What three books would you take?

[Vanadium 50]

It might be interesting to turn this on it's head. If you wanted to prevent a rival civilization from advancing, what three books would you give them?

The Little Red Book
Physics, by Aristiotle
TV Guide

 

[Algr]

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx.
The Art of the Deal, "by" Donald Trump

That should kill everyone nicely.

 

[Fervent Freyja]

I think morals/ethics are ingrained into our instincts, so no need to waste a book on that.

No way can they be instinctive, have you looked outside of your window lately? Ethics and morals are learned, starting from birth- they are beliefs. They are learned from others around us (schools, family, friends, people, communities, social systems, culture, religion, country, etc.) and through personal experience or observation. No one person has the same set of ethics or morals, and they change over time. Human instinct and reason, without those learned ethics and morals, might surprise you in the absence of real consequences.

As it is, there are many, many people in the world that would kill you for your resources, if they could get away with it. There are some that would do it just for fun, if they could get away with it. Aside from humans in considering the animal kingdom, killing, raping, or stealing isn't actually wrong, it's natural or instinctive- you know? Some of the most saintly people we know today are actually condemning others for their religion, that's no different than wanting them dead. In the absence of consequences, from law or social reactions, many people would quickly violate others, even using children for work and sex. Look out your window, please.

The Art of the Deal, "by" Donald Trump

From, A Child's First Book of Trump, by Michael Black:
The[/PLAIN] beasty is called an American Trump.
Its skin is bright orange, its figure is plump.
Its fur so complex you might get enveloped.
Its hands though are, sadly, underdeveloped. [PLAIN]http://www.simonandschuster....Book-of-Trump/Michael-Ian-Black/9781481488006[/PLAIN]

I would love to agitate my Husband by getting this for our little girl and having her read it to him out of the blue one day! I probably won't do it though.

 

[1oldman2]

To Serve Man

The Twilight zone story? excellent choice.

 

[Battlemage!]

No way can they be instinctive, have you looked outside of your window lately? Ethics and morals are learned, starting from birth- they are beliefs. They are learned from others around us (schools, family, friends, people, communities, social systems, culture, religion, country, etc.) and through personal experience or observation. No one person has the same set of ethics or morals, and they change over time. Human instinct and reason, without those learned ethics and morals, might surprise you in the absence of real consequences.

As it is, there are many, many people in the world that would kill you for your resources, if they could get away with it. There are some that would do it just for fun, if they could get away with it. Aside from humans in considering the animal kingdom, killing, raping, or stealing isn't actually wrong, it's natural or instinctive- you know? Some of the most saintly people we know today are actually condemning others for their religion, that's no different than wanting them dead. In the absence of consequences, from law or social reactions, many people would quickly violate others, even using children for work and sex. Look out your window, please.

From, A Child's First Book of Trump, by Michael Black:
The[/PLAIN] beasty is called an American Trump.
Its skin is bright orange, its figure is plump.
Its fur so complex you might get enveloped.
Its hands though are, sadly, underdeveloped.

I would love to agitate my Husband by getting this for our little girl and having her read it to him out of the blue one day! I probably won't do it though.

I disagree on this. Specific sets of morality rules are not universal, but a base line of morality is.

Every society on the planet has a "do not illegally kill" law. Many of them disagree on what constitutes legal and illegal killing, but you will find none without a murder law, rule or taboo. There is no society on the planet where people can kill whomever they want (no society with that trait could survive).

Every society on the planet has a "do not take what does not belong to you" law. Many of them disagree on what constitutes property, but all of them have some form of an anti-stealing law.

I could go on and on with this.Now why? Because of natural selection. Kin selection, for example. We instinctively want to protect our children. That is NOT a learned behavior (in fact we share it with most mammals). We instinctively communicate and cooperate with other humans (this is how we have survived the multiple evolutionary changes from our common ancestor with the other Great Apes, and even since before that). Because of these instinctual traits (along with many other unique biological properties our species shares, from our brains to our hands), we always, without fail, will develop social groups. These social groups will always involve some level of cooperation, or they will disappear (and have, no doubt; yet again, more natural selection). Due to the natural inclination for human beings to have complex language (another trait we are born with), these groups will always involve communication of abstract thoughts. But of course, there is no need for abstract ideas for there to be anti-theft rules. Other species have them too! They just aren't verbally communicated. But I digress.

The human brain is equipped with certain traits that automatically lend themselves to behaviors which enable morality rules to develop. Human behavior is certainly complex, but form society to society, it isn't the broad picture of morality that changes, it's the fine details of morality. Who counts as a full human. What counts as property. Etc. Take rape, for example. Is rape universally agreed to be wrong? In our society, a man who forces his wife to have sex has committed rape. In a Fundamentalist Muslim society he has not. Nevertheless, if the same man rapes a woman he is not married to, he is still accused of the crime (although he may not be found guilty). Do we have one society that considers rape wrong and one society that doesn't? No. We have two societies that consider rape wrong, but disagree on the definition of rape. Here are some peer reviewed studies and other non-peer reviewed literature on this:

http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/UniversalMoralGrammar.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3163302/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-moral-life-of-babies/

 

[hsdrop]

something for the 7 base si measurements with the table of elements next would have to be the biggest med book with as much info as i could find people are going to get sick and heart have to know how to fix them and then last book would be some kind of back to basics (for buildings and other thing) of the bible (for a base of some sort of government and social structure ) but never to be worshipped

 

[Karen Anne]

A book on basic skills - plumbing, electrical, including farming.
A book on astronomy.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.

If I could take a fourth book, it would be a medical text.

 

[Kalki]

"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell
"Anthropic Cosmological Principle" by John Barrow and Frank Tipler
"Introduction to the Study of Man" by J Z Young

 

[Dr Wu]

With interesting animals/pets in mind: three shortish books to grab in a rush:

1) "Starman Jones" - Robert Heinlein.
2) "The Penguin Lessons" - Tom Mitchell.
3) "The Hobbit" - JRR Tolkien.

3.3/4) "Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban" - JK Rowling.

 

[jim hardy]

...to help rebuild civilization in the distant future.

... which three books would you have taken?

Moby Dick
The Bible
Eric Hoffer's "True Believer"

three best books i know on human behavior.

 

[mathwonk]

euclid's elements, euler's elements of algebra, and courant's calculus, ought to get things started again. i would also try to sneak in a few calvin and hobbes books.

 

[BWV]

Gravity’s Rainbow
Blood Meridian
Stalin Volume 2: Waiting for Hitler

 

[Shadow89]

In The Time Machine, by HG Wells, George took three books with him when he returned to join Weena and the Eloi, to help rebuild civilization in the distant future.

If you were in his position, which three books would you have taken?

1) A fat book about mining for resources, including a detailed description of how to get useable iron from ore.

2) A really fat book about medicine, including emergency first aid.

3) The Holy Bible (I hear its really useful for getting people to do what you want).

 

[MasterChief]

Three books he removed from his shelf. (1) A history book? Would you say a book on history is essential from ground zero of a new civilization? Maybe...to teach what has been tried before.
(2) A medical reference guide? Would have to be really complete with practical and surgical applications (3) Chemistry and/or math? Would also have to be rather complete 101 to 401... but not to worry, he did find a library in decay in Weena's world. More investigation needed there...and this time, try to treat the ancient texts with a little more care! Don't forget his time machine could take him anywhere for more materials/books that would be needed.

 

[kimberlee81]

OED, (two volume "shorter")
The Sixth Winter, Douglas Orgill & John Gribbin
The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R King

 

[e-pie]

Question

How can we read the books necessary to rebuild civilization if civilization itself is starting from scratch? To read the letters would take thousands of years.

If someone was there from the past civilization he should take:

Oxford Dictionary Adv Learners... So that the new men can learn words quickly.
Practical Guide to Farming... For food
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
... For fire lessons

I can't wait another thousand years to eat roasted meat. My thousand year old organs cry out in pain as I think of the mere thought.

"Food,Food,Cooked Food"