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I really don't have to agree with a character to find him fascinating. I will most definitely give these books a try.

Your previous mention of The Prince got me quite interested in that book, and I must say I found it quite fascinating as well. Are there any similar books? The more realistic, the better.

The Prince by Machiavelli? Magnificent. As far as similar books go there you've got Sun Tzu and perhaps some Roman stuff... but The Art Of War is probably the most similar to The Prince...

Anyone have a nice suggestion in the genre of Ancient Roman literature? Or just excellent historical books in general?

I quite liked The Twelve Tables and Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis. There's some Ancient Roman Literature for you.

Anyway, yeah, I've read a version of The Art of War, but the writing was very awkward, and consequently I didn't appreciate it as fully as I suspect I might have if I had read it in Chinese. I've heard the translation of ancient Cantonese texts into English are seldom done well.

Fortunately Machiavelli's Italian didn't translate quite so awkwardly.

I'm currently reading How Google Works, and I'm finding it a great read. There's a lot of great stuff in how Google is organized and ran that I hope to bring to the region in time.

I read Mein Kampf.

As time goes on I find myself leaning more and more towards authoritarian solutions.

I read Mein Kampf.

As time goes on I find myself leaning more and more towards authoritarian solutions.

the fuck?

I read Mein Kampf.

As time goes on I find myself leaning more and more towards authoritarian solutions.

the fuck?

The only logical response.

I'm all for a bit of autocracy, but definitely not the flavour endorsed by the author of that book.

I'm just going to say that not everything Hitler did or thought is trash.

Indeed. Hitler achieved some remarkable things. No one is saying he was a good man, but you can't deny he was a genius.

Indeed. Hitler achieved some remarkable things. No one is saying he was a good man, but you can't deny he was a genius.

Genius and insanity oft go hand in hand and sometimes the one is mistaken for the other.

In the end he is defined more by all the things he did wrong, but value is value, no matter the source. In the same way we must learn from people's flaws, we must learn from their strengths and successes too. Even the worst tyrant imaginable may have had some excellent ideas.

I'm not saying I agree, but I can see the merits of authoritarian regimes. It's very hard to justify, though, especially if you believe democracy to be the most moral form of government.

I'm not saying I agree, but I can see the merits of authoritarian regimes. It's very hard to justify, though, especially if you believe democracy to be the most moral form of government.

In my home country, we pretty much have a authotarian government. It's a single party that decides everything. It works well for a while. Then you decide your son should replace you. Then your friends should be ministers. Then before you know it your country is being run by a pack of idiots and incompetent jackasses.

Yeah, the pesky problem of succession is the only thing that bothers me about a truly benevolent dictatorship. If some sort of computer could be built that we modelled after the best minds available, and also programmed to have a conscience, I'd be in favour of letting such a thing rule the world.

I don't know if Ready Player One has been mentioned already, but it definitely should be. I absolutely despise most of the people in the world, and that they've grown so attached to their insane quest and the technology behind it, but it's fascinating, and I can't stop reading it.

EDIT: I especially like that the main character uses my surname alone to refer to one of the great sci-fi writers. He refers of course to Alfred Bester, but hearing only the surname alone makes it sound completely epic.