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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3018 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 27, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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Does anyone have recommendations for audiobooks like those written by Malcolm Gladwell, except without the wrong conclusions? I like a lot about Malcolm Gladwell. He's got a good voice for narration, he can tell a good interesting narrative, he does a lot of research into fascinating real world cases. But I've got a big issue with him that he'll then draw very sweeping conclusions off those few anecdotes, and those conclusions are usually exaggerated at best or the complete opposite of actual reality at worst.

I liked the Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, it was similar, except instead of trying to present some unifying theory of human psychology, each chapter basically just ended with "yep, humans really can be terrible sometimes" or "yep, humans really can be awesome sometimes". Without trying to present some simple fix to completely solve enormous social ills.

, he does a lot of research into fascinating real world cases.

his research is poor, like regarding IQ. Poor research often leads to poor/wrong conclusions.

He's pretty bad at identifying which studies are good and which are bad, and at properly looking over all the studies. But he's great at finding interesting anecdotes.

I find Steven Pinker very easy to read and extremely informative. No idea if his audiobooks are as entertaining (though he's also a great public speaker, so, perhaps!)

Bonus: his brutal takedown of Malcolm Gladwell is super entertaining https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html

IMO, best Pinker books are Enlightenment Now and also Better Angels of our Nature. Also The Blank Slate, but that's preaching to the choir in the rat community.

Great essay, basically my exact thoughts on Gladwell. I've seen Pinker recommended before, but I think there's a lot of overlap with stuff I've already read. I'm sure it's all great stuff, but idk really the point of reading a book if I'm already fully convinced on its conclusion.

Couple of reasons to read a book still:

  1. Learn how other people build arguments to reach the conclusion you already are convicted of. It can help you with additional arguments that can help bolster your defense of that idea, or if the argument is poor you now know in advance how others might want to dismantle your conclusion.
  2. Someone else put the effort into compiling a bunch of sources that can count as evidence, statistics, stories, etc that can be a good reference point, especially if you don't have those yourself already.
  3. The style of the writing itself is interesting/entertaining enough to warrant reading.

Pinker's books are quite lengthy though, so it'll take a month to get through his books via audio if you do like 1-2 hours a day. That being said, you could just look at the chapter titles and skip to the parts that might be of interest to you. You might miss some of the context/previously established ideas but the nice thing about nonfiction work is that you don't have to read the whole thing in its entirety.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has some interesting ideas in his books (The Black Swan, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game were three I listened to). He comes off a bit arrogant to me but I think his books leave some interesting ideas to ponder on. Funnily enough, Pinker and Taleb also have some beef:

  1. https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/longpeace.pdf
  2. https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker_1.pdf

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