He hasn't posted anything on his blog since January 4, 2007. (He also hasn't published any articles in The New Yorker since the January 8, 2007 issue. I would guess he's working on his third book.)
Blogging wasn't a good use of his time. Besides the opportunity cost of writing for free, it was too emotionally stressful for him. Gladwell's strong suit is finding obscure but interesting ideas invented by other people and making them comprehensible to the public. One reason that he is so good at this is that he falls in love with these ideas he finds. The downside of his warmly emotional intellect, though, is that he seldom questions the objects of his infatuation. So he gets snookered a lot and thus passes a lot of dumb ideas onto the public. When less credulous folks point out flaws in his heroes' notions, he gets hurt and angry.
So, he was wise to give up blogging.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
12 comments:
So, Steve, when's your book coming out?
passes a lot of dumb ideas onto the public. When less credulous folks point out flaws in his heroes' notions, he gets hurt and angry.
Whereas you simply ignore those who point out flaws in your arguments.
You are teh winnar.
He did pour a slow-acting poison in your ear by getting you to enable comments, though.
Mean Mr. Mustard, a very intelligent blog, has recently ceased blogging due to professional commitments within our military.
The great Udolpho, funniest blog Ive ever read (yup, Im that mean), rarely updates anymore.
I think we will find the nature of blogs will be smart (primarily) men, who soak up reflections of the world and notice their wise reflections aren't given much/any voice in traditional media, will form blogs "to get things off their chests" and see if they can influence others thoughts for a while. The ongoing commitments, and development of readers however, will eventually become cumbersome, and after a few years they will find they have expressed a great deal of their private thoughts, and will end the blogs gracefully.
There are a few of your links Steve, that no longer blog, or update "almost never" now.
Now, now, Steve. Can we be assured that you caused Mr. Gladwell to blink back some tears?
You're right on the money. A blog is a terrible medium for Gladwell -- it allows readers to challenge his logic and forces him to respond.
Snicker.
He got totally humiliated with the car salesman debate. I guess he packed it in after that.
well he could argue with random people like you who often times have their own agenda and are impossible to convince, or he could make millions of dollars by writing a book which will become part of the public consciousness. He made the right choice.
By the way, only serial killers are purely rational. Every one else's logic is driven by emotion. Even yours...
"well he could argue with random people like you who often times have their own agenda and are impossible to convince, or he could make millions of dollars by writing a book which will become part of the public consciousness. He made the right choice."
Personally, I would have a hard time writing a BS book even if there was a million dollars in it for me. As long as I have enough money to pay my bills, I'd rather be right than rich or famous. Just my preference though.
"By the way, only serial killers are purely rational. Every one else's logic is driven by emotion. Even yours... "
My values are driven by emotion, but my reasoning is pretty rational. Not entirely emotion-free, but better than most, if I do say so myself :)
Whereas you (Anon at 7/15/2007 2:08 AM) simply ignore basic keyboard skills.
"Serial killers are rational."
The title of Gladwell's new book? Sounds about right, in terms of intellectual quality.
Post a Comment