9 Books That Elon Musk Thinks Everyone Should Read DRAKE BAER sElon Musk is a lifelong reader, and books ranging from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" to "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" have shaped his outlook. When people ask Elon Musk how he learned to build rockets, he has a simple answer. "I read books," he reportedly likes to say. Musk — who was smart enough to get into a physics Ph.D. program at Stanford University and then drop out because it didn't seem that relevant to him — has always been hungry for the written word. In its profile of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, the New Yorker observed that he was picked on a lot during his South African childhood, and he would retreat into fantasy (J.R.R. Tolkien) and science fiction (Isaac Asimov) to cope. As we'll see in the following slides, books have always been important to Musk: inspiring him as a child, giving him heroes as a young adult, and helping him to learn rocket science while launching SpaceX. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adam Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down by J.E. Gordon Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants by John D. Clark Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostro Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-favorite-books-2014-10?op=1#ixzz3FULeLAqt
I am currently reading Superintelligence based on a tweet I saw from Elon a while back recommending it.
I'm somewhat surprised to see Ignition! on the list. It's highly regarded, but it's also long out of print.
Also, he said in a recent interview when he was in Europe to read Merchants of Doubt, which I currently am. I want to read Superintelligence next.
I read Superintellugence and it's a great read. Probably a good book to revisit in a few years... Bostrom's paper on the Simulation argument is a consice and interesting read aswell (Elon commented on the Smulation theory recently). Here is a link to that paper: Are You Living in a Simulation? Also, seeing the above list I'm think I hope Elon's lufe doesn't end up like Howard Hughes'.
Nicola Tesla was in love with a pigeon towards the end of his life. Perhaps being misunderstood by the world is the price these great individuals pay for being ahead of their time.
If you want to understand power, politics, and the media in the US you should read every book written by Robert Caro.
Used copies of Ignition! are frightfully expensive at Amazon. However I found a link to a PDF here: Ignition! - An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, by John D. Clark | Rocketeers It has a great introduction by Isaac Asimov, who knew the author well. Once I started reading it I could not put it down. GSP
Thanks for that article, it was quite interesting. I almost want to break this topic off into a new thread because I'm quite fascinated by it. I must say that was hard to follow sometimes, but I think I got the gist of it......it seems to be on the same lines of the book 'The Hidden Reality'.
One of the most interesting conclusions to the argument/theory, that I can not find any fault with logically, is that if we (humans) sometime in the future start running "ancestor simulations" then extremely likely we our selves are (in) a simulation. Also the fact there there could be layers upon layers of simulations (simaulations within the simulations) and that it would be virtually impossible to know if you are in "the original" or "real" reality. Sort of like the "Turtles all the way down" paradox. Fascinating indeed.
He should add "Asimov: I, Robot" to the list, then he wouldn't be so afraid of AI. That book was written to answer those worries...
So I was thinking, would the bots that control the stock market be a sub or mini simulation? We have created technology that now learns on its own and can learn from other bots. If so, we have already created the technology to eventually get to human simulations, therefore it is number 3, and we are in a simulation ourselves.
Asimov always presumes that AI develops under circumstances where safeguards are in place to prevent it from taking action to harm humans, or where it can be contained when it goes awry. I think it's at least as likely for it to develop without such precautions; it wouldn't surprise me at all for AI to arise by accident and without our awareness, more like Terminator, Mass Effect, or Neuromancer. Either because we weren't trying to develop AI, or because we were trying and it happened faster than we expected.
Hang on there...I had an appointment to show up (so they could model my brain), but I forgot the address of the place...