The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

1. Winnie the Pooh to kids on their third or fourth or fifth birthday. 2. The Mythical Man Month to non-tech bosses. 3. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to girlfriends (it's a test). 4. "Get It Together: Organize Your Records So Your Family Won't Have To" to 70+ old friend (single) and 70+ old sister (single).

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?

There are numerous science fiction books that have explored the potential impact of artificial intelligence on humanity, ranging from utopian to dystopian scenarios. Here are some of the most interesting and relevant titles that address the questions and fears you've mentioned: "Neuromancer" by William Gibson (1984): This cyberpunk classic envisions a future where AI is deeply ingrained in human society and plays a significant role in shaping it. "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke (1968): The novel, as well as the film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick, explores the relationship between humans and AI, particularly when AI begins to develop its own goals and intentions. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick (1968): This novel, which inspired the movie "Blade Runner," questions the nature of humanity and consciousness as it relates to artificial beings. "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov (1950): A collection of short stories that feature the famous "Three Laws of Robotics" and explore various aspects of AI and their impact on society.…

A good chance reflect. There are several: - A Conferedancy of Dunces, Peter O'Toole: tragic, hilarious and absurd - Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb: this was my first exposure to a lot of biases and other interesting phenomena - The Design of Everything Things: eye-opener! Harry Potter, Tolkien, Dune and a lot of other sci-fi has also affected me, although I find it hard to point out one in particular. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein stands out a bit.

Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others is the best, single-author collection of short stories I've ever read. If you like that, you might also enjoy The Lifecycle of Software Objects, an absolutely heartbreaking novella about simulated children, and his follow-up collection Exhalation. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is fantastic, and it's follow-up, Speaker for the Dead is even better, and my favorite science fiction novel of all time. They won back to back Hugo and Nebula awards. Card is a polarizing figure for his outspoken political opinions, but if ever the art should be separated from the artist, it's Speaker, which is an incredible exploration of empathy and responsibility, in addition to being a gripping, action-packed, science-literate read. Many more in this series, if you get into it.…

The moon is a harsh mistress; Speculation about AI, and how we would react and use the AI

"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein "Neuromancer" and sequels by William Gibson "Slaughterhouse 5" by Kurt Vonnegut I've read all of them dozens of times over. Hard to explain why, they speak my language, and help me understand myself and the world around me, kind of like my favorite bands do. Hard to put into words.

- Hpmor, from Yudkowsky the guy who created the ML Research Institute, simply one of the funniest and smartest book I ever read. - Martin Eden, a great tragic adventure from the late 19th century about a poor smart guy from the slums who tries to make his riches as a writer - The Moon is Harsh Mistress, Elon’s favorite sci-fi books - Foundation by Asimov - Homo Deus by Harari - Principles by Ray Dalio

Mine was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, read around the same age (took me awhile to get through SiaSL). The ideas around TANSTAAFL were what really drove me to believe in the value of hard work and being wary of the easy path to "success".

Robert Heinlein “the moon is a harsh mistress”. A 1966 masterpiece about sentient computer, politics and the making of a revolution to create a new free country. I’ve reread this one 3 times in a row, better every time.

The Moon is a harsh mistress, covers the invention of an AI by a computer technician to free the colony on the moon. If you're interested in Anarchy and AI, it's a good book.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Heinlein, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". I would say it's harder sci-fi than "I, Robot" (which I also love).

The Moon is a HArsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein The Foundation Series Isaac Asimov Both books provide macro economic examples, and sound philosophy such as "There aint no such thing as a free lunch", and enlighted self interest

Just finished Daemon and about to start Freedom. Great read, and it's amazing how quickly it ramps up near the end! I hadn't been hooked to a book like that since "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Dune"

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert Coram: Boyd Mark Donohue (w/Paul Van Valkenburgh): The Unfair Advantage Carroll Smith: XXX To Win (its a series of books)

Just finished reading "Fiasco" by Stanislaw Lem. Between that "Cyberiad" I feel like Lem doesn't get enough credit. Maybe part of it is not being in the Western European writer's camp? At any rate, I would say: Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein The Dispossessed, Le Guin The Stars My Destination, Bester Childhood's End, Clarke Stand out as some of my favorites. I'm pretty terrible at making top-5 lists, but those stand out as ones that I would read again in a heartbeat if there weren't already 50 books on the floor next to my bed waiting for me :)

Peter Watts's Blindsight - easily the best SF novel I've read in the last decade. I haven't got round to Echopraxia yet, but I doubt it'll fail to live up to its predecessor. Also, while I have no use whatsoever for Stross's "Singularity" stuff, his Laundry Files series excels, especially for an inveterate old Lovecraft fan such as myself. If you want a taste, there are some shorts available online -- "Overtime" and "Funny Farm" are good places to start; "Equoid" is the most recent, but it's not representative, and it's also the weakest entry in the series as a whole due to its poor characterization and reliance on shock and gruesomeness rather than the more insidious sort of horror in which the rest of the series specializes.…

Some which I have re-read recently and still enjoyed: William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy Frank Herbert's Dune series Isaac Asimov's Foundation series Frederik Pohl's "Gateway" Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a harsh Mistress" Some which I remember liking when I read them many years ago as a teenager: E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman series David Brin's Uplift series Peter F. Hamilton's Greg Mandel trilogy and The Night's Dawn trilogy Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" George R. Dickson's "Dorsai!"

Anything by Alastair Reynolds - his Revelation Space series is great, and House of Suns is a fantastic one-off. He's probably the closest to Ian Banks in creating galaxy-spanning civilisations across eons of time. Ian MacDonald is another good one. My favourite of his is The Dervish House, but his others are definitely worth reading. Charles Stross is good. Didn't get on with Accelerando, but his Laundry books are a fun mix of HP Lovecraft/Len Deighton/IT Crowd. Halting State and Rule 34 are good explorations of pervasive augmented reality and intelligent algorithms. Also Glasshouse as an exploration of post-singularity society. Never managed to finish a Cory Doctorow book though. I found William Gibson's Bigend trilogy a slog, but I really enjoyed The Peripheral - it's a fun read. Enders Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card are fantastic, but the remaining books suffer from diminishing returns (with the possible exception of Ender's Shadow). There are a lot of books in the series, but basically, the series finishes wherever you get bored reading it. Anything by China Mieville is well worth your time.…

Stand on Zanzibar, Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Childhood's End, A Cantilce for St Leibowitz, The Stars My Destination, Midnight At The Well of Souls, Nine Princes in Amber, Halting State, Strnger In A Strange Land, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

Of course, "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" if you like it down and dirty, a tale of a "Computerman" working for the man but secretly using his machine to subvert the powers that be up until the final showdown.

Not a book, but the essay "Conscience of a Hacker" has never been far from my mind. In middle-school, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers started a fairly strong libertarian bend as well as a somewhat antiauthortarian In high-school, Atlas Shrugged gave me a clear vision of how important it was to create things with the skills I'd learned, and how naked self-interest could shape a society. In college, Pump Six illustrated the failings of "In the future, it's going to be even more awesome to be rich and white". After college, The Jungle showed me both the importance of social safety nets and how easily people who say "I'll just work harder" get screwed by the system--any system. Makers gave me a better appreciation for taking care of my self and my body. ~ It's important, I think, to constantly be reading new things and taking in new ideas; had I stopped with Atlas Shrugged, for example, I'd probably be a lot different (and more naive) than I am today.

I recently have been reading Hugo Award Novels and recommend Roger Zelazny's This Immortal which is good enough to have shared the award with Dune in 1965. Lord of Light is also a great read and won a Hugo in 1968. Clifford Simak's Way Station, Phillip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle, and Walter Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz are other great Hugo novels from the early 1960's that tend to be overshadowed by more famous authors from that period such as Heinlein (not that I wouldn't recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress if you haven't read it).

Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand), In Memory Yet Green/In Joy Still Felt (Isaac Asimov), The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert Heinlein). Those books are probably what made me into a self-sufficient human being who wants to stand on his own and keep living the best he can.

Snow Crash is great. Generally I'd recommend some "classics", just to see who treaded some ground first, i.e. who gets copied by everyone. Isaac Asimov - Foundation (and the rest of the trilogy) Robert A. Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land / Starship Troopers / The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man / The Stars My Destination Jack Vance - The Dying Earth Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep / The Man in the High Castle Larry Niven - Ringworld etc. etc. A list of Hugo Award winners[1] might come in helpful. Another advantage of having read "the greats" is that if some critic says that new author X writes "in the style of Y" you have a slightly better idea if you might like it. Tastes vary, of course. Personally I never got what's supposed to be so great about Ender's Game. Teen Mary Sue geek power fantasy with questionable morals. Then again, lots of people said similar things about Heinlein… [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel

If you like Foundation, you might like the Ringworld series by Larry Niven. Ringworld is a classic. Robert Heinlein's books are great. Some come to mine are The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers (much better than the movies), Stranger in a Strange Land, Double Stars, and The Puppet Masters. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness is amazing. The Earthsea series are fun read if you want to get beyond SciFi.

I didn't love Stranger, but I blame Heinlein's stroke on that. Mid-way through writing it, he had a stroke – and you can tell because there's this huge break in the direction of the narrative. Moon feels much more cohesive and internally consistent. It's my favorite work of Heinlein's. Citizen of the Galaxy is also outstanding, even though it was written for the "juvenile" market. The neatest thing about Bryson is that he's a travel writer. It works out really well for a science book, though, because he takes nothing for granted and describes everything with such loving flourish. It's a travelogue through the history of science and it's funny, and fun, while still respecting the subject matter.

Non-fiction - 'The Selfish Gene' - Richard Dawkins Grokking the concept changed the way I thought about life forever. - 'Quantum Reality' - Nick Herbert One of the best introductory level books on quantum physics mysteries. No nonsense. - Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig The book that introduced me to Kant, Hume and philosophy of science. Just for that, I'm forever indebted to it. Some favorite fiction books - - Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson Loved 'Snowcrash' too. - 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' - Robert Heinlein - Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, Milan Kundera, Somerset Maugham

I'm a big fan of Sci-Fi because I feel it makes people think about what they want the future to be, as well as avoiding the re-hashing of historical and current events that many fiction books set in the present do. With that in mind a list of great books to read: The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson Gridlinked - Neal Asher Neuromancer - William Gibson The Reality Dysfunction - Peter F. Hamilton The Dreaming Void - Peter F. Hamilton Fallen Dragon - Peter F. Hamilton Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan Market Forces - Richard Morgan Blindsight - Peter Watts The Electric Church - Jeff Somers Tunnel in the Sky - Robert A. Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein 1984 - George Orwell

i like heinlein's "moon is a harsh mistress" and alfred-bester's "tiger-tiger / stars-my-destination". kinda old school though.