11 books that hit me like lightning

Blog post on Polanyi's polycentric problems: https://magpiepinette.substack.com/p/are-humans-already-as-smart-as-we Blog post on my understanding of the Divine: https://magpiepinette.substack.com/p/the-dao-as-the-divine-vs-christian My Ko-Fi (including Discord tier): https://ko-fi.com/readingisaskill I'm on Twitter now: https://x.com/MagpiePinette My consulting page: https://magpiepinette.com/ My animal arts & crafts channel (on hiatus): https://www.youtube.com/@edgubi Companion channel for short readings aloud: https://www.youtube.com/@MagpieRecites The 11 featured books: * Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues by Martin J. Blaser, MD – https://amzn.to/3QQJZzQ * The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz – https://amzn.to/3Sg9ElY * Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott – https://amzn.to/44fohsj * Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb – https://amzn.to/4vcOQL1 * Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown – https://amzn.to/4arP2h1 * The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Koestler (out of print, this is currently cheapest of many editions) – https://amzn.to/4tHFJRx * Leviathan and its Enemies by Samuel Francis – https://amzn.to/4tO6CCY * A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell – https://amzn.to/40Z71pU * We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi – https://amzn.to/4cageRq * The Logic of Liberty: Reflections and Rejoinders by Michael Polanyi – https://amzn.to/4tnxXeY * The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism by F. A. Hayek – https://amzn.to/4vZYtfS Other books mentioned (with applicable affiliate links): * Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships by Robin Dunbar – https://amzn.to/4vQZx5r * Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist by Frans de Waal – https://amzn.to/4xxEuXm * The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks – https://amzn.to/4xChW7I * The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes – https://amzn.to/44fQcIF * Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes – https://amzn.to/4vh4zZ4 * Real Food On Trial: How the diet dictators tried to destroy a top scientist by Dr Tim Noakes & Marika Sboros – https://amzn.to/4aU0ou4 * The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicolas Taleb – https://amzn.to/4vooJA9 * The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt – https://amzn.to/4bNRRJ1 * The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler – https://amzn.to/4oAIli9 * Janus: A Summing Up by Arthur Koestler (out of print) – https://amzn.to/4xTg0rZ * On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Penguin Classics) – https://amzn.to/4uGlK5i * The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham – https://amzn.to/4u5BUVL * The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell – https://amzn.to/47w6zmF * The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides by Arnold Kling * The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson – https://amzn.to/3QRP4HP * A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons by Robert Sapolsky – https://amzn.to/4tPNftv * The Great Divorce by CS Lewis – https://amzn.to/4sxYfLE * Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse – https://amzn.to/4bE9KK5 * Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu, trans Richard Nice (TBR) – https://amzn.to/4dclrcX * Liberalism and Its Discontents by Francis Fukuyama – https://amzn.to/4xwjkZT * The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly – https://amzn.to/4uIW34g * Two Faces of Liberalism by John Gray – https://amzn.to/4vuF6uT KaiserBauch review of Leviathan and its Enemies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hywPKjCKfXg Chapters: 0:00 - Intro & criteria 3:01 - Blaser 7:08 - Teicholz 11:44 - Scott 13:48 - Taleb 16:18 - McKeown 17:58 - Koestler 21:14 - Francis 24:08 - Sowell 27:56 - Al-Gharbi 33:55 - Polanyi 36:01 - Hayek 38:59 - Outro