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I was going through the original, categorised list and I noticed that one book, Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power, has incredibly powerful insights across sections 2., 3., 4. and 5., so I wanted to recommend it.

While I'm there,

- Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber has a bunch of essays that seem to be made on purpose to connect 3-to-5;

- Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies will probably get you as soon as you read the full index;

- Nick Chater's The Mind Is Flat is like the blackpilled, neurosciencey version of the elephant;

- C. P. Snow's The Two Cultures is incredibly short and incredibly prescient (big rift between humanities and science, and effects of the lack of a language between the two);

About the "People Have Reactions, Not Beliefs": I think the wording might be the issue. It's usually been phrased "Beliefs/justifications/stories come after feelings"; in your version I'm afraid the reader would be distracted by "what you mean, NO BELIEFS".

If you're interested in the genealogy, Dennet's "Consciousness Explained" introduces the press secretary (and has a bunch of insight related to your WokeGPT posts); William James' "The Principles of Psychology" was the first modern book to admit the primacy of emotional reaction, and will connect to section 1 of your list.

Finally, speaking of genealogy: it's insane how much of all of this is found in The Gay Science, check for instance #116, #319 and #345.

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Thank you so much for the recommendations.

While it may be harder to convince people, I really do mean literally NO BELIEFS. Hopefully that will become clear in later parts of the review, particularly the Elephant and the Brain and the Blank Slate.

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In which case, I think you'll find The Mind is Flat even more congenial. Looking forward to the reviews and btw: what's the ideal means to get in touch re: pluralistic AI project?

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This airtable form is good

https://airtable.com/shrUcX1AoHQQdhCaX

My DMs are open on twitter if you want to talk about something more specific

https://twitter.com/psychosort

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