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I presume you're referring to the authors the OP listed. It's certainly true that I don't tend to read a huge amount of popular nonfiction, and that I'm young e
by Emma_Goldman 8y ago
I presume you're referring to the authors the OP listed. It's certainly true that I don't tend to read a huge amount of popular nonfiction, and that I'm young enough to have a generationally limited knowledge of what's out there. But, at the same time, what the best nonfiction books of recent decades have been is an open, and very subjective question. I have my own peculiar interests and proclivities. I think, from a quick Google, that all the books the OP listed fall outside of that space.
- tptacek 8y agoIt is fine to not be interested in things; there's lots I'm not interested in either. It's less great to have strong, sweeping opinions about things you're basically incurious about.
- Emma_Goldman 8y agoSee where I wrote 'in my own experience'. The reasoning I gave, in any case, holds entirely independently of how encompassing my reading is. And to be quite honest, with the caveats above, I would hazard that I read far more nonfiction than most, i.e. I am not speaking from a position of unusual ignorance, as you seem to be implying.
- tptacek 8y agoI have no idea who you are or what expertise you have; I'm responding to your own statement that you're unaware of these journalist-authors because you don't read much nonfiction.
- Emma_Goldman 8y agoYou said, if you are incurious about something, you ought not to make sweeping statements about it. I was challenging the premise, i.e. that I'm incurious about non-fiction books. I don't, by that way, think the claim holds up. It's perfectly possible to be incurious about something and to make a sensible general statements about it (e.g. 'all ducks have wings'). Hence why I told you to engage with my reasoning. I never said I don't read much non-fiction. I spend nearly all my time reading non-fiction. I said I don't spend 'huge' amounts of time reading popular non-fiction.
- pvg 8y agoYou can't really logic-puzzle your way out of 'if you are unfamiliar with books written by journalists, you're not in a good position to make worthwhile pronouncements on books written by journalists'. It's not even an interesting thing to try and dispute.
- Emma_Goldman 8y agoEasy: 1. The reasoning holds independent of how much I have read. 2. I'm not unfamiliar with books written by journalists.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]