![]() We got proof in the book's anecdotes (which I very much appreciated weren't just the same dozen that appear in all the similar books) that dishonesty wasn't necessary for all the various things people think it competes with, but we never got any proof that we didn't have to choose, that there were no painful tradeoffs, that we could be like the hero in some bad TV show and manage not to have to give up anything to achieve our goals. And we can do all of this by understanding and working with what’s real, not shutting our eyes to it. We can fight effectively for social change. We can take bold risks and persevere in the face of setbacks. ![]() We can find ways to cope with fear and insecurity. With a bit of extra effort and cleverness, we can have both. ![]() The paragraph in the conclusion I was thinking of at the end wasĪ central theme of this book is that we don’t have to choose. It's not a summary, but I do think it's an accurate point. I answer, well isn't that convenient for you? With regard to that claim, I was a little reminded of people who adopt a vegan lifestyle because of the ethics of using animals for food who proceed to claim that veganism is the healthiest diet for a human. One could challenge that the overstatement served a didactic purpose, but, if so, it's at odds with the thesis itself. I think a much weaker claim, such as 'we suffer such harm from believing wrong things that clearly believing more-correct ones is beneficial' or 'many of the times you think you could benefit from incorrect beliefs, you can achieve the same benefits without the incorrect beliefs' would have been much better justified. I don't think that this claim was actually established book. How I sleep knowing Reddit is losing ad revenue because everyone is. One of the repeated claims of the book, stressed strongly at the end, was that believing true things is always better than believing false ones. tastefullyoffensive Julia Galef juliagalef I love overhearing dog owners talking to. ![]() This makes a lot of sense and I definitely found many of the people Galef talked about inspiring. The book was very anecdote-centered, which beefs up the pages and, (spoiler alert) serves a secret motive: to provide role models, which helps impact behavior more than mere argumentation and description. It was (no insult intended) part of its own genre of mass market non-fiction - not a whole lot of depth, and sometimes drawing a point out longer than necessary. I enjoyed the book, but was not as wowed as I'd hoped for as much as I admire Galef. ![]()
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