There's been some good discussion of reading lists at >>4188. I'll say a few words about a closely related topic, the reading group.
A good reading list has some value. The act of participating in a purposeful reading group adds a ton of value on top of that. It's a great way to get people on board with a common ideological program, whereas if you just read the texts alone in your room then you're likely to build out a bespoke ideology that does not play well with others.
Note that most or all of today's influential vanguard parties—e.g. the academic wokes, the Rationalists, the DSA, the frog right—all got underway in part by activating hardcore ideologues through reading groups and intensive discussions of their canonical texts, which gave them the self-conscious ideological distinctiveness to coordinate effectively towards their ends. Only later did they mobilize a large mass of followers who don't do the reading.
>>4295 A number of this site's frequent posters, myself included, are trying to fix the institutions that govern us and revive our society. This requires political organization based on Truth, not just collecting a bunch of Truths and then leaning back in your armchair. We're building power bases and making plans and running projects based on the theories we develop in places like this. To succeed at this task, one necessary component is getting people to work out a mutual understanding of what's going on in the world and what is to be done, which they can use as a basis for coordinated action. Are you doing that? Is that "what we are trying to do here"? I dunno man, I'm not your dad. If you just want to know how society works for its own sake and then not do anything in particular with the knowledge, that seems like a perfectly fine reason to post on a political philosophy forum.
I'll give a contrarian take for the sake of discussion: I don't actually think that books and reading lists are all that important for the goals that you're trying to achieve (which I agree with and share an interest in), or in general. In the age of LLMs, Twitter, Substack, and even forums like this one, direct transmission of ideas is much more effective and efficient than spending time consuming entire books.
I've read a lot of books myself. I enjoy reading books. But there's a lot of filler in them. They're not pure substance. As I look back on the time that I've spent reading books, it wasn't actually a very effective use of my time. I would have been much better off consuming digital scholarship, and in fact the time that I've spent doing that has been much more effective in advancing my understanding of the world, as well as giving me the chance to discuss and interact with authors and other commenters on digital platforms (and now LLMs).
LLMs in particular are an extremely effective way to ingest new material. Not only do you get accurate summaries on any topic, author, or theme that take a fraction of the time to read, but you can back-and-forth converse with the LLM to get immediate feedback on anything that you need clarified. This take might make some of you reflexively bristle. But I urge you to actually try this if you haven't already. If you understand how LLMs work and their strengths and limitations, they are by far the most powerful tool for acquiring knowledge that has ever existed. The next generation(s) of intellectuals who are teenagers right now are going to blow us away with their depth of knowledge and sophistication due to being immersed in an LLM-infused intellectual environment.
I don't mean to discourage others from forming reading groups. Obviously they have a great track record of success, as OP points out. I just think that we can improve the concept in practice with the assistance of new technologies. Members of a Reading Group 2.0 group could, for example, take turns generating LLM-assisted write-ups of important ideas and themes, distributing them to group members for reading, and then give a personal presentation of the material before sharing in an open discussion of the material together. This would actually take less time than reading an entire book, while potentially covering even more substance than an individual book does.
>>4302 There is a very perceptible difference between people who know a field at the depth of "has read books" vs the depth of "has read essays and articles". Some things take depth and focus and detail to understand. There are long arguments which simply cannot fit in 10,000 words. There’s no mystical power to the physical form of a book, obviously, digital texts of similar length can and do have the same effect. Many books have a lot of cruft, it’s true. If you’re reading a book and it’s largely filler then you should put it down, or maybe skip ahead if it's earned your trust. The good books don’t have much of that. The chatbots have their uses, so long as you demand citations and actually check them to catch when the bot is just making shit up. IME they’re especially good for getting oriented to a new field. Asking wide-ranging questions is useful when you’re finding your feet. But if you use the current chatbots as a *replacement* for books rather than a supplement, you will not master your subject, you will max out at the level of a clever dilettante. Should a reading group read a book, or read a bunch of essays, or what? It depends on the group and what's it's doing, of course. I've been in successful groups that took both approaches. Anything that gets a group of the right people to hash out important subjects with each other is gonna do pretty good.
The post argues that books are inefficient for learning compared to digital scholarship and LLMs, which provide concise summaries, interactive clarification, and faster knowledge transfer. The author believes younger generations immersed in LLMs will surpass previous intellectual standards. While not rejecting reading groups, they propose a “Reading Group 2.0” that uses LLM-assisted summaries and presentations to cover more substance in less time.
>>4301 Don't get me wrong, I believe we're interested in the same ends. But approved reading lists are the wrong thing to focus on, because they are susceptible to triggering ideological purity spirals. In addition they aren't particularly efficient, as explained in >>4302
Instead I advocate for: - form a group first - take the common ideological foundations as they are in reality among the people you've got - then add in the feedback loops that nudge this in the most effective direction
By feedback loops I really mean social standing, status, cues. Sofiechan is a great implementation of this construct within the constraints of anonymity, pseudonymity. What is more pleasing to Gnon than feedback loops?
In a nutshell: get people first, then cultivate ideology like a gardener.