4 ms·

Ferris tends to sell what zefrank classes as "brain crack". It gives you a high, fills your head with possibilities and a week after you finish the book you nev

Ferris tends to sell what zefrank classes as "brain crack". It gives you a high, fills your head with possibilities and a week after you finish the book you never think of it again. Yes, generalizing - yes, a select few people will read this kind of press then go out and change their life, start a series of successful endeavors and make love like a wild badger / hamster / emu / whatever the popular animal is for the moment, but from my general experience of the kind of people that love these books, it's a form of fantasy or escapism. I'm surprised your reply didn't get downvoted to hell simply because it injects spades of uncomfortable, sweaty reality to this specific kind of goal. Tim Ferris' achievements seem to be the intersection of several other significant bodies of work / effort that contributed to easing the pathway to achieving other things, but they are sold as if he woke up a few weeks ago and made it all happen. Most people will need to at least invest significant material or psychological effort to get to the point where they can enable similar actions, but it's not going to bother the majority because they'll never get to that point of action - testing the validity of a fantasy tends to destroy the associated pleasure. Edit: The similar scenario I always think of with 4HWW is the Banksy / Exit through the gift shop / Mr Brainwash thing - the guy basically outsourced everything to do with an art show (including the creation of art), crammed it all into the shortest window possible, and only _just_ scraped through the process (while destroying his health and having what looked like a complete breakdown). Additionally he created no lasting value or developed any meaningful skills (in either art or event co-ordination). Made some money, sure, but I'm not entirely sold in the tradeoff there.

Mz 16y ago
I haven't read any of his books, but as an Australian, Mr Ferris's tone fills me with dread, suspicion and an instinctual need to take the piss. ...but from my general experience of the kind of people that love these books, it's a form of fantasy or escapism. I'm also not familiar with these books (except for discussions of them on HN, where they get a lot of negative comments). I'm American -- born and raised -- but come from a multicultural background and can't relate to a lot of popular American stuff. The above comments make me think/wonder if this is an American phenomenon, kind of like how everyone talks about wanting to win the lottery. I get all kinds of flack for rolling up my sleeves and working to resolve my problems. Americans seem to have the hardest time with that. Maybe it is selection bias, but foreign friends seem to have a much easier time wrapping their head around the choices I have made to genuinely resolve problems that are supposed to be "unresolvable". My anecdotal observation is that people who have a huge love of Christmas and theme parks are typically people with their head in the sand, who only want escapism and god forbid that you offer them a real solution. That might involve work. That might involve being uncomfortable. That might lead to divorce or changing jobs or something. Sigh.
- momotomo 16y ago
  Yeah. To contrast, one of the books that changed my life (well, fitness wise) was Rock, Iron, Steel - Justa's book of strength. It was about 15 pages long, and can be summarized as "go and find some heavy things, then lift and drag them around for the rest of your life. Don't skip any days in between. Expect results in 3-6 years". The book itself is pretty useless, but it was a reflection of "there's no science here, just start". I'm putting some hyperbole in that, but it was a distinct change for me at the time. Not saying I've got everything solved, but as a general rule if something causes me to spend more time imagining doing things than actually doing things, I try to avoid it. One of the aspects in all this that incites the want to attack the style of book is that some of this is basic beyond books, beyond anything else - eg, if you want to lose weight, eat less and get off your ass. You don't need a book, or a hack, or even clever thought about it. Go the hell outside and move around a lot. Full disclosure: I'm an Australian as well.
  - Mz 16y ago
    My mother grew up in Germany during WWII and it's aftermath, struggling to survive and witnessing atrocities I can't imagine. She escaped East Germany as an underage teen with forged papers, claiming her infant niece was her own baby so she could return the child to its rightful mother who was not allowed to take her own baby home to West Germany after going to their mother's funeral in East Germany. My dad grew up in The Great Depression and fought in the front lines of two wars. He is also basically old enough to be my grandfather. Superficially, I am white, I am American and I am middle class. This causes many people to view me as culturally "white middle class American", which is not really accurate. It gets me into hot water because it causes my behavior to be wildly misinterpreted at times. I don't really do Christmas and other American holidays anymore. I don't see any real value in it. It's like a cultural meme of "salvation" -- knight in shining armor, Santa Claus, lottery tickets. I stopped speaking to one woman who was constantly whining to me about her utterly prosaic problems (as if they were the worst problems ever in the history of human kind and no one else had any) but turned a deaf ear to all attempts to gently suggest she do something about it. Her answer to absolutely everything was: It's someone else's fault and I'm going to win the lottery.

Mz 16y ago

I haven't read any of his books, but as an Australian, Mr Ferris's tone fills me with dread, suspicion and an instinctual need to take the piss. ...but from my general experience of the kind of people that love these books, it's a form of fantasy or escapism. I'm also not familiar with these books (except for discussions of them on HN, where they get a lot of negative comments). I'm American -- born and raised -- but come from a multicultural background and can't relate to a lot of popular American stuff. The above comments make me think/wonder if this is an American phenomenon, kind of like how everyone talks about wanting to win the lottery. I get all kinds of flack for rolling up my sleeves and working to resolve my problems. Americans seem to have the hardest time with that. Maybe it is selection bias, but foreign friends seem to have a much easier time wrapping their head around the choices I have made to genuinely resolve problems that are supposed to be "unresolvable". My anecdotal observation is that people who have a huge love of Christmas and theme parks are typically people with their head in the sand, who only want escapism and god forbid that you offer them a real solution. That might involve work. That might involve being uncomfortable. That might lead to divorce or changing jobs or something. Sigh.

momotomo 16y ago
Yeah. To contrast, one of the books that changed my life (well, fitness wise) was Rock, Iron, Steel - Justa's book of strength. It was about 15 pages long, and can be summarized as "go and find some heavy things, then lift and drag them around for the rest of your life. Don't skip any days in between. Expect results in 3-6 years". The book itself is pretty useless, but it was a reflection of "there's no science here, just start". I'm putting some hyperbole in that, but it was a distinct change for me at the time. Not saying I've got everything solved, but as a general rule if something causes me to spend more time imagining doing things than actually doing things, I try to avoid it. One of the aspects in all this that incites the want to attack the style of book is that some of this is basic beyond books, beyond anything else - eg, if you want to lose weight, eat less and get off your ass. You don't need a book, or a hack, or even clever thought about it. Go the hell outside and move around a lot. Full disclosure: I'm an Australian as well.
- Mz 16y ago
  My mother grew up in Germany during WWII and it's aftermath, struggling to survive and witnessing atrocities I can't imagine. She escaped East Germany as an underage teen with forged papers, claiming her infant niece was her own baby so she could return the child to its rightful mother who was not allowed to take her own baby home to West Germany after going to their mother's funeral in East Germany. My dad grew up in The Great Depression and fought in the front lines of two wars. He is also basically old enough to be my grandfather. Superficially, I am white, I am American and I am middle class. This causes many people to view me as culturally "white middle class American", which is not really accurate. It gets me into hot water because it causes my behavior to be wildly misinterpreted at times. I don't really do Christmas and other American holidays anymore. I don't see any real value in it. It's like a cultural meme of "salvation" -- knight in shining armor, Santa Claus, lottery tickets. I stopped speaking to one woman who was constantly whining to me about her utterly prosaic problems (as if they were the worst problems ever in the history of human kind and no one else had any) but turned a deaf ear to all attempts to gently suggest she do something about it. Her answer to absolutely everything was: It's someone else's fault and I'm going to win the lottery.