome.
My copy has a bunch of starring and underlining in it. So somebody thought they were really learning a lot from it. Or maybe I did all that when I was in a scholarly drinking session. Those are rare for me, but they are usually brought on by Scotch.
If you've ever read Ayn Rand then you already know that groups are shit and individuals are the best. This book doesn't find that individuals are the best way to go, but it does show that group ideas and rationalizations will override the individuality of each member of the group.
I think anyone that has ever had to do a group project already knows that groups are shit. Just reduce the amount of workload and giver everyone an assignment on their own. See what we are made of just one to another. Don't test us on how well we can work with other people. Although this book does make me wonder, if you are always making the wrong calls in a group of people that you like, will you ascend to total mastery of the universe if you are in a group with people that you can't stand? I can't stand anyone really, so maybe that's what I need. A group of random people that I can't stand. Or, just a group of random people.
Book Review: Common Sense (1776)
My copy of this book had an introduction that was like 20 pages long, so that's a huge minus in points. After that there was Thomas Paine's introduction. So this book is basically unreadable.
First paragraph is about abuses of power and the evils of tyranny. Paine seems worried that his words won't be "fashionable". Well what was in fashion for the day was slavery. American independence didn't do away with that so, this is already kind of reading like a propaganda pamphlet.
He mentions that as a colony grows it has to have a more limited parliament because the concerns of the public will be many and mostly trifling. I only know trifling as a way of describing hoes that apparently cheat on their boyfriends and then talk on the phone with them afterwards. They also appear to allow the man they cheated with to record the experience and post it online. The source that I'm citing there is porn.
There is some pointless rambling about how people are greeted in the book. I thought this book was supposed to be about guns, burgers and bald eagles. Isn't that what they mean by "American Classic"?
When I think American classic, I should be hearing the national anthem and be on the verge of dropping a little red white and blue tear. Not wading through page after page of complaints. Thomas Paine seems like the kind of guy that would call customer service and bitch them out over nothing and then demand a refund. Then he'd start his own company in the same niche.
Paine felt the need to include his accounting homework for the British navy. Americans do not count other country's battleships unless we are keeping a running tally of how many we've blown up. Read this book if you want to learn more about the forming of our country, but definitely not for entertainment.
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First paragraph is about abuses of power and the evils of tyranny. Paine seems worried that his words won't be "fashionable". Well what was in fashion for the day was slavery. American independence didn't do away with that so, this is already kind of reading like a propaganda pamphlet.
He mentions that as a colony grows it has to have a more limited parliament because the concerns of the public will be many and mostly trifling. I only know trifling as a way of describing hoes that apparently cheat on their boyfriends and then talk on the phone with them afterwards. They also appear to allow the man they cheated with to record the experience and post it online. The source that I'm citing there is porn.
There is some pointless rambling about how people are greeted in the book. I thought this book was supposed to be about guns, burgers and bald eagles. Isn't that what they mean by "American Classic"?
When I think American classic, I should be hearing the national anthem and be on the verge of dropping a little red white and blue tear. Not wading through page after page of complaints. Thomas Paine seems like the kind of guy that would call customer service and bitch them out over nothing and then demand a refund. Then he'd start his own company in the same niche.
Paine felt the need to include his accounting homework for the British navy. Americans do not count other country's battleships unless we are keeping a running tally of how many we've blown up. Read this book if you want to learn more about the forming of our country, but definitely not for entertainment.
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Click on any of these if you want to enjoy some legendary comedy:
Book Review: A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (1957)
I started this book the way that I start all books, by opening to a random page and letting intuition decide where on that page I begin reading. The first passage I read was about eating and having energy, so the book loses points for that. The title of this book told me that I would learn how to read minds if I picked it up. I don't need to know about energy, unless you're telling me that I can develop psychic energy to make things levitate or something like that. I want knowledge of actual super powers not actual facts. Which one would you rather be, superhero or super nerd? Yea me too, although I'm pretty much already super nerd.
Next passage I picked at random had to do with the Id and the Ego. Neither of which do I know about in Freud's terms, but I do know that satisfying my ego is the only reason why I rise from the bed each morning. It's also the reason why I do anything at all. My ego is my own siren call. Every time that I've been had it was because I convinced myself that obviously really awesome, pretty much implausibly good stuff happens and should happen to me. Like how when I get started discussing quirks with the hottest girl in the bar. I soon find out that she believes that her all encompassing obsession with demonology is a quirk. It's not a quirk, it's just scary and talking about it with you makes my balls shrink to the size of raisins.
The book is dated, obviously if you saw the date in the title, then you already knew that. But it is fun to look back on what was once taken for expertise. I wouldn't know what parts are dated or not, because I'm a comic not a fucking doctor. But for my part I love to read and I love the smell of old books. So this one is probably getting a recommendation from me either way. It was also really cheap, which won't sell you on the idea of finding another exact copy of this book, but it might sell you on your local used book store. These places are great and are the lowest cost, highest value entertainment that you can find. Where else can you pick up books about T-Rex, Nietzsche's Superman and DC's Superman all for less than it costs to eat one meal at Wendy's?
One section talks about how we are born with an urge to kill and how it's somehow linked to wanting to have sex. I'm not too sure about that one. After before and during sex, my mind never strays to killing. That would probably scare me. I'd definitely go talk to someone professional if while pounding away on some box it occurred to me "I've got a really sharp chef knife like 3 feet from this bed." My apartment is a studio, technically the knife is always within reaching distance. I just imagined my naked self running around my small apartment with a chef knife and yakety sax was playing in my head. That's this song is you don't recognize it by the name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=Zcq_xLi2NGo
I felt very absorbed and in the moment while reading this book. I skipped around like I said, but it was a lot of fun. It made me wonder what the lives were like of those who had held and made use of this book over the years. It was very interesting and I think everyone should enjoy an old book like this sometime. A book that is as old as this is worth more to me that going to see a new movie in theaters. To me it's like the difference in watching your friend throw down a windmill dunk and actually owning a working windmill. I don't know what windmill's are used for, crushing grain I think? But if I could have one, I'd definitely have one. Because it's awesome, it's old and it might make people think that I'm more of an artisan than I could ever actually be. A local journalist could totally expose me for not knowing jack about crushing grain.
The section on what a drug addict is was a bit eye opening. The experiences of the drug addict described in the book are the same as what you'll find today, tremendous suffering. The book said that drug addicts become addicts of the mind. I'm not sure if that means that they thought morphine addiction was only in your head or what. But it's definitely not just in your head. That part read the way most addiction writing reads today, as though a lot more research needs to be done.
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Next passage I picked at random had to do with the Id and the Ego. Neither of which do I know about in Freud's terms, but I do know that satisfying my ego is the only reason why I rise from the bed each morning. It's also the reason why I do anything at all. My ego is my own siren call. Every time that I've been had it was because I convinced myself that obviously really awesome, pretty much implausibly good stuff happens and should happen to me. Like how when I get started discussing quirks with the hottest girl in the bar. I soon find out that she believes that her all encompassing obsession with demonology is a quirk. It's not a quirk, it's just scary and talking about it with you makes my balls shrink to the size of raisins.
The book is dated, obviously if you saw the date in the title, then you already knew that. But it is fun to look back on what was once taken for expertise. I wouldn't know what parts are dated or not, because I'm a comic not a fucking doctor. But for my part I love to read and I love the smell of old books. So this one is probably getting a recommendation from me either way. It was also really cheap, which won't sell you on the idea of finding another exact copy of this book, but it might sell you on your local used book store. These places are great and are the lowest cost, highest value entertainment that you can find. Where else can you pick up books about T-Rex, Nietzsche's Superman and DC's Superman all for less than it costs to eat one meal at Wendy's?
One section talks about how we are born with an urge to kill and how it's somehow linked to wanting to have sex. I'm not too sure about that one. After before and during sex, my mind never strays to killing. That would probably scare me. I'd definitely go talk to someone professional if while pounding away on some box it occurred to me "I've got a really sharp chef knife like 3 feet from this bed." My apartment is a studio, technically the knife is always within reaching distance. I just imagined my naked self running around my small apartment with a chef knife and yakety sax was playing in my head. That's this song is you don't recognize it by the name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=Zcq_xLi2NGo
I felt very absorbed and in the moment while reading this book. I skipped around like I said, but it was a lot of fun. It made me wonder what the lives were like of those who had held and made use of this book over the years. It was very interesting and I think everyone should enjoy an old book like this sometime. A book that is as old as this is worth more to me that going to see a new movie in theaters. To me it's like the difference in watching your friend throw down a windmill dunk and actually owning a working windmill. I don't know what windmill's are used for, crushing grain I think? But if I could have one, I'd definitely have one. Because it's awesome, it's old and it might make people think that I'm more of an artisan than I could ever actually be. A local journalist could totally expose me for not knowing jack about crushing grain.
The section on what a drug addict is was a bit eye opening. The experiences of the drug addict described in the book are the same as what you'll find today, tremendous suffering. The book said that drug addicts become addicts of the mind. I'm not sure if that means that they thought morphine addiction was only in your head or what. But it's definitely not just in your head. That part read the way most addiction writing reads today, as though a lot more research needs to be done.
Click here if you have a hobby that you would like to turn into a business: https://e8b2fa0bng3qzbv8xafqmnbo9p.hop.clickbank.net/
Click on any of these if you want to enjoy some legendary comedy:
Book Review: The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979)
So this book was recommended to me by an old hippie couple back when I was playing Bioshock Infinite. Bioshock Infinite opened my eyes to the wild world of quantum mechanics and so I asked around if anybody knew anybody that could tell me more about the subject. Eventually I was drinking at a bar, which is a common thread in my stories, and found myself blabbing about it the aforementioned hippie couple. They told me that reading this book would expand my mind. Well it fucking didn't, and the only thing that it could expand is your ability to tolerate total bullshit.
As far as I could tell, the book was trying to convince us that the secret to understanding quantum mechanics was to return to spiritualism. That should be a setup and punchline all on it's own but I'll keep going anyway. I would rather build a safety net out of shoe strings and free fall into it off of a sky scraper before I would ever consult a shaman/preacher over a doctor. For me, that's what a return to spiritualism is all about. I don't trust anyone to do anything right, but a it's a lot harder to be a crappy doctor than it is to be a great shaman/preacher.
If you're trying to decide what book you want to read and this is the most appealing option that you have at your disposal, then all you're deciding is which cooking oil to use when you burn your house down. This book is the Laura Lynn vegetable oil of books. Your brain is the house bursting into flames.
The book calls scientists "technicians" and says that they are essentially not interested in anything new. Only in applying what is already known. That is simply false. After Francis Bacon and the scientific method, the world becomes bearable from a technological standpoint. Science and scientist are the human part of creating things that are useful, creative and progressive for humanity. I don't care if anyone disagrees. I would rather have an AC unit over an oil painting any day of the week. I say that while still loving art, a huge part of my heart will always be owned by art, but c'mon, at some point we gotta just tell the truth.
As far as I could tell, the book was trying to convince us that the secret to understanding quantum mechanics was to return to spiritualism. That should be a setup and punchline all on it's own but I'll keep going anyway. I would rather build a safety net out of shoe strings and free fall into it off of a sky scraper before I would ever consult a shaman/preacher over a doctor. For me, that's what a return to spiritualism is all about. I don't trust anyone to do anything right, but a it's a lot harder to be a crappy doctor than it is to be a great shaman/preacher.
I was a bit pissed once I got into the book and realized that the hippie couple must have thought that I am the dumbest guy in the world. Elsewise, how could this book expand your mind? I guess it did help me to visualize some pretty interesting stuff. I remember losing interest in the passage I was reading mid sentence and imagining what the grand canyon would like if it was completely filled to the brim with soccer balls. That was a neat bit of fantasy to enjoy.
I'll be honest with you, when it comes to books, movies and games I really only have one criteria, was this fun? I did have fun reading this book. The math, experiments and psychic mysteries that the book included are too complicated for me because I am too easily distracted. I don't think this book will expand your mind or help you understand quantum mechanics. But it was fun to read and I now have the memory of it to reference when talking to friends in bars. Even the wacko 60 year old hippies that sit down next to me without an invitation and with plenty of open bar stools elsewhere. So I had a good time with it, but I don't think most people would. Ultimately I do not recommend you read this book if you want to learn more about quantum mechanics. In the meantime I'm going to be reminiscing on that time in the past when I was so high at Mcdonalds that I was pretty sure that if focused really hard, I would be able to make my chicken nuggets levitate. For me, that was my return to spiritualism.
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Click here if you remember the soundtrack to this awesome game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JurCtPXtC0Q
This is the wacky book if you want to give it a shot. Down here is the Bioshock collection. It includes Bioshock 1, 2 and Infinite. Bioshock infinite was and is the only thing I know about quantum mechanics.
Click here if you have a hobby that you would like to turn into a business: https://e8b2fa0bng3qzbv8xafqmnbo9p.hop.clickbank.net/
Click here if you remember the soundtrack to this awesome game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JurCtPXtC0Q
This is the wacky book if you want to give it a shot. Down here is the Bioshock collection. It includes Bioshock 1, 2 and Infinite. Bioshock infinite was and is the only thing I know about quantum mechanics.
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