Hacker News Books

An excellent book in that regard and for anyone looking to learn more is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.

Not who you’re replying to, but two books that stood out to me in that regard, especially as an American, and left a lasting impression are:

(1) Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, and
(2) Sundown Towns by James Loewen

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. The sheer breadth of the ideas covered in this book is breathtaking, and there are some truly mind-bending ideas explored in this book. If you're looking for a good general science book I highly recommend this one.

Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom. Few thinkers have thought about this issue as deeply as Bostrom, and it was fascinating to hear his thoughts on AI.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Pretty traumatic read but essential if you really want to understand a dark and overlooked chapter of American history

Highly recommend the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee which covers the last half of the 19th century time period and recounts the absolutely heartbreaking history of Native Americans going from having a reasonable amount of land, much of it useful, to having almost nothing after betrayal after betrayal by the US government. It’s unfortunate that this kind of treatment of indigenous peoples is so common around the world throughout history.

> The analogy presented is flawed because your friend discovering a house in a society with agreed upon law isn't an iron age civilization discovering a stone age civilization and pushing it aside like every civilization has done when encountering an opposing one since time immemorial.

European colonials in the 16th through 20th century were most definitely not similar to Iron Age versus Stone Age contact. The bulk of US actions against the Native Americans in the West occurred around ~1870[1]. "Might makes right" is poor justification for those who ostensibly professed ideals from the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Age of Reason. I think we are right to judge European colonials harshly by their own moral standards.

[1] See the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

I finished reading "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" a few days ago. It was emotionally draining reading the history of the native Americans' extermination by the colonialism of the USA in the 19th century. It's surprising there are any left living today given how they were treated.

There are some books that I believe everybody should read, this is one of them.

R.I.P.

01. The second machine age

02. The Firm: The secret history of McKinsey and it's influence on American business

03. The Simpsons and their mathematical secrets

04. League of denial

05. The Martian chronicles

06. The Sixth extinction

07. Lost stars

08. The Devil in the white city

09. China in ten words

10. The Fourth revolution

11. Red Mars

12. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe

13. Grit: Passion, perseverance and the science of success

14. The Signal and the noise

15. The Third chimpanzee

16. The Willpower instinct

17. The Master algorithm

18. The Emperor of all maladies

19. 1491

And I'm reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Honestly, I really enjoyed League of Denial about all the shady stuff the NFL did around CTE, Lost Stars which is an incredible Star Wars book, The Willpower Instinct, and 1491. Everything else was kind of take it or leave it. I doubt I'll read as many books next year