Recommends War and Peace. Recommends The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Recommends A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Recommends The Master and His Emissary.

Transcript context

…Here we go. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? Well, I already recommended one, which is War and Peace. Definitely got to read that. If you want a like Tolstoy primer, I would read The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Another good one is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which is by George Saunders, and that's a collection of Russian short stories that is also about writing. And in particular, I really like the Russians because a lot of the Russian novelists are dealing with the effects of technology on the traditional Russian way of life, and they're very kind of in this really interesting middle ground between a sort of romantic outlook on the world and a more rationalist like, " We're progressing, we're making progress." And that's one of the things you'll find in Anna Karenina, oh, and ... God, what's the guy's ... Levin is out in the fields with the peasants, doing the scythe thing. That's Tolstoy kind of thinking about, "Oh, what would it be like, instead of being a nobleman who's trying to make farms way more efficient, I was just like with my scythe, that was really happy?" Anyway, so they're dealing with a lot of similar stuff to, I think AI. The Master and His Emissary is another really good one, and that's about basically how the different hemispheres of the brain view reality. It's really, really good, and I think it relates to a lot of AI stuff too. Yeah, I think those are my three or four. Yeah. Excellent list. I think nobody's mentioned any of these, so that's always a good sign. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show you've really enjoyed?…

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