Larry Gonick's Cartoon Guide to the Computer is in part a time capsule from a bygone age, and also an introduction to topics of enduring importance. It's a comic book that explains how to design a Boolean circuit to implement an arbitrary truth table.
Another suggestion: Instead of indulging in LW-style Feynman worship, read James Gleick's biography of him. It does a pretty good job covering the actual science while giving a warts-and-all portrayal of the man.
I thought about assembling a kind of anti-Sequence reading list about quantum mechanics, a view from outside the cult shit that the Sequences try to drown you in, with their bad history, caricatured philosophy and mathematics that ranges from turgid to incorrect. The trouble is that a better understanding is not written all in one place, and even the good papers don't necessarily convey the everything Yud taught you is wrong emotional hook. The literature does not lead to cracking many smiles, though I did appreciate Adrian Kent's eel remark in this book review.
Some papers that have a bit more zing than average:
- L. Catani et al., "Why interference phenomena do not capture the essence of quantum theory," Quantum 7 (2023), 1119.
- K. Camilleri and M. Schlosshauer, "Niels Bohr as philosopher of experiment: Does decoherence theory challenge Bohr's doctrine of classical concepts?," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 49 (2015), 73–83.
- D. Howard, "Who invented the “Copenhagen Interpretation”? A study in mythology." Philosophy of Science 71 (2004), 669–682.
- C. Chevalley, "Why do We Find Bohr Obscure?." In Epistemological and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics (Springer, 1999), 59–73.
And, if you really want to dive into the waters and open your eyes below the surface:
- N. Bohr, "The Causality Problem in Atomic Physics." In New Theories in Physics (International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1939), 11–30.
Strange how the 26-year-old VoiCE of A gENerAtion sounds exactly like a politician who rails against the evil of TikTok while owning stock in Facebook.
His face was a marble statue. Her face was an anime waifu. They scrolled into each other.
Illustrations by the dck pck AI
Obviously, it's easier to tear down firewalls with the extra fingers.
That's just common sense.
Whenever I see "rationalist" abbreviated to "rat", I think of the Sliders episode where they land on Fundamentalist Earth and discover an underground movement of "radical rationalists" or "rad rats".
So, if for no other reason, we should avoid abbreviating "rationalist" to "rat" because we do not need life to resemble Sliders.
When I was a teenager, I read every novel by Isaac Asimov, including those that I could only find in second-hand bookshops (A Whiff of Death, Murder at the ABA and The End of Eternity). I read most of his short fiction, too; I didn't hunt down the ephemera that had never been anthologized, but I did visit the archive at the Boston University Library and find the movie plot outline that he wrote at the request of Paul McCartney. On the nonfiction side, to mention only the thickest books. I read his Chronology of Science and Discovery in sixth grade, and I followed it up with Asimov's Chronology of the World and his two-volume guides to Shakespeare and the Bible both.
It's not that I fail to understand where LessWrong is coming from. It's that I actually grew up to become a scientist.
Nit: It's "Death and the Gorgon".
It's linked here, so I'll hazard a guess that the copy is intended to be public.