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What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies
From the creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why, a fun and fascinating deep dive into what the hell is going on in our strange, unprecedented modern times.
Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world’s most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articlesabout everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff?
This massive topic sent Tim tumbling down his deepest rabbit hole yet, through mountains of history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience, and modern-day political movements, as he tried to figure out the answer to a simple question: What’s our problem?
Six years later, he emerged from the hole holding this book. What’s Our Problem? is a deep and expansive analysis of our modern times, in the classic style of Wait But Why, packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and 300 drawings. The book provides an entirely new framework and language for thinking and talking about today’s complex world. Instead of focusing on the usual left-center-right horizontal political axis, which is all about what we think, the book introduces a verticalaxis that explores how we think, as individuals and as groups. Readers will find themselves on a delightful and fascinating journey that will ultimately change the way they see the world around them.
Anyway he wanted to say a lot more about all of this but there was a word limit on this book description so just go read the book.
Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world’s most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articlesabout everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff?
This massive topic sent Tim tumbling down his deepest rabbit hole yet, through mountains of history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience, and modern-day political movements, as he tried to figure out the answer to a simple question: What’s our problem?
Six years later, he emerged from the hole holding this book. What’s Our Problem? is a deep and expansive analysis of our modern times, in the classic style of Wait But Why, packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and 300 drawings. The book provides an entirely new framework and language for thinking and talking about today’s complex world. Instead of focusing on the usual left-center-right horizontal political axis, which is all about what we think, the book introduces a verticalaxis that explores how we think, as individuals and as groups. Readers will find themselves on a delightful and fascinating journey that will ultimately change the way they see the world around them.
Anyway he wanted to say a lot more about all of this but there was a word limit on this book description so just go read the book.
496 pages, Paperback
First published February 21, 2023
3284 people are currently reading
17834 people want to read
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March 11, 2023
I really wanted to give this book 5 stars. The first 40% of the book deserves it. But then the next 50% of the book is dedicated to the critique of one topic: wokeness. The last 10% of the book then tells us how to address this problem.
The thesis is clearly laid out and is compelling. That is, there is more to politics than a simple right/left divide. There is a full matrix, with progressive and clear thinking on each end of the spectrum, as well as emotionally driven argumentative silliness on each end of the spectrum. I totally agree! It makes sense. And the illustrations are a lot of fun and fully inspired. Tim lays out good examples of this thinking, and he even touches on the recent downward slide of the Republican Party into the emotionally driven argumentative ridiculous stuff that we have all witnessed since about 2015. I thought he was brave for going there, as I feared it might alienate half of his readership to do so.
Here is the problem: Why did he need to spend fully half of the book on the problem of wokeness, when the Trump problem only took a few pages? He beats a dead horse for half the book. A few pages would have covered it. It seems he doth protest too much. So my fear that he would alienate half of his readership suddenly shifted to the other half of his readership, in our highly polarized country. It started to feel like he had given a few pages of criticism to the lower level thinking in the Republican Party, in order to balance the scales for his upcoming and quite extensive criticism of lower level thinking in the Democratic Party.
I think Tim is giving away his own emotionally based lower level bias in his dedication of fully half of this book to one topic, when he was able to cover multiple similar topics in the first 40% of the book. I could not give this book more than 3 stars because of this glaring problem.
His solution, after wading through chapters and chapters and chapters about the problems of wokeness, is that we all should value and seek truth, and not be afraid to speak the truth, and be brave in doing so. However, his 50% of the book about wokeness demonstrates why that won’t work in this world that he has so carefully described. One will be cancelled if they speak their truth. So it doesn’t quite make sense. I think he is afraid of something that he is making much bigger than it is.
I must say I’ve been a fan of his blog and of his way of explaining things, and drawing charts and graphs to illustrate them, for many years. I was excited for this book. But it needed a lot of editing help in the middle half. And the glaring problem with this section, sadly, makes the rest of the ideas put forth look much weaker. As if he is quite defensive about something that we are not quite able to see, through all of the words.
The thesis is clearly laid out and is compelling. That is, there is more to politics than a simple right/left divide. There is a full matrix, with progressive and clear thinking on each end of the spectrum, as well as emotionally driven argumentative silliness on each end of the spectrum. I totally agree! It makes sense. And the illustrations are a lot of fun and fully inspired. Tim lays out good examples of this thinking, and he even touches on the recent downward slide of the Republican Party into the emotionally driven argumentative ridiculous stuff that we have all witnessed since about 2015. I thought he was brave for going there, as I feared it might alienate half of his readership to do so.
Here is the problem: Why did he need to spend fully half of the book on the problem of wokeness, when the Trump problem only took a few pages? He beats a dead horse for half the book. A few pages would have covered it. It seems he doth protest too much. So my fear that he would alienate half of his readership suddenly shifted to the other half of his readership, in our highly polarized country. It started to feel like he had given a few pages of criticism to the lower level thinking in the Republican Party, in order to balance the scales for his upcoming and quite extensive criticism of lower level thinking in the Democratic Party.
I think Tim is giving away his own emotionally based lower level bias in his dedication of fully half of this book to one topic, when he was able to cover multiple similar topics in the first 40% of the book. I could not give this book more than 3 stars because of this glaring problem.
His solution, after wading through chapters and chapters and chapters about the problems of wokeness, is that we all should value and seek truth, and not be afraid to speak the truth, and be brave in doing so. However, his 50% of the book about wokeness demonstrates why that won’t work in this world that he has so carefully described. One will be cancelled if they speak their truth. So it doesn’t quite make sense. I think he is afraid of something that he is making much bigger than it is.
I must say I’ve been a fan of his blog and of his way of explaining things, and drawing charts and graphs to illustrate them, for many years. I was excited for this book. But it needed a lot of editing help in the middle half. And the glaring problem with this section, sadly, makes the rest of the ideas put forth look much weaker. As if he is quite defensive about something that we are not quite able to see, through all of the words.
February 22, 2023
In some ways I really liked this book - it is playful, it is easy to read, and it makes some important points.
Some specific things I wasn't a fan of:
- I'm not sure about primitive vs higher mind as a fundamental model to base everything off. Where primitive mind is presented as our old evolutionary mind that causes us a lot of problems (buying and skoffing skittles at the checkout), and higher mind as our scientific, truth-seeking mind. These are said to be analogous to System 1 and System 2. So I don't think these are quite right. I'm not sure System 1, automatic reflexive quick thinking, is responsible for tribalism. I'm not sure System 2, verbal concentrated thinking, leads to truth-seeking for most people. There could have been discussion about mechanisms for truth-seeking like prediction markets.
- the ladder (of truth seeking) seemed to me to have a massive gap between levels 1 (Scientist) and 2 (Sports Fan). I'm also not sure that most scientists would fit the bill as a scientist.
- I like the idea of an opposite to an echo chamber, I'm not sure 'idea lab' is the right term though. There wasn't much discussion on how to generate that, apart from to be more courageous. I'd have liked some ideas on how to have improved incentives for better intellectual environments.
- The intro starts with an argument about technology becoming more risky as it becomes more powerful, and then doesn't really talk about it again as far as I can see
- I felt truth and accuracy were sacrificed for expressing interesting concepts without the payoff of some important insight gained. Some of the neologisms obfuscated as much as they clarified, and became a bit wearisome after a while - "primitive mind vs higher mind" "golems vs genies" etc
- it was more American-centric than I'd expected. Lots of deep discussion of American political events.
Some things I was a fan of:
- the need to engage and not leave our intellectual discourse to extreme viewpoints, to not be silent, even though it might mean some discomfort. We should try and see it as a moral good to encourage people to speak their mind, rather than leave the discourse to the 1% that post.
- I broadly agreed with all the ideas in the book - including the arguments against social justice thinking, so perhaps that is part of the reason that I didn't rate the book more highly. And perhaps that's unfair?
- love the diagrams and playfulness
Overall, I felt the argument could have been made more succinctly, with more time spent on what we can do about it.
For example, for groupthink, he could have spoken about red teams, pre-mortems, 10th man rule, encouraging disagreement, getting people to express opinions individually before group discussion (Delphi method).
Some specific things I wasn't a fan of:
- I'm not sure about primitive vs higher mind as a fundamental model to base everything off. Where primitive mind is presented as our old evolutionary mind that causes us a lot of problems (buying and skoffing skittles at the checkout), and higher mind as our scientific, truth-seeking mind. These are said to be analogous to System 1 and System 2. So I don't think these are quite right. I'm not sure System 1, automatic reflexive quick thinking, is responsible for tribalism. I'm not sure System 2, verbal concentrated thinking, leads to truth-seeking for most people. There could have been discussion about mechanisms for truth-seeking like prediction markets.
- the ladder (of truth seeking) seemed to me to have a massive gap between levels 1 (Scientist) and 2 (Sports Fan). I'm also not sure that most scientists would fit the bill as a scientist.
- I like the idea of an opposite to an echo chamber, I'm not sure 'idea lab' is the right term though. There wasn't much discussion on how to generate that, apart from to be more courageous. I'd have liked some ideas on how to have improved incentives for better intellectual environments.
- The intro starts with an argument about technology becoming more risky as it becomes more powerful, and then doesn't really talk about it again as far as I can see
- I felt truth and accuracy were sacrificed for expressing interesting concepts without the payoff of some important insight gained. Some of the neologisms obfuscated as much as they clarified, and became a bit wearisome after a while - "primitive mind vs higher mind" "golems vs genies" etc
- it was more American-centric than I'd expected. Lots of deep discussion of American political events.
Some things I was a fan of:
- the need to engage and not leave our intellectual discourse to extreme viewpoints, to not be silent, even though it might mean some discomfort. We should try and see it as a moral good to encourage people to speak their mind, rather than leave the discourse to the 1% that post.
- I broadly agreed with all the ideas in the book - including the arguments against social justice thinking, so perhaps that is part of the reason that I didn't rate the book more highly. And perhaps that's unfair?
- love the diagrams and playfulness
Overall, I felt the argument could have been made more succinctly, with more time spent on what we can do about it.
For example, for groupthink, he could have spoken about red teams, pre-mortems, 10th man rule, encouraging disagreement, getting people to express opinions individually before group discussion (Delphi method).
February 23, 2023
If you're going to read it, read the whole thing.
I wrestled internally with how to rate this book. What wins me over is that the book calls itself out on the things about the book that piss me off, which I appreciate. It makes it feel more like a conversation than a presentation, which is nice.
Specifically, there were moments that I hated the book, but the book encourages the reader to think about those thoughts and why they are being thought. This is so rare in writing that it earns itself 5 stars for encouraging that metacognitive introspection.
That said, I highlighted the heck out of certain sections that I feel could be improved, and even a couple of minor typos and oversights. There are also a lot of things to like, but in the interest of strengthening the argument through critique, here are some possible places for improvement:
There's a tiny typo in a quote from a historical figure that drove me disproportionately nuts (The quote from Peggy McIntosh). It should be "status" and not "statues."
In places, the book is guilty of the same sex/gender conflation that the book itself tries to point out in the footnotes (such as in a figure that uses Male/Female when the correct terms for that context are Man/Woman; also, the sudden switch between Men/Women and Male/Female on page 430). A cited study, "Goldberg & Kaufmann, 2022," also egregiously conflated the terms Male/Female and the word gender. Tim isolates "Gender is an identity choice, regardless of the biological sex you were born into" as a SJF-y concept at one point, when in fact, that is the true scientific/biological understanding. Sex is the biological part, and gender is the sociocultural part. Tim even has a footnote that gets much closer to the science on this, so it's weird that the main text would try to paint this as a SJF-y concept, when it isn't.
He puts too much stake in "peer review" working in academia when that's also subject to egregious human error and bias. Needs more skepticism here, should probably talk to some professors.
He could have used one or more callbacks to Trumpism in the middle of the SJF section, such as when the Trojan Horse figure was introduced, in order to avoid readers rage-quitting from writing about one side of the horizontal spectrum for so long--for example, the Trump Trojan Horse could have made a cameo earlier on.
Some charts/graphs appeared to need clearer attributions (were they used with permission? who originally made them?).
The book tries to be about REASON. However, instead of embracing its role as a PHILOSOPHY book, it tries to dabble in SCIENCE as well -- which feels disingenuous to me, a scientist, when certain things such as statistics are claimed to be "true" without the nuance necessary for on-the-page scientific analysis. That is, reading the book was slowed down by me having to click links and look stuff up. That is, I wanted more information about sub-sample sizes, error of measurement, and funding sources whenever polls and surveys were discussed. This limitation won't bother most readers, I would bet. The copious footnotes are, in general, a strength.
The book glosses over an ivermectin-peddler (Weinstein) and a (partially) Koch-funded institute (FIRE) and hopes that readers don't notice. The anecdotes/data from those sources may still be valid, but from the reader's perspective it feels dishonest to not hang a lampshade on the anti-science/conservative bias that immediately comes to mind.
It felt like more of the conservative shenanigans of recent years needed addressing, like the threats of secession. The section that did exist about the conservative race to the bottom seemed pretty well done, if not as exhaustive as I would have liked.
I was left with the impression that Tim needed to talk to more professors. Maybe he did, but they wanted to be anonymous. Still, parts of the section about diversity statements and other pieces of academia read extremely like an outsider looking in towards a campus. As such, they come across more like rants than they objectively are. For example, that section seems to miss the idea that professors need to be able to teach a variety of different students, and a diversity statement is supposed to be a way to gauge that. Whether the diversity statement works for that purpose or not is debatable, but the way it is written about feels very myopic. Maybe he should have sat down with some professors and discussed their diversity statements and why they were useful? The points about diversity statements being used first in the hiring process and the deep dive into how they are scored/used is appreciated, but the "pro" of the statement isn't addressed.
There are typos in figures. "Femal" and "More new immigrant" are two examples.
Anyway, the book was worth reading and brings up good discussion points and some new terminology for phenomena that people will hopefully find useful. The book is challenging, but in a good way.
I wrestled internally with how to rate this book. What wins me over is that the book calls itself out on the things about the book that piss me off, which I appreciate. It makes it feel more like a conversation than a presentation, which is nice.
Specifically, there were moments that I hated the book, but the book encourages the reader to think about those thoughts and why they are being thought. This is so rare in writing that it earns itself 5 stars for encouraging that metacognitive introspection.
That said, I highlighted the heck out of certain sections that I feel could be improved, and even a couple of minor typos and oversights. There are also a lot of things to like, but in the interest of strengthening the argument through critique, here are some possible places for improvement:
There's a tiny typo in a quote from a historical figure that drove me disproportionately nuts (The quote from Peggy McIntosh). It should be "status" and not "statues."
In places, the book is guilty of the same sex/gender conflation that the book itself tries to point out in the footnotes (such as in a figure that uses Male/Female when the correct terms for that context are Man/Woman; also, the sudden switch between Men/Women and Male/Female on page 430). A cited study, "Goldberg & Kaufmann, 2022," also egregiously conflated the terms Male/Female and the word gender. Tim isolates "Gender is an identity choice, regardless of the biological sex you were born into" as a SJF-y concept at one point, when in fact, that is the true scientific/biological understanding. Sex is the biological part, and gender is the sociocultural part. Tim even has a footnote that gets much closer to the science on this, so it's weird that the main text would try to paint this as a SJF-y concept, when it isn't.
He puts too much stake in "peer review" working in academia when that's also subject to egregious human error and bias. Needs more skepticism here, should probably talk to some professors.
He could have used one or more callbacks to Trumpism in the middle of the SJF section, such as when the Trojan Horse figure was introduced, in order to avoid readers rage-quitting from writing about one side of the horizontal spectrum for so long--for example, the Trump Trojan Horse could have made a cameo earlier on.
Some charts/graphs appeared to need clearer attributions (were they used with permission? who originally made them?).
The book tries to be about REASON. However, instead of embracing its role as a PHILOSOPHY book, it tries to dabble in SCIENCE as well -- which feels disingenuous to me, a scientist, when certain things such as statistics are claimed to be "true" without the nuance necessary for on-the-page scientific analysis. That is, reading the book was slowed down by me having to click links and look stuff up. That is, I wanted more information about sub-sample sizes, error of measurement, and funding sources whenever polls and surveys were discussed. This limitation won't bother most readers, I would bet. The copious footnotes are, in general, a strength.
The book glosses over an ivermectin-peddler (Weinstein) and a (partially) Koch-funded institute (FIRE) and hopes that readers don't notice. The anecdotes/data from those sources may still be valid, but from the reader's perspective it feels dishonest to not hang a lampshade on the anti-science/conservative bias that immediately comes to mind.
It felt like more of the conservative shenanigans of recent years needed addressing, like the threats of secession. The section that did exist about the conservative race to the bottom seemed pretty well done, if not as exhaustive as I would have liked.
I was left with the impression that Tim needed to talk to more professors. Maybe he did, but they wanted to be anonymous. Still, parts of the section about diversity statements and other pieces of academia read extremely like an outsider looking in towards a campus. As such, they come across more like rants than they objectively are. For example, that section seems to miss the idea that professors need to be able to teach a variety of different students, and a diversity statement is supposed to be a way to gauge that. Whether the diversity statement works for that purpose or not is debatable, but the way it is written about feels very myopic. Maybe he should have sat down with some professors and discussed their diversity statements and why they were useful? The points about diversity statements being used first in the hiring process and the deep dive into how they are scored/used is appreciated, but the "pro" of the statement isn't addressed.
There are typos in figures. "Femal" and "More new immigrant" are two examples.
Anyway, the book was worth reading and brings up good discussion points and some new terminology for phenomena that people will hopefully find useful. The book is challenging, but in a good way.
March 15, 2023
Clear framework Understand The Insanity of Current Politics
Tim has spent 6 years of his life building a framework to understand how society functions or malfunctions. I encourage everyone to read and share this book to build a critical mass of "high-rung thinking" and bring sanity back to the world.
Tim deserves a big round of applause for the breadth and depth of this work.
Tim has spent 6 years of his life building a framework to understand how society functions or malfunctions. I encourage everyone to read and share this book to build a critical mass of "high-rung thinking" and bring sanity back to the world.
Tim deserves a big round of applause for the breadth and depth of this work.
July 16, 2023
Update: please go read the review on Put A Num On It here for a much deeper analysis of some points that the book hopelessly misses: https://putanumonit.com/2023/03/06/wh...
Update 2: FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) which this book cites for a lot of its data in chapters 5-7, is funded in large part by the Koch brothers and other right-wing foundations (read https://www.alternet.org/2016/09/what... for more details). Hence it seems that Tim Urban has fallen into the very trap that he is warning us for in this book - he has joined one side of the tribal battle on "free speech". While I still can recommend reading this book, I would take chapters 5-7 with a large grain of salt and view it as a cautionary tale that just knowing about these problems does not stop you from falling into the very same trap yourself.
Original review: After Tim Urban abandoned his blog series "The Story of Us" (https://web.archive.org/web/202301292...) and announced this book, I started looking forward to finally getting to the conclusion of this magnum opus, the part where the author would be done describing the problems in our modern society and finally start talking about the solutions to these problems. Now, three years later, I am at the end of his book and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am disappointed that the book only talks about actual solutions in its final 10 pages, and as a result those solutions are rather broad and vague. On the other hand, I feel like I now have a much better understanding of what is actually causing the division in our society.
So let's talk about what this book is about. Tim Urban is one of the few writers who I would trust to make an honest and considered argument even if they wrote a 500 page book on why I should start killing babies and drink their blood. And that's a good thing, since the argument Tim makes here will be as disgusting to many people: the idea that most current social justice organizations (at least in the US, but increasingly also in Europe) are using strategies that are illiberal, authoritarian, and contra-productive to their own stated goals. It is easy to read the previous sentence and dismiss this as yet another worthless opinion of a racist, bigoted, white man. Hence it is important to note here that Tim does not argue against any of the object-level ideas or goals of social justice (nor does he argue in favor of them), but only with the methods they started using increasingly in the recent years.
The way Tim makes this argument is by distinguishing two dimensions in human thinking: what we think (e.g. left vs right in politics), and how we think (low-rung vs high-rung). On this second dimension, he defines high-rung thinking as being open to changing your mind, welcoming dissenting views, and in general being more attached to truth than to any idea in particular, and low-rung thinking as being unable to change your mind and forcing your ideas upon others through manipulation and coercion. With lots and lots of examples (seriously, there are so many of them, you have to read it to believe it) he argues that the core conflict that is happening is not left versus right, but low-rung thinking trying to overpower high-rung thinking, and succeeding. If you are anything like me, you will be annoyed or offended many times while reading the book because it seems like Tim is arguing against noble ideas such as equal rights and anti-discrimination, before realizing that no, he is not arguing against any of that but rather against trying to force them upon others while silencing any dissenting voices.
I have two main criticisms of this book: one, that it is too much focused on the US over other parts of the world (as the author admits himself) and two, that it takes almost 400 pages to describe in great detail what he identifies as the problem while only talking about solutions in the final 10. So what are these solutions, you ask? Here is my summary of those 10 pages:
- Realize that you do not know everything and are often wrong
- Think about where your primitive mind is holding the reins
- Keep questioning your beliefs and values
- Seek the merit in the beliefs of those you disagree with
- Humanize your opponents and feel compassion for them
- Notice when you are thinking on the low rungs, and remind yourself that it happens to everyone
- Expose yourself to high-rung ideas from across the spectrum
- View society and politics through a vertical lens of high rung versus low rung
- Stop saying things you don't believe
- Start saying what you really think, in private, with people you trust
- Help groups transform from echo chambers into idea labs
- Go public with your controversial ideas, if you can
These seem like somewhat obvious but still useful pieces of advice to me.
So is this the book I had hoped it to be after reading "The Story of Us"? No, pretty far from it. But I don't think it is useful to criticize something for what it doesn't, and instead criticize it for what it *does*. What it does is highlight a really important aspect of how our society works, what is going wrong with it, and why this is a big problem and we should all care about it. The book does so despite the inherent difficulty with doing so, namely that what's going wrong is exactly that it is getting more and more difficult to criticize and argue in good faith. For that, I wholly respect and admire Tim Urban, and I am grateful that he wrote this.
Update 2: FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) which this book cites for a lot of its data in chapters 5-7, is funded in large part by the Koch brothers and other right-wing foundations (read https://www.alternet.org/2016/09/what... for more details). Hence it seems that Tim Urban has fallen into the very trap that he is warning us for in this book - he has joined one side of the tribal battle on "free speech". While I still can recommend reading this book, I would take chapters 5-7 with a large grain of salt and view it as a cautionary tale that just knowing about these problems does not stop you from falling into the very same trap yourself.
Original review: After Tim Urban abandoned his blog series "The Story of Us" (https://web.archive.org/web/202301292...) and announced this book, I started looking forward to finally getting to the conclusion of this magnum opus, the part where the author would be done describing the problems in our modern society and finally start talking about the solutions to these problems. Now, three years later, I am at the end of his book and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am disappointed that the book only talks about actual solutions in its final 10 pages, and as a result those solutions are rather broad and vague. On the other hand, I feel like I now have a much better understanding of what is actually causing the division in our society.
So let's talk about what this book is about. Tim Urban is one of the few writers who I would trust to make an honest and considered argument even if they wrote a 500 page book on why I should start killing babies and drink their blood. And that's a good thing, since the argument Tim makes here will be as disgusting to many people: the idea that most current social justice organizations (at least in the US, but increasingly also in Europe) are using strategies that are illiberal, authoritarian, and contra-productive to their own stated goals. It is easy to read the previous sentence and dismiss this as yet another worthless opinion of a racist, bigoted, white man. Hence it is important to note here that Tim does not argue against any of the object-level ideas or goals of social justice (nor does he argue in favor of them), but only with the methods they started using increasingly in the recent years.
The way Tim makes this argument is by distinguishing two dimensions in human thinking: what we think (e.g. left vs right in politics), and how we think (low-rung vs high-rung). On this second dimension, he defines high-rung thinking as being open to changing your mind, welcoming dissenting views, and in general being more attached to truth than to any idea in particular, and low-rung thinking as being unable to change your mind and forcing your ideas upon others through manipulation and coercion. With lots and lots of examples (seriously, there are so many of them, you have to read it to believe it) he argues that the core conflict that is happening is not left versus right, but low-rung thinking trying to overpower high-rung thinking, and succeeding. If you are anything like me, you will be annoyed or offended many times while reading the book because it seems like Tim is arguing against noble ideas such as equal rights and anti-discrimination, before realizing that no, he is not arguing against any of that but rather against trying to force them upon others while silencing any dissenting voices.
I have two main criticisms of this book: one, that it is too much focused on the US over other parts of the world (as the author admits himself) and two, that it takes almost 400 pages to describe in great detail what he identifies as the problem while only talking about solutions in the final 10. So what are these solutions, you ask? Here is my summary of those 10 pages:
- Realize that you do not know everything and are often wrong
- Think about where your primitive mind is holding the reins
- Keep questioning your beliefs and values
- Seek the merit in the beliefs of those you disagree with
- Humanize your opponents and feel compassion for them
- Notice when you are thinking on the low rungs, and remind yourself that it happens to everyone
- Expose yourself to high-rung ideas from across the spectrum
- View society and politics through a vertical lens of high rung versus low rung
- Stop saying things you don't believe
- Start saying what you really think, in private, with people you trust
- Help groups transform from echo chambers into idea labs
- Go public with your controversial ideas, if you can
These seem like somewhat obvious but still useful pieces of advice to me.
So is this the book I had hoped it to be after reading "The Story of Us"? No, pretty far from it. But I don't think it is useful to criticize something for what it doesn't, and instead criticize it for what it *does*. What it does is highlight a really important aspect of how our society works, what is going wrong with it, and why this is a big problem and we should all care about it. The book does so despite the inherent difficulty with doing so, namely that what's going wrong is exactly that it is getting more and more difficult to criticize and argue in good faith. For that, I wholly respect and admire Tim Urban, and I am grateful that he wrote this.
June 21, 2023
Is wokeness in the room with us right now?
What’s our problem? (WOP) is a book that attempts to tackle the herculean task of finding out what’s wrong in our society. Of course, such a big problem will require a ton of research and elaboration which, on first sight, the book has plenty of. Supposedly written after 6 years of diligent research, WOP is a 700+ pages behemoth of a book that hopefully will elucidate modern (american) society’s biggest issues. It is written in an easily accessible style with amusing drawings and comics that make this book a breeze to read through. The foundational concepts of the book are explained quite decently and the book starts off quite well, even though it does regurgitate some debunked psychological concepts. He also gives some pretty bad explanations of the philosophies of marxism and postmodernism which is disappointing from a book with 6 years of research. Where this book turns to shit is towards the 40% mark, which is when Tim Urban decides to finally reveal to the readers what he believes to be the biggest issue in society: wokeness.
Wokeness is a controversial topic that is based on the intersectionality model of oppression as well as the critical ____ (fill in the blank) theories. What Tim Urban forgets to mention in his analysis of wokeness and cancel culture is that a lot of it just boils down to outrage culture and not the specific issue of wokeness. It is true that racism does exist in the US and it is true that it is present in many institutions such as the legal system or the healthcare system. Recognizing this issue is an important step forward and denying it would be denying reality and many many studies that have been done on the topic. When a group of talentless journalists pressure people to attack those that aren’t “woke” enough in order to cancel them, this is an issue. Of course, before the rise of wokeness, outrage took other forms. People have always been shamed for good and sometimes arbitrary reasons and mob mentality is very common in the media. It is true that greater awareness of what different identities go through in America has led to more sensitivity regarding this topic and every once in a while, there will be a false positive hit. I do not disagree with Tim Urban that canceling people for stupid reasons is unfair and undemocratic and sometimes diversity initiatives do backfire. The woke culture has its blind spots like any other growing system. It very much focuses on the black-white dichotomy in the USA while ignoring the plight of other peoples. It very much divides people that have way more in common along axes of wealth and class than they lack in terms of race or gender identity. I am sympathetic to the attempt for better social justice which sometimes might require extreme means or action to succeed. Yet, as a social justice activist, it is imperative to be fair and kind to those that might be sympathetic to our cause which the rad-libs have often ignored. It is important to explain our issues in a way that will drive people to see us as fighters for justice and not just a bunch of lunatics. Of course, this is another problem altogether that cannot be fully dealt with in this review.
When talking about issues that our society deals with, political polarization is an important one. Being canceled for racism or sexism is a fair thing since we cannot keep accepting letting large groups of people be harmed by others. We also need to be aware of who we attack and we need to focus on those who wield the most power in society which is why intersectional theory also includes class. Talking about class, it seems quite funny that after 6 years of research, Tim Urban does not view class division and inequality as an issue in the US. Despite the rise of inequality since the beginning of the pandemic, this is clearly not an issue worth tackling in this 700+ pages book. This is my main gripe with this book: when you’re writing a large book about issues in society and you end up devoting 400 pages of it to an ideology that is actually losing steam (more and more people are moving away from extreme cancel culture since the 2020 BLM protests which is a funny commentary on society’s attention span) instead of talking about class issues that are harmful to people or even bigger issues such as climate change (and climate change denial) or misinformation/disinformation in the media or even global inequality. It just seems very one sided and biased (which is not surprising from an internet webcomic/blog author) and it just shows a lack of nuance in writing. I would suggest you skip books like these and go read books by actual sociologists, psychologists or even more nuanced thinkers in the fields of philosophy and political science.
Is the modern left problematic in some ways ? Yes. Are there some people using “wokeness” as a weapon to silence others ? Absolutely. Are some people using it for their own gain ? Without a doubt. Is this what’s wrong with our society ? Nope. Not even close. WOP was a very disappointing book especially since much care was taken with regards to the writing style and the art. What started out very strongly ended up being a garbage heap of bad arguments and misrepresentations towards the end. Not worth the 700+ pages. 2/5 only because of the cute drawings.
What’s our problem? (WOP) is a book that attempts to tackle the herculean task of finding out what’s wrong in our society. Of course, such a big problem will require a ton of research and elaboration which, on first sight, the book has plenty of. Supposedly written after 6 years of diligent research, WOP is a 700+ pages behemoth of a book that hopefully will elucidate modern (american) society’s biggest issues. It is written in an easily accessible style with amusing drawings and comics that make this book a breeze to read through. The foundational concepts of the book are explained quite decently and the book starts off quite well, even though it does regurgitate some debunked psychological concepts. He also gives some pretty bad explanations of the philosophies of marxism and postmodernism which is disappointing from a book with 6 years of research. Where this book turns to shit is towards the 40% mark, which is when Tim Urban decides to finally reveal to the readers what he believes to be the biggest issue in society: wokeness.
Wokeness is a controversial topic that is based on the intersectionality model of oppression as well as the critical ____ (fill in the blank) theories. What Tim Urban forgets to mention in his analysis of wokeness and cancel culture is that a lot of it just boils down to outrage culture and not the specific issue of wokeness. It is true that racism does exist in the US and it is true that it is present in many institutions such as the legal system or the healthcare system. Recognizing this issue is an important step forward and denying it would be denying reality and many many studies that have been done on the topic. When a group of talentless journalists pressure people to attack those that aren’t “woke” enough in order to cancel them, this is an issue. Of course, before the rise of wokeness, outrage took other forms. People have always been shamed for good and sometimes arbitrary reasons and mob mentality is very common in the media. It is true that greater awareness of what different identities go through in America has led to more sensitivity regarding this topic and every once in a while, there will be a false positive hit. I do not disagree with Tim Urban that canceling people for stupid reasons is unfair and undemocratic and sometimes diversity initiatives do backfire. The woke culture has its blind spots like any other growing system. It very much focuses on the black-white dichotomy in the USA while ignoring the plight of other peoples. It very much divides people that have way more in common along axes of wealth and class than they lack in terms of race or gender identity. I am sympathetic to the attempt for better social justice which sometimes might require extreme means or action to succeed. Yet, as a social justice activist, it is imperative to be fair and kind to those that might be sympathetic to our cause which the rad-libs have often ignored. It is important to explain our issues in a way that will drive people to see us as fighters for justice and not just a bunch of lunatics. Of course, this is another problem altogether that cannot be fully dealt with in this review.
When talking about issues that our society deals with, political polarization is an important one. Being canceled for racism or sexism is a fair thing since we cannot keep accepting letting large groups of people be harmed by others. We also need to be aware of who we attack and we need to focus on those who wield the most power in society which is why intersectional theory also includes class. Talking about class, it seems quite funny that after 6 years of research, Tim Urban does not view class division and inequality as an issue in the US. Despite the rise of inequality since the beginning of the pandemic, this is clearly not an issue worth tackling in this 700+ pages book. This is my main gripe with this book: when you’re writing a large book about issues in society and you end up devoting 400 pages of it to an ideology that is actually losing steam (more and more people are moving away from extreme cancel culture since the 2020 BLM protests which is a funny commentary on society’s attention span) instead of talking about class issues that are harmful to people or even bigger issues such as climate change (and climate change denial) or misinformation/disinformation in the media or even global inequality. It just seems very one sided and biased (which is not surprising from an internet webcomic/blog author) and it just shows a lack of nuance in writing. I would suggest you skip books like these and go read books by actual sociologists, psychologists or even more nuanced thinkers in the fields of philosophy and political science.
Is the modern left problematic in some ways ? Yes. Are there some people using “wokeness” as a weapon to silence others ? Absolutely. Are some people using it for their own gain ? Without a doubt. Is this what’s wrong with our society ? Nope. Not even close. WOP was a very disappointing book especially since much care was taken with regards to the writing style and the art. What started out very strongly ended up being a garbage heap of bad arguments and misrepresentations towards the end. Not worth the 700+ pages. 2/5 only because of the cute drawings.
May 10, 2023
As someone with a higher degree from a better school in the same discipline as Tim Urban, this book is bad. It reads like a college freshman trying to write a doctoral thesis. It has no academic or even logical merit and the argumentation is terrible, which is a lot for a book that spends a whole chapter breaking down what makes bad argumentation bad. It's poorly written and incredibly condescending for an adult audience, not to mention Urban's obsession with renaming things he did not invent comes off as more Dunning-Kruger Cult Leader than expert. The fact that this book is almost 700 pages long is just salt in the mental and emotional wounds I got from reading it.
March 10, 2023
I wanted to like this book. I'm a fan of Tim Urban and have been supporting him for years on Patreon. And I liked the blog post series that was the precursor of this book. But I was pretty disappointed by it.
My biggest frustration with the book is how he doesn't live up to his own ideals. He espouses the value of Idea Labs and testing one's own ideas and really understanding different viewpoints before dismissing them, and then applies none of those principles to his critique of social justice movements.
I agree that social justice activists can occasionally go too far and stray into fundamentalism, but to dismiss them as an "unscientific, anti-free-speech, morally inconsistent, illiberal ideology" based on his reading of two books and the Black Lives Matter website feels premature. He spent six years researching this book and only cites Ibram X Kendi and Robin DiAngelo as his sources, but cites dozens of papers from university academics who feel threatened by these movements that devalues their expertise in favor of a more diverse set of lived experiences.
I'll admit I have a special distaste for Jonathan Haidt's recent (unscisntific, morally inconsistent, Illiberal) complaints about the "coddling of the American mind". Haidt is one of Urban's main sources and neither of them see that his complaints are evidence of his own coddling where he's been treated as special and an expert his whole life, and doesn't like being dismissed as irrelevant.
The book is trying to force fit a good story that Urban made up. This is the opposite of the scientific method which Urban espouses, where we try to prove our hypotheses wrong. He's done a nice job of creating a self-sealing Echo Chamber where he can dismiss any naysayers as "Low Rung" (less evolved) thinkers. Alas. There's a real interesting debate to be had here on how to productively address the historical inequities identified by the social justice movement, but a 100 pages of whining about cancel culture is not that debate.
My biggest frustration with the book is how he doesn't live up to his own ideals. He espouses the value of Idea Labs and testing one's own ideas and really understanding different viewpoints before dismissing them, and then applies none of those principles to his critique of social justice movements.
I agree that social justice activists can occasionally go too far and stray into fundamentalism, but to dismiss them as an "unscientific, anti-free-speech, morally inconsistent, illiberal ideology" based on his reading of two books and the Black Lives Matter website feels premature. He spent six years researching this book and only cites Ibram X Kendi and Robin DiAngelo as his sources, but cites dozens of papers from university academics who feel threatened by these movements that devalues their expertise in favor of a more diverse set of lived experiences.
I'll admit I have a special distaste for Jonathan Haidt's recent (unscisntific, morally inconsistent, Illiberal) complaints about the "coddling of the American mind". Haidt is one of Urban's main sources and neither of them see that his complaints are evidence of his own coddling where he's been treated as special and an expert his whole life, and doesn't like being dismissed as irrelevant.
The book is trying to force fit a good story that Urban made up. This is the opposite of the scientific method which Urban espouses, where we try to prove our hypotheses wrong. He's done a nice job of creating a self-sealing Echo Chamber where he can dismiss any naysayers as "Low Rung" (less evolved) thinkers. Alas. There's a real interesting debate to be had here on how to productively address the historical inequities identified by the social justice movement, but a 100 pages of whining about cancel culture is not that debate.
July 6, 2023
The book provides an explanation of how and why the US is so politically polarized. It brings up many concepts to analyze the polarization, with the core one being a distinction between the Higher vs. Primal (or a High-Rung vs. Low-Rung) mind. This distinction is similar to other distinctions of our minds’ thinking, such as System 1 vs. System 2 by Kahneman. Essentially, the Higher mind is the unique feature of humans - it’s what allows us to engage in complex ideas and science, to think rationally, and be conscious of our biases. On the other hand, the Primal mind is the leftover animalistic tendencies that still fulfill the primal functions of making sure we are safe, respected, belong to a community, not hungry, and ultimately spread our genes. The core issue is that the modern world is complex and requires a lot of Higher mind thinking, and unfortunately, often, the Primal mind overtakes, leading to tug-of-war scenarios rather than rational discussions.
When a bunch of Higher minds gather up, they form an Idea Lab - a place where the goal is to seek the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - it’s where people try to look at both sides with an equal amount of skepticism and try to be self-conscious of their biases. In such environments, disagreement and differing opinions are encouraged, and ideas are separated from the people expressing them.
On the other hand, when a bunch of Primal minds gather, they form an Echo Chamber, a cult. It’s a place where you have to believe everything the Echo Chamber says, and you should repeat it as well. Differing opinions are not accepted, and anyone criticizing the cult will be canceled. The group’s members only care about being right and will go to great and nasty lengths to get what they want.
So, how did the US become so polarized?
Tim explains that before the 1960s, both the Republicans and Democrats were more or less High-Rung thinkers. For example, Ronald Reagan encouraged a culture of individual thinking and open disagreement, and if you look at the distribution of votes in the government, there was a significant amount of Republicans voting for Democratic policies and vice-versa. The politicians were more moderate. Then, the Republic party started seeing the rise of some Low-Rung thinkers, such as Barry Goldwater, who started emphasizing strong distinctions between the Republicans and Democrats, and many politicians would engage in nasty tactics such as shouting down speakers or even the 2011 debt ceiling fiasco. And then we get to Trump, of course, and Tim explains how the Republic Party under Trump is the complete opposite of the Republican Party of the 1960s under Reagan because Trump’s strategies are Primal (such as encouraging the storming of the US Capitol) and any disagreement with the Republican ideology is unacceptable.
What makes all of the above even worse is Narrowcast Media and Internet Algorithms.
- Narrowcast Media: Tim explains how it’s become more profitable for TV companies to serve a narrow audience, such as Republican or Democratic voters, instead of trying to serve everyone. Therefore, we got outlets such as Fox News and CNN, which serve their distinct audiences and present every event in a light that favors their side. TV companies do not try to present both sides, to stay moderate, or to explain the complexity of issues.
- Internet Algorithms: it’s no secret that YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all other social media outlet recommendations are tailored to you based on what you’ve already seen and liked. And the more you watch and like something, the deeper you spiral down that rabbit hole. Instead of recommending posts and videos that would present the other side of the story, they make your feed more and more polarized.
Altogether, the media and social media perpetuate the narrative of Republicans vs. Democrats, right vs. left, Us vs. Them, and exacerbate the polarization.
Now, the far-left isn’t much better than the far-right, and Tim focuses a lot on the problem of “wokeness” and Social Justice Warriors (or, as he calls them, Social Justice Fundamentalists, SJFs).
One of his arguments against SJFs is that SJFs see all inequalities in the outcome as a necessary result of one and only cause - inequality in opportunity and systemic discrimination. However, his problem is not as much with what they believe, but rather the Primal tactics they employ to convince others. Any opposing opinions are not accepted, and anyone trying to provide a more nuanced view is canceled. However, issues such as racism and sexism are complex and nuanced, and to solve them effectively, we need to understand them accurately - we need to ask questions that might not always be comfortable, such as research examining inherent biological differences between men and women. What SJF does is radical and counterproductive to progress because they often advocate against free speech and scientific research - the core tools of any liberal democratic society. Tim provides an abundant amount of examples to demonstrate the radicalism of SJFs - such as shouting down speakers, threatening researchers and professors, canceling people, occupying campuses, and more. Similar to far-right, far-lefts also use Primal strategies to get what they want, they do not accept anything that criticizes their ideology, and the whole issue gets even more polarized by the Narrowcast Media and Internet Algorithms.
Tim encourages us to try to be High-Rung thinkers, and here are some takeaways I found the most important:
1. Separate ideas from people. “Republican,” “Democrat,” “SJF,” “Moderate,” and other adjectives are not about people. They are about ideas. We need to remind ourselves that we are just humans trying to navigate the complex and nuanced problems of our society. We have been wrong about some topics for centuries, and we probably are and will be wrong about plenty of others for a long time. So get humble and view everyone as an individual, rather than bucketing everyone into a political group and canceling them just because some of their beliefs might differ from your own.
2. This book made me rethink my open-mindedness. I used to think of “open-mindedness” as readiness and eagerness to accept progressive ideas. However, what I observe with a lot of “progressives” is they are absolutely terrified of hearing anything that counters their beliefs. So if we want to be truly open-minded, we need to also be willing to listen to the other side, to actually engage with their arguments. After all, if your belief is the correct one, then you should have no problem providing counterarguments to the opposing side and bringing up solid evidence and data to defend your own. And if you do have a problem proving your belief is the correct one, then maybe it’ll help you realize the nuance of the situation. Either way, you will have come out more educated about your own and your opponent’s argument. So to be open-minded is to not blindly accept every incoming idea or whatever your social group beliefs, but to do the hard work to examine and listen to both sides, be equally skeptical, examine evidence and data, and arrive at your own hypothesis and worldview that you will continue testing day to day in your conversations with people.
3. We need to stop the Primal thinking and strategies of both far-right and far-left, and we need a lot of awareness and courage to do so. Denying free speech and science is not productive for progress, so we need to speak up when we see people doing so. Criticizing scientific approaches is one thing, every research method has flaws and areas of improvement, but claiming that science as a whole is an oppressive tool we need to dismantle is too radical. We should also move away from the cancel culture because it only polarizes society more since people start being afraid of saying what they truly think, and thus the only opinions we hear in public are either far-right or far-left. And cancel culture also ruins the lives and careers of people - what they think is only one aspect of who they are. After all, if you’ve ever had a piece of meat, there is a chance you’ll get canceled by your grand-grand children because it’s likely that eating animals will become morally unacceptable (or maybe it won’t, but the point is that our moral views continue evolving, and so many of the things you do now might become a taboo in a hundred years). Instead, let’s turn to Higher-minded thinking - let’s use evidence, data, and diplomatic argumentation to try to seek the truth rather than to seek power and the feeling of righteousness.
One precaution about the book: you, as a reader, need to remember that the concepts and distinctions the author presents are just thinking frameworks for simplifying the analysis. No one is ultimately just a Higher or Lower thinker, and there is no binary High or Low mindedness in our brains. Someone might be a more Higher-minded thinker than you on one topic, and you might be more Higher-minded on another. You might be a Low-rung thinker about one topic now, and maybe after some research, you will understand the complexity of the situation and will start being more Higher-minded. And the same applies to the SJF grouping that Tim defines - it’s useful to characterize the movement, but don’t fall into the trap of characterizing anyone who has a far-left view on a topic as a cultish radical Social Justice Fundamentalist - maybe once you start talking to them, they actually have valid evidence and arguments. Think about how people think rather than what they think.
Overall, the biggest value of this book is it encourages you to step back from your views, whether they are left or right, and critically examine why you think what you think, what Echo Chambers you are a part of, what media you consume, what evidence and arguments you have to support your views, and how accurately you understand the reasons for alternative beliefs. As you read the book, I highly encourage you to check out the footnotes and references. I probably spent more time examining resources Tim linked in footnotes than reading the book itself because diving into the rabbit holes of examining the linked thought-provoking resources and forming my own opinions about them was especially useful in forming a nuanced view of the situation.
When a bunch of Higher minds gather up, they form an Idea Lab - a place where the goal is to seek the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - it’s where people try to look at both sides with an equal amount of skepticism and try to be self-conscious of their biases. In such environments, disagreement and differing opinions are encouraged, and ideas are separated from the people expressing them.
On the other hand, when a bunch of Primal minds gather, they form an Echo Chamber, a cult. It’s a place where you have to believe everything the Echo Chamber says, and you should repeat it as well. Differing opinions are not accepted, and anyone criticizing the cult will be canceled. The group’s members only care about being right and will go to great and nasty lengths to get what they want.
So, how did the US become so polarized?
Tim explains that before the 1960s, both the Republicans and Democrats were more or less High-Rung thinkers. For example, Ronald Reagan encouraged a culture of individual thinking and open disagreement, and if you look at the distribution of votes in the government, there was a significant amount of Republicans voting for Democratic policies and vice-versa. The politicians were more moderate. Then, the Republic party started seeing the rise of some Low-Rung thinkers, such as Barry Goldwater, who started emphasizing strong distinctions between the Republicans and Democrats, and many politicians would engage in nasty tactics such as shouting down speakers or even the 2011 debt ceiling fiasco. And then we get to Trump, of course, and Tim explains how the Republic Party under Trump is the complete opposite of the Republican Party of the 1960s under Reagan because Trump’s strategies are Primal (such as encouraging the storming of the US Capitol) and any disagreement with the Republican ideology is unacceptable.
What makes all of the above even worse is Narrowcast Media and Internet Algorithms.
- Narrowcast Media: Tim explains how it’s become more profitable for TV companies to serve a narrow audience, such as Republican or Democratic voters, instead of trying to serve everyone. Therefore, we got outlets such as Fox News and CNN, which serve their distinct audiences and present every event in a light that favors their side. TV companies do not try to present both sides, to stay moderate, or to explain the complexity of issues.
- Internet Algorithms: it’s no secret that YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all other social media outlet recommendations are tailored to you based on what you’ve already seen and liked. And the more you watch and like something, the deeper you spiral down that rabbit hole. Instead of recommending posts and videos that would present the other side of the story, they make your feed more and more polarized.
Altogether, the media and social media perpetuate the narrative of Republicans vs. Democrats, right vs. left, Us vs. Them, and exacerbate the polarization.
Now, the far-left isn’t much better than the far-right, and Tim focuses a lot on the problem of “wokeness” and Social Justice Warriors (or, as he calls them, Social Justice Fundamentalists, SJFs).
One of his arguments against SJFs is that SJFs see all inequalities in the outcome as a necessary result of one and only cause - inequality in opportunity and systemic discrimination. However, his problem is not as much with what they believe, but rather the Primal tactics they employ to convince others. Any opposing opinions are not accepted, and anyone trying to provide a more nuanced view is canceled. However, issues such as racism and sexism are complex and nuanced, and to solve them effectively, we need to understand them accurately - we need to ask questions that might not always be comfortable, such as research examining inherent biological differences between men and women. What SJF does is radical and counterproductive to progress because they often advocate against free speech and scientific research - the core tools of any liberal democratic society. Tim provides an abundant amount of examples to demonstrate the radicalism of SJFs - such as shouting down speakers, threatening researchers and professors, canceling people, occupying campuses, and more. Similar to far-right, far-lefts also use Primal strategies to get what they want, they do not accept anything that criticizes their ideology, and the whole issue gets even more polarized by the Narrowcast Media and Internet Algorithms.
Tim encourages us to try to be High-Rung thinkers, and here are some takeaways I found the most important:
1. Separate ideas from people. “Republican,” “Democrat,” “SJF,” “Moderate,” and other adjectives are not about people. They are about ideas. We need to remind ourselves that we are just humans trying to navigate the complex and nuanced problems of our society. We have been wrong about some topics for centuries, and we probably are and will be wrong about plenty of others for a long time. So get humble and view everyone as an individual, rather than bucketing everyone into a political group and canceling them just because some of their beliefs might differ from your own.
2. This book made me rethink my open-mindedness. I used to think of “open-mindedness” as readiness and eagerness to accept progressive ideas. However, what I observe with a lot of “progressives” is they are absolutely terrified of hearing anything that counters their beliefs. So if we want to be truly open-minded, we need to also be willing to listen to the other side, to actually engage with their arguments. After all, if your belief is the correct one, then you should have no problem providing counterarguments to the opposing side and bringing up solid evidence and data to defend your own. And if you do have a problem proving your belief is the correct one, then maybe it’ll help you realize the nuance of the situation. Either way, you will have come out more educated about your own and your opponent’s argument. So to be open-minded is to not blindly accept every incoming idea or whatever your social group beliefs, but to do the hard work to examine and listen to both sides, be equally skeptical, examine evidence and data, and arrive at your own hypothesis and worldview that you will continue testing day to day in your conversations with people.
3. We need to stop the Primal thinking and strategies of both far-right and far-left, and we need a lot of awareness and courage to do so. Denying free speech and science is not productive for progress, so we need to speak up when we see people doing so. Criticizing scientific approaches is one thing, every research method has flaws and areas of improvement, but claiming that science as a whole is an oppressive tool we need to dismantle is too radical. We should also move away from the cancel culture because it only polarizes society more since people start being afraid of saying what they truly think, and thus the only opinions we hear in public are either far-right or far-left. And cancel culture also ruins the lives and careers of people - what they think is only one aspect of who they are. After all, if you’ve ever had a piece of meat, there is a chance you’ll get canceled by your grand-grand children because it’s likely that eating animals will become morally unacceptable (or maybe it won’t, but the point is that our moral views continue evolving, and so many of the things you do now might become a taboo in a hundred years). Instead, let’s turn to Higher-minded thinking - let’s use evidence, data, and diplomatic argumentation to try to seek the truth rather than to seek power and the feeling of righteousness.
One precaution about the book: you, as a reader, need to remember that the concepts and distinctions the author presents are just thinking frameworks for simplifying the analysis. No one is ultimately just a Higher or Lower thinker, and there is no binary High or Low mindedness in our brains. Someone might be a more Higher-minded thinker than you on one topic, and you might be more Higher-minded on another. You might be a Low-rung thinker about one topic now, and maybe after some research, you will understand the complexity of the situation and will start being more Higher-minded. And the same applies to the SJF grouping that Tim defines - it’s useful to characterize the movement, but don’t fall into the trap of characterizing anyone who has a far-left view on a topic as a cultish radical Social Justice Fundamentalist - maybe once you start talking to them, they actually have valid evidence and arguments. Think about how people think rather than what they think.
Overall, the biggest value of this book is it encourages you to step back from your views, whether they are left or right, and critically examine why you think what you think, what Echo Chambers you are a part of, what media you consume, what evidence and arguments you have to support your views, and how accurately you understand the reasons for alternative beliefs. As you read the book, I highly encourage you to check out the footnotes and references. I probably spent more time examining resources Tim linked in footnotes than reading the book itself because diving into the rabbit holes of examining the linked thought-provoking resources and forming my own opinions about them was especially useful in forming a nuanced view of the situation.
November 13, 2023
I wanted to read this one very badly. But I didn't want to start it w/o taking a look at the 1st book by the same author ("Wait, but why") & it had put me off immediately - I've found it sometimes too obvious, sometimes oversimplified, and I had an impression it tries to be funny & smart, while failing in both these depts. Oh, well.
But "What's Our Problem?" is like from another planet.
First of all, it's one of the very few books where the author doesn't take a stance. I mean - a few times he expresses his (liberal left) affiliations, but it does NOT impact the judgments made in this book. He proposes a simplified MENTAL MODEL to take a look at today's socio-political posture spectrum & he succeeds in showing that exactly the same mechanisms work in both ways. He nails it when he shows that it's not really left vs right, but this conflict actually spans 2 dimensions (add: low-rung vs high-rung). He does so well in using common sense to show that there is STILL space to use reason in a civilized discussion - he also captures why this is not happening. Oh, I've made soooo many notes, so many highlights - I don't remember noting down so much stuff since ... well, a long time ago.
It is NOT a perfect book: e.g., the left vs right model (progressive vs conservative) is obviously too simplified, and the general perspective is too much focused on US. BUT, it doesn't invalidate the mental model mentioned above - it's still valid & applicable, even outside of American "reality".
I've seen that Urban has received a lot of criticism because, in his (somehow symmetric) approach, he has, in the end, dedicated disproportionally more space to wokeness & radical left anarchy (social justice fundamentalism). Personally, I don't have a problem with that, maybe because I perceive radical right as easier to expose/ridicule & counter. Left anarchy has gained more widespread adoption & it has corrupted far too many public institutions - it seems to constitute a much higher threat at this point, and it appears much harder to fight off. However, I do agree that both extreme sides (right-wing libertarianism & left-wing radical anarchy) can be equally destructive.
Read it. Just to get familiar with the mental model (incl. the ladder) - awareness is the first step to get the situation back under control. Free thought lives.
But "What's Our Problem?" is like from another planet.
First of all, it's one of the very few books where the author doesn't take a stance. I mean - a few times he expresses his (liberal left) affiliations, but it does NOT impact the judgments made in this book. He proposes a simplified MENTAL MODEL to take a look at today's socio-political posture spectrum & he succeeds in showing that exactly the same mechanisms work in both ways. He nails it when he shows that it's not really left vs right, but this conflict actually spans 2 dimensions (add: low-rung vs high-rung). He does so well in using common sense to show that there is STILL space to use reason in a civilized discussion - he also captures why this is not happening. Oh, I've made soooo many notes, so many highlights - I don't remember noting down so much stuff since ... well, a long time ago.
It is NOT a perfect book: e.g., the left vs right model (progressive vs conservative) is obviously too simplified, and the general perspective is too much focused on US. BUT, it doesn't invalidate the mental model mentioned above - it's still valid & applicable, even outside of American "reality".
I've seen that Urban has received a lot of criticism because, in his (somehow symmetric) approach, he has, in the end, dedicated disproportionally more space to wokeness & radical left anarchy (social justice fundamentalism). Personally, I don't have a problem with that, maybe because I perceive radical right as easier to expose/ridicule & counter. Left anarchy has gained more widespread adoption & it has corrupted far too many public institutions - it seems to constitute a much higher threat at this point, and it appears much harder to fight off. However, I do agree that both extreme sides (right-wing libertarianism & left-wing radical anarchy) can be equally destructive.
Read it. Just to get familiar with the mental model (incl. the ladder) - awareness is the first step to get the situation back under control. Free thought lives.
February 23, 2023
full disclosure: i’m not completely finished yet. buuuut i don’t care; this book was 6 years in the making and worth every second of that wait, worth sacrificing every other blog topic he couldn’t write about while creating this.
Tim Urban is an interesting thinker who has this strange talent for taking incredibly complex ideas and just…wandering around in them with you. he zooms way in and way out and explores the peripheries and tangents, and makes them a) funny, b) digestible, and c) meaningful. he balances it accessibility with complex ideas better than maybe anyone else i’ve ever read.
the writing is irreverent and conversational, not stuffy at all despite heavy subject matter, complete with random fun footnotes and juvenile drawings that provide surprisingly useful visual aids to what he’s talking about. he takes huge topics and makes them really easy to understand because he’s taken the time to break them down piece by piece, complete with adorably bad stick figure illustrations. he builds the foundation carefully and systematically, which makes it remarkably easy to follow along through increasingly complex layers of thought.
but more important he includes you, the reader, and forces you to challenge assumptions and reflect on why you think what you think. of his work that i’ve read, sometimes he changes my mind and sometimes he doesn’t, but i always come away with a better understanding of the topic and how i came to believe what i do.
reading tim urban will make you a better human being.
Tim Urban is an interesting thinker who has this strange talent for taking incredibly complex ideas and just…wandering around in them with you. he zooms way in and way out and explores the peripheries and tangents, and makes them a) funny, b) digestible, and c) meaningful. he balances it accessibility with complex ideas better than maybe anyone else i’ve ever read.
the writing is irreverent and conversational, not stuffy at all despite heavy subject matter, complete with random fun footnotes and juvenile drawings that provide surprisingly useful visual aids to what he’s talking about. he takes huge topics and makes them really easy to understand because he’s taken the time to break them down piece by piece, complete with adorably bad stick figure illustrations. he builds the foundation carefully and systematically, which makes it remarkably easy to follow along through increasingly complex layers of thought.
but more important he includes you, the reader, and forces you to challenge assumptions and reflect on why you think what you think. of his work that i’ve read, sometimes he changes my mind and sometimes he doesn’t, but i always come away with a better understanding of the topic and how i came to believe what i do.
reading tim urban will make you a better human being.
March 3, 2023
My aim for this review is to compel everyone who sees it to read this book.
This is the most elucidating book about what has been going on in the country for the past 10 years. It is entertaining and funny, clever, clear, and transformative. I am so high on this book right now that I want to say it has already changed my perspective on everything I see & hear during the day, and has changed my perspective on everything I thought I used to believe. I might need to pump the brakes, but fuck it, I’m not pumping. It’s that good. I’m considering restarting it again tomorrow, this time with a notebook & pen. I want to sear these ideas in my brain and be able to articulate them in every conversation I have.
So, shit’s a little bit fucked in the U.S. and a lot of the world. People are more tribal than ever before. We all hate each other, mainstream views have become almost psychotic and the idea of objective truth seems to have gone by the wayside. If you hear a person’s opinion on abortion, you can assume their opinions about every other hot button issue with 99% accuracy.
Tim creates a framework for how to think about/understand human thinking & human behavior in a society, and then uses that framework to illustrate what is currently ailing discourse & progress in ours.
The main distinction Tim wants people to make is between what people think and how they think. Imagine a graph: the x-axis is what you think. On the left side of the axis is super-progressive, on the right side is super-conservative. Somebody’s view on any one issue can fall anywhere on this axis. In 2023, this is the only lens we use to view someone’s ideas. You want really strict gun control? This lands your belief on the left side of the axis - the super-progressive side.
Tim adds a y-axis to this graph. How did you come to that belief? On the bottom of the axis is low-rung thinking, on the top is high-rung thinking.
Low-rung thinking is trash. There are no first principles or reasoning involved. When you’re thinking on a low rung, not only do you come by your beliefs lazily, but you do not question them, and you are disgusted by people who do not agree with you. Low-rung thinking is primarily driven by echo chambers and our primitive hardwiring. On any given topic, you choose the “correct” answer first and then reason backwards to confirm your belief. You ignore any evidence that doesn’t align with your view. Your belief is part of your identity and you are unwilling to change it, no matter what.
High-rung thinking, conversely, is thinking like a scientist. When you’re thinking on a high rung, you are only looking for the truth. You come up with an idea and you put it out in the open - experiment with it. You encourage dissent and criticism. You want to see where your idea is weak and your thinking is flawed. If your idea doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, you abandon it. All you want is the truth, even if it takes you somewhere you didn’t think you’d go.
When you combine the two axes, the graph allows you to visualize not just where someone’s idea falls on the progressive-conservative spectrum, but how they got to it. Ultimately, all we should care about is where you fall on the y-axis for any particular belief you have. We need people to be on the high rungs.
For example, imagine two people who have a super-progressive belief, like America should not limit immigration at all. There is a huge difference between the low-rung thinker who holds that belief and the high-rung thinker who does. The low-rung thinker holds this belief likely because of the media echo chamber they’re in and nothing more - they certainly don’t have any deep knowledge or understanding of immigration and its causes or effects. They demonize the people who do not believe the same thing. They do not understand nuance - there is only one right opinion and everyone else is wrong. The high-rung thinker, on the other hand, is more informed about the topic of immigration. They’ve consumed different viewpoints and formulated their belief based on reason. Most importantly, they are never too attached to this belief. If new information or arguments undermine their idea, they update their view.
Thus, on the graph: low-left and low-right = bad; upper-left and upper-right and upper-anything-in-between = good.
With this in mind, Tim goes on to write the most clear-eyed rebuke of Social Justice Fundamentalism (read: wokeness) that there is likely to be written for a long time. What has branded itself as a progressive movement is one of the most illiberal and authoritarian movements in history, and it is producing almost exclusively negative outcomes.
Traditional liberal social justice fought for the “little guy” with the first amendment as its primary tool. Using the marketplace of ideas and inclusive messaging, people were able to make once-taboo ideas become mainstream. In the 50s most Americans did not approve of interracial marriage. Now, most Americans do. That’s because a while ago, someone went, hey, everybody should be able to marry whoever they want. A lot of people were pissed about that, and they shouted back all the reasons why people shouldn’t be doing that. All the ideas were thrown into the ring; the best idea won.
But today’s Social Justice Fundamentalists are the antithesis of traditional liberal social justice. SJFs are low-rung zealots. They choose the “correct” answer and reason backwards, if they reason at all. They ignore not only things that disconfirm their views, but they ignore their own contradictory logic. They have the “right” thoughts, and if you are not with them, you are against them. They don’t test their ideas out for weaknesses or flaws. If you present an alternative viewpoint, they attack you as being a bad person for not conforming to their view. Enter cancel culture: our SJF ideas cannot win out in the marketplace, so we’re going to get your ass socially exiled and fired from your job if you don’t agree with us. We can’t let other ideas be heard: we’re going to get speakers uninvited and school curriculums changed. We’re going to ruin the lives of so many high-profile members of society that everyone else is going to become afraid to say what they actually think.
Anyways, I’m pretty sure I could go on all night, but that’s just a testament to how great this book is. I hope something about this review made you want to read this book. The writing is so concise and so funny that if you don’t like it I actually hate you.
This is the most elucidating book about what has been going on in the country for the past 10 years. It is entertaining and funny, clever, clear, and transformative. I am so high on this book right now that I want to say it has already changed my perspective on everything I see & hear during the day, and has changed my perspective on everything I thought I used to believe. I might need to pump the brakes, but fuck it, I’m not pumping. It’s that good. I’m considering restarting it again tomorrow, this time with a notebook & pen. I want to sear these ideas in my brain and be able to articulate them in every conversation I have.
So, shit’s a little bit fucked in the U.S. and a lot of the world. People are more tribal than ever before. We all hate each other, mainstream views have become almost psychotic and the idea of objective truth seems to have gone by the wayside. If you hear a person’s opinion on abortion, you can assume their opinions about every other hot button issue with 99% accuracy.
Tim creates a framework for how to think about/understand human thinking & human behavior in a society, and then uses that framework to illustrate what is currently ailing discourse & progress in ours.
The main distinction Tim wants people to make is between what people think and how they think. Imagine a graph: the x-axis is what you think. On the left side of the axis is super-progressive, on the right side is super-conservative. Somebody’s view on any one issue can fall anywhere on this axis. In 2023, this is the only lens we use to view someone’s ideas. You want really strict gun control? This lands your belief on the left side of the axis - the super-progressive side.
Tim adds a y-axis to this graph. How did you come to that belief? On the bottom of the axis is low-rung thinking, on the top is high-rung thinking.
Low-rung thinking is trash. There are no first principles or reasoning involved. When you’re thinking on a low rung, not only do you come by your beliefs lazily, but you do not question them, and you are disgusted by people who do not agree with you. Low-rung thinking is primarily driven by echo chambers and our primitive hardwiring. On any given topic, you choose the “correct” answer first and then reason backwards to confirm your belief. You ignore any evidence that doesn’t align with your view. Your belief is part of your identity and you are unwilling to change it, no matter what.
High-rung thinking, conversely, is thinking like a scientist. When you’re thinking on a high rung, you are only looking for the truth. You come up with an idea and you put it out in the open - experiment with it. You encourage dissent and criticism. You want to see where your idea is weak and your thinking is flawed. If your idea doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, you abandon it. All you want is the truth, even if it takes you somewhere you didn’t think you’d go.
When you combine the two axes, the graph allows you to visualize not just where someone’s idea falls on the progressive-conservative spectrum, but how they got to it. Ultimately, all we should care about is where you fall on the y-axis for any particular belief you have. We need people to be on the high rungs.
For example, imagine two people who have a super-progressive belief, like America should not limit immigration at all. There is a huge difference between the low-rung thinker who holds that belief and the high-rung thinker who does. The low-rung thinker holds this belief likely because of the media echo chamber they’re in and nothing more - they certainly don’t have any deep knowledge or understanding of immigration and its causes or effects. They demonize the people who do not believe the same thing. They do not understand nuance - there is only one right opinion and everyone else is wrong. The high-rung thinker, on the other hand, is more informed about the topic of immigration. They’ve consumed different viewpoints and formulated their belief based on reason. Most importantly, they are never too attached to this belief. If new information or arguments undermine their idea, they update their view.
Thus, on the graph: low-left and low-right = bad; upper-left and upper-right and upper-anything-in-between = good.
With this in mind, Tim goes on to write the most clear-eyed rebuke of Social Justice Fundamentalism (read: wokeness) that there is likely to be written for a long time. What has branded itself as a progressive movement is one of the most illiberal and authoritarian movements in history, and it is producing almost exclusively negative outcomes.
Traditional liberal social justice fought for the “little guy” with the first amendment as its primary tool. Using the marketplace of ideas and inclusive messaging, people were able to make once-taboo ideas become mainstream. In the 50s most Americans did not approve of interracial marriage. Now, most Americans do. That’s because a while ago, someone went, hey, everybody should be able to marry whoever they want. A lot of people were pissed about that, and they shouted back all the reasons why people shouldn’t be doing that. All the ideas were thrown into the ring; the best idea won.
But today’s Social Justice Fundamentalists are the antithesis of traditional liberal social justice. SJFs are low-rung zealots. They choose the “correct” answer and reason backwards, if they reason at all. They ignore not only things that disconfirm their views, but they ignore their own contradictory logic. They have the “right” thoughts, and if you are not with them, you are against them. They don’t test their ideas out for weaknesses or flaws. If you present an alternative viewpoint, they attack you as being a bad person for not conforming to their view. Enter cancel culture: our SJF ideas cannot win out in the marketplace, so we’re going to get your ass socially exiled and fired from your job if you don’t agree with us. We can’t let other ideas be heard: we’re going to get speakers uninvited and school curriculums changed. We’re going to ruin the lives of so many high-profile members of society that everyone else is going to become afraid to say what they actually think.
Anyways, I’m pretty sure I could go on all night, but that’s just a testament to how great this book is. I hope something about this review made you want to read this book. The writing is so concise and so funny that if you don’t like it I actually hate you.
May 3, 2023
Huge disappointment.
The book is attempting to explain complex phenomena with extremely simplistic socio-psychological model totally unfit for the task, unscrupulously citing sources without any attempt to evaluate them, and depicting the most stagnant American years when voters from both parties didn't have any meaningful choice and all the information was controlled by a handful of gatekeepers as a Golden Age tragically lost, demonstrating middle ground fallacy on virtually every page.
Urban pretends to be a fan of nuances and depicts people who don't want to understand them as enablers of vicious political Golems, but nuances is exactly what's lacking in this uber-simplistic book. I'm not a impartial observer and in the current political debates I prefer one of the sides to the other one, but this book is unfair to both of them, turning left and right ideas and politicians into caricatures of themselves. The author somehow doesn't notice that while denouncing Golems he's simultaneously built his own Golem and is using it to attack people and ideas outside of the "golden" political center without even trying to give them a slightest benefit of the doubt.
I'm a big fan of Tim Urban and have always enjoyed reading his articles, but it seems that in this book he finally achieved, citing Peter's principle, his level of incompetence.
The book is attempting to explain complex phenomena with extremely simplistic socio-psychological model totally unfit for the task, unscrupulously citing sources without any attempt to evaluate them, and depicting the most stagnant American years when voters from both parties didn't have any meaningful choice and all the information was controlled by a handful of gatekeepers as a Golden Age tragically lost, demonstrating middle ground fallacy on virtually every page.
Urban pretends to be a fan of nuances and depicts people who don't want to understand them as enablers of vicious political Golems, but nuances is exactly what's lacking in this uber-simplistic book. I'm not a impartial observer and in the current political debates I prefer one of the sides to the other one, but this book is unfair to both of them, turning left and right ideas and politicians into caricatures of themselves. The author somehow doesn't notice that while denouncing Golems he's simultaneously built his own Golem and is using it to attack people and ideas outside of the "golden" political center without even trying to give them a slightest benefit of the doubt.
I'm a big fan of Tim Urban and have always enjoyed reading his articles, but it seems that in this book he finally achieved, citing Peter's principle, his level of incompetence.
June 17, 2023
4.5. Amazing book. My only critiques are that (a) it felt patchwork and repetitive at times, and (b) he doesn’t fairly represent (understand?) true Christianity. I do love his distinction between high-rung vs. low-rung thinking, and idea labs vs. echo chambers—but those latter alternatives characterize traditional religion, not gospel-centered Christianity. In fact, an environment of intellectual rigor rooted in gospel grace is the ultimate “idea lab” Urban is looking for. I wish he would engage with the work of someone like Tim Keller! In our polarized climate in which “everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven,” the gospel of Jesus Christ offers unparalleled resources for producing confident-yet-humble people who have nothing to hide, nothing to prove, and nothing to lose.
All that said, “What’s Our Problem?” is stimulating and illuminating—a breath of fresh air in a tribal, thought-stifling age. It reminded me of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” (one of the most insightful books I’ve ever read).
All that said, “What’s Our Problem?” is stimulating and illuminating—a breath of fresh air in a tribal, thought-stifling age. It reminded me of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” (one of the most insightful books I’ve ever read).
February 22, 2023
Don’t let the length intimidate you! Urban has a knack for taking difficult concepts and writing about them with thoughtfulness, clarity, and humanity. The illustrations are helpful and endearing too. Thinking of adopting many of his ideas for my classroom to support students as they navigate thinking about their own thinking, as I’ll reflect on mine. Brilliant!
March 1, 2023
I’ve been a fan of the Wait But Why blog for a long time, then I wasn’t a fan of the Story of Us series, the articles that ultimately became the backbone of this book. At the time, I felt the posts were unnecessarily long and complicated and just kept diving into more and more nested rabbit holes.
For this reason, I was skeptical about What’s Our Problem. But, I’m happy to say that Tim turned it around (for me at least), and the second iteration of the story is excellent!
Better paced, better argued, more deeply researched, and much more respectful of your time than the original blog posts.
Prior to reading this book I had a nagging feeling, an uncomfortable splinter in the back of my mind that something is not quite right around the world of civic discourse, partisan politics, and social justice movements—and things seem to be getting worse. But I couldn’t put my finger on the exact problem, let alone explain it eloquently.
What’s Our Problem can. Tim excels at pulling out the relevant phenomena, giving them names and definitions, and linking them together in a system of thought that ultimately succeeds in explaining how the fundamental building blocks of modern liberal democracies are being pulled from our common foundation.
It’s a fascinating read, albeit a somewhat bleak one. It was interesting to see how the usual Wait But Why goofiness with the jokes and the drawings diminished more and more as the story went along. (I still had a handful of laugh at loud moments, one in particular being the best joke of Tim’s writing career, in my opinion.)
All in all, I recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone who is looking at the news and the discourse and can’t help but feel lost.
What’s Our Problem is scant on solutions (only the last few pages deal with ideas on what can be done, and they are a bit motivatonal speech-y), but it can show you what the problem is in bold, crisp font. It’s not a silver bullet—it isn’t called What’s Our Answer after all—but it is an excellent first step that will give you some hope in ourselves. Maybe that’s enough as a start.
For this reason, I was skeptical about What’s Our Problem. But, I’m happy to say that Tim turned it around (for me at least), and the second iteration of the story is excellent!
Better paced, better argued, more deeply researched, and much more respectful of your time than the original blog posts.
Prior to reading this book I had a nagging feeling, an uncomfortable splinter in the back of my mind that something is not quite right around the world of civic discourse, partisan politics, and social justice movements—and things seem to be getting worse. But I couldn’t put my finger on the exact problem, let alone explain it eloquently.
What’s Our Problem can. Tim excels at pulling out the relevant phenomena, giving them names and definitions, and linking them together in a system of thought that ultimately succeeds in explaining how the fundamental building blocks of modern liberal democracies are being pulled from our common foundation.
It’s a fascinating read, albeit a somewhat bleak one. It was interesting to see how the usual Wait But Why goofiness with the jokes and the drawings diminished more and more as the story went along. (I still had a handful of laugh at loud moments, one in particular being the best joke of Tim’s writing career, in my opinion.)
All in all, I recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone who is looking at the news and the discourse and can’t help but feel lost.
What’s Our Problem is scant on solutions (only the last few pages deal with ideas on what can be done, and they are a bit motivatonal speech-y), but it can show you what the problem is in bold, crisp font. It’s not a silver bullet—it isn’t called What’s Our Answer after all—but it is an excellent first step that will give you some hope in ourselves. Maybe that’s enough as a start.
December 12, 2024
This is an engineering view of reality. There is no high/low mind. Our 'highest mind' the neo cortex and the prefrontal are where our worst and best decisions are made. Our middle mind, the mid-brain, is where we organize our motor and memories in the thalmus and hypothalmus and these should be considered our 'correlation' centers where our thinking gets to map out memories carefully or recklessly. Our lower brains, the cerebellum and the CNS are where motion and balance and other motor responses are learned and automated (how we can brake a car faster than we can think about doing it). Consciousness is very slow and not as present and accessible as we think it is. Much of our behavior is automated sense to motion when we're children. And this is how engineers have absolutely no ideas about how to extricate thought and process. This is a writer intuiting with folk psychology a folk science quick fix to billions of years of evolutionary thresholds. It's pointless, narrative and foolhardy. The fact is certain people are taught to reason carefully and make clear decisions or come with these traits while others are taught to make snap judgements or come with traits that make them more susceptible to a prey-predator like reduction of decisions. We know now that Kahnemann's Sys 1 - 2 is a false dichotomy.
Obviously those suited to slow reasoning are those writing these books. And naturally, they seem to think because they can experience emotions or snap decision making that there is a dichotomy like this in everyone. It doesn't work this way at all. By pretending slow reasoning is a systems problem and not a feature of evolutionarily acquired affinities that become habituated and lost to generic, generalizing post-hoc effects like narrative, Urban destroys any ability to discover the empirical.
The simpler fact is, there are no contradictions (Aristotle) and much of cause and effect/mythological reasoning (God starts fire becoming lightning causes fire, they are actually one in the same illusion) is highly damaging, post-hoc simplification. That's the inextricable problem with this book and others like it. It's trapped in its own explanation, which is itself trapped back at the campfire where someone discarded a spectre and added just a cause).
Like most or all self-help books, this is a total illusion.
Obviously those suited to slow reasoning are those writing these books. And naturally, they seem to think because they can experience emotions or snap decision making that there is a dichotomy like this in everyone. It doesn't work this way at all. By pretending slow reasoning is a systems problem and not a feature of evolutionarily acquired affinities that become habituated and lost to generic, generalizing post-hoc effects like narrative, Urban destroys any ability to discover the empirical.
The simpler fact is, there are no contradictions (Aristotle) and much of cause and effect/mythological reasoning (God starts fire becoming lightning causes fire, they are actually one in the same illusion) is highly damaging, post-hoc simplification. That's the inextricable problem with this book and others like it. It's trapped in its own explanation, which is itself trapped back at the campfire where someone discarded a spectre and added just a cause).
Like most or all self-help books, this is a total illusion.
March 18, 2023
Wow. A real must-read. Superb framework for how we think, act and collaborate as humans. Immaculately researched and described examples of today’s growing dysfunction. For me, the “Social Justice Fundamentalism” chapter was the most shocking. Had no idea things have gone so far (in the US, at least).
Only wish would’ve been for some more non-American examples but I guess you can only fit so much.
Overall, thanks Tim for your six years of service to humankind! Hope we indeed dig ourselves out of the “Golem-hole”.
Only wish would’ve been for some more non-American examples but I guess you can only fit so much.
Overall, thanks Tim for your six years of service to humankind! Hope we indeed dig ourselves out of the “Golem-hole”.
March 12, 2023
I liked the idea of this book and it's clear a lot of work went into it, but it felt like a really long-winded way of saying "we should pander to other people's ideas even if they're really nasty." I used to like the blog, but this book explains why the author still thinks El*n Musk is an edgelord with good takes.
March 6, 2023
2.85/5
i like tim urban and have followed him since 2014
maybe i'm just tim urban'd out, but this was ~200 pages too long, a little too 'enlightened centrist,' and avoided the real difficult issues with misdirection
i like tim urban and have followed him since 2014
maybe i'm just tim urban'd out, but this was ~200 pages too long, a little too 'enlightened centrist,' and avoided the real difficult issues with misdirection
August 7, 2023
Kudos to Tim Urban! It was clearly a brave thing to write this book given the context of the issue it addresses. And he has done a great job presenting his arguments. I thoroughly enjoyed it as an audiobook and would strongly recommend it as a good prism for looking at the mode of political discourse (despite the obvious US-centricity of the examples used).
I find the "ladder" framework a helpful way of thinking about the positions of the sides locked in the argument. As well as the emergence analogy for collective thinking ("genies" and "golems"). You can check out key concepts in the pdf supplement here:
https://waitbutwhy.com/wp-content/upl...
I walked away with a better way of processing lingering queasy feelings after being forced to read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. I feel better equipped to think about and debate this topic now.
Related books:
On society evolution and challenges ahead -
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
On the context of the recent history -
The Nineties
On pursuit of truth -
The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
On scary destinations -
1984 by George Orwell
What I plan to read next?
What We Owe the Future
I find the "ladder" framework a helpful way of thinking about the positions of the sides locked in the argument. As well as the emergence analogy for collective thinking ("genies" and "golems"). You can check out key concepts in the pdf supplement here:
https://waitbutwhy.com/wp-content/upl...
I walked away with a better way of processing lingering queasy feelings after being forced to read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. I feel better equipped to think about and debate this topic now.
Related books:
On society evolution and challenges ahead -
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
On the context of the recent history -
The Nineties
On pursuit of truth -
The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
On scary destinations -
1984 by George Orwell
What I plan to read next?
What We Owe the Future
August 22, 2024
Цікава і пізнавальна книжка, досліджує широкий спектр політичних, соціальних та філософських тем на прикладі розвитку американського суспільства і лібералізму. Ніде правди діти - вона дуже довга і читається непросто, троха втомився її читати. Тому поки відкладаю до кращих часів, сподіваюсь колись зберу раму в купу і дочитаю
June 23, 2023
I never write reviews - but this was a standout read for me.
Tim provides some accessible frameworks (with funny cartoons in his classic Wait But Why style) for how to look at society and politics - beyond just the right and the left. These frameworks are then used throughout the book to evaluate various ideologies (focused on USA). Be prepared - Both the right and the left are critiqued, and there’s more chapters dedicated to the left. But the whole point is that the book isn’t critiquing WHAT people believe on the right-left spectrum, but rather HOW people hold to those beliefs and express them on a new vertical spectrum.
Tim presents things in such a level headed, researched, non-political way that it made me really open to his point of view, even if it was at times challenging. We’ve all heard that echo chambers and cancel culture are bad, but I think this book brings new perspective to detailing out just how bad the problem has gotten, and why. I’m now motivated to be more truth-seeking, more thoughtful about rhetoric I’d usually agree with, and more willing to engage in discussions.
To be clear, this book was NOT a heavy emotional fight to the finish - it was fun (cute cartoons!), funny, generally lighthearted given the subject matter, and made me excited to think/self-reflect. If you end up reading this book lmk bc I’m clearly dying to talk about it and would love to know your perspective!
Tim provides some accessible frameworks (with funny cartoons in his classic Wait But Why style) for how to look at society and politics - beyond just the right and the left. These frameworks are then used throughout the book to evaluate various ideologies (focused on USA). Be prepared - Both the right and the left are critiqued, and there’s more chapters dedicated to the left. But the whole point is that the book isn’t critiquing WHAT people believe on the right-left spectrum, but rather HOW people hold to those beliefs and express them on a new vertical spectrum.
Tim presents things in such a level headed, researched, non-political way that it made me really open to his point of view, even if it was at times challenging. We’ve all heard that echo chambers and cancel culture are bad, but I think this book brings new perspective to detailing out just how bad the problem has gotten, and why. I’m now motivated to be more truth-seeking, more thoughtful about rhetoric I’d usually agree with, and more willing to engage in discussions.
To be clear, this book was NOT a heavy emotional fight to the finish - it was fun (cute cartoons!), funny, generally lighthearted given the subject matter, and made me excited to think/self-reflect. If you end up reading this book lmk bc I’m clearly dying to talk about it and would love to know your perspective!
April 20, 2023
The one where a dilettante faux intellectual tries to write an “everything thesis” on all the ills of society. To be clear, I’ve enjoyed some of the Wait But Why content over the years and wanted to like this book, but it is a meandering mess. It’s incredibly repetitive and mostly constructs false dichotomies and overly simplistic frameworks that don’t actually stand up to the slightest brush with reality. It’s hundreds of pages of round peg, square hole. Neat drawings that are somewhat amusing peppered throughout, though.
February 25, 2023
Incredibly thoughtful, nuanced, and compelling explanation of the major forces pulling our society in directions we'd all collectively prefer not to go in. Tim is a fantastic explainer of complicated subjects, and this book accomplished the Herculean task of making some our most complex societal problems easily understandable, intuitive, and arguably even fun to think about. Bravo.
January 3, 2025
I love Tim's blog and I was really excited for this book... But it was difficult not to DNF it. The beginning and the end were fine, but the middle could have done with being edited wayyy down. Tim harps on about the dangers of that he calls social justice fundamentalism, and seems to be identifying this as the central problem in America, which is wild given that America doesn't even have a popular party on the left. I was pretty disappointed with this one.
August 25, 2023
i thought the first half of this book was a good "primer" on various intellectual approaches du jour. tim urban does a good job of mapping out US political and intellectual histories in a very easy-to-digest ways.
i agree that cancel culture is bad and has led to a lot of unnecessary stress / careers lost / death threats on innocent individuals, and also that "social justice fundamentalists" as he calls them have acted as a mob to introduce new policies in certain settings that undermine actual social justice goals.
but i have a number of critiques.
1. urban doesn't really acknowledge that research shows the systems ARE at fault. he gives little nods here and there to systemic racism, etc. but he lends little credence to postmodernist notions around language/power/etc. or intersectionality - academic lines of thought that i definitely favor. i think SJF is very bad at coming up with solutions, but it's a reaction to real, proven, deep problems. [see: The New Jim Crow, which i am reading atm - i mean, urban wants us to be optimistic but it's tough out here!!]
2. urban is very pro-democracy in a way i found unsatisfying. he's a big fan of the constitution lol. in the spirit of open-mindedness, i think he should take a harder look at other systems of governance and/or the reasons why it's so hard to implement democracy's ideals. i was really reminded of The Dawn of Everything (and honestly, i highly recommend reading DOE instead of this book). i couldn't help but think of its description of "charismatic competition" (aka vote-based politics) as a form of dominance (whereas urban thinks vote-based politics is a form of liberation). DOE also talks about the "right to property," its nasty origins and all its pitfalls, whereas urban's very much pro-enlightenment aka pro-property. (DOE is not a fan of enlightenment thinkers.)
3. urban seems to think we can reach super-genie (aka ultimate posi-mindhive / ideas lab) if we just approach everything rationally and seek truth... anddd, basically, check our emotions at the door. but that's not how humans are. i mean, the real reason we self-segregate in all sorts of ways, not just race-based, is because we don't enjoy the friction of coming up against people we don't like. disagreement is not fun, especially when it's personal. urban talks about "golems" as holding primitive, lower-rung thought patterns... i'd re-define it as "bad awareness of and regulation of emotions in situations requiring intellectual thought for the sake of group problem solving." lol. but that's the thing about wokeness right? when you "wake up" to your oppression or privilege - to your position in the system - you can't help but get emotional. as a society, we have only just awoken. pomo theories have made it into the mainstream - and the impact is that we're all feeling a lot of things. we're not really in a position to be implementing solutions; that's why the solutions are kind of bad and center around "emotional safety" - what mainstream SJF asks is "how do we get to a place where we can better regulate our emotional and psychological wellness?" that's why it's so obsessed with safe spaces and ERGs and removing certain "villains" from our communities.
anyways i also had a lot of thoughts on picking academic institutions as a focus area... i just think it's a bad example bc there are a lot of conflating factors... 1) decline in institutional trust, 2) actually terrible power-based politics esp at research instutitions, 3) relevant debates re pedagogy, etc etc.
i also think his anti-religion stance is bullshit, everyone has a religion.
i'm not mad i read this book though, it was good thought fodder.
i agree that cancel culture is bad and has led to a lot of unnecessary stress / careers lost / death threats on innocent individuals, and also that "social justice fundamentalists" as he calls them have acted as a mob to introduce new policies in certain settings that undermine actual social justice goals.
but i have a number of critiques.
1. urban doesn't really acknowledge that research shows the systems ARE at fault. he gives little nods here and there to systemic racism, etc. but he lends little credence to postmodernist notions around language/power/etc. or intersectionality - academic lines of thought that i definitely favor. i think SJF is very bad at coming up with solutions, but it's a reaction to real, proven, deep problems. [see: The New Jim Crow, which i am reading atm - i mean, urban wants us to be optimistic but it's tough out here!!]
2. urban is very pro-democracy in a way i found unsatisfying. he's a big fan of the constitution lol. in the spirit of open-mindedness, i think he should take a harder look at other systems of governance and/or the reasons why it's so hard to implement democracy's ideals. i was really reminded of The Dawn of Everything (and honestly, i highly recommend reading DOE instead of this book). i couldn't help but think of its description of "charismatic competition" (aka vote-based politics) as a form of dominance (whereas urban thinks vote-based politics is a form of liberation). DOE also talks about the "right to property," its nasty origins and all its pitfalls, whereas urban's very much pro-enlightenment aka pro-property. (DOE is not a fan of enlightenment thinkers.)
3. urban seems to think we can reach super-genie (aka ultimate posi-mindhive / ideas lab) if we just approach everything rationally and seek truth... anddd, basically, check our emotions at the door. but that's not how humans are. i mean, the real reason we self-segregate in all sorts of ways, not just race-based, is because we don't enjoy the friction of coming up against people we don't like. disagreement is not fun, especially when it's personal. urban talks about "golems" as holding primitive, lower-rung thought patterns... i'd re-define it as "bad awareness of and regulation of emotions in situations requiring intellectual thought for the sake of group problem solving." lol. but that's the thing about wokeness right? when you "wake up" to your oppression or privilege - to your position in the system - you can't help but get emotional. as a society, we have only just awoken. pomo theories have made it into the mainstream - and the impact is that we're all feeling a lot of things. we're not really in a position to be implementing solutions; that's why the solutions are kind of bad and center around "emotional safety" - what mainstream SJF asks is "how do we get to a place where we can better regulate our emotional and psychological wellness?" that's why it's so obsessed with safe spaces and ERGs and removing certain "villains" from our communities.
anyways i also had a lot of thoughts on picking academic institutions as a focus area... i just think it's a bad example bc there are a lot of conflating factors... 1) decline in institutional trust, 2) actually terrible power-based politics esp at research instutitions, 3) relevant debates re pedagogy, etc etc.
i also think his anti-religion stance is bullshit, everyone has a religion.
i'm not mad i read this book though, it was good thought fodder.
January 13, 2025
This book is truly fascinating, and I highly recommend it to everyone. My only critique is that the SJF chapters felt a bit long.
I know I’ll revisit this book multiple times, especially the first three chapters and the final one.
10/10—highly recommended!
I know I’ll revisit this book multiple times, especially the first three chapters and the final one.
10/10—highly recommended!
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January 30, 2025I'm not going to bother with stars for this one because my experience with it was all over the place. There are sections that I found extremely helpful, where I could see the point he was trying to make and where I felt like he was providing solid evidence. Other points in the book I felt like he was falling into traps himself! He spends way too much time on SJF (I think he raises some valid points, but by spending so much time on it he ventures into sports fan/lawyer territory) which I fear will cause people to just view this book as a screed against it. I'm very glad I read this despite not agreeing with it wholesale. It gave me a lot to think about.
May 28, 2024
I am deeply grateful for this book because it helped me overcome the frustration stemming from my internal moral dilemma. On one hand, I have always been a strong advocate for social rights, believing in the importance of fairness and equality. On the other hand, I was increasingly troubled by the recent excesses and polarizations that seemed to be undermining these very principles. The constant struggle to reconcile my values with the harsh realities of the world was taking a toll on my mental well-being. Now, I understand that this phenomenon has a name: social justice fundamentalism (SJF). This newfound understanding has brought me a sense of relief and clarity, allowing me to approach the complexities of social justice with a more nuanced perspective.
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