The best
Sociology of Social Theory books:
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The best of Sociology of Social Theory books by number of unique Reddit comments:
Top Reddit reviews mentioning Sociology of Social Theory books:
Redditors on almost any other topic: "FUCK baby boomers they drained the economy they are taking everything for themselves they own all the houses they leave nothing for the future."
Redditors when I say I'm opposed to raising SS benefits because the majority of the federal budget shouldn't go to Boomer retirees (SS + Medicare): "Fuck you you greedy corporate shill."
The idiocy is astounding. Social Security is an important social safety net, but it crowds out private savings and it therefore diminishes the capital stock for private investment. Medicare and SS are the two biggest chunks of the federal budget, and they crowd out economic growth.
I'd much rather see the 401(k) and IRA tax-free contribution caps doubled, and see some sort of program to Nudge companies into automatically enrolling workers into private savings plans--especially lower-end workers.
Someone wrote a book in the 60s about it, so it's basically tradition at this point.
https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellectualism-American-Life-Richard-Hofstadter/dp/0394703170
I sure hope they're not a history teacher. Maybe email them this link.
https://www.amazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214
Homosexuality used to be far more open, and acceptable with certain caveats, until the Lavender Scare.
I don’t think it is throwing shade, rather just a genuine description of Thaler and his work. Even Thaler describes himself as lazy and irrational. Most of his academic work is pointing out flawed human thought processes, and behavioral economists have only recently started to apply “nudges” to have positive real world outcomes.
I sympathize with you. A great book that I read around 24-25 that really change my perspective is The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. I showed it to two of my friends and they loved it and one of them read it twice in a year. It gave me a great perspective. You still have neuroplasticity in your 20s and can cement good habits now that will last. Whereas it’s much more difficult for your brain to alter its habits and patterns later in life. Here’s the Amazon link, I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Defining-Decade-Your-Twenties-Matter/dp/0446561754
It’s also relatively short. I also recommend crime and punishment like someone else in this thread but that is a beast of a book. The Defining Decade is like 200 pages and easy reading.
>What we really need to do is accept that the human organism is inherently selfish, and must be coerced into selflessness, and build our society upon that principle.
Nope, false.
Humanity was only able to make it this far because of our ability to cooperate and our capacity for friendliness, generosity, and empathy.
This idea that humanity is inherently selfish is a lie that has been drilled into our heads to justify the present order of things, to justify the obscene inequality and bottomless greed that a small slice of our society posessess.
If you're interested in learning more about this, I highly, highly recommend reading this book Humankind which uses history and biology to debunk this disgusting, persistent myth that human nature is selfishness.
I found a book called The Defining Decade to be hugely motivating, practical, and life affirming when I read it in my senior year in college. I hope it inspires you the way it inspired me :)
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https://www.amazon.ca/Defining-Decade-Your-Twenties-Matter/dp/0446561754
Got a book recommendation for you: https://www.amazon.com/Defining-Decade-Your-Twenties-Matter/dp/0446561754 from your post it sounds like this might help you clarify your thinking. I hope you find a path you’re happy with.
Gonna go ahead and plug a book, The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. It's filled with case studies of people in their mid-twenties figuring out their careers, romantic lives, and mental well-being. I'm 25 and often panic about career direction and purpose. I feel this book gives a very informed look on how the sky isn't truly falling. It's a quick 200 pages and I walked away feeling a whole lot more confident about my position.
>Lack of critical thinking is the problem, and it's been here long before 2020.
Isaac Asimov was railing against "A Cult of Ignorance" in the 1980's and Richard Hofstadter wrote a whole, very dense book about the "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" in 1966! So, the seeds for disinformation to cripple America campaign have long been sown and awaiting germination.
Jordan Peterson is an anti intellectual authoritarian. He values action over thought just like authoritarians and fascists.
https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Intellectualism-American-Life-Richard-Hofstadter/dp/0394703170
For any who find the connection to whiteness confusing, I recommend reading Isabel Wilkerson's best-seller "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents".
Yup, this mob attempted a literal lynching and are proud of it. They're actually shouting promises to do more of the same. No one can re-educate them otherwise.
For any who find this hard to believe, I recommend reading Isabel Wilkerson's best-seller "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents".
Everyone here should read The True Believer. It explains the psychology behind this shit better than just about anything else I’ve ever read.
That's a bleak outlook on humankind. Perhaps it time for a new perspective on that, by realizing that most people are naturally good.
This book explains it better than I can: https://www.amazon.com/Humankind-Hopeful-History-Rutger-Bregman/dp/0316418536
For any who find the connection to racism confusing, I recommend reading Isabel Wilkerson's best-seller "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents".
For some historical and psychological insight on Trump supporters and other racists, I recommend reading Isabel Wilkerson's best-seller "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents".
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey (published 1994) describes how the word queer was commonly in use by gay men in NYC in the first half of the 20th century. Book goes into lots of depth but to summarize it had a similar meaning to "masc 4 masc" with heavy overtones of respectability politics. They held faeries and other gender deviants in the lowest regard and would throw them under the bus at any opportunity. Thought very little of women.
it's unclear to me how the subsequent "reclaiming" of queer relates to this. except that I personally associate it with affluent people. I believe it has been disseminated through elite institutions.
book is available free to read online at archive.org or buyable amazon.com. don't let the cover deceive you, it's not centered around rich white gay men as much as possible.
no, you're referring to the Dunning Kruger effect combined with willful ignorance, both of which are a hallmark of propaganda laden media consumption pushed by the far right and emboldened by the fundamentalist christian theocracy that manipulates mass portions of the populace from early childhood indoctrination.
stupidity is just one layer of an organized assault that has been going on in america for approximately one century. I suggest looking into the book "Anti-Intellectualism In American Life" if you want to learn more.
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394703170/
...wanting to move to a better opportunities for my wife’s profession and a better work life balance and may be improve earnings
Not sure if this is true but... working off of the premise the odds of landing a job as a dentist in Canada are not bad or good. I would say Canada.
Pay seems pretty good in both Canada and NZ. I don't know what purchasing power looks like side by side.
However the gross number of job opportunities in Canada...
Not knowing anything about you and your family other than the little that's posted on here...
I'm going by the Wisdom of Crowds (https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Crowds-James-Surowiecki/dp/0385721706)....
And there's other factors but... I know a lot of people from NZ move to Australia. Doing quick google search... around 568,000 New Zealanders live in AU. NZ's population is almost 5 million. 568,000/5,000,000 = 11.36%. If my math is correct 11% from NZ choose to move to AU. Who knows how many more Kiwis moved to places that aren't AU.
There are other factors (ie low level of legal barriers to move from NZ to AU)... but less than 8% of Canadians live abroad.
Move to Canada if you can't decide. Move to NZ if there's something there you want that NZ has but Canada doesn't have.
Did you mean to type "macho-ism" or some other word for toxic masculinity?
The traits you list are generally the same ones for the "dominant caste" in Isabel Wilkerson's best-seller "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents".
If you really understood the world, you would understand that while America tends to push "pull yourself up by the boot straps," Europe believes "wealth comes from Old Money."
I highly recommend the book Caste. It fully explains how caste-ism can hold down people. It's a short and easy read.
Like I've said repeatedly, feel free to charge smokers a higher premium for government-provided healthcare. Or a higher co-pay for any procedures or medicines they need as a result of health conditions caused or made more severe by their smoking.
We should be trying to nudge people in the direction of making smart decisions; rarely is it effective or moral to outright ban the intimate choices people make about their bodies.
Clinical studies have demonstrated that getting less than seven hours of sleep every night is unhealthy. If the government is providing your health insurance, should they also be able to impose a curfew under that same logic? After all, it's the government that has to bare the cost of the health consequences of your poor sleep schedule.
There is something really perverse about your style of argument. First the state forces people to enroll in its healthcare program. Then the government, because it's forcing you to let it pay for your healthcare, gets to dictate what you do with your body. It's incredibly authoritarian.
I just finished THIS BOOK. If you need a shot of hope for us I would recommend it. I never realized how pessimistically some things are bent when we are taught them and this book shines a hopeful light on the positive sides. It worth your time if you are trying to be an optimist.
In the same vein as Outlier and is basically a breakdown of the 10,000 hours rule.
This book was my first introduction into this idea and while I am not sure if this theory is still as popular or agree upon it did change how I thought about myself: I wasn't terrible at everything because I was born a loser...I was terrible at everything because I was lazy.
I immediately felt better and started to work to improve my life.
Perhaps "unpopular" but factually incorrect. There's a whole book about it - Humankind, which refutes the idea that the veneer theory is our default. It doesn't hold up under scrutiny. We seem to like the idea, oddly, that we'll tear each other apart if given half a chance, but statistics don't bear that out. https://www.amazon.com/Humankind-Hopeful-History-Rutger-Bregman/dp/0316418536
https://www.amazon.com/Humankind-Hopeful-History-Rutger-Bregman/dp/0316418536
A good book that covers this. Even a homogenous people were nice and kind to settlers until settlers started enslaving, killing, and raping them.
Not just those seeking "belonging". But also the disaffected who are unhappy with their lives and believe a movement is a way towards improving their situation.
It's a bit old, but I always felt this to be a pretty concise treatise on why people look for these sorts of things:
https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Movements-Perennial/dp/0060505915
What I think makes the book so interesting is that, if you strip away all the superficial trappings of a movement - causes, 'isms', biases etc - you find that, at a deeper psychological level, people join mass movements, even ideologically "opposed" ones, for essentially the exact same reasons.
Let me link you a book. I very much encourage you to read this, mainly because you're on to something and I want you to be able to substantiate your mindset early in life: Talent is Overrated
You're young and are already ahead of the game. You're gonna do fine in life if you keep this up. And yes, the personal work paid off, and that book above will tell you why. It takes thousands of hours of very dedicated and focused effort to become elite at anything, whether its sports, business, a skill or trade, etc. Passion and interest go a long way which you obviously have.
BTW, I'm from the town and actually work in the building where Doom and Quake were made, the games that really revolutionized computer gaming. I knew the programmers pretty well back in the 90's, great guys and are all still around the area. I say this because of your background: These guys were elite because of their work ethic. John Carmack said it back in the 90's and says it today in all of his interviews. Just something to keep in mind. Happy coding, go far in life, hope you do well my friend. :-)