The doubter's companion
by John Ralston Saul · first published 1994
15mentions
4recommended by
4HN commenters
2015–2024first – last mentioned
100% recommend
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…First Men, by Olaf Stapledon, free at http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2028/last-and-first-men Accelerando, by Charles Stross, free at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera... The Doubter's Companion, by John Ralston Saul, http://www.amazon.com/The-Doubters-Companion-Dictionary-Aggr...
on “Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?” ↗Not merely an insightful repository of analysis and explanations around the more profound aspects of our world, John Ralston Saul's exquisite Doubter's Companion includes some answers - acerbic accusations bundled free - to the more pedestrian issues: "DANDRUFF: The ANSWER is usually vinegar. To some problems there are solutions. "What we call dandruff is…
on “Chess.com stopped working on 32bit iPads because 2^31 games have been played” ↗…adopted the same mantra for the introduction of GST (a la UK's VAT). Anyway, I'll often recommend John Ralston-Saul whenever the subject of Bretton Woods comes up - he had this to say, tritely, in his Doubter's Companion (1994): "A system for international financial management and stability which was put in place by the Allies, minus the Soviets, in 1944 and destroyed in 1973 by President Richard Nixon without consideration…
on “The US Is a Banana Republic: The 1% Own More Wealth Than the Entire Middle Class” ↗…theory, Nietzsche, Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Chomsky's political works, GK Chesterton (e.g. Heretics), Freakonomics, Cialdini's Influence, JR Saul (e.g. Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion), Bertrand Russell (e.g. Unpopular Essays, Sceptical Essays, Freedom and Organization 1814-1914), Santayana (e.g. Egotism in German Philosophy), Scott Noble[0] and Adam Curtis' documentaries. The Devil's…
on “Ask HN: Favorite “Adam Ruins Everything”-esque media? (blogs, podcasts, etc)” ↗You may like this one: The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense by John Ralston Saul
on “Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?” ↗…ersatz freedom is a personal attack, and any discussion around alternatives is akin to calling someone's god(s) a fraud. Consider the ever erudite John Ralston Saul's comments from his fantastic work The Doubter's Companion: " 'Luddites' - Highly trained individuals whose careers were destroyed by technological progress. This progress was treated as inevitable and uncontrollable. The Luddites therefore occupied the only…
on “Manufacturing Jobs Aren’t Coming Back” ↗I thoroughly enjoy John Ralston Saul -- he popped up on HN a while back[1]. A Canadian philospher with a GSOH - what's not to love? From his Doubter's Companion (highly recommended) - an occasionally acerbic description of many things - comes this definitive entry under Chicago / Harvard School of Economics: > A great centre of contemporary SCHOLASTICISM. The…
on “How Harvard Business School Has Reshaped American Capitalism” ↗Oftentimes when Luddite comes up on HN I quote a bit of John Ralston Saul - today will be no different. From his most excellent book 'The Doubter's Companion', an alphabetically ordered series of delightful rants on various topics. On the subject of Luddites, he writes somewhat presciently: "Highly trained individuals whose careers were destroyed by technological…
on “Would Luddites find the gig economy familiar?” ↗A few excerpts form Saul's satirical dictionary, "The Doubter's Companion", http://www.amazon.com/The-Doubters-Companion-Dictionary-Aggr... "CALM: A state of emotion which is overrated except in religious retreats.. The Captain of the Titanic was no doubt pleased that his…
on “The End of Rationalism: An Interview with John Ralston Saul (2001)” ↗…comparably cop-outedly I get most of my information on such topics from the writings of John Ralston Saul (who coincidentally popped up a few weeks ago on HN's front page). Quoting from the his book The Doubter's Companion: "Bankers -- Pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted. "All three Western religions have always forbidden the collection of interest on loans. When…
on “How Two Guys Lost God and Found $40M” ↗Is this new information? John Ralston-Saul wrote in The Doubter's Companion in 1994: "Ants do nothing 71.5 per cent of the time. They are trying to think of what can usefully be done next. And this in spite of their reputation—shared with beavers and BEES — as hard-working role…
on “Lazy ants make themselves useful in unexpected ways” ↗John Ralston Saul, writing in The Doubter's Companion: > Restaurants, until recently, were places of refuge for people > excluded from the mainstream or seeking to escape it—poor students, > aging unmarried men not rich enough to have themselves fed…
on “Paris chefs catering for diners in their own homes” ↗John Ralston-Saul, writing in The Doubter's Companion in 1994: > BUSINESS SCHOOLS: Acting schools which train experts in abstract management methods to pretend they are capitalists. > The graduates of these institutions have dominated Western business…
on “Bulldoze the business school” ↗…the few remaining opportunities to be social, both in the cooking and the partaking. Of course, the erosion of shared meal times and the likely impacts are already well studied. In his 1994 book 'The Doubter's Companion', John Ralston Saul observed: "Restaurants, until recently, were places of refuge for people excluded from the mainstream or seeking to escape it — poor students, aging unmarried men not rich enough…
on “Cooking as a Service” ↗…single most evil act undertaken by an elected leader in the postwar period. Other leaders should not be discouraged, however. The opportunity to do worse is perpetual." --- John Ralston-Saul, The Doubter's Companion, 1994
on “The four times the United States government defaulted on its debt” ↗