4 ms·

It is hard to read this as a positive thing. You are basically describing a con-man (or more neutrally, a politician) who is skilled at convincing people of thi

It is hard to read this as a positive thing. You are basically describing a con-man (or more neutrally, a politician) who is skilled at convincing people of things through stories that are not factually accurate but feel accurate - "Truthiness" as Jon Stewart called it. At best, it is a shortcut to convince groups of people of a point but it is the opposite of informative - people come away with bad information, not partial information and curiosity to learn more. He is specifically disliked because he is selling the "take-aways" as knowledge when they are the opposite, then says he is just a storyteller - which is good and fine except he is marketed and digested as a layman's source of truth. Which is why we have people walking around thinking they can be a concert-grade pianist with 10,000 hours of practice even though the argument falls apart with the slightest analysis. If Hacker News caters to curious "hacker mindset" types I think Gladwell is the opposite of curiosity: insights without discussion or understanding.

jfoutz 5y ago
I guess, I like Gladwell for the same reasons you dislike him. He's popular and picked apart. I can read his books and be convinced, then find out about all of the ways he's wrong. Where did I screw up? What did I fall for? Blink was probably the one that had the biggest impact on me. There are some gems there. It lead me to other thinking about thinking ideas. I learned a bit about quality of sources. I learned a bit about skinner boxes. Ironically I'm here, refreshing HN. So clearly I didn't learn that lesson particularly well.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Goodwin's law warning. If you go into it with a critical eye and compare it to other sources, then you didn't fall for anything. Reading mein kampf can be really insightful if you read it from a historical perspective and use the hueristics of skepticism. You can still dislike the original intent and think it is a missinformative work in general, but hold that the world would be better off without it.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    But "Mein Kampf" is an important primary source propaganda, whereas Gladwell's books are trash secondary sources, unless the object of research is "comforting false narratives of the early 21st century". I don't think that's fair to "Mein Kampf" (!).

jfoutz 5y ago

I guess, I like Gladwell for the same reasons you dislike him. He's popular and picked apart. I can read his books and be convinced, then find out about all of the ways he's wrong. Where did I screw up? What did I fall for? Blink was probably the one that had the biggest impact on me. There are some gems there. It lead me to other thinking about thinking ideas. I learned a bit about quality of sources. I learned a bit about skinner boxes. Ironically I'm here, refreshing HN. So clearly I didn't learn that lesson particularly well.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Goodwin's law warning. If you go into it with a critical eye and compare it to other sources, then you didn't fall for anything. Reading mein kampf can be really insightful if you read it from a historical perspective and use the hueristics of skepticism. You can still dislike the original intent and think it is a missinformative work in general, but hold that the world would be better off without it.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  But "Mein Kampf" is an important primary source propaganda, whereas Gladwell's books are trash secondary sources, unless the object of research is "comforting false narratives of the early 21st century". I don't think that's fair to "Mein Kampf" (!).