
Ask HN: Which books do you wish you'd read earlier in life? - arikr
Which books do you wish read when you were younger?<p>Alternatively:<p>Which books that you read while younger do you wish you&#x27;d followed more closely &#x2F; taken to heart more?
======
slip_shoe
It's funny how western (probably American) HNers are mentioning the "how to
succeed everywhere" books all over this thread. This is silly, methinks. I
would mildly suggest those people to take a bit wider look at where they live
and why they consider those books important to be read as early as possible.

For me, I don't regret about not having read anything, I'd rather regret about
having read too much and nothing substantial at all at the same time. But
regardless of the fact that I've read a ton of bulls*t books and virtually
nothing fundamental, I don't see a need to catch up. No haste = no waste. We
can live very productive, moral and full lives without reading anything.

~~~
monksy
Western civilization is based on merit and it is based on being very
competitive. (It's true in your mates, your social standing, your financial
situation, etc) That's the reason for the improvement books.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
> Western civilization is based on merit

This is one of the larger falsehoods I've read in a while.

It's based on money, connections, favors, historical precedent and power. And
it's not the only one.

~~~
protoplant
The book Moneyball talks about this. Well I thought it would be about
baseball, but it was kind of about our ability to judge merit. It's hard even
in a measurement driven sport like baseball. Sports are arguably the purist
meritocracy, yet scouts were routinely missing on their evaluation of talent.

------
garganzol
"Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug, Second Edition

The book changed the course of my life. It allowed me to build a sustainable
business, that at some point became my full-time job.

The magic of that book comes from the fact that it allows you to gradually
develop a compassion. For your customers, prospects and all other living
beings in this world.

Having that compassion embedded, you start to see a lot of subtle things. The
most impactful experience for me was to comprehend that the world is a place
full of pain and hardships. Not only for me, but for all others too.

Once you see it, you immediately understand there is plenty of space where you
can bring the value to others.

But that's not all. The story does not end there. It turns out that bringing
the value to others brings value to you.

People start to write you things like: "you are legend", "if you ever come to
Chicago give me a call", "here take my money". And this is a tipping point
where things start to work as a good business. It starts to shape your life.
At some point it becomes evident that you should charge a prime for your
product and develop the whole thing even further. While helping other living
beings along the way.

That's an awesome position to be in. I thank Steve Krug, the author of the
book, for bringing his findings to other people like me.

~~~
amorphous
Would you recommend reading it even if not particularly interested in web
usability?

~~~
garganzol
Absolutely. The product I've made is not even web-based. Treat web usability
just as an example; you can extrapolate the results to much wider areas of
life.

------
queeerkopf
Ask HN Threads with similiar topics/recommendations:

* Books you wish you had read earlier? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14477851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14477851)

* What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155833)

* Books on specific topics that have applied to many areas of your life? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14477851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14477851)

* Books with a high signal to noise ratio? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027102)

~~~
yesenadam
Damn you! Geez, I downloaded 31 books yesterday from these lists. :-) As if I
didn't already have a huge backlog from other book mentions on HN... So much
great stuff.

------
graeme
The Four Hour Workweek. It showed me:

1\. How to make a business without "experience" 2\. A model of how to make an
automated business

Changed my life and led me to create a mostly automated business that is still
going seven years on.

Note: this book often rubs people the wrong way, and requires caveats.

The four hours refers to maintenance work, in my interpretation. I could
maintain my business on four hours. But, it would gradually atrophy. So, I
grow it. But, with the liberty to take a lof of time off, when I want.

For those allergic to Tim Ferriss, Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling is
an excellent read.

But, the four hour week was the book that hit me like a ton of bricks and
changed the course of my life.

The business, if anyone is curious:
[https://lsathacks.com](https://lsathacks.com)

~~~
bengkoang
What it hit me the most is about what the worst thing that could happen if you
try your venture, it blows my mind back then and it really boost my
confidence. I'm guessing it's related to the author stoic perspective

~~~
graeme
I did the worst case scenario exercise he gave, exactly as described. Then I
went on a long walk, decided to leave law school and try business.

I still have the paper I used.

Briefly, the exercise was:

1\. What's the worst case outcome of trying 2\. What steps can you take to
mitigate it?

In my own case, it was taking a year off law school, and using up some savings
+ possibly needing to get a job before starting law school again. Not a giant
risk. (Not zero, either, but having it quantified really helped)

The other part of the exercise was measuring the worst case against potential
gain. In my case, it was permanent, long run freedom. Which, I got! So, well
worth the risk.

------
sndean
A Short History of Nearly Everything

I read it at ~18 and can easily draw a direct line between it and going into
research, but I wish I had read it a few years earlier and became interested
in science sooner. Maybe I would've actually done my homework in high school.

~~~
chrisco255
I agree. This book changed my perspective. Up until I read this book, I
largely accepted the stories told by my family and religion. It wasn't until I
learned the painstaking work and effort that went into scientific research
that I began to trust it. This book does a great job of describing some of
science's greatest discoveries and the people behind the effort to uncover
them. It's also lightweight and sort of fun.

------
Francute
A Mathematician's Lament, by Paul Lockhart. Also, i'm not completely sure
about this, because i had to have my eyes a bit open to understand it. But
would be nice to had readed it in my sixteens.

Basically, one of the important ideas i saved was; If you want to learn
something, don't just simply study. First, find a problem that care you, then
try to solve it, last, study how to actually solve it, maybe existed a better
way that you could use for your next try, making easier to you to understand
everything related to that problem and say with confidence you learned; maybe
didn't existed a better way, and you can share and discuss your solution
achieving a better one.

Find problems, solve them, make them easier, learn.

Then, make that general for all your life problems, not only those science
related ones.

------
alok-g
Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people. The book had opened my
mind on how people react to criticism.

Human Relationships, Steve Duck. Relationships are so important in life, and
not at all obvious for everyone, yet we are all left to ourselves on them.

~~~
AlexAmee
From my standpoint, this is one of the most overrated books of all times.

I stopped reading it somewhere in the middle because it did not tell me
anything new at all.

I understand we are all different and have our strengths and weaknesses, what
is totally obvious to you is probably a new concept to me.

~~~
yesenadam
"Most overrated" \- means that you've heard from a lot of people who liked it
a lot more than you, got a lot out of it.

I read a lot of movie user reviews on IMDb, and often people rant angrily
about incredibly overrated movies, with the impression they're saying
something about the movie and not about themselves. Maybe they feel smarter or
better than the people who liked it. As if not being able to appreciate
something is a virtue.

Anyway, why try to stop people reading a book millions have learnt something
from?

~~~
AlexAmee
> Anyway, why try to stop people reading a book millions have learnt something
> from?

That was not my intention, to stop someone from reading it. I explicitly said
that:

> I understand we are all different and have our strengths and weaknesses,
> what is totally obvious to you is probably a new concept to me.

~~~
yesenadam
Sure, I understand. But a comment saying just "I learnt nothing from that
book." wouldn't be worth posting on here, not substantive. People talking
about overratedness sound like they're on a mission to right a wrong. I
appreciated your change of tack; originally I had sentences in my previous
comment saying your first sentence read like you wrote it before you read the
book, and your third like you wrote it after, but I deleted them. :-)

It is fascinating though how the most common subject in lists like this on
here seems to be _How to Win Friends_ and people saying it's great, other
people saying it's overrated, not worth reading. Another thing I learnt from
those movie reviews was that someone writing about why they love something is
usually far more worth reading—is for much better reasons, says more about the
thing—than someone not liking it, which often depends on arbitrary personal
factors - not being advanced enough to appreciate it, being too advanced,
feeling misled by the advertising or word-of-mouth, preferring or being used
to a different style etc

~~~
AlexAmee
I thought about my comment and also yours, you made think about why I wrote
this.

I probably want other readers to remind that they should not blindly trust
recommendations from HN.

Edit: If everyone agree's on something, new readers will more likely accept
the fact that this book is worth buying, but if a few say the opposite, the
reader has to evaluate before buying.

I once bought the book 'garry kasparov - how life imitates chess' because of
HN reviews, It was probably the worst book I've ever read, full of obvious
things.

------
neya
Right off the bat, here you go:

1\. The 7 habits of highly successful people (Stephen Covey)

2\. The Miracle Morning (Hal Elrod)

3\. Business Model Generation (Aelxander Osterwalder)

4\. The Art Of War (Sun Tzu)

5\. The E-myth, why most businesses don't work and what to do about it (Michel
Gerber)

6\. Made In Japan (Founder of Sony, Akio Morita)

7\. How to win friends and influence people (Dale Carnegie)

Probably I missed a few more, but I think these ones are a good start.

~~~
nik_0_0
Just to plus one - also really enjoyed "The Miracle Morning". Great way to
think about structuring your day, and a short read. Earlier may or may not
help, but should be read at a time when you are striving to improve yourself,
but maybe not finding the success you wish.

------
ternaryoperator
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. It's astonishing to get useful, relevant
advice on how to conduct yourself across two millenia. I recommend the
translation by Gregory Hays, which removes the academic feel of other
translations, and so makes them relevant and, at least in my case, actionable.

~~~
jonathansorum
Couldn't agree more. This book truly deserves the "timeless" epithet. A book
to revisit every few years at minimum.

------
yay_cloud2
Count of Monte Cristo and East of Eden.

I'm happy to have had the chance to read these books twice (first in my early
20s, again in my late 30s), but I only wish I could compare my experiences
with a first reading during my early teens or pre-teen years.

~~~
aklemm
East of Eden...so good.

------
walterbell
_Nine Hundred Grandmothers_ by R.A. Lafferty. Timeless and immortal:
[http://www.conceptualfiction.com/nine_hundred_grandmothers.h...](http://www.conceptualfiction.com/nine_hundred_grandmothers.html)

Anything on vision therapy/improvement, e.g.
[https://gettingstronger.org/2016/03/faq-for-vision-
improveme...](https://gettingstronger.org/2016/03/faq-for-vision-improvement-
by-hormetism/)

------
tzhenghao
Grit by Angela Duckworth [1].

I wish I read this back in my high school days. It's a different thing
learning hard work and grit from a book than the constant "nagging" I get from
my parents. The latter came in on my left ear and went out the right ear
almost instantly. I was a lazy kid back then despite getting relatively good
grades in school. I've learned to become grittier on my current day job
(there's always something to fight for, especially as part of a startup
riddled with uncertainties), but I kinda wish I could go back and pick this
book up if it was available/released back then. Would have helped me better
understand college applications too.

[1] - [http://a.co/gJnmxfR](http://a.co/gJnmxfR)

~~~
sngz
does her book talk down on you? every interview I've heard her on turned me
off from wanting to even look at her book. also from her interview she cherry
picks a lot of examples.

------
nils-m-holm
The Stranger by Camus, because it introduced me to the complete lack of
objectivism in society, a revelation that explained a lot of things I had
experienced in my life. In fact I did read it in my 20's, but it took me years
to comprehend it.

Then, every CS textbook I have written, because there was nothing like these
when I needed them.

------
caseysoftware
Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holliday

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

I read both a couple years ago and was fascinated (and annoyed) by how many of
the little tricks and tactics I recognized in sales, in the news, and really
in every day life. Reading them didn't make me immune to any of it but now I'm
aware and try to think more critically about what I see and hear.

~~~
sogen
another Cialdini fan!

You're going to love "How to lie with statistics"

------
donatj
Anthem by Ayn Rand. It’s really short and a tad trite but really made me
rethink things. Still the only book I have read in a single sitting.

The Art of UNIX Programming. 10 years ago me really could have used it, feel
like I wasted way too much time figuring out things this would have explained.
Honestly I don’t know if I had been ready to hear it though.

------
kevlar1818
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen.
Whether as a recent graduate toiling with life decisions or as a recent
graduate student juggling life, work, and school, I read this book about 2 to
5 years too late.

------
ArslanAtajanov
"Letters from a Stoic" by Seneca

"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins

"Deep Work" by Cal Newport

"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond

~~~
jrs95
+1 for The Selfish Gene, one of the best books I've read. If you have any
interest in the process of evolution/natural selection, I highly recommend it.
It's not as "political" or explicitly atheistic as some of Dawkins' more
recent work either, so people who have a negative opinion of that sort of
thing shouldn't be turned off by his name being on it.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
It really is sad how many people would use a man's political leanings in the
2010s to dismiss the scientific book that made him famous in the 1970s.

------
thescribe
Godel, Escher, Bach. I hated math for most of high-school, but I read this
book between semesters and it changed my career choice.

------
sixhobbits
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by
Jonathan Haidt

It changed the way I think and most of my existing ideas.

~~~
boulos
This book didn’t exist until that long ago, so it doesn’t seem like a fair
choice for “I wish I had read this when I was younger”.

~~~
aaachilless
In my opinion the goal of a thread like this isn't to share missed
opportunities but to highlight potential opportunities for readers today.

------
stewbrew
I read many books on philosophy, sociology, and tons of literature when I was
young. I wish I would have read Algebra 1-3, Analysis 1-2, Mathematical
Statistics etc.

~~~
veddox
I daresay the former stood you in better stead. There's enough time for
learning statistics when you really need it.

------
ahdroit
there is something to be said for finding the right book at the right time.

~~~
HiroshiSan
^ this. I read Paul Graham's, What You'll Wish You'd Known when I was in high
school and it was like "okay great I get it" and only now after reading it
again recently has it become "wow, now I feel it."

And for me it seems to boil down to feeling the message rather than knowing
it. Someone can tell you to work out and stay in shape, but sometimes it takes
hitting a personal low to make a permanent change.

------
iammiles
Meditations. Its passages have become a sort of canon for my life.

------
l33tbro
'Impro' by Keith Jonstone.

It appears, superficially, to be a handbook about the art of improvisation in
theatre. But it's actually a book packed with wisdom about the ontology of
creativity, the facilitation of learning, and how most human interaction is an
interplay of "statua transactions".

The chapter on status is alone worth reading, and something I wish I were
aware of as a younger man.

------
tmatthewj
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

The Richest Man in Babylon - George Samuel Clason

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

This is such a beautiful thread!

------
siberianbear
The Psychopath Code [1], by Peter Hintjens. You can download a free legal
copy.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are out there: they're about five to ten percent of
the population. Once you've had your life intertwined with one, you'll never
see the world the same. Know how to identify them and deal with them.

I learned about Peter Hintjens and his book when his death was reported here
on Hacker News.

[1]
[http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths](http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths)

------
adjkant
Slaughterhouse-Five, Galapagos, Sirens of Titan

Basically, any Kurt Vonnegut book that isn't Cat's Cradle (good but
overrated).

Bias note: I'm still young, but these shaped me easily.

------
pizza
The Divided Self + The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise + The
Politics of the Family - all by RD Laing

Civilization and its Discontents - Freud

Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher

Gateless Gate - Mu-men? Very old Chinese mystical text that somehow resonated
w me considerably..

Neuromancer - William Gibson

Snowcrash - Neal Stephenson

Inherent Vice (currently reading and enjoying a lot! - loved the movie so much
I got the book but I think I enjoy the book way more even) - Thomas Pynchon

------
WheelsAtLarge
I have 4:

-Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography - you can download it for free

\- Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - A bit simplistic but
it opens your eye to the fact that talent is a small part of being successful
in whatever you want to achieve.

\- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - You need people
to succeed. Making enemies or just treating people indifferently is a bad
move.

\- 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey. People put it down
because the advice seems to be common sense but it's only common sense if you
know it but not everyone knows it.

\- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius- this is a lifelong guide. Read it until the
pages fall apart and then get another and do the same.

All these books can be read multiple times and you'll learn something new so
get hard copies if you can.

------
abtinf
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

------
jkmcf
Here's a brand new one, from a famous history podcaster, Mike Duncan of The
History of Rome fame.

The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

It would have been great if everyone had read this in the 80s, 90s, 2000s...

An under-analyzed period of Roman history.

~~~
Balgair
I'll echo Duncan's tHoR podcast. It is _really_ good.

------
gumby
How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. How much of what you read is
really true?

------
defen
_Moby Dick_

I'm halfway through it. I'd held off on reading it for years just due to its
reputation but I'm finding it incredibly enjoyable, humorous, and in many ways
not at all what I was expecting.

~~~
clarkmoody
I read it earlier in life, and I don't think I got as much out of it as if I'd
read it later.

------
starpilot
I was so stubborn that any book, even one that foretold my exact future, would
not have gotten through to me. Even now I struggle to impart any pearls of
wisdom into my daily life.

------
mindcrime
_The Fountainhead_ \- Ayn Rand

 _Atlas Shrugged_ \- Ayn Rand

 _The Selfish Gene_ \- Richard Dawkins

 _How To Win Friends And Influence People_ \- Dale Carnegie

 _The Game_ \- Neil Strauss

 _The Four Steps To The Epiphany_ \- Steve Blank

... among others.

------
fiddyschmitt
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. An easily digestible summary of
information and key figures in its history.

Turing's Cathedral (or as my brothers call it: Von Neumann's Cathedral). An
awesome account of the history of computation, and the obstacles that had to
be overcome.

Cryptonomicon. Hilarious

The Strangest Man, by Graham Farmelo. A biography of delightfully awkward Paul
Dirac.

The Library of Babel, by Jorge Luis Borges. Thought provoking and profound.

------
akulbe
My five year old is a _voracious_ reader. I feel like this is one of the most
important educational tools you can give anyone. We stress to her that if you
can read, and comprehend, there's nothing you cannot learn. That's why I
included the first two on this list.

How to Read a Book - Mortimer Adler

How to Read Slowly - James Sire

The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

------
maroonblazer
"The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dorner. Sort of an applied "Heuristics and
Biases".

"The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright. It unlocked the reasons why my impulses
and aspirations were at such odds.

"The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin". Very practical advice for how to
better oneself.

Caveat: Reading them earlier is one thing. Appreciating them is another.

------
keynan
Capital by picketty, and Dictators handbook

------
oceanghost
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

It appeals to a certain type of thinker. For me, it was for confirmation that
there was another individual in the universe whose brain worked like mine.
This alone was a revelation, even aside from the book's profundity.

------
rasengan0
This is ongoing practice: Zen mind, Beginner's mind
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Mind,_Beginner%27s_Mind)

------
ph4
The Book and The Wisdom of Insecurity, both by Alan Watts. Then I could have
inoculated myself from the myopic obsession with eco-consciousness promoted by
the rest of the books in this thread.

------
grosspoint
The Drunkard's Walk by Mlodinow. Really reshaped how I perceive what happens
in the world, in my job, in my life in general.

------
rvdmei
Technomanifestos by Adam Brate. I never had any introduction to the history of
information technology until I read this book.

------
koolhead17
* Total Freedom by J Krishnamurti

* Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

* Wit and Wisdom from Poor Richard's Almanack by Benjamin Franklin

* Influence by Robert B. Cialdini

------
jrs235
The one I'm about to finish: The Principles of Product Development Flow:
Second Generation Lean Product Development [1]

Wish I had read this years ago! I think every developer can benefit greatly
from understanding these principles. Plus if they were more widely known and
adopted it would be easier to get other managers to go along with them.

[1] [http://amzn.to/2GL17hs](http://amzn.to/2GL17hs) (affiliate link)

~~~
petagonoral
I would give your post a lot more respect if it wasn't an affiliate link.

non affiliate link:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935401009](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935401009)

------
chrissnell
In Fifty Years, We'll All Be Chicks, by Adam Carolla.

I should have read fifteen years ago, but it hadn't been written yet.

------
monkeygus
The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart once you hand over your life to the dice,
anything can happen

------
schizoidboy
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. Debatable but opened up a new
perspective for me.

~~~
adjkant
Could you elaborate on the new perspective for you? What was the previous one?

I was intrigued by the title and looked up the book and found this review, and
it seems to bring up some good points.

[https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/102880724?book_show_ac...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/102880724?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1)

~~~
schizoidboy
I felt drowned in pessimism from media, culture, and family for most of my
life up to that point, and this book opened up an optimistic perspective on
global prosperity, health, violence, education, work, inequality, environment,
etc. It makes rational arguments for this general optimism rather than hand-
wavey optimism. I think it can be summarized as: "Things aren't so bad for the
average human and are improving in most of the important ways. We've hit on
patterns (science, markets, etc.) that seem to work, and we should continue to
work at making things even better."

~~~
adjkant
Thanks, appreciate the detail :)

I very much agree with that philosophy and would consider myself a rational
optimist if I had to label, hence the intrigue.

While optimism is good, I think it needs to be paired with equally important
perspective. As that review points out, the general trend doesn't mean we
can't go backward for long periods of time in multiple areas. That optimism
needs to be paired with a push for improvement over complacency, which I think
is the easy comfort optimism can give.

Sorry if this is preaching to the choir, but hopefully someone gains value out
of this.

Edited because I just trailed off in the middle of a thought on my first go
round.

~~~
schizoidboy
Just responded with a separate reply on the critique. I agree we have to be
careful with excessive optimism.

------
cleetus
A Mind for Numbers - Barbara Oakley

I spent a lot of time studying, but not learning effectively.

------
outlace
"The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch

------
Gatsky
Wish I read earlier:

The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa

------
ahdroit
the art of living - Epictetus, Sharon Lebell

------
timellis-smith
Fiction

War and Peace

Crime and Punishment

Count of Monte Christo

1984

God of Small Things

Paradise lost

Divine comedy

Non fiction

Selfish gene

Meditations

Madness explained (the best book I've encountered for explaining how the mind
works)

The Red Queen

Tao te Ching

------
Zarath
Simulacra and Simulation

------
rodjomatic
"Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion", by Sam Harris

------
numbsafari
I wish I hadn’t ever read Ayn Rand’s books. They were a waste of time and a
distraction for too many years. I’ll say this though, I’m glad I grew up and
I’m glad that when I got to the end of the Fountainhead I had already figured
out what was wrong with her. If not for that, I wouldn’t have recovered.

~~~
slap_shot
I’ve heard this, too. For those of us, like myself, that don’t realistically
expect to read her books, what was wrong with her and why do you regret
reading them?

~~~
adjkant
This links to a lot of good stuff:

[https://nintil.com/2016/04/09/why-ayn-rand-is-not-and-
ought-...](https://nintil.com/2016/04/09/why-ayn-rand-is-not-and-ought-not-be-
taken-seriously/)

As a philosophy / ethics person who has studied and read a lot of philosophers
and never her, even from basic argument structures of hers there are fallacies
galore that show no sign of being addressed.

I think the view is a magnet towards selfish people looking for justification
of their views. I think her arguments, when viewed objectively (ironically),
have the effect mentioned in the top level comment of pushing people away from
the pitfall conclusions she makes.

~~~
sidcool
An interesting counter argument:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2014/05/13/ayn-rand-was-not-a-defender-of-the-rich/)

