ChristianKl comments on Open thread, July 16-22, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Then linking to it would be interesting. I can't reasonably review the whole literature (that again reviews academic literature) to find the better or best books on the topics of my interest.
So many self-help books are either crap because their content is worthless or painful to read because they have such a low content-to-word ratio for any reasonable metric. I want just the facts. Take investing as an example: It can be summarized in this one sentence "Take as much money as you are comfortable with and invest it in a broad index fund, taking out money so to come out with zero money at the moment of your death, except if you want to leave them some money." And still there is a host of books from professional investors detailing technical analysis of the most obscure financial products.
Have reading groups reviewing books of interest. Post summaries of books of interest or reviews. Discuss the cutting edge of practical research, if relevant to our lifes. This is staying with your observation that most practically interesting stuff is already written.
Moving on, we know about all kinds of biases. We also know that some of those biases are helped by simply knowing about them, some are not. For the latter you need some kind of behavioural change. I do not know about books helping with that.
I know that this post is not precise and it can't be, as it explores what could be. If I knew exactly what I wanted, I would aready get it, it is a process of exploring.
This assumes that you now when you will die and can predict in advance how interest rates will vary over the future. It also ignores akrasia issues.