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The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

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Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#21

Post by williamstein »

geerlingguy wrote: post #4

I can't speak to the topics addressed in the article itself, but the thing I find most annoying is that _most_ of the people who publish these books (and guides on YouTube, blogs, for-pay video series, etc.) seem to have made their fortunes through the works that are intended to teach people how to build up their own wealth/lifestyle/happiness. Slightly related are people who serially interview successful people and…

One alternative to this mess is reading good autobiographies by actually successful people in a particular field. Eg I got a huge amount of useful “self help” style guidance from autobiographies of professional mathematicians (eg Paul Halmos) when I was becoming one…

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#22

Post by klelatti »

No doubt there are a lot of "self help" books that are a scam - but that's true for a lot of genres.

A lot of the criticisms seem highly dubious e.g. is this really true?

> The entire business-focused self-help industry is built on the fallacy that successful people read a lot of books.

Altogether seems more like a rant than reasoned criticism.

BTW the list of books cited as an example of the 'scam' includes "Thinking, Fast and Slow" - reasonably sure that reading this is a lot more worthwhile than reading this particular post.

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#23

Post by nyokodo »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #5

>a book that tells you stuff like “remember people’s names” and “make them feel important,” which seems benign, but should only seem surprising to a child, and should not be something you have to unnaturally force your body to do. there is much good in pointing out the scamminess of the self-help industry, but this is a good example of making exactly the sort of assumptions the author is railing against. Many basic l…

> Many basic life lessons that 'should be unsurprising' are extremely important for people who grew up in contexts of emotional neglect.

Or for the neurologically atypical, or absolutely everyone since we all have obvious things that are hard due to our personality and regular reminders are helpful.

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#25

Post by hndirect »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #5

>a book that tells you stuff like “remember people’s names” and “make them feel important,” which seems benign, but should only seem surprising to a child, and should not be something you have to unnaturally force your body to do. there is much good in pointing out the scamminess of the self-help industry, but this is a good example of making exactly the sort of assumptions the author is railing against. Many basic l…

The wording can also help to codify it in your mind. Or offer a shift in perspective, like this:

"Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible for Helping"

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#26

Post by binarysolo »

I think like a lot of other similar verticals (exercise etc.) there's quite a bit of cargo-culting, and that def gets scammy.

But for what it's worth, I do enjoy reading self-help stuff -- though for me the practice is what I focus on, not necessarily the results. People are pretty good at knowing WHAT to do, but actually doing it deliberately and doing it well is the hard part, see: exercise etc.

I do think there's a signal-to-noise issue going on with self-help books, and often times the people who need the help are understandably bad at figuring out which things are good vs bad for them.

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#27

Post by dsego »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #5

>a book that tells you stuff like “remember people’s names” and “make them feel important,” which seems benign, but should only seem surprising to a child, and should not be something you have to unnaturally force your body to do. there is much good in pointing out the scamminess of the self-help industry, but this is a good example of making exactly the sort of assumptions the author is railing against. Many basic l…

I'm reading this book right now. And this sentence is unfairly dismissive and misrepresents the book. It's not just a book that tells you to "remember names" and "make people feel important". Maybe if you only take a superficial reading. The anecdotes described seemingly tell you obvious things, but for me it underlines some useful and deep truths about basic human psychology and how to leverage it when interacting with fellow human beings. And for almost every rule or anecdote described I can recount situations in my life where those lessons could've been applied to avoid conflicts.

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#29

Post by tungsten555 »

dsego wrote: post #27
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #5

>a book that tells you stuff like “remember people’s names” and “make them feel important,” which seems benign, but should only seem surprising to a child, and should not be something you have to unnaturally force your body to do. there is much good in pointing out the scamminess of the self-help industry, but this is a good example of making exactly the sort of assumptions the author is railing against. Many basic l…

I'm reading this book right now. And this sentence is unfairly dismissive and misrepresents the book. It's not just a book that tells you to "remember names" and "make people feel important". Maybe if you only take a superficial reading. The anecdotes described seemingly tell you obvious things, but for me it underlines some useful and deep truths about basic human psychology and how to leverage it when interacting w…

They definitely did not read this book. A few lines down in the sidenote Zitron makes a point of praising a few books in the genre he HAS read, and those ones provide some nuance.

And I completely agree, each chapter had its own stories and players, lively tales to illustrate the chapter's maxim.

Re: The Delusional Scam of the Self-Help Book Industry

#30

Post by coldtea »

okareaman wrote: post #19
coldtea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many famous people started out with one good idea Which had nothing or almost nothing to do with their success. Bezos didn't succeed because he had the idea to "make an online bookstore".

You must be one of those who think ideas are worthless because everybody has them

>You must be one of those who think ideas are worthless because everybody has them

Yes, one of those so-called realists.

If everybody has them but only 1 of everybody succeeds with the same idea, ideas [1] are obviously worthless.

[1] At the level under discussion, that is: "let's do a business doing X", because otherwise e.g. Relativity Theory is also an idea, and it's certainly not worthless.

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