Scott ChelohaMar 9
JA Westenberg
May god grant me the confidence of someone who read half of Sapiens
Mar 9 at 4:14amTypefully
Show threadGeePawHillMar 9

@Daojoan Heh. I used one of the ideas from it just a couple of days ago in my writing. But he's at least as suspect a source as Jared Diamond or Stephen Pinker.

In my defense, it was a very good notion:

https://mastodon.social/@GeePawHill/116172708697109658

Show threadElisabeth MMar 9
@GeePawHill @Daojoan I'm an anthropologist. The book is horrible
Show threadGeePawHillMar 9
@independentpen @Daojoan An important fact, and I agree. But, like Diamond and Pinker, there are ideas -- not facts, not ever facts -- that are useful.
Show threadElisabeth MMar 9
@GeePawHill @Daojoan I guess, but generally even then those ideas aren't unique to them or original
Show threadElisabeth MMar 9
@GeePawHill @Daojoan For example, re: the idea you cited, see communications scholar Walter Fisher writing about the narrative paradigm and the logic of good reasons circa 1980
Show threadGeePawHillMar 9
@independentpen @Daojoan Thanks, I'll check it out!
Show threadkhobochkaMar 9
@GeePawHill @independentpen @Daojoan this is doubly ironic, considering that Sapiens is such a shining example of a teleological narrative, a "just so"/"it's all pretty straightforward" story sold as popular science, it's almost meta.
Show threadspiderciderMar 9
@Daojoan That book and books like it actively make you dumber.
Show threadA Matt with a DogMar 9
@spidercider @Daojoan Strange comment SpiderCider. So, you’ve either read Sapiens etc. and found they caused you to suffer a mental impairment, or you haven’t read them and are just throwing shade to sound cool. I have read Sapiens and Nexus. I found them entertaining, and thought provoking, even if far from perfect. Nexus was enlightening about safety issues with social media algorithms and the role of Facebook in a mass atrocity. I would like to think the knowledge imparted didn’t actively make me dumber, but who knows?
Show threadspiderciderMar 9
@mattjhayes @Daojoan the former. I deserve compensation.
Show threadspiderciderMar 9
@mattjhayes @Daojoan only sapiens though. No other book by him.
Show threadElleMar 9
@Daojoan I've read it almost as soon as it came out and thought it was a good book (I was very young then too). A few years later, coming from STEM background I read the second book and it was _really_ bad. Somehow this didn't make me re-examine my evaluation of the first one, not until I've listened to "If Books Could Kill" podcast episode about it. So his books are not only riddled with inaccuracies, but they are also dangerous in how they trick you into false knowledge.