
Books · popular science book
Behave by Robert Sapolsky
Readers say it helps them understand themselves and others, and its punishment chapter stays with them. No critics raised a recurring complaint.
Summarized from 4 comments.
Readers say it helps them understand themselves and others, and its punishment chapter stays with them. No critics raised a recurring complaint.
- recommend
- 3
- criticize
- 0
- months recommended
- 3 of 13
Why people love it
Helps understand self and others · 1
I found it immensely helpful to understand about self and others
May 2026 · commentPunishment chapter stays with readers · 1
Just read Sapolsky's Behave and linger in the punishment chapter.
Nov 2025 · comment
What hackers pick instead
- Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas HofstadterRecommended for its playful exploration of self-reference, logic and consciousness. Common caveat: it is digressive and some find it slow going.47recommend
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanWidely recommended for changing how you think about decisions and biases; critics say many of its studies, especially on priming, have failed to replicate.17recommend
- Thinking in Systems by Donella MeadowsPeople recommend it for changing how they see cause and effect, with names for patterns and a clear split between stocks and flows.17recommend
- The Selfish Gene by Richard DawkinsRecommended for teaching how evolution works from the gene's view and building evolutionary thinking. Critics say its story is detached from how systems survive change.14recommend
- Cosmos by Carl SaganRecommended for making the universe vivid and accessible in both book and TV form, though one critic calls it popular rather than scientific.13recommend
Every quote
The 4 most detailed of 4 comments. Each links to the original.
Just read Sapolsky's Behave and linger in the punishment chapter.
Recommends · Nov 2025
I found it immensely helpful to understand about self and others
Recommends · May 2026 · in “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?”
Here's a promising example that is ripe for an Agentic AI implementation
Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Kotlin creator's new language: a formal way to talk to LLMs instead of English”
Sapolsky isn’t storytelling.
Recommends · Nov 2025
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