The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Does anyone have recommendations for audiobooks like those written by Malcolm Gladwell, except without the wrong conclusions? I like a lot about Malcolm Gladwell. He's got a good voice for narration, he can tell a good interesting narrative, he does a lot of research into fascinating real world cases. But I've got a big issue with him that he'll then draw very sweeping conclusions off those few anecdotes, and those conclusions are usually exaggerated at best or the complete opposite of actual reality at worst.
I liked the Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, it was similar, except instead of trying to present some unifying theory of human psychology, each chapter basically just ended with "yep, humans really can be terrible sometimes" or "yep, humans really can be awesome sometimes". Without trying to present some simple fix to completely solve enormous social ills.
I find Steven Pinker very easy to read and extremely informative. No idea if his audiobooks are as entertaining (though he's also a great public speaker, so, perhaps!)
Bonus: his brutal takedown of Malcolm Gladwell is super entertaining https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html
IMO, best Pinker books are Enlightenment Now and also Better Angels of our Nature. Also The Blank Slate, but that's preaching to the choir in the rat community.
Great essay, basically my exact thoughts on Gladwell. I've seen Pinker recommended before, but I think there's a lot of overlap with stuff I've already read. I'm sure it's all great stuff, but idk really the point of reading a book if I'm already fully convinced on its conclusion.
Couple of reasons to read a book still:
Pinker's books are quite lengthy though, so it'll take a month to get through his books via audio if you do like 1-2 hours a day. That being said, you could just look at the chapter titles and skip to the parts that might be of interest to you. You might miss some of the context/previously established ideas but the nice thing about nonfiction work is that you don't have to read the whole thing in its entirety.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has some interesting ideas in his books (The Black Swan, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game were three I listened to). He comes off a bit arrogant to me but I think his books leave some interesting ideas to ponder on. Funnily enough, Pinker and Taleb also have some beef:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link