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8 Comments

What book/s have changed your life?

What book/s, if any, have changed your life? What books would you most recommend to your fellow Indie Hackers?

  1. 5

    The Courage to Be Disliked
    Seeking Wisdom
    Insanely Simple
    A Lapsed Anarchists Guide to Building a Great Business

  2. 2

    The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller. It's a surprisingly thin book given the number of thought provoking ideas presented in there.

    It does not give specific advice for life, but enables one to create a broader understanding of the world, and how it has been shaped by previous generations. This book has led me to understand and recognize psychological trauma in the people around me.

  3. 2

    Give and Take. Highly recommended

  4. 2

    'The Rise of the Robot' by Martin Ford
    'The Third Wave' by Alvin Toffler

    Not sure if this book has changed my life, but I've recommended at-least 3 times in the last week and in a recent post.

    I work as an automation developer, specifically Robotic Process Automation and Intelligent Automation - which basically is creating software that can preform jobs based on workflow.
    I genuinely enjoy this field of work, however if i'm being upfront, this industry has the potential to create mass unemployment and hardship in the medium-long term futures, which doesn't sit well with me entirely. We're not there yet, but that's where it's heading.

    In the book the author details how mechanical machines replaced working animals in the industrial revolution, and how software robots may do the same (except we're the horses) - But delved into the needed economic and corporate changes needed to protect the workforce.

    In short, this book (amongst others) showed me that as a participant in this line of work, I need to also consider ethically how it may affect future lively-hoods. Basically automation robots should not replace human workforce but rather be assistance to the human workforce, freeing us from menial/repetitive tasks and onto more creative thinking and problem solves.

    At the very least, it helped me feel a little better about this work.

    1. 2

      this industry has the potential to create mass unemployment and hardship in the medium-long term futures

      But also has the potential to create mass of new jobs? Someone has to design and code them, right?

      1. 2

        Absolutely – I believe we are seeing this already, with a steady rise in demand for programmers/developers and a shortage in supply of individuals with the technical skills needed to fill these jobs.

        However, for this argument to be true there needs to be a balance between the volume of jobs lost and volume of new jobs created due to automation. In my opinion, based on my experiences so far at least, it’s not evidently obvious that this will be the case once the industry matures and large-scale job lose begin to occur.
        I also think there needs to be a discussion on the fact that for various reasons, not everyone wishes to become developers or (and I don’t like saying this) has the ability to become developers . So, while I agree new jobs will be created, I don’t think it’s fair to say that that will fix the problem.

        I believe there needs to be a philosophical shift in thinking from C-Level and management in that automation here is not to replace staff and increase profit margins due to reduced running cost – but rather assist current staff by freeing them from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on business improvement, process improvement and innovation. Although human nature tends to only look at sort term benefits rather than long term investments. This is the philosophy I try to bring with me each project and the message I’d wish to convey.

        Apologies for the wall of words, I’m quite passionate about this topic. Thanks for the question!

  5. 1

    I would say, there are couple of them.

    1. Think and Grow Rich
    2. Zero To One
    3. Sapiens
    4. 1984

    These are some great books which I believe will help in changing your mindset or give you a new perspective.

  6. 3

    This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

  7. 2

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

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