Episode · EconTalk · 2019-11-04
Books mentioned on Venkatesh Rao on Waldenponding
Writer and management consultant Venkatesh Rao talks about Waldenponding with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Rao coined the term Waldenponding to describe various levels of retreating from technology akin to how Thoreau extolled the virtues of retreating from social contact and leading a quieter life at Walden Pond.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Walden
Walden by Henry David Thoreau is a classic transcendentalist masterwork detailing the author's experiences living in a cabin near Concord, Massachusetts, while reflecting on nature, solitude, and self-reliance.
Discussed“so the basic idea is you've got this friend of people advocating some sort of retreat from digital media and of course the Walden funding is a reference tool toros Walden so the idea of not necessarily literally retreating to a log cabin in the woods to meditate though a lot of people actually do some literal version of that”
Where to get it
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The Shallows
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr is an influential examination of how digital technology and constant connectivity alter human cognition, diminish attention spans, and degrade the capacity for deep reading.
Discussed“Nick Carr who I think inaugurated this particular trend when he wrote the shallows almost a decade ago he actually quotes Plato and Phaedra's sense as right still this time it's different Google is making us stupid”
Where to get it
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The Wisdom of Crowds
The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki is an influential examination of how large groups of diverse individuals can collectively possess greater intelligence and problem-solving capacity than individual experts.
Discussed“I mean you had sort of Ricky with his wisdom of crowds book I think that was 2002 so we've been having this conversation for at least a couple of decades and we now know a lot more”
Where to get it
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Deep Work
Deep Work by Cal Newport is a productivity guide that outlines rules for achieving focused success in a distracted world.
Discussed“so the reason I'm bringing that up is if you look at this conversation we've been having it for about 15-20 years then I'm Nick Carr Cal Newport on deep work all that stuff but it got particularly acute in the last three or four years for a couple of unrelated reasons”
Where to get it
