3 ms·
'not actionable' and 'no real argument' seem weird things to say to a critique of a bad book, bad author, genre, bad reviews and bad bestseller list (NYT); each
by smcin 4y ago
'not actionable' and 'no real argument' seem weird things to say to a critique of a bad book, bad author, genre, bad reviews and bad bestseller list (NYT); each person can make their mind up without needing me or anyone to tell them what to do.
If I was in the business of telling people what to do I'd say "Avoid these things, also learn telltale signs of superficial reviews and groupthink".
On a deeper level I suggested it's worth considering what led to Diamond ever being lauded as a phony expert on negotiation (or, if you think it's self-evident that the NYT is not worth paying attention to and blurbs and Amazon reviews are shilled, then I'd appreciate where you find better book recommendations, other than word-of-mouth.)
> Do you want to crusade against bad books?
I don't see that calling a bad book and author bad constitutes crusading; that seems like twisting a straightforward discussion. Instead of trying to impute motives, I think you're just saying "it seems to me futile to object to superficiality, just ignore it", is that right? (Conversely, do you want to crusade against HN posts which you deem to be non-actionable? Presumably you don't either.)
I did also nod towards a wider ongoing discussion about superficiality vs authenticity as pops up in Po Bronson, Chuck Palahniuk, HN [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=superficial https://hn.algolia.com/?q=superficial], Susan Cain, Haemin Sunim, Viktor Frankl... that took me a couple of sentences, still not a crusade.