Books Mentioned in This Podcast
Aurora
Buy on AmazonThere's also a different perspective presented in Kim Stanley Robinson's book 'Aurora.' Many century ship stories exist where Earth sends out a generation ship to colonize another planet, only to discover that the planet isn't actually habitable for Earth life.
Episode: Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455
De rerum natura
Buy on AmazonThis is the frontier we are in, and that was the topic of my last book, "Light of the Stars." You've got to do the astrobiology of the Anthropocene.
Episode: Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455
Altered Carbon
Buy on Amazon"Altered Carbon" is a great series on this concept. I think it’s on Netflix; it's a really good series where that’s exactly the idea of sleeves.
Episode: Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Buy on AmazonAnd every koan, you know, if you've ever read 'Godel, Escher, Bach', he's got a whole chapter on koans. They're kind of non-logical problems that you have to work on.
Episode: Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455
Why England slept
Buy on AmazonI have an original copy of that book, which is one of my most prized possessions. From 1939, this was a 23-year-old kid, who the hell are you, John F. Kennedy?
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
40 more years
Buy on AmazonIn 2008, James Carville wrote a book that I always refer to, titled '40 More Years,' claiming Democrats would never lose an election again after the Obama coalition landslide. I was born in 1992, I watched red states go blue, I've seen blue states go red, and seen swing states change as well.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
Coming apart
Buy on AmazonOne of my favorite books is called 'Coming Apart' by Charles Murray, which underscores how the cultural environment that people experience while attending college affects their entire trajectory in life. It influences everything from where they move, who they marry, to their grocery shopping habits and the television shows they watch.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
The age of entitlement
Buy on AmazonTwo books I recommend are 'The Origins of Woke' by Richard Hanania and 'The Age of Entitlement' by Christopher Caldwell. It's effectively a religion, and its meaning varies among different people.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
Born Fighting
Buy on AmazonNow I have to return to Jim Webb's book, an incredible read that delves into the legacy of the Scots-Irish. War, that's the— Yeah.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
Essence of decision
Buy on AmazonWe were forced to read 'Essence of Decision' by Graham Allison in graduate school, and I'm so thankful we did. It's one of the foundations of political science because it lays out theories of how government works.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
Why England slept
Buy on AmazonHe wrote a book in 1939 called 'Why England Slept,' which is still considered a foundational text that explains in detail why Neville Chamberlain and the British political system arrived at the policy of appeasement. I actually have an original copy, and it's one of my most prized possessions because this is a 23-year-old kid; who the heck is John F. Kennedy?
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
The Unwinding
Buy on AmazonI really believe that Ta-Nehisi Coates's case for reparations in The Atlantic is one of those. It radicalized an entire generation of basically like white college-educated women to think completely differently on race.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Buy on AmazonI've been deep diving on Genghis Khan. Reading 'Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.' Yeah, Jack Weatherford.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
The Loudest Voice in the Room
Buy on AmazonRoger Ailes, who is a genius, shout out to 'The Loudest Voice in the Room' by Gabriel Sherman. That book changed my life, too, because it really made me understand media.
Episode: Saagar Enjeti: Trump, MAGA, DOGE, Obama, FDR, JFK, History & Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #454
Human Action
Buy on AmazonThen I started to read very intensively and I remember, for example, the experience of reading 'Human Action' by Mises, and this was a book that I didn't know about.
Episode: Javier Milei: President of Argentina - Freedom, Economics, and Corruption | Lex Fridman Podcast #453
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Buy on AmazonI had a vague idea about the Austrian School; the only thing I had read about the Austrian School until then had been 'Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles,' a very good book by Jesús Huerta de Soto.
Episode: Javier Milei: President of Argentina - Freedom, Economics, and Corruption | Lex Fridman Podcast #453
The Road to Serfdom
Buy on AmazonHe also pointed out, and this is proven in Hayek's book 'The Road to Serfdom,' that any middle ground solution is unstable in terms of capitalism, meaning it tends towards socialism.
Episode: Javier Milei: President of Argentina - Freedom, Economics, and Corruption | Lex Fridman Podcast #453
A Sand County Almanac
Buy on AmazonIt also increases this concept from Leopold's essay called 'unhobbling', where models are hobbled and then trained to be unhobble.
Episode: Dario Amodei: Anthropic CEO on Claude, AGI & the Future of AI & Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #452
My silent war
Buy on AmazonBut he also made this statement, I think it's in the preface to his autobiography. And he says, one never looks twice at the offer of service in elite force.
Episode: Rick Spence: CIA, KGB, Illuminati, Secret Societies, Cults & Conspiracies | Lex Fridman Podcast #451
Fighting Soul
Buy on AmazonAri Rabin-Havt, a former deputy campaign manager, wrote a great book depicting your journey, titled "The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders."
Episode: Bernie Sanders Interview | Lex Fridman Podcast #450
Underworld
Buy on AmazonBut by 2002, when I published a book called 'Underworld', which was the most massive and heavy book that I've ever written because I was writing very defensively at the time.
Episode: Graham Hancock: Lost Civilization of the Ice Age & Ancient Human History | Lex Fridman Podcast #449
Hamlet's mill
Buy on AmazonThey wrote an immense book in the 1960s called 'Hamlet's Mill'.
Episode: Graham Hancock: Lost Civilization of the Ice Age & Ancient Human History | Lex Fridman Podcast #449
Food of the Gods
Buy on AmazonThere are two names that need to be mentioned: the late, great Terence McKenna and his book Food of the Gods, where he strongly proposed the idea that our ancestral encounters with psychedelics made us fully human.
Episode: Graham Hancock: Lost Civilization of the Ice Age & Ancient Human History | Lex Fridman Podcast #449
The Sacred and the Profane
Buy on AmazonEliade is like that too, and I used his book, "The Sacred and the Profane," extensively in a new book I’ll be releasing in mid-November titled "We Who Wrestle With God."
Episode: Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #448
1984
Buy on AmazonYet, it can be summoned, as depicted in '1984' with the concept of the two minutes of hate; with the right rhetoric, our primal selves can be unleashed, leading to destruction.
Episode: Ed Barnhart: Maya, Aztec, Inca, and Lost Civilizations of South America | Lex Fridman Podcast #446
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonTo try to analyze Hitler's acts or alleged motives in the absence of the ideology that he himself subscribed to and described in hateful detail in 'Mein Kampf' and other manifestos and speeches is an enterprise that's doomed to failure, justifiably.
Episode: Vejas Liulevicius: Communism, Marxism, Nazism, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler | Lex Fridman Podcast #444
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire
Buy on AmazonThere was a military strategist, a guy named Edward Luttwak, who wrote this book, "The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire," which was basically about frontiers and how the Romans defined their frontier. And everybody's jumped on this and argued about it, and says it's wrong and all, but it started this debate among Roman historians about, yeah, what does frontier mean to the Romans?
Episode: Gregory Aldrete: The Roman Empire - Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome | Lex Fridman Podcast #443
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Buy on AmazonAs an example, I admire William Shirer, the author of many books on Hitler, including "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." He was there and lived through it and covered it objectively to the degree that one could.
The Wealth of Nations
Buy on AmazonIf you think free markets mean there is no government, you read it wrong; go back and reread Adam Smith.
Episode: Cenk Uygur: Trump vs Harris, Progressive Politics, Communism & Capitalism | Lex Fridman Podcast #441
Snow Crash
Buy on AmazonSome of the first books I picked up included 'Ender’s Game,' the entire saga by Orson Scott Card, 'Neuromancer' by William Gibson, and 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson.
Episode: Elon Musk: Neuralink and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #438
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonI didn't aim for it; I hoped it was a tangential benefit, but aimed at something else. That was the lessons I got from "The Gulag Archipelago."
Episode: Jordan Jonas: Survival, Hunting, Siberia, God, and Winning Alone Season 6 | Lex Fridman Podcast #437
The Creative Act
Buy on AmazonBut you've also mentioned someone you admire is Rick Rubin and his book 'The Creative Act.' It has some really interesting ideas, and one of them is to accept self-doubt and imperfection.
Episode: Ivanka Trump: Politics, Family, Real Estate, Fashion, Music, and Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #436
Under Saturn's Shadow
Buy on AmazonJames Hollis is an 84-year-old Jungian psychoanalyst who's written 17 books, including 'Under Saturn's Shadow,' which is on the healing and trauma of men, 'The Eden Project,' excuse me, which is about relationships and creating a life.
Episode: Andrew Huberman: Focus, Controversy, Politics, and Relationships | Lex Fridman Podcast #435
The Eden Project
Buy on AmazonJames Hollis is an 84-year-old Jungian psychoanalyst who's written 17 books, including 'Under Saturn's Shadow,' which is on the healing and trauma of men, 'The Eden Project,' excuse me, which is about relationships and creating a life.
Episode: Andrew Huberman: Focus, Controversy, Politics, and Relationships | Lex Fridman Podcast #435
The beginning of infinity
Buy on AmazonThis concept is elaborated upon in the book 'The Beginning of Infinity' by David Deutsch. You are always pursuing new knowledge.
Episode: Aravind Srinivas: Perplexity CEO on Future of AI, Search & the Internet | Lex Fridman Podcast #434
The Art of War
Buy on AmazonThe pivotal point to recognize is that there’s this quote from 'The Art of War': 'Make the weakness of your enemy a strength.' The core weakness of Google is that any ad unit less profitable than a link or one that discourages link clicks isn’t in their interests to pursue aggressively; they prefer to focus on something higher-margin.
Episode: Aravind Srinivas: Perplexity CEO on Future of AI, Search & the Internet | Lex Fridman Podcast #434
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonIn Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously writes about the line between good and evil and how it runs through every man's heart.
Episode: Kevin Spacey: Power, Controversy, Betrayal, Truth & Love in Film and Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #432
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonMost of them are going to be things like 'Brave New World,' where, you know, the squirrels are fed dopamine, and they're all engaging in some kind of fun activity, and the fire, the soul of humanity is lost because of the drug that's fed to it. Or like literally in a zoo.
Episode: Roman Yampolskiy: Dangers of Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #431
Dune
Buy on AmazonNow, let me leave you with some words from Frank Herbert in 'Dune': 'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
Episode: Roman Yampolskiy: Dangers of Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #431
1984
Buy on AmazonI remember reading '1984,' where, sorry for the dark turn of our conversation, but through torture you can make people say anything and essentially remember anything. I wonder to which degree there's truth to that.
Episode: Charan Ranganath: Human Memory, Imagination, Deja Vu, and False Memories | Lex Fridman Podcast #430
Mother of God
Buy on AmazonIn 'Mother of God', I write about the first one that me and JJ caught together, which was probably a little bigger than this table.
Episode: Paul Rosolie: Jungle, Apex Predators, Aliens, Uncontacted Tribes, and God | Lex Fridman Podcast #429
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Buy on AmazonYou go back to that Frans de Waal book, 'Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?', there's so many incredible examples of controlled studies where the researchers didn't understand how to shed this insurmountably human perspective and recognize that there's other types of intelligence, whether that's in elephants or cats.
Episode: Paul Rosolie: Jungle, Apex Predators, Aliens, Uncontacted Tribes, and God | Lex Fridman Podcast #429
One River
Buy on AmazonRichard Evan Schultes is someone I learned about from Wade Davis’ book ‘One River,’ which is this hefty tome about the Amazon.
Episode: Paul Rosolie: Jungle, Apex Predators, Aliens, Uncontacted Tribes, and God | Lex Fridman Podcast #429
Biggest Ideas in the Universe
Buy on AmazonHe is a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins, host of the Mindscape Podcast that I personally love and highly recommend, and author of many books, including the most recent book series called 'The Biggest Ideas in the Universe,' the first book of which is titled 'Space, Time, and Motion,' and it's on the topic of general relativity.
Episode: Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428
Quanta and Fields
Buy on AmazonThe second book, coming out on May 14th, which you should definitely pre-order, is titled 'Quanta and Fields.' That one is on the topic of quantum mechanics.
Episode: Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428
Über die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie
Buy on AmazonSo that's why I keep needing to distinguish between black holes according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is book one of 'Spacetime and Geometry,' which is perfectly classical.
Episode: Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428
The Fellowship of the Ring
Buy on AmazonI reckon that warrants some comparison to The Lord of the Rings, , , , , , .
Episode: Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428
The great shark hunt
Buy on AmazonI really like a particular Hunter S. Thompson book called 'The Great Shark Hunt', where he covers the Ruben Salazar murder by LAPD or LA Sheriff's Department in Boyle Heights in the '70s. His relationship with his lawyer, Oscar Acosta, and that whole saga is great. 'Fear and Loathing' I like, but not as much as his straightforward reporting.
Episode: Andrew Callaghan: Channel 5, Gonzo, QAnon, O-Block, Politics & Alex Jones | Lex Fridman Podcast #425
Vagabonding in America
Buy on AmazonThere was this book— Yeah. called 'Vagabonding in America' by an old hobo Ed Buryn. I read this and it just basically, some of it was outdated. They had stuff in there like the hobo code, like, oh, this moniker on the side of a fence means this person has free soup or something like that.
Episode: Andrew Callaghan: Channel 5, Gonzo, QAnon, O-Block, Politics & Alex Jones | Lex Fridman Podcast #425
On the Road
Buy on AmazonUltimately, I wrote a book about my hitchhiking experience years later. And everyone was like, have you read 'On the Road'? And then, 'On the Road', I probably heard the title of that book every day at least 10 times for two years.
Episode: Andrew Callaghan: Channel 5, Gonzo, QAnon, O-Block, Politics & Alex Jones | Lex Fridman Podcast #425
Who Is Barack Obama?
Buy on AmazonIs there any hope here, solutions, short-term, long-term? Obama kind of summarized this beautifully in his book.
Episode: Bassem Youssef: Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Middle East, Satire & Fame | Lex Fridman Podcast #424
Forcing the Hand of God
Buy on AmazonThere's an incredible book called 'Forcing the Hands of God.' Oh, beautiful book.
Episode: Bassem Youssef: Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Middle East, Satire & Fame | Lex Fridman Podcast #424
For Love of Country
Buy on AmazonShe served in the U.S. military for many years, achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and now she's the author of a new book called 'For Love of Country.'
Episode: Tulsi Gabbard: War, Politics, and the Military Industrial Complex | Lex Fridman Podcast #423
For Love of Country
Buy on AmazonAlthough I was a long-time Democrat and even ran for president in 2020, I now identify as an independent, having written a book detailing my ideological journey that led to this choice.
Episode: Tulsi Gabbard: War, Politics, and the Military Industrial Complex | Lex Fridman Podcast #423
For Love of Country
Buy on AmazonIn my book, I delve into these issues and more, emphasizing how the Democratic Party has become consumed by power, willing to undermining our democracy, freedom, and Republic—all to absorb greater influence.
Episode: Tulsi Gabbard: War, Politics, and the Military Industrial Complex | Lex Fridman Podcast #423
The Bhagavad gita
Buy on AmazonYou have spoken about the value of religious faith in your life, particularly your Hindu faith, viewing the Bhagavad Gita as a spiritual guide. What role does faith in God play in your life?
Episode: Tulsi Gabbard: War, Politics, and the Military Industrial Complex | Lex Fridman Podcast #423
Historia Alexandri Magni
Buy on AmazonAt the same time, I read Christopher Rufo's book where he discusses the genealogy of wokeism and ideology.
Episode: Mark Cuban: Shark Tank, DEI & Wokeism Debate, Elon Musk, Politics & Drugs | Lex Fridman Podcast #422
Operation paperclip
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Annie Jacobsen, an investigative journalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and author of several amazing books on war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security, including the books titled 'Area 51', 'Operation Paperclip', 'The Pentagon's Brain Phenomena', 'Surprise, Kill, Vanish', and her new book, 'Nuclear War'.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Surprise, Kill, Vanish
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Annie Jacobsen, an investigative journalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and author of several amazing books on war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security, including the books titled 'Area 51', 'Operation Paperclip', 'The Pentagon's Brain Phenomena', 'Surprise, Kill, Vanish', and her new book, 'Nuclear War'.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Nuclear War
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Annie Jacobsen, an investigative journalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and author of several amazing books on war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security, including the books titled 'Area 51', 'Operation Paperclip', 'The Pentagon's Brain Phenomena', 'Surprise, Kill, Vanish', and her new book, 'Nuclear War'.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Nuclear War
Buy on AmazonThat was one of the most remarkable details I really nailed down for this book when I was reporting it and talking to Secretaries of Defense.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Nuclear War
Buy on AmazonI think the sense-making part of this is really what I'm after in this book, because I want people to understand, on the one hand, it's incredibly simple; it's just the people that have made it so complicated.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
The Cold and the Dark
Buy on AmazonCarl Sagan talked about that in this amazing book he wrote with two scientist colleagues called "The Cold and the Dark."
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Phenomena
Buy on AmazonYou've written, like you said, the book "Phenomena" on the secret history of the US government's investigations into extrasensory perception and psychokinesis.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Area 51
Buy on AmazonI mean, my first learning about the CIA came from the work I did on the "Area 51" book about their aerial reconnaissance programs, which were set up again to prevent World War III, nuclear World War III.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Surprise, Kill, Vanish
Buy on AmazonLater, I wrote a book about the CIA's paramilitary, "Surprise, Kill, Vanish."
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
First Platoon
Buy on AmazonBut the real problem, what has happened, and I write about this in my book, 'First Platoon', which is about a group of young soldiers who goes to Afghanistan and unwittingly becomes part of the Defense Department’s biome efforts to capture biometrics on 85% of the population of Afghanistan.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Operation paperclip
Buy on AmazonIn my research on Third Reich weapons for 'Operation Paperclip', because of course, we got a lot of those scientists after.
Episode: Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420
Kitchen Confidential
Buy on Amazon- Yeah, he wrote a book called "Kitchen Confidential," in the 90s. I was in cooking school at the time. It was so... he romanticized cooking in the restaurant so well.
Episode: Kimbal Musk: The Art of Cooking, Tesla, SpaceX, Zip2, and Family | Lex Fridman Podcast #417
Russo-Ukrainian War
Buy on AmazonHe has written many insightful books on Ukraine and Russia, the Soviet Union, and Slavic peoples in general, spanning centuries on topics like Chernobyl and nuclear disasters, as well as the current war in Ukraine, in a book titled The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History.
Episode: Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415
Lost Kingdom
Buy on AmazonAdmittedly, in that book, I concluded in the 18th century before the rise of nationalism, but subsequent works, like Lost Kingdom, trace the story further into modern times.
Episode: Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415
The Man With the Golden Gun
Buy on AmazonHe did this with a new weapon, a spray pistol that later made it into Ian Fleming's Bond novel, The Man With The Golden Gun.
Episode: Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415
Atoms and Ashes - a Global History of Nuclear Disasters
Buy on AmazonLet me switch gears and ask about nuclear safety, as you brought an intriguing point in your book, 'Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disaster.'
Episode: Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415
Nuclear Folly
Buy on AmazonYes, you've authored a great book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, where we came alarmingly close to not just another world war but to a nuclear conflict that could obliterate human civilization as we know it.
Episode: Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonYou've previously examined the Russian question, particularly as articulated by Solzhenitsyn in 1994—author known for the Gulag Archipelago and of half-Ukrainian descent.
Episode: Serhii Plokhy: History of Ukraine, Russia, Soviet Union, KGB, Nazis & War | Lex Fridman Podcast #415
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonThere's no idea, there's no—I mean there's no 'Mein Kampf' is not 'Das Kapital', right? 'Mein Kampf' is—like, to the extent I understand it, it's like he's about the Treaty of Versailles.
Episode: Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #414
The intelligent investor
Buy on AmazonIn your lecture on the basics of finance and investing, you mention the book 'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham as being formative in your life.
Episode: Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413
The intelligent investor
Buy on AmazonThe key is to buy at a price that represents a big discount to that approximation. That gets back to Ben Graham.
Episode: Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413
The intelligent investor
Buy on AmazonAs Mr. Graham said, in the short term, the market acts like a voting machine with a bunch of lemmings voting in one direction, which can be concerning.
Episode: Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413
America's Cultural Revolution
Buy on AmazonI had someone—a friend of mine—send me Christopher Rufo’s book 'America's Cultural Revolution,' which is sort of a sociological study of the origins of the DEI movement and critical race theory.
Episode: Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413
Martin & Malcolm & America
Buy on AmazonJames Cone wrote a book called 'Malcolm and Martin: Dreams and Nightmares.'
Episode: Omar Suleiman: Palestine, Gaza, Oct 7, Israel, Resistance, Faith & Islam | Lex Fridman Podcast #411
The Quest for Cosmic Justice
Buy on AmazonThe quest for cosmic justice, as Thomas Sowell suggests, is something that government is generally incapable of doing and more often than not botches and makes things worse.
Episode: Ben Shapiro vs Destiny Debate: Politics, Jan 6, Israel, Ukraine & Wokeism | Lex Fridman Podcast #410
Critical Race Theory
Buy on AmazonThat is the generalized theory of critical race theory as proposed by for example, Richard Delgado in their book on critical race theory that has taken a softer form that we refer to as DEI.
Episode: Ben Shapiro vs Destiny Debate: Politics, Jan 6, Israel, Ukraine & Wokeism | Lex Fridman Podcast #410
The ultimate book of boxing lists
Buy on AmazonYou wrote in the book that your father had a big influence on your life. What lessons have you learned about life from your father?
Episode: Teddy Atlas: Mike Tyson, Cus D'Amato, Boxing, Loyalty, Fear & Greatness | Lex Fridman Podcast #406
The Fabric of Reality
Buy on AmazonI think it’s referenced in David Deutsch’s "The Fabric of Reality," where essentially, you know, the farmer feeds the chicken daily, and the chicken grows fat and happy.
Episode: Lee Cronin: Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe | Lex Fridman Podcast #404
Dark matter and the dinosaurs
Buy on AmazonIn my book, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, I talk about the many different ways. There's eight or nine that we deduce not just the existence of dark matter but how much is there.
Episode: Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403
Dark matter and the dinosaurs
Buy on AmazonOkay, so you also write in that book about dark matter having to do something with the extinction events, the extinction of the dinosaurs, which is kind of a fascinating presentation of how everything is connected.
Episode: Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403
Dark matter and the dinosaurs
Buy on AmazonI mean, I do, I mean, I talk about this in Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs. It's just an amazing scientific story because it really is one of the real stories that combine together different fields of science.
Episode: Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403
Dark matter and the dinosaurs
Buy on AmazonSo I'm really, really glad you mentioned that because actually, that was one of the main points of my book, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs. One of the reasons I wrote it was because I really think we are abusing the planet.
Episode: Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403
WARPED PASSAGES
Buy on AmazonI mean, one of the really interesting pieces of physics we did that I talk about in my first book, "Warped Passages," is finding out that there can be a higher dimension, but only locally do you think there's a gravity of a lower dimension.
Episode: Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403
Knocking on heaven's door
Buy on AmazonAnd I think that's just good advice for everything, to try to find like why it is the way it is. I talk about effective theory in my second book, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," a lot.
Episode: Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403
1984
Buy on AmazonNo, I think it’s like in '1984', the two minutes of hate; there is a part of humans that wants to be tribal and wants to direct anger and get hateful.
Episode: Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #402
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonI see on your bookshelf, I think the world is a lot closer to 'Brave New World' than it is to '1984.'
Episode: Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #402
Animal Farm
Buy on AmazonI mean, it's 'Catcher in the Rye'. There are a lot of books that seem trivial.
Episode: Michael Malice: Thanksgiving Pirate Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #402
Leviathan
Buy on AmazonHobbes's view is that the way to get out of this terrible situation, where individuals are competing with each other and even killing each other, is to create a state, which he calls the Leviathan. That is, of course, the title of his famous book.
Episode: John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 | Lex Fridman Podcast #401
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonNo, it probably will go to Brave New World. What would be the question? Tell us about the drug called Soma.
Episode: Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400
Brave New World
Buy on Amazon(Elon) No, I mean Soma from Brave New World. It’s going to be like, oops, I’m really sorry.
Episode: Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonSoma from Brave New World is a different beast altogether. Now in this Huxley's dystopian novel, Soma is a drug that plays a central role in society as depicted in the book.
Episode: Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400
Elon Musk
Buy on AmazonWalter Isaacson, in his new biography of you, wrote about your difficult childhood. Will you ever find forgiveness in your heart for everything that has happened to you during that period of your life?
Episode: Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400
Thirteen days in September
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Episode: Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast #399
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Buy on AmazonOne of my favorite quotes is from 'Alice in Wonderland,' where the Cheshire Cat says, 'If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter which path you take.'
Episode: Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East | Lex Fridman Podcast #399
1984
Buy on AmazonIs it legally possible to create extra protections for certain kinds of literature, like '1984' or similar works, to remain in the curriculum? Already, all literature is protected, I guess.
Episode: Greg Lukianoff: Cancel Culture, Deplatforming, Censorship & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #397
How to Stay in Love
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with James Sexton, a divorce attorney and the author of 'How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together.'
Episode: James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #396
How to stay in love
Buy on AmazonYou write in the book, which everybody should get, it's a great book, it's a great read, it's a window into your soul.
Episode: James Sexton: Divorce Lawyer on Marriage, Relationships, Sex, Lies & Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #396
Dreams from My Father
Buy on AmazonBarack Obama wrote in his memoir, "Every successful man is either trying to live up to his father's expectations or live down his father's sins." This is especially relevant for Elon, who had a violent and troubled childhood, with a psychologically complex father.
Episode: Walter Isaacson: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Da Vinci & Ben Franklin | Lex Fridman Podcast #395
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Buy on AmazonOne of my theories on Elon, a minor theory, is that he may have read 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' a few times too often. And as you know, there's a scene that says there's a theory about the universe that if anyone ever discovers the secret meanings of the universe, it will be replaced by an even more complex universe.
Episode: Walter Isaacson: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Da Vinci & Ben Franklin | Lex Fridman Podcast #395
Lyndon Johnson and the American dream
Buy on AmazonAnd when she was going for tenure at the university, she wrote a biography of 'Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.' They denied her tenure because it was beneath the dignity of the academy to write history through one person.
Episode: Walter Isaacson: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Da Vinci & Ben Franklin | Lex Fridman Podcast #395
The Code Breaker
Buy on AmazonThat's one of the reasons you write books about these people, so that if you're a young woman in a school where you're not being told to do science, and you read 'The Code Breaker' about Jennifer Doudna, you say, 'Okay, I can be that.'
Episode: Walter Isaacson: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Da Vinci & Ben Franklin | Lex Fridman Podcast #395
Moby Dick
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Episode: Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature | Lex Fridman Podcast #394
Connections
Buy on AmazonDeisseroth, when he was on your podcast, mentioned something—perhaps it was in his book, I don’t recall—that love is one of these things we create narratives around.
Episode: Andrew Huberman: Relationships, Drama, Betrayal, Sex, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #393
... Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen
Buy on AmazonThis external source of coherence and inspiration of how to take the leap into the unknown that we humans do. Man search for meaning. LLMs search for meaning.
Episode: Joscha Bach: Life, Intelligence, Consciousness, AI & the Future of Humans | Lex Fridman Podcast #392
ההיסטוריה של המחר
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, philosopher, and author of several highly acclaimed, highly influential books, including 'Sapiens', 'Homo Deus', and '21 Lessons for the 21st Century'.
Episode: Yuval Noah Harari: Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies | Lex Fridman Podcast #390
ההיסטוריה של המחר
Buy on AmazonYou wrote in 'Homo Deus' about Hitler, suggesting that he was not a particularly impressive person; is that an accurate characterization? Did I say that?
Episode: Yuval Noah Harari: Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies | Lex Fridman Podcast #390
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Buy on AmazonCamus said in 'The Myth of Sisyphus' that 'the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.'
Episode: Robert F. Kennedy Jr: CIA, Power, Corruption, War, Freedom, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #388
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
Buy on AmazonTo me, reading Camus, particularly in 'The Myth of Sisyphus,' serves as a parable.
Episode: Robert F. Kennedy Jr: CIA, Power, Corruption, War, Freedom, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #388
Infinite jest
Buy on AmazonSo, 'Infinite Jest,' it's introduced in the first 50 pages is about a tape that once you watch it once, you only ever wanna watch that tape.
Episode: George Hotz: Tiny Corp, Twitter, AI Safety, Self-Driving, GPT, AGI & God | Lex Fridman Podcast #387
Infinite jest
Buy on AmazonSo, 'Infinite Jest,' it's introduced in the first 50 pages is about a tape that once you watch it once, you only ever wanna watch that tape.
Episode: George Hotz: Tiny Corp, Twitter, AI Safety, Self-Driving, GPT, AGI & God | Lex Fridman Podcast #387
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect
Buy on AmazonThere's a great book, and if I recommended 'Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect' last time, there is a sequel called 'A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace.'
Episode: George Hotz: Tiny Corp, Twitter, AI Safety, Self-Driving, GPT, AGI & God | Lex Fridman Podcast #387
Theory of rational option pricing
Buy on AmazonI saw that Robert Merton won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on option pricing theory.
Hamlet
Buy on AmazonI mean, somebody started uploading the full text of Hamlet, for example, and we said, hmm, wait, hold on a second.
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Buy on AmazonAnd obviously, a shout out to the Hitchhiker's Guide and all that kind of stuff.
Greenlights
Buy on AmazonIn his book called 'Greenlights' and his new video course called Roadtrip, Matthew expands on the philosophy in his book and shows how to apply it to your life in order to find more happiness, success, and love.
Episode: Matthew McConaughey: Freedom, Truth, Family, Hardship, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #384
Greenlights
Buy on AmazonI just want to talk about in the book back, once you know it's inevitable, how do we get relative?
Episode: Matthew McConaughey: Freedom, Truth, Family, Hardship, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #384
Greenlights
Buy on AmazonI think the metaphor of red, yellow, green lights is just so simple and so powerful.
Episode: Matthew McConaughey: Freedom, Truth, Family, Hardship, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #384
Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus
Buy on AmazonI went for a run after she dumped me, I went into the shower and cried. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought 'Men Are From Venus, Women Are From Mars.' I watched 'Fight Club' in my closet.
Episode: Bert Kreischer: Comedy, Drinking, Rogan, Segura, Churchill & Kim Jong Un | Lex Fridman Podcast #382
The Sun Also Rises
Buy on AmazonAnd so he wrote very simply, and it wasn't until after I read a bunch of Ernest Hemingway, I was working at Barnes and Noble, and this person said, 'Don't you love his titles?' And I was like, 'Yeah, 'Sun Also Rises'.
Episode: Bert Kreischer: Comedy, Drinking, Rogan, Segura, Churchill & Kim Jong Un | Lex Fridman Podcast #382
Nigger
Buy on AmazonRandall has written a book titled 'Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.'
Episode: Randall Kennedy: The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #379
Nigger
Buy on AmazonThe book that you're referring to is 'Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.'
Episode: Randall Kennedy: The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #379
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Buy on AmazonFor instance, consider a teacher teaching Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' where the word 'nigger' appears over 200 times.
Episode: Randall Kennedy: The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #379
From slavery to freedom
Buy on AmazonOne is the continuing story of racism, which is an awful story; but the other story is encapsulated in the title of a great book of history by John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom.
Episode: Randall Kennedy: The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #379
For Discrimination
Buy on AmazonYou wrote a book on the topic titled For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law.
Episode: Randall Kennedy: The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #379
Searching for the oldest stars
Buy on AmazonAnd just, you know, this dark sky with the bright stars. And I have described this in my book years ago. If the Milky Way is all bright above you, you don't need a moon or anything, you can walk in the starlight and you will find your way.
Episode: Anna Frebel: Origin and Evolution of the Universe, Galaxies, and Stars | Lex Fridman Podcast #378
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Buy on AmazonNow let me leave you with some words from Douglas Adams in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy': 'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly 92 million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descendant life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.'
Episode: Anna Frebel: Origin and Evolution of the Universe, Galaxies, and Stars | Lex Fridman Podcast #378
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonI think I would rather read 'Mein Kampf' to understand people that hate.
Episode: Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #377
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonSomebody asked me once about what books would be required reading in literature courses, and I listed 'Mein Kampf', and they were horrified.
Episode: Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #377
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonAnd I said, 'Well, it's one of the most important books of the 20th century.'
Episode: Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #377
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonI mean, six million Jews died; an enormous number of other people died because one guy wrote a book called 'Mein Kampf' and took it seriously.
Episode: Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #377
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonIt's one of the most important books ever written; how can an educated person not have at least breezed through 'Mein Kampf'?
Episode: Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #377
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonIt's one of the most important books of the 20th century, and it's politically incorrect to read it.
Episode: Harvey Silverglate: Freedom of Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #377
A new kind of science
Buy on AmazonThis idea captured my attention, so I focused on the picture in the book, trying to understand it better.
Episode: Stephen Wolfram: ChatGPT and the Nature of Truth, Reality & Computation | Lex Fridman Podcast #376
A new kind of science
Buy on AmazonI’m deeply grateful that you wrote A New Kind of Science, that you explored this mystery of cellular automata and inspired this one little kid in me to pursue artificial intelligence in all this beautiful world.
Episode: Stephen Wolfram: ChatGPT and the Nature of Truth, Reality & Computation | Lex Fridman Podcast #376
1984
Buy on AmazonWhen I made that one video on the book 1984, I really enjoyed it. That whole process was fun. I don't think I've ever thought as hard about a book as I had to when making that video.
Episode: David Pakman: Politics of Trump, Biden, Bernie, AOC, Socialism & Wokeism | Lex Fridman Podcast #375
Animal Farm
Buy on AmazonI probably read 1984 five or ten times, I don't remember. I've read Animal Farm far more. But I don't think I had to analyze what I think about 1984.
Episode: David Pakman: Politics of Trump, Biden, Bernie, AOC, Socialism & Wokeism | Lex Fridman Podcast #375
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonLike even with 1984, my analysis allowed me to compare it to Brave New World and discuss how it was politicized and used by the Republican Party over time. You could talk about so many interesting aspects if you think about it and write it down. In general, I've found the whole process highly rewarding.
Episode: David Pakman: Politics of Trump, Biden, Bernie, AOC, Socialism & Wokeism | Lex Fridman Podcast #375
A short history of nearly everything
Buy on AmazonAnd now let me leave you some words from Bill Bryson in his book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything."
Episode: Manolis Kellis: Evolution of Human Civilization and Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #373
Anatomy
Buy on AmazonAbout the topics as well, we recently had a schoolteacher present on teaching immigrants with a book called 'Making Americans.' We had a presidential advisor to four presidents discuss changing US politics.
Episode: Manolis Kellis: Evolution of Human Civilization and Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #373
The society of mind
Buy on AmazonIn Marvin Minsky's 'The Society of Mind,' he truly thinks of the human brain as a society of different kinds of capabilities.
Episode: Manolis Kellis: Evolution of Human Civilization and Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #373
Ego is the Enemy
Buy on AmazonOne of the books that I reprogrammed my brain with at night was called 'Ego Is the Enemy.' 'Ego Is the Enemy.'
Episode: Manolis Kellis: Evolution of Human Civilization and Superintelligent AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #373
1984
Buy on Amazon- To the political complexity of 'two plus two equals five' in George Orwell's '1984.' I was in the Soviet Union in 1984, and in many ways, I see that the novel was prescient.
Episode: Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox - Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #370
1984
Buy on AmazonThe power to suffocate the human spirit in a totalitarian way like in George Orwell's '1984', or the pleasure-fueled mass hysteria of 'Brave New World', where, as Huxley saw it, people come to love their oppression and adore the technologies that undermine their capacities to think.
Episode: Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #367
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonThe power to suffocate the human spirit in a totalitarian way like in George Orwell's '1984', or the pleasure-fueled mass hysteria of 'Brave New World', where, as Huxley saw it, people come to love their oppression and adore the technologies that undermine their capacities to think.
Episode: Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #367
Free Will
Buy on AmazonAs the host of the "Making Sense Podcast," creator of the Waking Up App, and the author of many seminal books on human nature and the human mind, including "The End of Faith," "The Moral Landscape," "Lying," "Free Will," and "Waking Up," he has had a significant impact.
Episode: Sam Harris: Trump, Pandemic, Twitter, Elon, Bret, IDW, Kanye, AI & UFOs | Lex Fridman Podcast #365
Waking Up
Buy on AmazonAs the host of the "Making Sense Podcast," creator of the Waking Up App, and the author of many seminal books on human nature and the human mind, including "The End of Faith," "The Moral Landscape," "Lying," "Free Will," and "Waking Up," he has had a significant impact.
Episode: Sam Harris: Trump, Pandemic, Twitter, Elon, Bret, IDW, Kanye, AI & UFOs | Lex Fridman Podcast #365
The Godfather
Buy on AmazonWell, there's this quote from The Godfather that I wrote down; I recently re-watched it. From Don Corleone, Vito Corleone: "The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other."
Episode: B-Team Jiu Jitsu: Craig Jones, Nicky Rod, and Nicky Ryan | Lex Fridman Podcast #363
What's Our Problem?
Buy on AmazonHe's the author and illustrator of the amazing blog called 'Wait But Why,' and is the author of a new book coming out tomorrow called 'What's Our Problem: A Self-Help Book For Societies.'
Episode: Tim Urban: Tribalism, Marxism, Liberalism, Social Justice, and Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #360
What's Our Problem?
Buy on AmazonYou wrote an incredible book called 'What's Our Problem: A Self-Help Book For Societies.' In the beginning, you present this view of human history as a thousand-page book where each page represents 250 years.
Episode: Tim Urban: Tribalism, Marxism, Liberalism, Social Justice, and Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #360
A Walk in the Woods
Buy on AmazonI remember reading a book that talked about hiking the Appalachian Trail. You might miss those hot showers for a bit, but after a few months or years, you'd get used to it.
Episode: Tim Urban: Tribalism, Marxism, Liberalism, Social Justice, and Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #360
Consider Phlebas
Buy on AmazonThe dream is to have the good overpower the bad — have you ever read the Culture Series by Iain Banks? Not yet, but I get criticized daily by mutual friends for not having done so, and I feel like a lesser man as a result.
Episode: Tim Urban: Tribalism, Marxism, Liberalism, Social Justice, and Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #360
Why We're Polarized
Buy on AmazonIt's very complex. Ezra Klein has a great book, 'Why We're Polarized,' where he talks about a lot of this.
Episode: Tim Urban: Tribalism, Marxism, Liberalism, Social Justice, and Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #360
Dreams of a final theory
Buy on AmazonSo Weinberg has this book called 'Dreams of a Final Theory.' Yeah. And I had this conversation with him; I said, 'Why do you think there’s ever going to be a final theory?
Episode: Andrew Strominger: Black Holes, Quantum Gravity, and Theoretical Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #359
A new kind of science
Buy on AmazonI just don’t think, you know, he wrote a book, A New Kind of Science, basically hinting at which a lot of people offended as like, we don’t have a good way to talk about these objects.
Episode: Andrew Strominger: Black Holes, Quantum Gravity, and Theoretical Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #359
Brave New World
Buy on AmazonI'm reading a bunch of books; one of them is Brave New World where they remove the ups and downs of life—um, partially through drugs but over sexualization—all that kind of stuff, and I feel like you need that contrast—you need the ups and downs of life. Yeah, the dark; you know, you need the dark to have happiness, have like a deeply intense feeling of affection towards another thing or a human being.
Episode: Aella: Sex Work, OnlyFans, Porn, Escorting, Dating, and Human Sexuality | Lex Fridman Podcast #358
Animal Farm
Buy on AmazonFor the critics in the stands, chanting the latest slogans of the mass hysteria machine like sheep in 'Animal Farm'. I love you too.
Episode: Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Ukraine, War, Peace, Putin, Trump, NATO, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #456
Pale Blue Dot
Buy on AmazonTo support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now let me leave you with some words from Carl Sagan: 'Perhaps the aliens are here but are hiding because of some galactic ethic of non-interference with emerging civilizations.'
Episode: David Kipping: Alien Civilizations and Habitable Worlds | Lex Fridman Podcast #355
Animal Farm
Buy on AmazonIf you work hard enough, just like in Animal Farm, you'll be like Boxer and be slaughtered unjustly by those who are much more powerful than you because you’ll be happy when you’re slaughtered.
Episode: Jeremi Suri: Civil War, Slavery, Freedom, and Democracy | Lex Fridman Podcast #354
1984
Buy on AmazonAnimal Farm remains one of my favorite books, and I'm currently re-reading '1984.'
Episode: Jeremi Suri: Civil War, Slavery, Freedom, and Democracy | Lex Fridman Podcast #354
Wonderful Life the Burgess
Buy on AmazonFor instance, in the 80s, perhaps earlier, Stephen Jay Gould's book, 'Wonderful Life', changed many scientists' lives, including mine.
Episode: Betül Kaçar: Origin of Life, Ancient DNA, Panspermia, and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #350
The Socialist Manifesto
Buy on AmazonHe's a Democratic Socialist, a political writer, the founding editor of Jacobin, the president of The Nation, a former Vice Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality.
Episode: Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349
The light that failed
Buy on AmazonAs I often do, please allow me to read a few lines from the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling: 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too, if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.'
Episode: Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349
Bowling Alone
Buy on AmazonHey, you know, leisure should mean civic activity too, right? I mean, there's that famous book by Robert Putnam, 'Bowling Alone,' or whatever—he describes it for now.
Episode: Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349
Stalin's citizens
Buy on AmazonPerhaps I'll sort of reveal my bias here as I've been reading too much, maybe not enough, but a lot about, you know, books like 'Stalin's War in Ukraine,' and just I've been reading a lot about the 30s and 40s for personal reasons related to my travels in Ukraine and all that kind of stuff.
Episode: Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349
The Spirit Level
Buy on AmazonPlenty of studies point to the adverse psychological effects of inequality, as discussed in the popular book 'The Spirit Level' about how inequality adversely affects the psyches of both the rich and the poor.
Episode: Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349
The Socialist Manifesto
Buy on AmazonYou also wrote the book that we mentioned a few times, The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. What's the framework?
Episode: Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349
Solaris
Buy on AmazonNow, let me leave you with some words from Stanislav Lem's Solaris: 'How do you expect to communicate with the ocean when we can't even understand one another?'
Episode: Nathalie Cabrol: Search for Alien Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #348
Other worlds
Buy on AmazonI mean, there is not one day that goes by where I don't hear about or talk about writing a book right now about the search for life in the universe.
Episode: Nathalie Cabrol: Search for Alien Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #348
The journalist and the murderer
Buy on AmazonI think a lot of it can be summarized in this book called 'The Journalist and the Murderer' by Janet Malcolm.
Episode: Coffeezilla: SBF, FTX, Fraud, Scams, Fake Gurus, Money, Fame, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #345
The Art of War
Buy on AmazonNow, let me leave you with some words from Sun Tzu in the Art of War: 'The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy so that he cannot fathom our real intent.' Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Episode: Noam Brown: AI vs Humans in Poker and Games of Strategic Negotiation | Lex Fridman Podcast #344
The Fellowship of the Ring
Buy on AmazonAnd that was such an incredible, as you've probably seen, interacted with a large number of people; it's a whole world. It's a world that you escape to in the way like your favorite book like Lord of the Rings.
Episode: Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield | Lex Fridman Podcast #342
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonIt's hard to visualize it in the way I can visualize, like, I've been reading a lot about Hitler; I can visualize meetings between people, military strategy, deciding on certain evil atrocities, all that kind of stuff. I can visualize the people; there's agreements, handshakes, stuff signed, groups built. In the digital space, like with bots, with anonymity, anyone human can be multiple people.
Episode: Chris Tarbell: FBI Agent Who Took Down Silk Road | Lex Fridman Podcast #340
Cool it
Buy on AmazonBjørn Lomborg is the president of the Copenhagen Consensus Think Tank and the author of 'False Alarm', 'Cool It', and 'Skeptical Environmentalist'.
Episode: Climate Change Debate: Bjørn Lomborg and Andrew Revkin | Lex Fridman Podcast #339
Atlas Shrugged
Buy on AmazonI think once I hit high school and college, I had my edgy, libertarian-esque high school phase of reading Ayn Rand and figuring out that, 'Oh my God, nothing in life matters except for class and money; that's actually the answer to everything.'
Episode: Destiny: Politics, Free Speech, Controversy, Sex, War, and Relationships | Lex Fridman Podcast #337
The Authoritarian Moment
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Ben Shapiro, a conservative political commentator, host of the Ben Shapiro Show, co-founder of The Daily Wire, and author of several books, including The Authoritarian Moment, The Right Side of History, and Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings.
Episode: Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336
The Right Side of History
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Ben Shapiro, a conservative political commentator, host of the Ben Shapiro Show, co-founder of The Daily Wire, and author of several books, including The Authoritarian Moment, The Right Side of History, and Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings.
Episode: Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336
Facts Don't Care about Your Feelings
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Ben Shapiro, a conservative political commentator, host of the Ben Shapiro Show, co-founder of The Daily Wire, and author of several books, including The Authoritarian Moment, The Right Side of History, and Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings.
Episode: Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Buy on AmazonThe way The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is written about Hitler is appealing because there's almost no criticism of him. It's a description of Hitler, which is easier to do for a historical figure.
Episode: Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336
Economics in One Lesson
Buy on AmazonThe first economics book that I found really great, because it was written for teenagers, is Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. It's about 150 pages, and I recommend it to everyone aged 15 and up.
Episode: Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
Buy on AmazonThen, there's a great book by Carl Trueman called Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, which I think is the best book from the last ten years. It's been impactful on some of my recent thoughts.
Episode: Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336
All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small #1-2)
Buy on AmazonThere was a famous story at that time about a vet named James Herriot, who also came to the US and had a TV miniseries.
Episode: Fiona Hill: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump | Lex Fridman Podcast #335
Collapse
Buy on AmazonThere's a compelling book titled 'Collapse' by Vlodislav Zubok, a professor at the London School of Economics, who describes the elite-driven dissolution of the Soviet Union accurately.
Episode: Fiona Hill: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump | Lex Fridman Podcast #335
Государство и революция
Buy on AmazonI studied with Richard Pipes, and he was really offended after writing his comprehensive volumes on the Russian Revolution that others would dare to write about it.
Episode: Fiona Hill: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump | Lex Fridman Podcast #335
The Selfish Gene
Buy on AmazonI was very impacted by 'The Selfish Gene.' I thought that was a really good book that helped me understand altruism as an example and where it comes from, and just realizing that, you know, the selection is in the level of genes was a huge insight for me at the time, and it sort of like cleared up a lot of things for me.
Episode: Andrej Karpathy: Tesla AI, Self-Driving, Optimus, Aliens, and AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast #333
Warren Buffett and the interpretation of financial statements
Buy on AmazonYou're basically running this business, and for me, I've learned a lot about that because one of the books I read some years back, I think it was by Mary Buffett. 3917 02:13:35 02:13:36 It was on Warren Buffett and how when he buys these companies, it's hands-off management; it stays the same, you don't do anything.
Episode: Hikaru Nakamura: Chess, Magnus, Kasparov, and the Psychology of Greatness | Lex Fridman Podcast #330
New Breed
Buy on AmazonShe's a research scientist at MIT Media Lab interested in human-robot interaction and robot ethics, which she writes about in her recent book called 'The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals About Our Future with Robots.'
Episode: Kate Darling: Social Robots, Ethics, Privacy and the Future of MIT | Lex Fridman Podcast #329
New Breed
Buy on AmazonThings will just change a lot; one of the examples I have in my book is mining.
Episode: Kate Darling: Social Robots, Ethics, Privacy and the Future of MIT | Lex Fridman Podcast #329
Conscious
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Annaka Harris, author of "Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind," who writes and thinks a lot about the nature of consciousness and reality, especially from the perspectives of physics and neuroscience.
Episode: Annaka Harris: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #326
Conscious
Buy on AmazonIn your book "Conscious," you describe evidence that free will is an illusion and that consciousness is used to construct this illusion, convincing ourselves that we are, in fact, deciding our actions. Can you explain this? I think this is in chapter three.
Episode: Annaka Harris: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #326
Conscious
Buy on AmazonIt's actually how I started writing my book — I began writing for myself because I needed to spend some time writing down all my thoughts to get clear about how I think about them. So, you write down a sentence, and you think, and then in the silence of paragraphs, you just see if that makes sense, and then you check it against your intuitions.
Episode: Annaka Harris: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #326
Spooky Action at a Distance
Buy on AmazonI posted an excerpt of George Musser’s great book 'Spooky Action at a Distance' where he talks about ways to absorb what this ADS CFT duality would mean. He gives an example of music as an analogy where two different notes can exist in three dimensions as if the other doesn’t exist because of the frequency of the sound waves.
Episode: Annaka Harris: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Nature of Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast #326
Modern Poker Theory
Buy on AmazonThere are also many professional players who stream poker, and you can get involved in the chat and start talking. You can ask them questions and see how they explain their thought process. There are so many free resources out there. Of course, my masterclass does a good job of compartmentalizing how to attack the game on a deeper level. There was a guy named Michael Acevedo; this is for more advanced players, but there's a book called 'Modern Poker Theory' that explains game theory to novices.
Power hold'em strategy
Buy on AmazonOf course, my masterclass does a good job of compartmentalizing how to attack the game on a deeper level. You wrote a book, I think about 10 years ago, called 'Power Hold 'Em Strategy.' It's interesting to think how much of the material in that book still applies and how much doesn't.
Steppenwolf
Buy on AmazonYeah, no, well no one gets out alive, I think is the Hermann Hesse, one of my favorite writers. He's a Nobel Prize winner, and in a book called Steppenwolf says, 'Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.'
Episode: Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #323
The Singularity Is Near
Buy on AmazonEighteen years ago, in his book 'The Singularity is Near', he predicted that the onset of the singularity would happen in the year 2045.
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
The Singularity Is Near
Buy on AmazonIn your 2005 book titled 'The Singularity is Near', you predicted that the singularity would happen in 2045.
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
The age of spiritual machines
Buy on AmazonI made this prediction in 1999 in my book 'The Age of Spiritual Machines', right?
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
The age of intelligent machines
Buy on AmazonBecause I remember my first book, 'The Age of Intelligent Machines,' there was no way to get information from computers.
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
How to Create a Mind
Buy on AmazonSo if it would connect to your neocortex—and the neocortex, which I described in 'How to Create a Mind,' has different levels—it’s kind of like a pyramid.
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
Singularity Is Nearer
Buy on AmazonBut I show in this book that's coming out that the amount of people working, even as a percentage of the population, has gone way up.
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
Singularity Is Nearer
Buy on AmazonI was very fortunate; I am very fortunate to be able to get a glimpse preview of your upcoming book, 'Singularity is Nearer.'
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
The Singularity Is Near
Buy on AmazonHowever, in 'Singularity Is Near', I present two analyses of the Drake equation, using reasonable assumptions.
Episode: Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality | Lex Fridman Podcast #321
Blitzed
Buy on AmazonI just recently finished a book titled 'Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich' by Norman Ohler.
Episode: Christopher Capozzola: World War I, Ideology, Propaganda, and Politics | Lex Fridman Podcast #320
The Queen's gambit
Buy on AmazonIt's the trap that Beth Harmon falls for in the Queen's Gambit during her first game against the janitor. She gets really mad because she gets checkmated very early.
Episode: Botez Sisters: Chess, Streaming, and Fame | Lex Fridman Podcast #319
Transformer
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Nick Lane, a biochemist at University College London, an author of some of my favorite books on biology science and life ever written, including his two most recent, titled "Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death" and "The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way it is?"
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
Vital Question
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Nick Lane, a biochemist at University College London, an author of some of my favorite books on biology science and life ever written, including his two most recent, titled "Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death" and "The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way it is?"
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
The Black Cloud
Buy on AmazonWhen I was about 15 or 16, I remember reading a book by Fred Hoyle called 'The Black Cloud.'
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Buy on AmazonIn 'Hitchhiker's Guide,' summarizing it as harmless or mostly harmless is beautifully poetic.
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
Transformer
Buy on AmazonYou opened 'Transformers' with, 'From space it looks grey and crystalline, obliterating the blue-green colours of the living Earth.
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
POWER, SEX, SUICIDE: MITOCHONDRIA AND THE MEANING OF LIFE
Buy on AmazonIn your book 'Power, Sex, Suicide.'
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
Oxygen
Buy on AmazonFirst, you wrote 'Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World,' as we've talked about the role of oxygen in life on Earth.
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
POWER, SEX, SUICIDE: MITOCHONDRIA AND THE MEANING OF LIFE
Buy on AmazonThen, wait for it, 'Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life.'
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
Vital Question
Buy on Amazon'The Vital Question,' the first book I've read of yours, 'The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way it is?'
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
Transformer
Buy on AmazonAnd the new book 'Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death.'
Episode: Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318
The Denial of Death
Buy on AmazonErnest Becker talked about this in his book 'Denial of Death', stating that the fear of death is an important motivator in our lives.
Episode: John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317
On Bullshit
Buy on AmazonYou have an excellent 50-part lecture series online on the meaning crisis, and I think you describe in modern times an increase in depression, loneliness, cynicism, and, wait for it, the term used technically by Harry Frankfurt and adopted by you.
Episode: John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317
Will to Power, Nietzsche's Last Idol
Buy on AmazonNietzsche's 'Will to Power', Freud's thoughts about wanting to have sex with your mother – all these different explanations are what truly motivate human beings.
Episode: John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317
Educating Intuition
Buy on AmazonThis is Hogarth's proposal in 'Educating Intuition.'
Episode: John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast #317
Manufacturing consent
Buy on AmazonLet me give you a concrete example, which I wrote about extensively in a book called Manufacturing Consent, co-authored with Edward Herman. It's about what he termed the propaganda model of the media.
Episode: Noam Chomsky: Putin, Ukraine, China, and Nuclear War | Lex Fridman Podcast #316
The Queen's gambit
Buy on Amazon[Laughter] So what is it, Queen's Gambit on the ceiling?
Episode: Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time | Lex Fridman Podcast #315
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess
Buy on AmazonI love chess books; I’ll read anything, and I find it interesting.
Episode: Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time | Lex Fridman Podcast #315
Maps of Meaning
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Jordan Peterson, an influential psychologist, lecturer, podcast host, and author of 'Maps of Meaning,' '12 Rules for Life,' and beyond.
Episode: Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #313
Beyond Order
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Jordan Peterson, an influential psychologist, lecturer, podcast host, and author of 'Maps of Meaning,' '12 Rules for Life,' and beyond.
Episode: Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #313
Идіотъ
Buy on AmazonDostoevsky wrote in 'The Idiot,' spoken through the character of Prince Myshkin, that beauty will save the world.
Episode: Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #313
Идіотъ
Buy on AmazonI almost graduated to that one because for the longest time, The Idiot was my favorite book, because I identified with the ideas represented by Prince Myshkin.
Episode: Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #313
Мастер и Маргарита
Buy on AmazonThe Master and Margarita, that's a deadly book.
Episode: Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #313
Superintelligence
Buy on AmazonBut you know, if you read Nick Bostrom—I’m sure you have—Nick Bostrom, you know, Superintelligence—it’s that incredible book on the ways this thing is going to happen.
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonThat Solzhenitsyn also reveals that, uh, the line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man, as he wrote in Gulag Archipelago!
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonYes, it's very sticky in your mind. Very tough as I'm running through very hot heat while listening to 'Gulag Archipelago'.
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonI was listening to 'Gulag Archipelago', which was a very welcome break because I was looking for any excuse to stop.
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
Братья Карамазовы
Buy on AmazonYes, I’ve read 'The Brothers Karamazov' in Russian.
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
Братья Карамазовы
Buy on AmazonI was so lost in 'The Brothers Karamazov', just in love with it.
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
... Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen
Buy on AmazonYeah, of course, man, Search for Meaning.
Episode: Duncan Trussell: Comedy, Sentient Robots, Suffering, Love & Burning Man | Lex Fridman Podcast #312
The Art of War
Buy on AmazonAnd now let me leave you some words from Sun Tzu in 'The Art of War.' 'Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.'
Episode: Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy | Lex Fridman Podcast #310
Snow Crash
Buy on AmazonThe term 'Metaverse' originates from Neal Stephenson’s book 'Snow Crash,' a formative title for those of us from the '90s. Back in the Doom and Quake era, we contemplated how to create interconnected realms that users could traverse, akin to emerging web technologies.
Episode: John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets | Lex Fridman Podcast #309
Common Sense
Buy on AmazonEven a utility of randomness in an increase sounds like a book title you should write. What would be a good band name?
Episode: Ryan Graves: UFOs, Fighter Jets, and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #308
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
Buy on AmazonSo there's a lot of people like traders who get super into this, like high-frequency traders, and arbitrage, and all kinds of interesting topics. Flash Boys was like an interesting book on this whole thing.
Episode: Brian Armstrong: Coinbase, Cryptocurrency, and Government Regulation | Lex Fridman Podcast #307
If Science Is to Save Us
Buy on AmazonFor now, what is the new book that you mentioned? It's called 'If Science is to Save Us.' It's coming out in September.
Episode: Martin Rees: Black Holes, Alien Life, Dark Matter, and the Big Bang | Lex Fridman Podcast #305
The Brothers Karamazov
Buy on AmazonI think in the brothers Karamazov, uh, Yvonne's argument when he's trying to wreck the faith of Alyosha, and it's um, these examples drawn.
Episode: Bishop Robert Barron: Christianity and the Catholic Church | Lex Fridman Podcast #304
The Wealth of Nations
Buy on AmazonReading Rard feels like engaging with a cardboard cutout version of 'The Wealth of Nations', and I find his work trivial.
Episode: Steve Keen: Marxism, Capitalism, and Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #303
The neuroscience of intelligence
Buy on AmazonYou give, first of all, you have a great book on the neuroscience of intelligence.
Episode: Richard Haier: IQ Tests, Human Intelligence, and Group Differences | Lex Fridman Podcast #302
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Buy on AmazonOne of the things I've recently re-read for the second time is 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', which I think is the best telling of the rise and fall of Hitler.
Episode: Richard Haier: IQ Tests, Human Intelligence, and Group Differences | Lex Fridman Podcast #302
Anne of Green Gables
Buy on AmazonYou've looked back at the predecessors and the history in writing your book; is there some way in which the KGB is grounded in the culture, the spirit, the soul of its predecessors? Oh, absolutely.
La père Goriot
Buy on AmazonYou know, I wanted to see Paris because I had fallen in love with Honore Balzac, who wrote- Balzac, yeah. A phenomenal set of novels that I just ate up.
Stalin's Master Narrative
Buy on AmazonInterestingly enough, the first book I was given to read was the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Oh, so understand, yeah, that's interesting.
Winnie-the-Pooh
Buy on AmazonAnd she gave me a book, 'Winnie the Pooh,' because we went to see the movie. And then she wrote the dedication, she says, 'To the nicest German I've ever met.'
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Buy on AmazonYeah you have to do the same kind of stuff for like, D.H. Lawrence has a book called, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover,' and I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was one of the early books, I believe over a century ago that was very controversial for its sexual content.
Episode: Joe Rogan: Comedy, Controversy, Aliens, UFOs, Putin, CIA, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #300
Архипелаг ГУЛАГ
Buy on AmazonAnd the same thing with Gulag Archipelago talking about some of the darkest aspects of human history right when all of that stuff is forbidden, when it's banned.
Episode: Joe Rogan: Comedy, Controversy, Aliens, UFOs, Putin, CIA, and Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #300
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Jonathan Reisman, a physician and the writer of "The Unseen Body: A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy."
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonYou wrote a book called "Unseen Body," all about the human body: the messy, the weird, the beautiful, and the fascinating details.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonOne thing I talk about in the book is there are some other body parts that seem to be lacking that kind of brilliant design, such as the throat.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonYou talk about the wisdom of a design in the book. What are the important things about the hand?
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonFor instance, I have a story in the book about a guy whose thumb was nearly ripped off by his dog's leash.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonWe’ll talk about fascinating details, but what’s you— I should say for people that should read your book, they will come face to face with the fact that you do not shy away from the weird and the wonderful of the human body.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonYou know, like I talk about in the book about in India where they, uh, you know, the hands are symmetric, as you said, but in Indian culture, the left hand is taboo.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonSo your book is ordered in a particular way: it’s throat, heart, feces, genitals, liver, pineal gland, brain, skin, urine, fat, lungs, eyes, mucus, fingers and toes, and blood.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonSo, as the book title says, Unseen Body.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
The Unseen Body
Buy on AmazonAs we talked about sex and death, I talk about in the book a lot of for instance the female genital tract, how the uterus is very unusual because, you know, it doesn't even sort of wake up and start doing its thing until the second decade of life.
Episode: Jonathan Reisman: The Human Body - From Sex & Sperm to Hands & Heart | Lex Fridman Podcast #297
War on the West
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with Douglas Murray, author of The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity, and his most recent book, The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Pilgrim's Progress
Buy on AmazonI say at one point in The War on the West that the argument, for instance, on reparations now that goes on—and it's not a fringe argument anymore; some people say, 'Oh, you're pulling up this fringe argument.'
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Pilgrim's Progress
Buy on AmazonAnd by the way, there are plenty of white people who experience racism as well; there are plenty of white people who do and have done, and increasingly so, which is one of the things I write about in The War on the West.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Madness of Crowds
Buy on AmazonYes, well to me, like I said, a little bit of poison is good for the town. And that's always a—I talked about this in my last book in The Manners of Crowds.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Madness of Crowds
Buy on AmazonAnd that's always a—I talked about this in my last book in The Manners of Crowds.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Life And Fate Of Vasily Grossman
Buy on AmazonAlso partly because of having seen bits of it in the Middle East and elsewhere. I mention this because Grossman in the middle of Life and Fate takes time out and provides a three-page explanation, a three-page description of anti-Semitism.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Life And Fate Of Vasily Grossman
Buy on AmazonYou know that Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate?
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
Il gattopardo
Buy on AmazonOh, The Leopard, obviously—the Leopard of Giuseppe di Lampedusa.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Buy on AmazonNevertheless, Winston Churchill is somebody, I mean, just reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, is an incredible figure to me.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Pilgrim's Progress
Buy on AmazonSure, sure; I mean, I have a section in the War in the West where I go for Karl Marx with some glee.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Pilgrim's Progress
Buy on AmazonIn fact, when I was doing the audiobook for The War on the West, I had to decide: Will I read out the quotes from Marx or not?
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The Strange Death of Europe
Buy on AmazonThere was a period around the time I wrote my book 'The Strange Death of Europe.'
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
The doors of perception
Buy on AmazonI remember I got far too young in age; I read the Doors of Perception of Aldous Huxley.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
Stefan Zweig
Buy on AmazonUm, I mean that's one of my favorite books, Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, including the descriptions of what it was like trying to have sex in pre-First World War Vienna.
Episode: Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West | Lex Fridman Podcast #296
Das Kapital
Buy on AmazonIf you read Marx's Capital, the great work of his maturity—three volumes—there's almost nothing in there about the state.
Episode: Richard Wolff: Marxism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #295
Contending economic theories
Buy on AmazonBy the way, the textbook I wrote in economics, in case you’re ever interested, was also published by MIT Press, and the title is 'Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian.'
Episode: Richard Wolff: Marxism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #295
Build
Buy on AmazonHe's also the author of the new book titled 'Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making'",
Episode: Tony Fadell: iPhone, iPod, Nest, Steve Jobs, Design, and Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #294
Story
Buy on AmazonI'm a huge fan of stories. Have you ever read the book 'Story' by Robert McKee?
Episode: Tony Fadell: iPhone, iPod, Nest, Steve Jobs, Design, and Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #294
The Case Against Reality
Buy on AmazonHe's the author of over 120 scientific papers on these topics, and his most recent book, titled "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes."
Episode: Donald Hoffman: Reality is an Illusion - How Evolution Hid the Truth | Lex Fridman Podcast #293
The Case Against Reality
Buy on AmazonIn your book, "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes," you make the bold claim that the world we see with our eyes is not real.
Episode: Donald Hoffman: Reality is an Illusion - How Evolution Hid the Truth | Lex Fridman Podcast #293
The elephant in the brain
Buy on AmazonHe is the co-author of a book titled "The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life," "The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth," and a fascinating recent paper I recommend on "Grabby Aliens," titled "If Loud Aliens Explain Human Earliness, Quiet Aliens Are Also Rare.
Episode: Robin Hanson: Alien Civilizations, UFOs, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #292
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Buy on AmazonYou've said that you did a lot of reading when you were growing up, and you mentioned 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S. Thompson.
Episode: Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan, Fraud, Prison, and Sociopathy | Lex Fridman Podcast #288
Putin Interviews
Buy on AmazonI remember that speech he made; it's in my documentary, a four-hour documentary with four different conversations.
Episode: Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine | Lex Fridman Podcast #286
Untold History of the United States
Buy on AmazonAnd now let me leave you with some words from Oliver Stone in the untold history of the United States: 'To fail is not tragic; to be human is.'
Episode: Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine | Lex Fridman Podcast #286
Slavery and social death
Buy on AmazonThat might be the thing worth really trying to understand, because the practice itself is, you know, there’s a wonderful book by the sociologist Orlando Patterson called Slavery and Social Death that was published in 1982, which is a comprehensive history and social analysis of the institution of slavery over 2500 years.
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
The bell curve
Buy on AmazonIt showed that within any logical system rich enough to include arithmetic, there will be propositions that are true but cannot be proven to be true—making the quest for a complete logical framework for all mathematical inquiry impossible. Charles Murray is a popular social science writer known for his book on IQ, 'The Bell Curve.'
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
Das Kapital
Buy on AmazonMarx was an important figure in the history of the West, and I think Marx should be read and Capital, three volumes, etc. Alienation of labor and whatnot, the implications of modernization and the advent of industrial capitalism, etc.
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
The swerve
Buy on AmazonNow, I, I read this wonderful book called The Swerve; uh, it's about Lucretius. It's about the nature of things, which is this great classical work from the Roman period by this, uh, guy Lucretius.
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
As I Lay Dying
Buy on AmazonUm, there is a book by Richard John Neuhaus, the theologian called As I Lay Dying. As I lay dying, Richard John Neuhaus; uh, he had stomach cancer and he thought he was dying, and he wrote this book as he lay dying, and then he recovered.
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
Das Kapital Karl Marx
Buy on AmazonBut at the end of the day, I think that the free marketeers have the better of it. I think the story of the 20th century, as far as economic development is concerned, reflects that.
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
An American dilemma
Buy on AmazonGunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist who wrote about economic development, wrote a famous two-volume work, An American Dilemma, about the status of black Americans.
Episode: Glenn Loury: Race, Racism, Identity Politics, and Cancel Culture | Lex Fridman Podcast #285
The Bitcoin Standard
Buy on AmazonHe's an Austrian economist, an anarchist, and the author of "The Bitcoin Standard" and the new book, "The Fiat Standard."
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
The Fiat Standard
Buy on AmazonHe's an Austrian economist, an anarchist, and the author of "The Bitcoin Standard" and the new book, "The Fiat Standard."
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
The Fiat Standard
Buy on AmazonAfter what happened in World War I, this changed; I discussed this in detail in The Fiat Standard.
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
The Bitcoin Standard
Buy on AmazonPeople should know that you've written the book "The Bitcoin Standard" from 2018, I believe.
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
The Bitcoin Standard
Buy on AmazonIn "The Bitcoin Standard," I present the argument that money is always whatever is the hardest thing to make.
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
The Bitcoin Standard
Buy on AmazonOver the last 150 years since 1870, I discuss this in detail in "The Bitcoin Standard."
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
Human Action
Buy on AmazonIn the 1940s, he wrote Human Action, which is a big treatise on economics.
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
The Fiat Standard
Buy on AmazonBut with the fiat system, and this is where I make a breakthrough in my book, fiat replaces gold mining with credit creation.
Episode: Saifedean Ammous: Bitcoin, Anarchy, and Austrian Economics | Lex Fridman Podcast #284
Surface Detail
Buy on AmazonHave you read 'Surface Detail' by Ian Banks?
Episode: Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
The player of games
Buy on AmazonI've only read 'The Player of Games.'
Episode: Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
Romeo and Juliet
Buy on AmazonYou could, for example, name an album 'Romeo and Juliet' or 'War and Peace.'
Episode: Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Buy on AmazonI mean, have you read the sci-fi short story, 'I Have No Mouth but I Must Scream'? Good title, right?
Episode: Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Buy on AmazonDan Carlin inspired my passion for history, igniting an obsession that has led me to read dense historical texts like 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.'
Episode: Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Buy on AmazonWhat do you think about the 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' book?
Episode: Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281
The Eerie Silence
Buy on AmazonSo, um, but he also gave me a book, uh, The Eerie Silence that he had written, and he wrote in it, um, this is how E.T. gets to E.T.
Episode: Alien Debate: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin | Lex Fridman Podcast #279
The Prophet
Buy on AmazonI was given The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran as a graduation present from my high school English teacher, and I still have that book in a special place on my bookshelf because I think it speaks to the nature of human experience. Right?
Episode: Skye Fitzgerald: Hunger, War, and Human Suffering | Lex Fridman Podcast #278
TEN POINTS
Buy on AmazonTen Points is a book I love a lot. What is it?
Episode: Skye Fitzgerald: Hunger, War, and Human Suffering | Lex Fridman Podcast #278
The Princess Bride
Buy on AmazonBoy, these are all non-fiction except for The Princess Bride. I have to mention it's an outlier.
Episode: Skye Fitzgerald: Hunger, War, and Human Suffering | Lex Fridman Podcast #278
On the Move
Buy on AmazonHe has a great biography called 'On the Move,' and there's a wonderful documentary that just came out about him—he died in 2015. I'm actually kind of a collector of his things.
Episode: Andrew Huberman: Focus, Stress, Relationships, and Friendship | Lex Fridman Podcast #277
Can Love Last?
Buy on AmazonAnd so this book's name is kind of corny, but it's written by an analyst, again, it's called 'Can Love Last?' It's a book about how really good strong relationships are the consequence of people constantly moving through this dependency-objectification dynamic.
Episode: Andrew Huberman: Focus, Stress, Relationships, and Friendship | Lex Fridman Podcast #277
Observing the erotic imagination
Buy on AmazonThere's a book called 'The Erotic Imagination.' It's a very psychoanalytic book written by a psychoanalyst that talks about—well, here's the uncomfortable reality: Freud was at least right about one thing, which is that the brain circuitry that you use to develop attachments to your caregivers, mother and father, or other caregivers do not disappear when you hit puberty.
Episode: Andrew Huberman: Focus, Stress, Relationships, and Friendship | Lex Fridman Podcast #277
The Bitcoin Standard
Buy on AmazonNow, if you look deeper, one individual who's done a significant job on this is Saidedean Ammous, author of 'The Bitcoin Standard.' He notes that, on average, the inflation rate in the money supply appears to be around 7% yearly, up until 2020.
Episode: Michael Saylor: Bitcoin, Inflation, and the Future of Money | Lex Fridman Podcast #276
The Brothers Karamazov
Buy on AmazonI'm a big fan of Prince Mishkin from 'The Idiot,' and I learned from 'The Brothers Karamazov.' Optimism can be seen as naïveté and dumbness, but I think it's a kind of deep intelligence, maybe an inability to reason about the mechanics of the world, but instead kind of feel the world.
Episode: Karl Deisseroth: Depression, Schizophrenia, and Psychiatry | Lex Fridman Podcast #274
The Secret
Buy on AmazonI think the mind—it’s like, you know I guess that's what like books like 'The Secret' plug into. They kind of make a whole industry out of it, but there is something about the mind believing something, making it a reality.
Episode: Karl Deisseroth: Depression, Schizophrenia, and Psychiatry | Lex Fridman Podcast #274
A Clash of Kings
Buy on AmazonAnd now, let me leave you with some words from George RR Martin from 'A Clash of Kings.' 'A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good.
Episode: Brett Johnson: US Most Wanted Cybercriminal | Lex Fridman Podcast #272
The Foundation Trilogy
Buy on AmazonWhat were your favorite sci-fi authors when you were growing up? Probably Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.
Episode: Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271
Seveneves
Buy on AmazonNow, though, my favorite is Neal Stephenson and Seveneves.
Episode: Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271
Seveneves
Buy on AmazonThese little robots would crawl, just like in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves; they crawl along the outside of the spacecraft looking for micrometeorite punctures or gas leaks or other faults and defects.
Episode: Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271
Seveneves
Buy on AmazonThere's another idea out of Neal Stephenson, Seveneves, actually, where these arklets were decentralized spacecraft that could form and dock little temporary space stations with each other, then separate and go off on their way, adopting a decentralized approach to living in space.
Episode: Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271
2001
Buy on AmazonThe future of space habitats is one of intelligent structures—maybe not all the way to HAL from the 2001: A Space Odyssey reference that scares people about a habitat having a mind of its own—but certainly, we're building systems now where the habitat has sensing technology that allows it to communicate its basic functions.
Episode: Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271
The light that failed
Buy on AmazonLike the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling says, 'If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch; if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; if all men count with you, but none too much,' this is a really, really important thing to me that I try to live by: that all human beings count with me.
God Is Not Great
Buy on AmazonSo, for example, the idea that you would call a book 'Religion Poisons Everything'—I think he did that deliberately and provocatively so that he could defend a proposition that obviously is indefensible: that it poisons everything.
The Talmud of Babylonia
Buy on AmazonYeah, well, the Torah is the five books of Moses written in Hebrew. Most modern rabbis, non-orthodox or non-literalist rabbis, will tell you that it's a product of human beings, and I believe that they are inspired by God.
Why Faith Matters
Buy on AmazonYeah, you wrote in your book 'Why Faith Matters': 'Walt Whitman wrote that in order for there to be a great book, there must be great readers.' For a book to remain powerful throughout generations, it cannot have a single meaning; scripture, like great poetry, is not reducible to other words.
The Denial of Death
Buy on AmazonFirst of all, I would say when I was in high school, I think my father actually encouraged me to read this book. I read Ernest Becker's 'Denial of Death,' which I found, and still find, to be one of the most profound works I’ve ever come across.
Letters from the Earth
Buy on AmazonOne is that every image of what it's like is foolish; like Mark Twain has in 'Letters from the Earth' says, 'We're going to lie on green fields and listen to harp music,' which you wouldn't want to do for five minutes while you're alive, but you think you'll be happy for the rest of eternity doing it after you die?
Hitch-22
Buy on AmazonHis autobiography, 'Hitch 22,' is a great read and I just want to say what you discover there. I don't know if I'm giving too much away by telling the story—spoiler alert—what you discover there is that his mother ran away with a minister or a priest, and they died in what seemed like a suicide pact.
Herzog
Buy on AmazonI also love Saul Bellow, especially 'Herzog.' But that's a very different kind of thinking—person's novel. I read a lot of mysteries, and a lot of other kinds of fiction and literature.
... Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen
Buy on AmazonIn terms of the books that most influenced me, one of them is Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." I also really love Heschel's "The Sabbath." I think it's a beautiful book.
The Sabbath
Buy on AmazonI also really love Heschel's "The Sabbath." I think it's a beautiful book. It's a very short book, just as Frankl's book is.
The Blind Watchmaker
Buy on AmazonThis relates to the blind watchmaker argument, which questions how something complex, like a watch, could spontaneously emerge. Well, it doesn't; it's a lineage of lesser watches and devices that couple and bootstrap onto one another.
Episode: Lee Cronin: Origin of Life, Aliens, Complexity, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #269
The light that failed
Buy on AmazonNow, let me leave you with the end of the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling: If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings and lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.
Episode: Mark Zuckerberg: Meta, Facebook, Instagram, and the Metaverse | Lex Fridman Podcast #267
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends
Buy on AmazonYou wrote the book 'This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends', and of course, we're referring to cyber war and cyber security.
Episode: Nicole Perlroth: Cybersecurity and the Weapons of Cyberwar | Lex Fridman Podcast #266
Sickening
Buy on AmazonThe following is a conversation with John Abramson, faculty at Harvard Medical School, a family physician for over two decades, and author of the new book 'Sickening' about how Big Pharma broke American healthcare and how we can fix it.
Episode: John Abramson: Big Pharma | Lex Fridman Podcast #263
Overdosed America
Buy on AmazonYou wrote the book 'Overdosed America' and the new book coming out now called 'Sickening' about how Big Pharma broke American healthcare, including science and research, and how we can fix it.
Episode: John Abramson: Big Pharma | Lex Fridman Podcast #263
Capitalism and freedom
Buy on AmazonSo, okay, you mentioned Milton Friedman and you mentioned his book called 'Capitalism and Freedom.' He writes that there are only three legitimate functions of government: to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, and to ensure that private markets work.
Episode: John Abramson: Big Pharma | Lex Fridman Podcast #263
Prozac nation
Buy on AmazonBut what's happened is that the publicity, I mean, 'Prozac Nation' was a good example of making the argument that why should people settle for normal happiness when they can have better than normal happiness? And if you're not feeling that normal happiness, you should take a drug.
Episode: John Abramson: Big Pharma | Lex Fridman Podcast #263
The Selfish Gene
Buy on AmazonAnd so, the DNA—if you ask where does DNA come from, and you can go all the way back to Richard Dawkins and the selfish gene hypothesis— The way I look at DNA, though, is it is not a moment in time; it assumes the context of the body and the environment in which it's going to live.
Episode: Garry Nolan: UFOs and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #262
Galileo's Error
Buy on AmazonHe is a panpsychist, which means he believes that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of physical reality; of all matter in the universe. He is the author of 'Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness' and is the host of an excellent podcast called 'Mind Chat.'
Episode: Philip Goff: Consciousness, Panpsychism, and the Philosophy of Mind | Lex Fridman Podcast #261
Galileo's Error
Buy on AmazonAlthough I do—the final chapter of my book, Galileo's Era, is more experimental. So the first four chapters are the cold-blooded case for the panpsychist view as the best solution to the hard problem of consciousness.
Episode: Philip Goff: Consciousness, Panpsychism, and the Philosophy of Mind | Lex Fridman Podcast #261
Lies In a Mirror
Buy on AmazonThey have an active center that tries to bring people in. I believe they are producing a book that I contributed to, concerning different philosophers' opinions on God and some of the big questions.
Episode: Philip Goff: Consciousness, Panpsychism, and the Philosophy of Mind | Lex Fridman Podcast #261
How the laws of physics lie
Buy on AmazonYou know, my colleague, the philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright, has got this book 'How the Laws of Physics Lie,' where she says, you know, physicists explore things in very specific circumstances and then, in an unwarranted way, generalize that.
Episode: Philip Goff: Consciousness, Panpsychism, and the Philosophy of Mind | Lex Fridman Podcast #261
Dune
Buy on AmazonWith my old shop, Legendary, just putting out Dune, which I thought was phenomenal, I was over the moon when we secured the rights because I love the book and the entire world of Dune.
Episode: Thomas Tull: From Batman Dark Knight Trilogy to AI and The Rolling Stones | Lex Fridman Podcast #259
The Denial of Death
Buy on AmazonErnest Becker—I'm not sure if you're familiar with the philosopher; he wrote the book 'Denial of Death'—his idea is that one of the core motivations of human beings is our terror of death.
Episode: Yann LeCun: Dark Matter of Intelligence and Self-Supervised Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #258
Animal Farm
Buy on AmazonIt comes from Animal Farm, by my probably favorite book. So you remember Benjamin, the donkey?
Episode: Brian Keating: Cosmology, Astrophysics, Aliens & Losing the Nobel Prize | Lex Fridman Podcast #257
Mein Kampf
Buy on AmazonHe hated nation states; his whole theory, if you pick up, I don't recommend doing this, but if you do read Mein Kampf, then you'll see that he says explicitly that the goal is for Germany to be the lord of the earth and mistress of the globe.
Episode: Nationalism Debate: Yaron Brook and Yoram Hazony | Lex Fridman Podcast #256
Animal Farm
Buy on AmazonTo me, 'The Plague' is about the doctor, and it’s about love, and it’s about the different roles that humans take in a time of tragedy like the plague. Also, it’s an allegory, so you can start to think about whatever you think that is. See, you've been for white pill, researching a lot of actual, specifically defined suffering, sure. But also a lot of wonderful things, right?
Episode: Michael Malice: New Year's Special | Lex Fridman Podcast #253
Stalin
Buy on AmazonThere aren't many books I had to stop reading due to their darkness, but 'The Court of the Red Tsar' about Stalin was too heavy and dark for me.
Episode: Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #252
... Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen
Buy on AmazonMan's search for meaning—it's not the whole thing; a search for meaning is, yeah, what's the meaning of life and all, you know? But just generally, like I said, I would encourage people to read broadly in many different subject areas.
Episode: Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #252