My top books I read in 2020

A thread...

Almanack of Naval Ravikant
What a stunning and thoughtful compilation of @naval's work and words.
I predict that this is going to define a new industry - curating public content of thought leaders and converting them into

Waking Up: Search for spirituality without religion
@SamHarris provoked me through this book and offered me, an atheist, a lot to think about.
Pick up his works!

Psychology of Money
My most awaited book of this year, since the day @morganhousel announced his book.
A must read for all ages, especially those in their 20s.

I predict this to reach levels of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" over the next 10

Courage to be disliked
What a stunner! Challenges most of our tightly-held beliefs and I found myself nodding more often than not through the book.

Not for the

Dear family.

You can gift someone or an entire family any of my books on Prayer & Intercession. Either of them will surely enhance your prayer life.

Both books are equipped to gain your attention from d first page.

Here are some feedbacks from those who have "tasted" from them

wrote;
EMERGE
#It's difficult to describe this book in one sentence. Reading through it feels like a devotional more than a book on prayer. And then it feels like a motivational text also. Emerge will get you to pray even as you read the book.
This is one book that

a reader is sure to read more than once. It's very rich in scriptural illustrations and practical in its application

wrote;

Just reading emerge! Powerful!
I have pages folded, underlined pages, writing notes! Not a waste whatsoever! I’m a very happy and grateful customer

wrote; 
Great bk sir. I take it everywhere I go. Its been a blessing to me
I followed my wife to saloon nw & took it with me & currently reading it. I have been going thru some health challenges for some time now. Reading this book is building my faith faster to

ORT. Final chapter. Atto XXII
It's going to be quite difficult for me to describe my personal experiences regarding the consciousness shift phenomenon. I will continue then by delving into the corpus of my research. Let me introduce you to Robert Lanza and his theory: Biocentrism

Lanza is an expert in regenerative medicine and a scientific director at Advanced Cell Technology Company. He is known for his extensive research on stem cells, he was also famous for several successful experiments on cloning endangered animal species.

He then turned his attention to physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. It is from this metaphysical milieu that his controversial theory was created. Biocentrism implies that death simply does not exist. It is an illusion fabricated by the dogmatic pathways in our minds.

It exists because people identify themselves with their bodies and with their Ego. Now a brief interlude. What is our innermost essence? What is our life force? Is the idea of who we are a product of the mind, social conditioning, and the thoughts we have? Or are we spiritual

beings, both material and divine? In psychology and theories arising from the West, the ego plays a crucial role in the psyche( Greek, psukhē, which translates to breath, life, soul) It forms our self-concept and is an essential part of human cognitive function.

I see that there is a lot of chat about ancestry and indigeneity, two complex and profoundly misunderstood concepts. Here’s a thread 1/N - I have written about these ideas extensively, in two books;

Ancestry rapidly becomes a matted web rather than a tree. Claims of ancestral purity are absurd. We are descended from multitudes, and don’t bear DNA from actual ancestors after very few generations. (fig. from @Graham_Coop

With both ancestry and indigeneity, the pertinent question is ‘when?’ If you claim ancestry from a certain group of people, then you are timestamping when you consider these ancestors to be important (to you). 3/N

Similarly, with claims of indigeneity, there is no agreed time when this kicks in.

There are a few places that have been populated by human in recent history, and so logical claims of an indigenous people make more sense, e.g. the Māori of New Zealand were the first humans to live on Aotearoa from the 12th C.

1. Yes, @FareedZakaria's new book, Ten lessons From a Post-Pandemic World argues we don't need a big or small gov- we need a GOOD one.

We don't have that now & that is bc for decades now, the GOP has intentionally hallowed it out. Stripping it of funding under the auspice that

2. the only goal should be small. And as it turns out- that was stupid. And now we have a dysfunctional, as @maddow says, "big, bad" gov. Something that has been "wasted, and rotted and ruined." And its been intentional. Its been murdered, with no thought for how people would

3. suffer for it. COVID just put that suffering in a streamlined spotlight. But as @FareedZakaria points out- its the cherry on top of a 40 year plan that Bannon termed the final "deconstruction of the administrative state." As with the decimation of the economic tools that had

4. allowed the world's 1st middle class to emerge & flourish before The Great Lie ushered in the greatest wealth transfer in history. Not only were Americans bamboozled into voting away their wage increases, their pensions, & their health care (at least till 2010)- they were also

5. tricked into pissing away their country's superiority- its claim to fame, its ability to puff its chest out & say "look over here, we have the best _____. " I had no idea when I was a kid that we were not, in fact, the greatest country on Earth- at least not if you care about

MY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK RELEASES OF 2021, A THREAD

(mostly by BIPOC and LGBT authors. you know the drill 😉)

1. WINTER'S ORBIT BY EVERINA MAXWELL

I got an ARC of this and have been yelling about it nonstop. A slow, soft, and utterly romantic space opera with an m/m arranged marriage? Reads like a fanfic? Focus on relationships and court politics over spaceship battles? PREORDER NOW!!

2. WE FREE THE STARS BY HAFSAH FAIZAL

This is the sequel and conclusion to WE HUNT THE FLAME, a YA Arabian fantasy. If you like tortured dark princes, headstrong huntresses, and epic worldbuilding... this is for you.

3. THE OBSESSION BY JESSE SUTANTO

Filipina author? Girl going after her stalker? GIVE IT TO ME

4. THE GILDED ONES BY NAMINA FORNA

My friend got an ARC of this and absolutely loved it. Dark, dark YA African fantasy. A heroine fighting to free herself from a patriarchal society. So hyped.

A pie thread. Send the children out of the room.

Know how you're eating something so good that you hunch over it, damn the utensils, go full Altered States proto-human, baring your teeth and flailing at anybody who gets too close?

Let👏Me👏Tell👏You👏About👏The👏Sweet👏Potato👏Pie👏I👏Made Yesterday praise gawd.🙏
That pie achieved consciousness long enough to know true love.

First off, I didn't have any brown sugar. I realized that Wednesday evening. Was I about to go to the CDC testing center to get some? Hell no, Kroger was hella crowded. So Thursday morning, I take inventory. No cane sugar, no white sugar, no Alaga syrup. Started to lose hope.

Then I remembered.

I had mother-loving lemon honey. It's not super sweet, it's got a ting-tang of lemon, and--I swear to this--when I put it in my tea my 3rd eye opens in appreciation. So I do the math: brown sugar is just about the sweetness; 1/2 a jar of lemon honey should do.

And it did. You wouldn't think the combination of cinnamon, sweet potatoes, butter, eggs, and lemon honey would make you stomp a Smurf if it got too close to your pie pan, but yeah, it does.

A passage from a book I read in January this year by Megan Watterson: Mary Magdalene Revealed. I was flying to Perth, and it as my birthday (31st January - also her birthday) when I could feel myself activated by the Angels as I read this... given what I experienced on that

flight, so incredible. There was no one to meet me at the other end. I knew no one. I had to make my way to a friend's house where I was staying, and I spent my birthday entirely alone. I finished this book while I was alone with Her that day:

"If I could start over from the

beginning, I would start with the most invisible, the threads in the web of our ecosystem that are rarely named, much less revered. I would start by listing the trees, the flowers, the seeds that carry the light that give us light and that give us life, because its this we have

forgotten This is where our reverence has not yet reached. I would start with Frankincense and Myrrh, the Boswellia and Commiphora trees that made them. I would start with the honeybee and the sweet nectar it feeds on. I would start first with what goes unnoticed and with what we

haven't realised is the the most sacred amongst us. I would start with the names of everyone we have excluded: the street children, the millions slowly starving to death in plain daylight, I would start with the outsiders, the outcasts. I would start with every one of us who

You know the old adage, “It’ll probably get worse before it gets better”? Oh, and this one: “It’s always darkest before the dawn” and, meanwhile, that coal-black night seems to go on for eons? Exodus 5 in my morning reading. If you didn’t know God was faithful, you might think

He liked getting you into trouble. Moses has returned to Egypt. Aaron’s reintroduced the former prince to the Israelite elders. Told them God has seen their misery. Moses performed a few signs. They’re bought in and bowed low in worship by the end of Exodus 4. Then Moses & Aaron

go to Pharaoh with the Lord’s message: “Let my people go.”
No. “Please.” Nope. Can’t lose my labor force. So Pharaoh commands overseers to drastically increase the Israelites’ workload without changing their daily quota. When they can’t fill it, the Israelite foremen are beaten.

The Israelite foremen go to Pharaoh & cry out for help. He says, “You are nothing but slackers! Now get to work!” So they do what you know they are going to do and do not blame them for doing and know you would do it, too. They go to Moses and Aaron. “What have you done to us?!?”

Moses then goes to the Lord. “What have you done to them??And why did you ever send me?? Nothing but trouble has happened since we did what you said. “AND,” Moses cries, “You haven’t rescued your people at all!”

It’ll be that way sometimes. It’ll get worse before it gets better.

As 2020 is coming to an end, you can either read a dozen Quilette articles or letters in The Times - or even throw in a PragerU video for good measure - insisting the British Empire was 'Overwhelmingly a force for good' and that 'wokery' is erasing history...

Or you can avail yourself of the critical and deeply researched work of actual scholars. Here are my recommendations for Christmas gifts this year - for anyone seriously interested in the history of the British Empire and its legacies:

@PriyaSatia 'Time's Monster'

-@profdanhicks 'The Brutish Museum'

-@PriyamvadaGopal 'Insurgent Empire'

-@DalrympleWill 'The Anarchy'

THREAD: Jonah, Moses, and the Cross.

Jonah is traditionally read on Yom Kippur.

Why?

One reason is no doubt its emphasis on repentance.

Thematic and calendrical issues, however, may also play a part.

Consider the book’s flow of events:

🔹 As the book opens, a threat of judgment looms on the horizon.

🔹 Per the Yom Kippur ritual (on 10th Tishri), lots are cast and Jonah is selected to be sent away.

🔹 And, four days later (14th Tishri), Jonah builds himself a ‘sukkah’ (‘tabernacle’), in which he rejoices (שמח) (cp. 4.6)—a verb specifically connected with the feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23.40, Deut. 16.15).

Further connections can also be noted.

But, before we dive into their details, we need to take a step back.

(Christians of all people should make they sure don’t get carried away by divers’ lusts: KJV II Tim. 3.6.)

--- A PROPHET ON THE RUN ---

Jonah’s distinctive as a prophet is undoubtedly his decision to run away from his God.

How many other prophetic books open with a description of their author’s disobedience?

Zurich axioms - A book on Risk taking, by Max Gunther

@safiranand @jposhaughnessy @Vivek_Investor @BalakrishnanR @Covel @shyamsek @_anshulkhare

#investing
#Bookthread 👇🧵

Switzerland, a country with no strategic or geographical advantage, became the world’s banker by learning how to manage risk and facing it head on.

Zurich axioms are simple rules in order to learn about betting to win.

The First Major Axiom:
ON RISK

- Life is an adventure. In order to experience life to its full potential one has to take meaningful risk.. All Investments are speculation. Some people accept it. some don’t.
Always play for meaningful stakes.

- An investment with a small stake would not incur significant loss but will not generate any significant gain too. It should also not be so huge that loss would bankrupt a person.

- Resist the allure of diversification. The more one diversifies, the smaller the speculation gets. Through diversification all the losses and gains are likely to cancel out and no sizable difference is made.

Finished Psychology of Money by @morganhousel

Just phenomenal. Here’s some favorite highlights

It’s a soft skill, where how you behave is more important than what you know.

To grasp why people bury themselves in debt you don’t need to study interest rates; you need to study the history of greed, insecurity, and optimism.

To get why investors sell out at the bottom of a bear market you don’t need to study the math of expected future returns; you need to think about the agony of looking at your family and wondering if your investments are imperiling their future.

I love Voltaire’s observation that “History never repeats itself; man always does.” It applies so well to how we behave with money.

Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.

The challenge for us is that no amount of studying or open-mindedness can genuinely recreate the power of fear and uncertainty.

A children's book written in 1954 inspired by Wiener's Cybernetics that explains some common day analog systems:

Analog computation originally meant the construction of a simulation of another system by means of a mechanical or electrical system that represented the same dynamics as the physical system. That is an analog of what's being simulated.

Nobert Wiener generalized this idea in Cybernetics to describe control systems that through negative feedback promoted stability.

W.Ross Ashby argued that negative feedback was insufficient for maintaining the stability (homeostasis) of complex system. Ashby proposed the Law of Requisite Variety.

These machines that 'seem to think' are examples of what was known as analog computation. Cybernetics, control theory, biology are examples of analog computation. But what does this mean other than being the opposite of discrete/digital computation?

There is a difference between allowing a women do whatever she wants, and treating her accordingly
(which is what I advise)

And

Having a woman treat you anyhow, giving you drama, wasting your time and treating you like shit

Lemme elaborate further

The Compound Effect 🚀

{Thread}

What does the compound effect look like?

[[Magic Paisa]]

You got two choices:

1. Taking ₹30Lakhs today 💰 or
2. Taking 1 Paisa that DOUBLES every day for 31 days 💯

Which one would you take?

To make great wealth you should go with option 2 🚀

Here why: Day 1: ₹0.01,
- Day 10: ₹5.12
- Day 20: ₹5,243

This is when the magic happens, watch this

- Day 29: Around 26L
- Day 30: ₹53.6L

- Day 31: ₹1,07,37,664 (Three times the option 1) 🥂

“Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = Significant results ” ⚡️

Let's talk about how to make the compound effect work for us:

The compound effect works on both sides "Positive & Negative"

Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics is a rather short book by Susan Woodword but it does a lot to expose "progressive" hypocrisy in the media and academia.

It analyzes three works:
- A 1985 book by Dave Marsh called "Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream"
- Maureen Orth's MJ articles in Vanity Fair
- And a 2009 book entitled The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson, edited by British music critic Mark Fisher

I went back to the latter part today because I heard Fisher's name again in a completely different context (he was also a philosopher) and it kind of ringed a bell, so I checked back if he was really the dude who wrote some horrible book about MJ?

Well, he didn't write it alone (he personally wrote only one chapter), but he edited it. As per Woodward the book is short on actual facts and research on MJ's life, but high on opinionated and dehumanizing hatred based on tabloid information and their perception of him.

What Woodward does is making lists of the adjectives the books' authors use of Jackson. That in itself shows the out of control, irrational hatred.