4 ms·
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
by 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 agoGoodwin'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 agoBut "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" (!).