
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Book Rooted in Buddhism? - burritofanatic
http://www.rabbitholesummaries.com/subtle-art-fuck/
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daxfohl
Short dumb article.

"As of this writing, Manson’s book is currently Amazon’s second best non-
fiction most read"

I guess the author gets a kick back for everyone that buys this book based off
the link.

It's taken me ten years to realize that amazon.com is nothing but a crappy
marketing machine selling you stuff you have no need for. If you want
something interesting, buy from a local bookstore (or hardware store or
whatever else amazon.com is destroying). It's essentially destroying our
ability to exist without it.

N.B. I say this about amazon.com specifically. AWS is great. Provides
something that didn't exist before, and great competition for Microsoft,
Google, and whomever else is now in that market.

I just don't like how amazon.com killed local.

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nether
I'll do what I want. Fuck off.

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tonyedgecombe
How rude.

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mouzogu
I read a few pages of this book. It reads as though it was written by a 15
year old. I'm shocked by it success - it felt like a collection of youtube
comments that had been corrected for punctuation and spelling and ordered into
chapters.

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mettamage
To play devil's advocate: couldn't simple writing be seen as "good UX?"

I haven't thought about this much, but I'm sure copywriters, (etc.) have.

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kinkrtyavimoodh
I don't think that the OP meant that it was so nice and simple that it was a
breeze to read. I think OP meant that it felt like a bunch of
r/im13andthisisdeep posts.

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mettamage
I'm sorry but how is this relevant? How does this interest a hacker? I am of
the opinion that this submission does not belong on the frontpage of Hacker
News. The submission guideline says: "anything that gratifies one's
intellectual curiosity." The title of the submission satisfies this claim. For
me -- and reading the comments for others as well -- that's where it stops.

My issue is with the content. The book is summarized within 2 paragraphs which
I personally don't find too interesting, but OK, maybe other people do.

But when I read something like this:

> Buddhism is hardly mainstream in Western culture – most would think of Asian
> monks or those who Kung-fu while wearing robes. Buddhism is a lot of things,
> but one way of looking at it is to see it as a belief system for
> contentment.

And I think of the HN crowd and how many people here have some idea about
meditation or Buddhism I just find the article below mediocre at best.

It then gives a very very very -- 1 paragraph or 2 -- short primer on Buddhism
and then does 2 other paragraphs tying in how Buddhism corresponds to the
book.

Paragraphs like: > What’s insightful about Manson’s treatment is his ability
to tie in the issues with practical psychology, and biology as it relates to
survival. This is apparent when he makes the argument that emotions are
overrated.

Manson may have written it insightful, but the author of the blog post doesn't
show me how it is insightful. Buddhism itself -- especially modern texts --
are in fact already practical psychology, (pseudo-)biology and survival. This
is nothing new.

I find that there's very little meat here. If I may suggest a more interesting
thing about Buddhism, survival and biology, then read Chade-Meng Tans blog and
buy the book Search Inside Yourself. Here is a simple example blog post:
[http://chademeng.com/me/how-the-dalai-lama-surprised-me-
agai...](http://chademeng.com/me/how-the-dalai-lama-surprised-me-again/)

Note: I'm just voicing my opinion. I'm not asking for the content to be
removed, I'd have flagged it otherwise but I respect the submission and the
idea that my view of what should or should not be posted on HN differs from
other people their views.

P.S. I personally find the blog of the person who submitted it more
interesting: [http://www.williamha.com/](http://www.williamha.com/) \-- I mean
no harm, I'm just genuinely surprised and maybe I'm venting a little, my
apologies.

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tyrw
It's on the front page because it got voted there by the audience of readers
on hacker news, thus it is relevant. QED.

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jasonkostempski
True, that is how it got to the front page. But the guidelines aren't read by
everyone and, even if they were, no one is perfect and even the most abiding
of HN users will forget the ideals occasionally, especially when drinking
alcoholic beverages. If this forum doesn't have constraints, what's the point?

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tyrw
This seems well within "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

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tillcarlos
Did anyone notice this submission is from a blog with exactly one article? No
author, no additional info on the page.

Hosted on bluehost, amazon affiliate id wilha-20... great that this bubbles
up.

Apart from that: I read the book earlier this year and had some good laughs.
Nothing new, but really well written. I think this is what people need these
days. Better this than have them watch/read another "The Secret".

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5_minutes
I bought this book, the author became famous after writing 1 famous blog post,
about "Giving less f*cks". Now he has turned this into an entire book and it
reads more like a self-help therapeutic diary from a troubled soul than
anything else.

I don't know why it's getting so much traction, it's really quite poor in
content, writing style (and skill) and full with filler material.

It could not be any lamer.

He has a bunch high-level-also-book-publishing-friends, who are helping out
with a massive amount of marketing, it seems.

It's a great example of a poor product, marketed the heck out of it.

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hack4supper
Shameless Plug: For those, who'd like to read summaries I made
[https://summarybrew.com](https://summarybrew.com)

If anyone does visit, please let me know of your experience.

