Reading Log, 2008

Submitted by lukeprog on Sun, 01/06/2008 - 13:46
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  1. [Loved] 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God by Guy P. Harrison: Maybe the best popular atheism book I've read (the best scholarly one is perhaps John Loftus' Why I Became an Atheist). Very much the same approach I am attempting in my upcoming book, Common Sense Atheism.
  2. [Really Liked] New Ways of Loving: How Authenticity Transforms Relationships by James Park: A splendid examination of traditional ideas about love, romance, sex, and marriage. Park proposes a new way of loving not based on need, obligation, duty, weakness, and jealousy, but instead based on inner strength, authenticity, and freedom. Park is an existential philosopher, so I would like to read a more evidentially and logically rigorous book on the subject, and one that deals more thoroughly with potential criticisms of his view, but it is a rather beautiful, poetic approach to the problem, and one I mostly agree with.
  3. [Skimmed] The Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine by many: A superb resource.
  4. [Liked] Decoding Early Christianity by Houlden et. al
  5. [Skimmed] Living Without Free Will by Derk Pereboom: Aha! Yes, this is what I think about free will, though Pereboom can say it much better than I can. Contra-causal free will doesn't exist. Hard determinism is true, except that quantum mechanical events may break the causal chain (but of course, they are equally outside our control). But this does not destroy morality or meaning, and in fact may improve them. The only point at which I disagree is his approach to morality, which depends on either universal intrinsic values or society-relative values of "useful" justice (I can't tell which), whereas I currently prefer desire utilitarian theory.
  6. [Skimmed] Arguing About Gods by Graham Oppy: Interestingly, Oppy thinks ALL philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God have failed.
  7. [Liked] The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture by Bart Ehrman: Much better than Misquoting Jesus.
  8. [Skimmed] Natural Atheism by David Eller
  9. [Skimmed] Tactics: The Art and Science of Success by Edward de Bono
  10. [Skimmed] Skills of Living by William L. Mikulas: A quick guide to scientifically-backed self-help. Nobody will read it because it looks like it was written on a typewriter.
  11. [Skimmed] Plug Your Book by Steve Weber
  12. [Liked] The Kids Book of World Religions by Jennifer Glossop: A lovely children's book with fair coverage of all major world religions. I hope this is popular, but I doubt it. Parents probably do not want to raise confused children who have to make up their own minds about important things.
  13. [Loved] Desire Utilitarianism: An Atheist's Quest for Moral Truth by Alonzo Fyfe: Free to read online. The book is the story of one man's exciting journey through the greatest philosophical problems of history, and ends with his discovery of a revolutionary ethical theory that might solve the problems with all other ethical theories. Un-put-downable. Philosophy students should not begin with an intro to philosophy book, but with this book. If this does not engage your mind with the accessibiliy, challenge, beauty, excitement, and real life impact of philosophy, nothing will. I'm at a loss to pick my favorite quote from the book, so I'll pick one at random: "Moral reasoning is done... in about the same way that Luke Skywalker uses the force to read the future. You first clear your mind of all distractions, close your eyes, and concentrate on the act in question. Then, The Force will deliver the answer to you, as to whether the act is right or wrong. If it says 'wrong,' this doesn't mean that you don't like it. This means that it has an intrinsic ought-not-to-be-doneness that applies to all beings. It is all a bunch of hocus pocus..."
  14. [Skimmed] A Better Place: Selected Essays on Desire Utilitarianism by Alonzo Fyfe: I skim-read this after doing an interview with Alonzo, in which he explained how his theory of desire utilitarianism might solve the problem which had caused me to reject all non-subjectivist ethical theories: dependence on the existence of intrinsic values. Since the existence of intrinsic values is as difficult to defend as the existence of gods, I had to fall back to annoyed subjectivism. Desire utilitarianism offers a theory of moral realism that does not depend on intrinsic value. Because the results of the theory are so attractive to me, I will have to be extra skeptical in evaluating it. Unfortunately, this book is filled with clunky sentences - quite the opposite of his earlier book on desire utilitarianism (see above).
  15. [Hated] When God Goes to Starbucks by Paul Copan: Ugh. A morass of nonsense. Doesn't even address the biggest problems with Christian belief, and dodges away from the cores of the problems it does address. "Solves" every problem by quoting the Bible, rather than by appealing to reality. Written to comfort doubting Christians. Won't be helpful to anyone hoping to persuade atheists that their invisible friend is real.
  16. [No] The Case for the Resurrection of Christ by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona
  17. [Liked] An Illusion of Harmony by Taner Edis
  18. [Liked] How We Got the Bible by Neil Lightfoot
  19. [Really Liked] On Being Certain by Robert Burton
  20. [No] Dethroning Jesus by Darrel Bock and Daniel B. Wallace: Bock and Wallace are scholars of the first rank, but they are clearly unhappy that historical research has discovered a different Jesus than that of ancient religious dogma. Here they contast the Jesus of faith with the Jesus of "Jesusanity." (They mean the Jesus of Historical Jesus research, but that sounds too legitimate, so they invent the awkward term "Jesusanity.") Their main tactic is to examine the different versions of Jesus proposed by Jesus researchers (Crossan, Borg, Tabor, etc.), then point out the flaws in their approaches and say, "X's vision of Jesus are rejected by the majority of Jesus scholars." Well, duh. There many views of who Jesus was and no majority consensus, so all individual views of who Jesus was are "rejected by the majority of Jesus scholars," including that of Bock and Wallace. But first, the authors argue for the Jesus of faith over the Jesus of "Jesusanity" based on moral superiority: if Jesus was not God, then we are not accountable to his teachings and we are free to do evil, etc. Moving on... chapter 1 is a lively and accurate response to Misquoting Jesus. If Misquoting Jesus looks interesting, please read chapter 1 of Dethroning Jesus instead. In chapter 2 they debunk the notion that the Gospel of Judas represents an original variation of Christianity, yet claim they have debunked the idea of diverse, early Christianities. The authors focus on Judas and never engage the work of Walter Bauer or his followers. Chapter 5 tackles the "Jesusanity" claim that "Paul took captive the original movement of Jesus and James, moving it from a Jewish reform effort to a movement that exalted Jesus and included gentiles." Unfortunately, they funnel their attack at a straw man - James Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty, which is respected by few scholars (still less his stubborn defense of "The Jesus Tomb").
  21. [Loved] Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett: Dennett is a superb and exciting writer. If only all philosophers wrote like this. Now, how convincing is his argument? Dennett argues that we cannot escape from causality, but that's okay because we can still have another type of free will and be morally responsible because we have evolved a mechanism to analyze a situation and act on the basis of that analysis. But I don't see how this gives us free will, as our mental analysis is also entirely caused. Dennett admits that he is a compatibilist only if we accept his redefinition of free will, and I don't think it makes sense to do so.
  22. [lots of books I didn't write up]
  23. [Really Liked] The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark: Sociology applied to early Christianity. There are a great many assertions in this book and dubius data, but Stark is careful to point out that we are playing with a paucity of data. I thought it was a fair and entertaining hypothesis about the sociological conditions of Christianity. The first chapter is the best.
  24. [Nah] The Complete Idiot's Guide to Early Christianity by J. Michael Matkin
  25. [Liked] Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene by Bart Ehrman
  26. [Really Liked] The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man by Robert Price
  27. [Skimmed] Looking for a Miracle by Joe Nickell
  28. [Loved] Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein: Makes the case of libertarian paternalism in government, but also provides loads of tips on how to use your mind's biases and common tricks to help you instead of hurt you.
  29. [Meh] The Cambridge Companion to Jesus by Markus Bockmuehl and others
  30. [Meh] The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics by Robin Gill and others
  31. [Liked] The Cambridge Companion to The Gospels by Stephen Barton and others
  32. [Really Liked] The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation by John Barton and others: A great way to catch-up on the modern trends in biblical interpretation.
  33. [Meh] The Art Book by Phaidon: Awesome selection, but the dimensions are way too small to see any detail.
  34. [Liked] What the World Eats by Faith D'Aluisio
  35. [Loved] Sculpture Today by Phaidon
  36. [Loved] Century by Phaidon
  37. [Hated] What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza: Dinesh speculates about why religion is growing and secularism is shrinking. We agree on the main cause: birth rates. As people grow wealthy and healthy, they lose the need for religion, and they also have less children. Poor, religious people around the world are having lots of kids, and wealthy secular nations are dwindling in population. Personally, I think the quickest path to rationalism is to make people around the world wealthy. In this way, crooks and boneheads like George Bush and Ben Bernanke have dealt larger blows to atheism than Pat Roberston ever could... Much of the book is spent trying to credit Christianity for the ideas of equality, limited government, democracy, the end of slavery, science, and human rights. Obviously, one must distort history a great deal to arrive at such a simple cause for all those ideas. But Dinesh also admits many things I did not expect a mainstream Christian writer to admit, for example the polytheistic roots of Judaism. I also appreciated his vigorous defense of evolution, though afterword he sees obvious gaps in our knowledge (abiogenesis, the origins of consciousness) and quickly plugs God into the gaps... Most of the book is really, really bad. Dinesh's response to the problem of evil is to say that atheists offer no comfort when bad things happen. WOW. Not once in nearly 350 pages does Dinesh give a reason to think that his God exists. I don't mean his arguments fail. I mean he never bothers to give an argument that his God exists. (He briefly offers the Design and First Cause arguments, which even if they weren't so hopelessly flawed would only get you to deism.)
  38. [Skimmed] Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step by Edward de Bono: An oldie but a goodie.
  39. [Skimmed] I am Right, You are Wrong by Edward de Bono: de Bono says Western logic is like a rock, and reflects the oppositions of language. But our brains are like water, more akin to experience and perception. He proposes that "water logic" is more important than critical thinking. The book is basically a series of short essays on loosely connected topics. For me, this book was unclear and scatterbrained. I guess I can more easily understand rock logic.
  40. [Skimmed] An Underground Education by Richard Zacks: The history your high school teacher skipped over. Forgotten failures of future geniuses, farting etiquette throughout history, castration cults, sexual slavery, and so on. Highly entertaining.
  41. [Skimmed] Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson: Very well-researched history of ideas. Some interesting chapters were on China's philosopher-kings, the origins of science, the atheist scare, nationalism.
  42. [Skimmed] Closer to Truth by Robert Kuhn: No, not that Kuhn. This was a series of interviews about science and philosophy. I just read the questions I was interested in, for example psychiatry and religion.
  43. [Skimmed] How to Cheat at Everything by Simon Lovell: A huge compendium of bar bets, card tricks, and dice cheats, like those that keep showing up on DailyMotion.
  44. [Loved] Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono: Perhaps my enthusiasm will wane with time, but right now I feel like I've been hit by a truck... like, in a good way. de Bono offers a complement to the Socratic dialectic, and one that is perhaps genuinely as fundamental and useful. Though six-hat-thinking is most productive in groups and meetings, I can't wait to start using it in my personal thinking. If I have one nitpick it is that de Bono unfairly represents traditional Western thinking at times: "A great deal of Western argument attacks the process of argument: if the process is incorrect, then the conclusion cannot be correct. In fact, the conclusion can indeed be correct, but has not been proved to be correct." But Western argument has always known that a conclusion may be true while the argument is invalid.
  45. [Skimmed] The Happiness Purpose by Edward de Bono: de Bono proposes a new religion, based not on absolute truth but provisional truth, not on love but on respect, not on belief but on humor, not on salvation but on happiness.
  46. [Loved] Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson: Descriptions and evolutionary explanations for the incredible diversity of sex lives in biology, phrased as a sex advice column to inquiring organisms. "Help, my boyfriend has a giant spiny penis! What do I do?" and so on.
  47. [Liked] Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris: The lovely story of how the human race came, stumbling and arrogant, to know a little of reality and - more important - the astonishing scope of our ignorance.
  48. [Loved] How You Can Be More Interesting by Edward de Bono: de Bono promotes the direct teaching of thinking. He specializes in creative thinking. How would our schools change if they taught children thinking skills (critical thinking, creative thinking, memory, etc.) more than facts and (everything outside the natural sciences) speculations?
  49. [Nah] D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire: Well-written and fun, except that I couldn't make myself care. Alas, this is a subject that doesn't interest me.
  50. [Liked] Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity by John W. Loftus: More thoughtful than the New Atheist writers and more readable than atheist philosophers like Oppy or Martin, WIBaA covers a surprising number of arguments and counter-arguments, all the while quoting primary sources and citing evidence. In some ways it may be the best book on atheism yet written. The first part - Loftus' story of losing his faith - needs an editor badly. But after that, things move so quickly that it is by far the longest sustained argument I have read from start to finish without getting bored. Incredible.
  51. [Meh] The Reason Driven Life by Robert M. Prices: A rejoinder to The Purpose Driven Life, though it has little to say about the value of a reason-driven life. John Chaffee's books do a better job.
  52. [Liked] The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing ed. Richard Dawkins: A selection of science writings that illuminate the wonders of scientific discovery to the layman. The first part is the most interesting. This book inspired me to start a new blog that will undoubtedly suck yet more time from the potentially profitable endeavors I should be pursuing. What are your favorite passages of layman's science writing?
  53. [Liked] The Quotable Atheist by Jack Huberman: Humerous mini-bios of hundreds of atheists, freethinkers, and embarrassingly fundamentalist morons, along with their quotes on religion (including many frighteningly dogmatic atheists).
  54. [Liked] The Economic Naturalist by Robert Frank: I hope all these pop economics books make economics as sexy and popularly-known as psychology. I suspect the popularity of self-help books has made psychological principles much better understood by the general public than the principles of other specialized disciplines. Unfortunately, self-help authors have a huge incentive to teach bad psychology ("solving your problems is easy if you just buy my book!"). Economics authors also have incentives to lie (political reasons, the profits of sensationalism), but they are weaker and less systematic than the incetives to lie for a self-help author. If pop-economics can become as popular as pop-psychology, I'll bet the former will be more accurately understood. That will lead to a better informed populace, and better decisions, especially politically. One can hope.
  55. [Meh] Farewell to God by Charles Templeton: I think Templeton deeply misunderstands atheism, but his reaction to the doctrines, texts, and practices of Christianity are spot-on.
  56. [Loved] Comfortably Numb by Charles Barber: A powerful and fair attack on psychiatry and psychotropic drugs, coupled with recommendations on more effective treatments.
  57. [Nah] Surviving America's Depression Epidemic by Bruce E. Levine
  58. [No] Commonsense Rebellion by Bruce E. Levine: Part self-help book and part psychiatry debunking. Levine takes on everything he dislikes, including the DSM-IV, television, the U.S. government, bad education, consumerism, intelligence measurement, internet addiction, and too much technology. It's hard to pick a favorite quote, but here's one: "Recognize how television alters your brainwaves and zombifies you."
  59. [Skimmed] Counter Culture Through the Ages by Ken Goffman
  60. [Liked] The Myth of the Rational Voter by Bryan Caplan: Democracies choose bad policies because voters are ignorant and irrational. This seems obvious to me, but apparently it contradicts economic theories about rational choice, so Caplan and others have to write entire books with empirical evidence to prove the point. It's very fun to read about how stupid other people are, and to decrease the possibility in oneself.
  61. [Didn't Finish] Life by Richard Fortey: A natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth. Too much blather. I think my growing intolerance to incompact writing is a blessing. As someone who is interested in almost everything but only has time to read about 30 pages a day, I have to be very choosy. If it's not compact, compelling, convincing, and consciousness-raising, I usually skip it. That's a very high standard, but I can always find something that does meet all those criteria. And it's not a matter of length, but of density. I did just make it through A Brief History of Nearly Everything. Very few books are so respectful of my time, and Life is not one of them.
  62. [Liked] More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics by Steven Landsburg: Contains many questionable arguments, though Landsburg generally notes all his caveats. Like many pop-economics books, it is at least consciousness-raising.
  63. [Meh] Irreligion by John Allen Paulos: A highly unncessary book.
  64. [Hated] The Dismal Science by Stephen A. Marglin: I've read little that argues against economics. Taleb seems only concerned with financial forecasting, which I (and perhaps most economists, too) are happy to discard as a minor and not-too-valuable part of economics. Now here is a book by Marglin, which argues that market relationships erode community, something that is "core to who we are." It is a dense but silly read. I hope other books critical of economics aren't this bad. I could do a chapter-by-chapter debunking but I'll sum it up like this: The data is in. Market relationships are better at providing everything that traditional communities are supposed to provide: morality (through non-zero-sum relationships), happiness (through wealth and freedom), and coooperation (now on a global scale, rather than a tribal scale). And in general, the hysteria over the supposed "breakdown in human connections" has a dogmatic ring to it. Little data is ever presented, only emotional platitudes. No doubt people in market economies have more and more shallow relationships than before - and this is good thing! It reduces groupthink, discourages prejudice, increases compassion and cooperation, challenges ones thinking, increases self-sufficiency, and much more.
  65. [Loved] Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell: A lovely sequel to Basic Economics.
  66. [Liked] On the Road by Jack Kerouac
  67. [Loved] A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson [re-read]: Yup, still awesome the second time around.
  68. [Meh] The Meaning of the 21st Century by James Martin: A quick overview of the problems facing humanity in the 21st century.
  69. [Meh] Behavior Modification: What It Is and How to Do It by Garry Martin and Joseph Pear: A textbook on behavior modification. Good content, but as poorly written as any other textbook.
  70. [Meh] Self-Directed Behavior by Watson and Tharp: A scientific approach to adjustment and self-help. Alas, it is too thorough and technical. If you're going to slog through something like this, a better book is Psychological Self Help by Clayton E. Tucker-Ladd.
  71. [Meh] Moral Minds by Marc Hauser: Hauser compares our moral sense to universal grammar: our basic moral sensibilities evolved through natural selection, and provide framework within which culture, personal experience, and cognition develop individual moral sensibilities. Because our morality evolved, it makes sense that our moral consciences do not make sense. Every "logical" or "consistent" theory of ethics - such as those of Kant or Bentham - is, in many cases and thought experiments - an outrage to our moral instincts, just as our langauges are irrational and our bodies are irrationally designed. Our moral senses work well to promote survival and replication in hunter-gatherer societies, but they are rather inept when dealing with moral imperitives over great distances, for example. Alas, the book needed a good editor, like The Black Swan. Hauser cites lots of experimental results but does not pull them together into a clear picture.
  72. [Loved] Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell: I am not one to say that such and such should be required reading. I oppose the idea of required reading. But if anything could be required reading, it would be Sowell's Basic Economics. Economics is a skill - a way of seeing the world - that is vital to almost all decisions, at every level of life and society. It is, simply, the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses. It is just a way to compare values, and to realize that everything is a trade-off. It is astonishing and tragic how many lives are destroyed by well-meaning citizens and politicians, due to not understanding Basic Economics. Economics is not the study of greed, or immoral markets, or money. Economics is simply a way to compare values, and compare possible decisions. Neglecting economic thinking when making decisions leads to some of the most immoral action in modern history, however "quiet." I wish that the holocausts of economics ignorance were as visible and visceral as the Jewish Holocaust, so they would be recognized and corrected.
  73. [Meh] The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller: Not a bad book, but I had already come across most of its content through other (later) sources.
  74. [Liked] What to Eat by Marion Nestle: An aisle-by-aisle guide to smart food decisions. The basic message is: eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Nestle guides you through all the usual food questions about all the usual food groups.
  75. [Liked] Bending the Rules by Robert Hinde: A nice introduction to ethics.
  76. [Meh] Quality is Personal by Harry Roberts and Bernard Sergesketter: An application of Total Quality Management (for business) to personal life. Basically, you make a checklist of goals ("make four sales calls every hour"), record how many times per day/week/month you fail to meet that goal, then chart your progress. They very act of measuring will help you focus on your goals and improve. What you measure, you manage. Etc.
  77. [Loved] Why We Get Sick by Randolph Nesse and George Williams: A whirlwind overview of evolution applied to human health. "Without evolution, nothing in medicine makes sense."
  78. [No] The Search for a Nonviolent Future by Michael N. Nagler: Google may not have made me stupid, but it has made me intolerant of long-winded musings that never go anywhere. It's basically a history of nonviolent movements. It shows the effectiveness of nonviolence is those circumstances, but does not tell all the stories where nonviolence has failed. It also doesn't really say anything about how we can build a nonviolent future, other than to "choose alternative media" and "practice nonviolence." Duhr.
  79. [Hated] Philosophy for Studs by Anthony Leccisi: Combines two of my current favorite subjects of study: philosophy and getting laid. Leccisi presents his Stud Philosophy, an Alpha Male approach to common philosophical questions. Basically, it's Epicureanism. But, horribly edited and thought out. If study and practice ever leads me to be an alpha male, I might try to write a good book on this idea.
  80. [No] Lifemaps by Michael Antoniak: Too vague to be really helpful. Really, this just points you to other, more specific, sources.
  81. [Meh] Psychology for Living by Karen Duffy: A school textbook for self-help, except that it contains bland pop philosophy and politically correct theory, not tools and tactics for living your best life.
  82. [Meh] The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier: Not my style. Too much blather. I like people who get to the point. I'll admit, I pretty much want every book to be re-written by John T. Reed or Paul Graham.
  83. [Hated] Understanding Women by Romy Miller
  84. [Hated] Simply Christian by N.T. Wright
  85. [Liked] Magic Bullets by Savoy
  86. [Liked] The End of Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos: A great repository of biblical studies absurdities.
  87. [No] Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens: Yes, Christopher, we know you have a big vocabulary, have traveled the world, have taken ballsy moves against beloved heroes, etc.
  88. [Meh] The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul: Offers nothing new to those who have heard his campaign speeches. Ron Paul is the only one who can save America, or even wants to change anything of significance. Yet, he doesn't argue his case as persuasively as he could have. The book is too short to be anything but rousing propoganda.
  89. [Loved] God is a Woman: Dating Disasters by Ian Coburn: Read this instead of The Game. Superb! Funny and useful.
  90. [Liked] Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman: A thrilling bestseller about... textual criticism of ancient Greek texts! Nice. Unfortunately, it make a lot of important omissions, as his critics all to willingly point out in other books. Be sure to read this scholarly critique.
  91. [Liked] Book Design and Production by Pete Masterson: But, a third of the book is a glossary and appendices.
  92. [Meh] Type: Design, Color, Character, and Use by Michael Beaumont
  93. [Nah] Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard
  94. [Liked] Aiming at Amazon by Aaron Shepard: Superbly detailed.
  95. [Meh] Inside Out: The Best of National Geograhic Diagrams and Cutaways
  96. [Nah] The Mystery Method by Mystery
  97. [Meh] The Borderlands of Science by Michael Shermer
  98. [Meh] Atheist Universe by David Mills: Heck, I could have written this book. I suppose it is popular because for a while it was nearly the only book on atheism available, compared to the 10,000 religious books that are published each year.
  99. [Hated] The Professional Bachelor by Brett Tate
  100. [No] Getting Rich in Your Underwear by Peter Hupalo
  101. [Meh] Access All Areas by Ninjalicious
  102. [Nah] The Heathen's Guide to World Religions by William Hopper
  103. lots of books I didn't bother to write up
  104. [Meh] Anger by Carol Tavris
  105. [Nah] Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin
  106. [Liked] Science, Evolution, and Creationism by The National Academies: But where are the footnotes?
Cloned From: 
Reading Log for 2007
Critico06/09/2008

My dear friend, if you only want to get laid the mystery method or the game works, i've seen it with my own eyes, but i don't think you'll get any meaningful relationships from that.

lukeprog06/10/2008

I spent 21 years thinking it was God's desire that I not flirt with women, and that I marry and serve one woman my whole life, one who was not my ideal mate but was chosen by God to challenge and bless me.

Well fuck that.

I'm sure Mystery Method works for getting laid. And I do just want to get laid for a while.

But mostly I want to get that part of my life handled. I want to be able to go anywhere and know that I can approach beautiful women, show them a good time, and enjoy them as women.

If memorized routines are a good way to develop the experience and confidence and intuition necessary for a more natural presence and appeal among women, then that's my path. If I find that I don't need the routines, then I'll skip 'em.

Anyway, learning to be successful with women is the only way to have access to the meaningful relationships I want, which means:

- not needy
- not jealous; free and open
- with women who genuinely turn me on
- with women who have their shit together
- with smart women

To do that, I need to become a better, more attractive man. I need to learn "what women want" from the people who have great success with women (not from bullshit romantic comedies or my parents).

Otherwise, I'll be stuck with the relationships that most men have:

- needy
- jealous
- with okay-looking women
- with drama- or problem-prone women
- with women who "aren't my ideal, but hey, they blow me sometimes, unlike the great women"

Being confident and capable with women is better for men and women.

Your comment sounds strange to me. What I'm doing is learning how social dynamics works. How attraction works. How emotions work. How body language works. How female psychology works. How excitement and pleasure work.

Why would you suspect that by understanding how these things work - rather than stumbling about blindly in the dark like most men - that my relationships with women would be less "meaningful"?

To me, this is like saying that if you study how business and marketing works, you will be "successful, but your business will be less meaningful to you."

Or if I studied how astronomy and cosmology work, I would be a successful scientist but the universe would be less meaningful to me.

Or if I study how light and color and texture and composition and perspective work, I will be a successful painter but painting will be less meaningful to me.

Or if I study how to give and receive great pleasure during sex, I will be successful but the sex will be less meaningful to me.

Huh?

It seems to me just the opposite.

Critico06/10/2008

hmm. i think we have some sort of misundestanding, my comment was sort of on the rating of the book, you didn't give a high rating to those book, and i wasn't sure what you were expecting from then, i think Mystery Method and The Game do what they achieve to do, and i would give them a higher rating.

I have read about pick up and meeting women for a while because is something i want to get handled too, i probably would have solved it already, bt is something i haven't done because of laziness and shyness.

Don't yo remember that i had The Art of Seduction and the How to talk to anyone books?,you should try to find that one or other Leil Lownds books, which are really practical and don't rely on routines. You should try to find the pickup 101 stuff which focus more on banter, and not on routines which they say are some sort of cruthc, even if Style is the most succesful person in the world. You should suscribe to the David Shade, and Dsvid Deangelo newsletters.

You should try to seek out videos from the pickup artists, its sometimes easier to learn by watching than by reading.

Work on your day game, you'll meet better women that way.

There are also some pretty good message boards online, the stylelife challenge one is probably the better one.

Oh yeah read the style diaries, it has the stylelife challenge there, maybe we could try to do it and sponsor each other, that's what i need to get out of this rut.

lukeprog06/10/2008

Oh, cool.

I thought I saw an opportunity to rant about the moral cause of pickup, so I took it. :)

Yeah, I've been consuming all those resources. Now I need to start utilizing the best learning resource available: in-field experience.

Critico06/10/2008

also 21 years? so since you were a baby you were thinking you didn't need to flirt with women? i don't think i started to think about the opposite sex in a romantic way until i was 10 or so.

Critico06/10/2008

Ok i'm thinking better now, see for the types of books that you were reading, i assumed that you were trrying to understand women, and how to meet them. Then i saw you gave the mistery method and the game a low rating, because i thought that surely you wanted something beyond just getting laid, and you lowered their ratings accordingly, that these booksa didn't helped you in what you wanted to achieve.

That's why i say, those books are what they are, they get you started in the venusian arts, and they help you meet women and get laid.

Of course you need to meet lots of women in order to find the type of women you would like to have relationships with, i can totally relate to that, but i think just getting out to laid its kind of an empty effort, you get your "high", but at the end it makes you feel empty, its like some sort of drug.

So i think is better to go out, have a good time, and meet all sort of people along the way, not just hot women, you'll grow as a person, and you will get to the point you want to be eventually, it might take longer but i think is more enjoyable.

But, at the end know one knows anything, and i'm the living proof of that, here i am alone, and not knowing when and how to start.

Now youj talk about being more attractive, you have a good start, you are an attractive fellow i met you, you are tall, you have cool hair, what you need is maybe work in your clothes, go out with a female friend, or a young memeber of your family, ( i do it with my 18 year old cousin), and shop, there are thing you probably never thought of wearing which are actually pretty cool, and looks good.

AJDaGreat06/10/2008

I'm not disparaging sex or anything, but I've read some of this stuff before too and I can definitely see how it would impede a meaningful relationship. Nothing else you describe is as dependent on trust, understanding, and honesty as relationships are, so if you're changing yourself to be in accordance with what you study, are a woman's feelings really for you or are they for the method? For example, if I read that women like well-dressed men, and so I buy myself the nicest clothes and attract more women that way, those women have a false impression of me as someone who cares about what he's wearing when, in reality, that may not be the case. It's not really lying, but it is a bit disingenuous, which is not something you can really base a meaningful relationship on.

A very simple example, but you get my drift. If you're being completely yourself and just using these books to interpret subtle signs and body language, that's obviously a different story.

lukeprog07/12/2008

Best explanation of a quantum paradox I have ever seen (video). All education should be this good. From what the bleep do we know, which unfortunately contains a lot of bunk.

lukeprog08/09/2008

Zizek is actually entertaining when you limit him to two-sentence bites.

Vallinder08/19/2008

30 pages a day? What happened to speed reading?

lukeprog08/20/2008

The height of my speed reading was when I was doing a survey of self-help literature, so what I read was very low quality and therefore easier to speed-read. Now most of what I read is not books but short articles of very high quality, so I read more slowly. Also, I have less time to read because I am working much longer hours than I did last year.

Speed reading is great when you want to get through something and pick up the bits you need from it. Speed reading is not great for writing that is worthy of chewing.

lukeprog08/24/2008

Oh yeah, here's the new blog:

Science Bits: great science writing in 1000 words or less

lukeprog09/25/2008

Thoughts of the day.

I just noticed that Avira Antivirus Free (the best free antivirus; much better than Norton) advertises that you should upgrade to the Pro version because "Big Brother is watching," an Avira Pro has extra features to keep out spies and intruders. We must now hire private companies to protect us from our own government.

On another note. Many have speculated that the world is now moving too fast for us to comprehend it. Almost every situation we face has never been faced before in the history of the world, and we have no idea what will happen next. I think our recent financial crisis may be one example, though many people predicted it based on widely available data.

The sad part is that if the American Empire crumbles because the Federal Reserve destroyed our currency, I don't see other countries stepping up to the plate. Does everyone lack the moral and political courage to advance sound policies? Are citizens around the world incapable of electing a government who will take the lessons of history seriously, and make decisions based on data?

If humans continue to fail themselves, maybe it will be no sad thing to see them superseded by a race of morally superior computers.