Benjamin Alt

Enjoyable,

Revisado: 07-02-23

I really liked this one. It was a mostly positive and thoughtful unpacking of some ideas around what work means, and how HDT looked at the morality of work. This is a good compliment to Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. This work is more affirmative and less smarmy than Bullshit Jobs and has more practicality to offer the reader, imo.

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esto le resultó útil a 15 personas

Good mystery

Revisado: 04-11-23

I liked this one quite a bit, I especially liked the diversion into the mountains, and the early wwii references.

Well read, not overdone. The music between the chapters was a little odd, but not bad.

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Interesting, if a little narrow minded

Revisado: 03-05-23

Having listened to this, it does indeed seem as if the author started with a fully formed title and worked backwards to justify it, thought there are some genuinely thought provoking parts that make it worthwhile.

A lot of the unpacking of the value we put on work as a society, as well as identifying the paradoxes that exist - the work that aligns most with human-centric work is the least financially recognized, the labor-driven origins of class resentments, and political sorting are some of the most relevant parts of the book, though there’s a lot of kvetching one needs to get through to get there.

I think this book undervalues individual dignity and the fulfilling nature that completing work - bullshit or otherwise - has in the real life, but does an excellent job of distinguishing market value from human values, and elaborating the confounding nature of puritanical work ethic.

Reviews of this book that call it Marxist or communist, I think represents a misunderstanding of the premise, and I suspect use those terms as scaremongering to discredit the ideas put forward. Offering UBI as a panacea seems a little utopian and suspect, though I think a good argument is made there. This book pairs well with some thoughts put forward in the book The Nordic
Theory of Everything, especially around the what constitutes real freedom.

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Interesting book with the worst possible narration

Revisado: 03-03-23

I thought this was an interesting and a engaging book, thought provoking, though the initial sections quickly devolve into just a tour of the last 50 years of culture.

The narration here is… abysmal. I will strenuously avoid anything else read by this narrator - plodding, devoid of any kind of emphasis, read in a robotic monotone that is simultaneously ignorable and grating.

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Regressive claptrap

Revisado: 02-26-23

This book has nothing to offer but pseudo theological justification for toxic male behavior. It repeatedly dismisses any evidence that doesn’t support its primary premise that men suffer only because because they are weak willed and lack “something to fight for.”

This book is hogwash, modern materialism hiding underneath a thin vail of biblical quotes and bad movie reviews.

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Good, but Bryson’s arrogance gets in the way

Revisado: 02-26-23

I liked many parts of this book, but was very put off by Bryson’s attitude and judgement of his fellow man. Nearly everyone he meets is seemingly a knuckleheaded, overweight cretin. This is especially true when he meets folks south of Mason-Dixon line. I guess we can’t all live up to Bill’s high falutin standards.

Well read, and many descriptions of the trek were really enjoyable.

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