To understand human nature, read the older books. To develop specific knowledge, stay on the bleeding edge, read newer (technical) books. The best authors - Deutsch, Schopenhauer, Borges, Ted Chiang - write with very high density. The best authors respect the reader’s time.

Nivi: Unlike Schopenhauer, you are an industrial philosopher. Like an industrial designer, your philosophy is designed for the masses. People suggest you read the great books—Aristotle and Wittgenstein and all the supposedly great philosophers. I’ve read almost all that stuff, and I’ve gotten very little value from it. Where I have gotten value is the philosophizing of people on Twitter, like you. Anybody who wants to read philosophy, I would just tell them to skip it and go read David Deutsch. Naval: You’re not wrong. I can’t stand any of the philosophers you talked about. I don’t like Plato either. Every other piece of philosophy I’ve picked up and put down relatively quickly because they’re just making very obscure arguments over minutiae and trying to come up with all-encompassing theories of the world. Even Schopenhauer falls into that trap. When he tries to talk to other philosophers, he’s at his worst. When I like him is in his shorter essays. That’s where he almost writes like he’s on Twitter. He would have dominated Twitter. He has high density of ideas—very well thought through; good, minimal examples and analogies. You can pick it up, read one paragraph, and you’re thinking for the next hour. I think I’m a better writer, a better thinker, and a better judge of people and character thanks to what I read from him. Now, he’s writing from the early part of the 19th century. Whenever he wanders into topics that are scientific or medical or political, he’s obviously off base—that stuff doesn’t apply anymore. But when he’s writing about human nature, that is timeless. When it comes to anything about human nature, I say go read the Lindy books—the older books, the ones that have survived the test of time. But if you want to develop specific knowledge, get paid for it, do something useful, then you want to stay on the bleeding edge. That knowledge is going to be more timely and obsolete more quickly. Those two make sense. What doesn’t make sense to me is just reading stuff that’s not Lindy, or that’s not about human nature, but is old. I also shy away from stuff that’s low density in the learnings, like history books. I like The Lessons of History by Will Durant because it’s a summarization of The Story of Civilization, which was his large 12-volume series. But I’m not going to go read the 12-volume series. I’ve read plenty of history. I know he’s referring to these kinds of things, so I’m not just taking his word for it on high-level concept. But at the same time, at this point in my life, I want to read high-density works. You can call it the TikTok Disease or the Twitter generation, but it’s also just being respectful of our time. We already have a lot of data. We have some knowledge. Now we want wisdom. Now we want the generalized principles that we can attach to all of the other information we already have in our minds. We do want to read high-density work, but I would argue that Schopenhauer is very high-density work. All my favorite authors are very high density. Deutsch is extremely high density. Borges is very high density. Ted Chiang is very high density. The old Neal Stephenson was very high density (then he just got high volume, high density, high everything). But the best authors respect the reader’s time, and Schopenhauer is very much in that vein.

If I had to do it over again, I would shelve every other book and just read The Beginning of Infinity and Fabric of Reality as slowly as possible. Not the easiest read, but they made me smarter - Naval Ravikant

Old books reveal the constants of human nature, new books expose the variables of technology. To master reality you need both lenses, because wisdom without relevance is blind, and relevance without wisdom is suicidal.

A really good sign is a preface that’s a page or less (or better yet, no preface)

The escape is art+ aesthetics ❤️

Old books teach you that human behavior stays consistent as we are driven by survival and reproduction and security and status. New books teach us how to exploit breakthrough technologies to appeal to the same human desires and drive in novel ways.

they compress millennia of thought into a single paragraph the wisest minds understand that human nature is an ancient operating system

Knowledge is like a forest; dense, varied, and with countless paths. Everyone’s journey is different, shaped by intelligence, experience, and interests. I read what I need and enjoy, guided by an author’s style and rhythm, which itself conveys understanding.

“The best authors respect the reader’s time.” The worst try to sell you their class.

Older books show constants of human behaviour, envy, ambition, fear, love. Newer technical books update us on frontiers of knowledge. Mixing both keeps perspective balanced, timeless principles with timely skills 😌 High-density writing is rare because it demands clarity of thought. Schopenhauer or Borges compress decades into paragraphs. Reading only new technical work without old philosophy makes knowledge shallow. Reading only old texts without current science makes it outdated. Best readers run both loops in parallel

I’d say the Bible Old Testament does an excellent job helping you understand human natures. Would argue everyone one aboves has a deep biblical understanding

naval, you are mentioning schopenhauer essays frequently, so i'm reading it right now

The ancients wrote for eternity, compressing wisdom into symbols that still resonate. The technologists write for immediacy, decoding the edge of possibility. To really see human nature you need both lenses—one eye gazing backward through myth, one eye fixed on the frontier of code. Only then do you glimpse the whole signal.

Add McCarthy to that list ser.

High density & Lindy 🤝 Nutritious & long shelf life 📚 🥩

I 'vibe code' with concepts from philosophy, and it is extremely power. Lindy + bleeding edge. An example, tracking down a bug with an instruction to 'conjecture and falsify' combined with an instruction to use 'ultrathink mode', will get to the bottom if otherwise impenetrable complexity. I've recently discussed my project with a group of coders who were shocked that I'm 'vibe coding' such a non-cliche, non-boiler plate project.

Right on point. 👍 A good author creates text for the reader that: 1. Saves their time and effort – fewer empty words, ease of reading even in complex meanings. 2. Speeds up the achievement of understanding. 3. Strengthens cognitively – vivid and powerful images that stimulate attention and interest. A good author does a large amount of work for the reader, so that the reader can jump higher. He is a catalyst for the reader. And the more strongly he amplifies the reader, the higher his value. 🥇

Old books show us who we are. New books show us what’s possible. Both are compasses—you just have to know which one you need for the journey.

Deutsch is nowhere close to the best authors by a country mile

I agree that older books often capture timeless insights into human nature. Thinkers like Schopenhauer or Borges distill universal truths with precision.

Schopenhauer believed life is suffering. Desires go unfulfilled. Hence we remain unsatisfied. He advocated for asceticism and denial of the will to minimize suffering. His philosophy was pessimistic. Denial of the will is like refusing to exercise. You know you need to go to the gym but you’re lazy. So you become a couch potato. Now you’ve avoided suffering by not working out. Congratulations! Deutsch advocates for optimism about human progress and the power of good explanations. Which requires desire to make progress by solving problems. To solve problems and find good explanations, you will suffer to some degree. And that’s why optimism is more useful than pessimism.

To make useful of X. follow Naval 😏

respecting the reader’s time is rare. most authors optimize for pages, not precision.

Ultimate compression is the ultimate intelligence. This is what makes great books so powerful.

love that distinction but modern thinkers like bostrom manage to blend timeless ideas with cutting edge ai/philosophy in a way that feels fresh yet profound

Older books are somehting unreadable, but well worth it I recommend The true Beliver by Eric Hoffer

Forgot scifi. To expand interest and imagination, read Stephenson, Gibson, Le Guin, and Egan hard ideas compressed into story.

i never tried listening this type of content on spotify. as gonna be in travel for next couple of days. ig this would be good to get some different direction of thoughts. lets see.

Would add Krishnamurti, NNT and Tolstoy to the list

Read Pushin and Dostojewski. Russian Poets are different

What a quote "The best authors respect the reader's time."

I highly recommend Immanuel Kant, too.

Yes we’ve gathered all the teachings on human nature here at and placed an AI tutor in the margins to guide you.

“Old books humble you. They show you that the same struggles we face today were written about centuries ago.

John Steinbeck is an excellent author if you want to understand human nature