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by actusual 1930 days ago
"insight porn books" is going in my "objects you've been searching for titles for" Notion list.
2 comments

Yeah, I think I first heard it in relation to Malcolm Gladwell and it's just so apt at capturing everything wrong with that category of book. I mean he's a skillful writer, and it's definitely entertaining stuff. But if you flip into critical mode and do comparative research vs authoritative sources, you start seeing how vapid it is really fast.
When I read Fooled by Randomness I found it useful. Not groundbreaking work, but it drew some nice analogies between statistical distributions and human's over-certainty.
Would love to see that list or any other on which this choice descriptor finds itself.