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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5124 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 5, 2023

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Anyone bought/considering Tim Urban's new book "What's our problem?: A self-help book for societies"?

Tim Urban was the first rationalist-ish authors blog that I read. Around 8 years ago while I was still a teenager. His writing looks simple and obvious/sometimes oblivious to me now, but was a big eye-opener for me back then and significantly influenced the way I think. Nonetheless, I think his work should be signal boosted in the mainstream given he comes in from a rationalist angle but isn't neurotic/"neurodivergent"/cynical/ugly/egoistic/{personality failure mode of rationalists}.

Here's a birdseye view of the books pages. It looks like we made an appearance in row 4, column 9 ([3][8] for programmers) /s. I see lots of "mental models" and bell curves. Just taking a glance, I think it might be an excellent read for someone who is on the edge of dropping their wokeness but just can't quite make the leap because they lack the requisite mental models, something easily digestible might just close the inferential distance.

I'm going to buy it, there isn't a print version which sucks, but I'll manage.

Scott Alexander posted a review of it a little while back. His basic summary iirc is that everything in it feels pretty obvious, but is probably a really good introduction to centrism for people who're excessively partisian.

Scott might just be under the curse of knowledge. I might have 1/10th the rational toolset or theory as Scott but I still find myself having a tremendous inferential distance with the above average person. Try explaining HBD to a non believer.

Here's a birdseye view of the books pages. It looks like we made an appearance in row 4, column 9 ([3][8] for programmers) /s. I see lots of "mental models" and bell curves. Just taking a glance, I think it might be an excellent read for someone who is on the edge of dropping their wokeness but just can't quite make the leap because they lack the requisite mental models, something easily digestible might just close the inferential distance.

that looks really cool, but cannot assess its content as I have not read it

there isn't a print version which sucks, but I'll manage.

good luck making an affordable print book with such nice color illustrations at scale

I don't think printing books in colour is particularly expensive nowadays.

printing books in colour

it's 44% more expensive for low quality color,

https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/50669/how-much-more-expensive-is-to-publish-a-book-in-color-than-black-and-white

This can make all the difference at the margins.

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