[RD] Which 'Great Works' are low-hanging fruit?

It took three posts to reveal that this was another Mouthwash hogwash thread. Claims to be looking for books that "teach you important things you wouldn’t learn by reading the one-page summary," then gets snotty when he isn't given a one line summary so he can skip the work he claims to want to do. How many times does this drill have to play out before people realize that a "question" from Mouthwash is just bait?
We all have our vices.

In what universe am I required to appreciate and thank people who essentially post 'this book gud' on a thread explicitly asking for some basic amount of detail on those books (so I can know why they're good)?

Other people don't even have to ask:

Historical Book Recommendation Thread
CFC's Top Recommended Historical Works
SF Books
 
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The Wealth of Nations is a 1,100 page slog what kind of low hanging fruit are you smoking?

I actually think Smith is quite easy to read compared to the damned Germans like Marx and Hegel. Though part of that is probably because he was writing in English.

In what universe am I required to appreciate and thank people who essentially post 'this book gud' on a thread explicitly asking for some basic amount of detail on those books? So I can know why they're good?

Other people don't even have to ask:

Historical Book Recommendation Thread
CFC's Top Recommended Historical Works
SF Books

I'm gonna take a stab. You should read The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. It's fairly short, and it's probably the greatest single work of political-economic theory ever written. What it amounts to is an explanation of the dynamics of what Polanyi calls the 'market society' that explain much of the history of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries (the book was written in 1944). Polanyi was a socialist, but the book is not Marxist and in fact Polanyi spends some time in it explaining how the theories of orthodox Marxism are either wrong or incomplete.
 
In what universe am I required to appreciate and thank people who essentially post 'this book gud' on a thread explicitly asking for some basic amount of detail on those books? So I can know why they're good?
The whole point of it is that you make the journey, not us. We've already read the books we tell you to read. But we cannot read them for you.
 
Which 'Great Works' are low-hanging fruit?

The hanging gardens of Babylon.

Spoiler :
my apologies but this is the civfanatics forum. I couldn’t resist.
 
If you use enough metaphor, then a statement can mean anything.
Most of the book is not metaphor. If you understand warfare at all and have spent time studying battles and campaigns, the book makes great sense. It is a book about the principles of successful warfare.
 
Which 'Great Works' are low-hanging fruit?

The hanging gardens of Babylon.

The only problem with this is, that they are unlocked very early in Civ 6 and there's a very high risk the AI will finish them before you.
They become a real low hanging fruit if one of your early neighbors builds the Gardens while you were building your army.
 
The whole point of it is that you make the journey, not us. We've already read the books we tell you to read. But we cannot read them for you.
In the universe that doesn't revolve on the axis of you.

:huh:

I'm asking people to say "I think this book is good to read because so-and-so." That could be one sentence. Which doesn't seem arrogant or demanding by most reasonable definitions (but this is CFC, where people who could freely ignore this thread and move on to more interesting topics instead feel the need to defend their right to put less effort into posting on the thread than the OP asks).
 
:huh:

I'm asking people to say "I think this book is good to read because so-and-so." That could be one sentence. Which doesn't seem arrogant or demanding by most reasonable definitions (but this is CFC, where people who could freely ignore this thread and move on to more interesting topics instead feel the need to defend their right to put less effort into posting on the thread than the OP asks).
Well, your first defense was defending yourself from my defense of you, and if you don't know why it was a defense rather than an attack go read The Prince and the Art of War because those books will help guide you to being able to figure it out sometime.

Low hanging fruit means low effort high reward. If you want low effort high reward, you can recognize indicators by those providing low hanging fruit recommendations, i.e., not recommendations the poster classifies as low hanging fruit but the recommendations themselves that are a) low hanging fruit and b) provided by people who are motivated by low hanging fruit and turned away by needing a ladder. So when Hehe provides 2 paragraphs for why those are good books, starting with "They are really short", and lazy-ass Hygro goes "seconded" the guy who picked the lowest hanging fruit way of giving you the recommendation is itself evidence that that's the fruit you're looking for. That, until now for reasons that I guess I'm triggered and love an excuse to even care to go meta, I kept responding with the lowest hanging fruit of effective replies is continued evidence that my recommendation is likely valid for your lazy ass.

Having this kind of intuition is not always obvious to everyone, and if you need a blog to teach it to you, I recommend the intentionally offensive https://wallstreetplayboys.com

Ultimately when you ask for low hanging fruit, and someone says "there, that apple", you don't go "well tell me why that apple" unless your anxiety demands you have to consider everything completely in advance in which case I recommend you distract yourself with the hardest and highest single fruit you can think of because you're not taking advantage of what makes low hanging fruit valuable and efficient in the first place.
 
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Most of the book is not metaphor. If you understand warfare at all and have spent time studying battles and campaigns, the book makes great sense. It is a book about the principles of successful warfare.
I'm talking about when people apply it to things like business. And as for the warfare part even that can be questionable. After all, the Battle of Cannae and Operation Uranus both ended in Roman and German victories respectively, did they not?
 
Operation Uranus didn't end in a German victory. It was disastrous for the Germans.
 
Operation Uranus didn't end in a German victory. It was disastrous for the Germans.

It went about as well for Germany as Cannae for Rome...
 
The point is, Operation: Uranus was a blow from which the Germans never recovered, by contrast with the Romans after Cannae.
 
"I am convinced that the camps - all of them - are a negative school; you can’t even spend an hour in one without being depraved. The camps never gave, and never could give, anyone anything positive. The camps act by depraving everyone, prisoners and free-contract workers alike."

- Varlam Shalamov, on the gulag

I very much enjoyed the Kolyma Tales by Shalamov, you should read those if you thought he was worth quoting in the Great Quotes thread.
 
:huh:

I'm asking people to say "I think this book is good to read because so-and-so." That could be one sentence. Which doesn't seem arrogant or demanding by most reasonable definitions (but this is CFC, where people who could freely ignore this thread and move on to more interesting topics instead feel the need to defend their right to put less effort into posting on the thread than the OP asks).
Did you even bother to read the post where I recommended three books to you?
I don't play Civ III.
Nobody's perfect.
 
Did you even bother to read the post where I recommended three books to you?

Nobody's perfect.
I did try. The problem is that it's information overload, and I can't sort it all out. And the maps are so different from the kind I'm used to... the multilevel maps of Test of Time and the Civ II Extended version (where you can start out on Alpha Centauri, build the Great Library, and get tech updates without even needing contact with Earth - which you can't do until the late game anyway). It's nice to have a whole planet all to yourself, just exploring and seeing what's in the goodie huts.
 
I'm talking about when people apply it to things like business. And as for the warfare part even that can be questionable. After all, the Battle of Cannae and Operation Uranus both ended in Roman and German victories respectively, did they not?
Canae was a total disaster for the Romans. How does the Art of War affect that Roman loss? Bad generals often lose battles. More likely, Hannibal used it's principles (unknowingly) to win the battle.

If people try to apply the book's principles to business or other endeavors, that is their issue and doesn't reflect on the book or it's purpose. Using ketchup to clean copper has nothing at all to do with whether or not it is good with french fries.
 
Operation Uranus didn't end in a German victory. It was disastrous for the Germans.
What? But the Soviets completely surrounded the 6th Army. You're not supposed to do that.
 
What? But the Soviets completely surrounded the 6th Army. You're not supposed to do that.
Lordy, there are several hundred, not always consistent, maxims in the Art of War and you claim that the book is not useful because one of them does not fit with cherry picked historical battles? :lol:

When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.
 
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