
The Book of Life - dalys
http://www.thebookoflife.org/
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jqm
The site is nice but, having read through most of it I don't think I care for
it.

It seems to promote (among other things) aristocracy, dictatorship and
censorship (to varying degrees). It glorifies mindless ritual. It seems to
believe that those who know best should be in charge (De Botton himself?)
structuring life for others around them. It concentrates far too much on
supposed motives (jealousy, envy, ambition, desire for respect, the desire to
remake the world etc.) which may apply to the author, but are not necessarily
as universal or basic as he seems to believe. Maybe, just maybe, on occasion,
a person might buy a nice car not because they want to be seen in a nice car
and thus respected, but simply because they like nice cars. Sometimes, a cigar
is just a cigar.

To me, the individual is paramount. The society where the individual can
expand is a beautiful and increasingly vanishing thing. I'm always wary of
want-to-be kings dressed up in talk of a better world. Traditionally, not much
good has come from them.

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researcher88
This looks interesting. I love Alain de Botton and what he's trying to do by
inspiring a type of secular Renaissance in traditions, religious activities
and culture. Doing things like having church-like sermons on ideas, the
importance of rituals and other concepts covered in his book, Atheism 2.0. He
also has thephilosophersmail.com, a news site that's like a positive spin on
the Daily Mail.

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volent
This is great.

I love the way it's written as well as the design of the website.

The chapters are not too long and very easy to understand even for a
foreigner.

Great job :)

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mcormier
The chapters are longer than you think, they have sub sections: Chapter 1 ...
[http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/capitalism/](http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/capitalism/)
Chapter 2 ...
[http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/work/](http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/work/)

The design is nice and clean but the navigation is unclear between these sub-
chapters.

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rdrey
Agreed, the navigation for sub-chapters shouldn't be so hidden by default.
Alternatively a 'next' button to take the reader to the next sub-chapter would
be great.

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lnanek2
Don't really agree with it at all. I like a reliable partner who has supported
me for a long time, not just going after someone new like it recommends. I
don't like censorship. Seems very European, I guess, so maybe better for that
audience.

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hoggle
I haven't read through this myself and I might not agree with what's in there
but then again it seems to be a thoughtfully laid out format. Do we always
have to agree with what we read?

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rdrey
I've bookmarked this, since my CompSci education was very light on humanities
and especially the 'Curriculum' chapter seems valuable to me. Would be even
better if they had .mobi/.epub download links!

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justaman
One thing I would like to see represented in the Curriculum>Philosophy section
is Spinoza's Ethics.

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moonfern
The "founder" of this is Alain de Botton. He studied philosophy and started
writing books. His greatest success is "How Proust can change your life". In
it he explains how to become a happier person by reading Proust for a big
public. In interviews at that time (end 90's) he talked about erecting a
school of happiness and he did that. The list features philosophers who can
make you happy not the ones looking for the "truth". Descartes, Leibniz, Kant,
Spinoza the whole school of rationalism is missing here.

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senorgusto
Is it just me or does the site design remind you of Frank Chimero's
[http://shapeofdesignbook.com](http://shapeofdesignbook.com)?

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thirdknife
Nicely written! I like the way writer thought and wrote differently.

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thisjepisje
Nice format.

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batemanesque
more like the book of trife

