I don't read non-fiction. I don't read scientific books either. This one, though-this one is warms-my-heart-kinda-special, and all I hope is for the reader to find the same wonder in their life, that Carl Sagan clearly held in writing this book. It made me think; wow there's really people out there who LOVE what they do. He was so passionate about Space and what's there (or what's not). His enthusiasm in explaining this, made it one of my favourites.
Jun 8, 2024
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Really interesting interdisciplinary speculative science book about the development of human intelligence, written in a lovely prosaic voice that makes it accessible to and engaging for anyone. There have been significant scientific advancements that add nuance and complexity to some of the ideas he discusses but it’s still useful as a conceptual framework for understanding and it’s interesting to see the conclusions he was able to draw with his brilliant mind based off of the limited information that was available at the time. He raises a lot of thought provoking questions—its greatest value is as a philosophical text—and I think it’s still more than worth your time to read today.
“As a consequence of the enormous social and technological changes of the last few centuries, the world is not working well. We do not live in traditional and static societies. But our government, in resisting change, act as if we did. Unless we destroy ourselves utterly, the future belongs to those societies that, while not ignoring the reptilian and mammalian parts of our being, enable the characteristically human components of our nature to flourish; to those societies that encourage diversity rather than conformity; to those societies willing to invest resources in a variety of social, political, economic and cultural experiments, and prepared to sacrifice short-term advantage for long-term benefit; to those societies that treat new ideas as delicate, fragile and immensely valuable pathways to the future.”
Jan 14, 2025
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by kurt vonnegut
i spent so much of last year reading research based nonfiction that i forgot i could read for FUN and boy is this book a fkn ride
quality, humorous science fiction written in the 50s. of course there are some unsavory snags because of the time period in which it was written, but all in all it's a fantastic cheeky commentary that feels as relevant today as it must've then.
if u like sexy aliens, love (?) triangles, and anti-war comedy, this is a good one!
Feb 11, 2025
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I love documentaries on astronomy and the universe. However, I find a lot of documentaries to be seriously dumbed down now (...IN A WORLD...). This is not. It's great, and it revolutionized my understanding of space/time.
Feb 7, 2025
Top Recs from @thisismoy
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it's totally cool to age and society still isn't equipped to deal with that.
Mar 27, 2024
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Sometimes you try your best and everything seems to hit the fan no matter how much you try, so you take that raincheck and take yourself out for a day.
Nov 27, 2024
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This is what I call it hahahah made by mums everywhere but the greased up version is sold along stalls in Mumbai. Two regular slices of white bread, buttered, and the middle filling is cream cheese with red onions, coriander/cilantro, tomatoes and some minced chillis. All veggies chopped mini cube size so they blend with the cheese. Toasted crispy.
Apr 3, 2024