Hacker News Books

40,000 HackerNews book recommendations identified using NLP and deep learning

Scroll down for comments...

All TimePast 6 Months
Prev Page 4/5 Next
Sorted by relevance

pjc50onOct 26, 2018

> This, in essence, is the premise of Latour’s latest book, “Down to Earth,” an illuminating and counterintuitive analysis of the present post-truth moment, which will be published in the United States next month.

Ah, that's why this article exists - he's got a book to promote.

Despite that, it's a good read and an important discussion to have, and one that's at great risk of misinterpretation. What Latour and others are discussing is not the idea that there isn't an external reality, but that what we know about reality is inevitably filtered by our perception, which includes our social, economic and institutional contexts. Latour's questioning of scientism pre-dates the modern problems of nonreproducibility, p-hacking etc.

I would also recommend Latour's work Aramis. The French government attempted an extremely Elon Musk personal transit system in the 80s, and Latour examines why it failed. Perhaps to be read alongside Feynman writing about Challenger in the same timeframe.

Edit: in re climate skepticism, have a look at the Introduction of https://ecomig2014.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/178919402-lat... - which is a serious inquiry into the question of why climate scientists are or aren't believed.

Built withby tracyhenry

.

Follow me on