This is a fair point, Hauke—sounds like you used the downvote as a way to signal “I think this should be somewhat less accepted/get less attention from the community”, which makes sense given your concerns.
While I share your concerns, I still thought this post was a really good initiative and upvoted it; I think it’s likely to expose people to useful suggestions, and I think it’s extremely unlikely to accidentally enshrine a “canon” (instead, if it inspires more people to write about other books that they liked, it hopefully has the opposite effect).
Here are some more diverse sources that I’ve found useful for learning about the world and/or personal development in a work context:
Behind the Beautiful Forevers (good portrayal of life in extreme poverty, though it isn’t at all focused on solutions)
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is another immersive portrayal—the section on poverty is only a small portion of the book, but the full story still gave me a strong sense of what it would be like to grow up in a place very different from the West
Nothing to Envy (on life in totalitarian conditions—a book I often think about when the totalitarian variety of X-risk comes up in discussion)
The Charisma Myth (I’m still stunned that a book on a topic like “developing charisma” turned out to be this good; I should revisit more often)
Maverick (very interesting book on leadership/org management, though hard to tell how much of the story is painted more rosily than the reality)
Unrelatedly, On Writing Well is much better than The Sense of Style if you just want writing advice.
This is a fair point, Hauke—sounds like you used the downvote as a way to signal “I think this should be somewhat less accepted/get less attention from the community”, which makes sense given your concerns.
While I share your concerns, I still thought this post was a really good initiative and upvoted it; I think it’s likely to expose people to useful suggestions, and I think it’s extremely unlikely to accidentally enshrine a “canon” (instead, if it inspires more people to write about other books that they liked, it hopefully has the opposite effect).
Here are some more diverse sources that I’ve found useful for learning about the world and/or personal development in a work context:
Strangers Drowning (probably my favorite book about the “EA mindset”)
Behind the Beautiful Forevers (good portrayal of life in extreme poverty, though it isn’t at all focused on solutions)
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is another immersive portrayal—the section on poverty is only a small portion of the book, but the full story still gave me a strong sense of what it would be like to grow up in a place very different from the West
Nothing to Envy (on life in totalitarian conditions—a book I often think about when the totalitarian variety of X-risk comes up in discussion)
The Charisma Myth (I’m still stunned that a book on a topic like “developing charisma” turned out to be this good; I should revisit more often)
Maverick (very interesting book on leadership/org management, though hard to tell how much of the story is painted more rosily than the reality)
Unrelatedly, On Writing Well is much better than The Sense of Style if you just want writing advice.