[tablespoon]

> Ironically (or not?) self-help books are absolutely full of fluff but at their core can have very useful/helpful ideas. They just get expounded upon back up with 10 specific examples where each example starts at the beginning of the person's life in full detail.

That's not fluff. It's an artifact of people being different and the goal of the book being to connect with someone and make an impact. A list of pithy principles would have no impact and make no connection. The exposition can do that (e.g. relatable story, example of an application that's close enough to the reader's circumstances), but not all of them will connect with every person.

[waterhouse]

> A list of pithy principles would have no impact and make no connection.

In case anyone wants to put it to the test, here is a book consisting of precisely that (by Rochefoucauld, from the 1600s): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9105/9105-h/9105-h.htm#linkm...

[tablespoon]

Maybe "no impact" was overstating it a little bit, but I think the point still stands. They often have far less impact when they're not reinforced by the right story or example, but that story or example won't be the same for everyone.

[chmod775]

How could an author who knows nothing about you possibly be better than yourself at construing an example applicable to you?

It then seems to me these kinds of books must be made for people who want others to think for them.

So maybe all these books should say is: "Think. Your problem is a lack of aforementioned activity. If you need some food for thought here's a list of ten pithy principles. Flip to page two for an afterword by my publisher."

Of course that wouldn't be good business sense. Why show someone the spring when you can sell them water?

[tablespoon]

> How could an author who knows nothing about you possibly be better than yourself at construing an example applicable to you?

He can't. The author can't predict which story or example will connect with you, so he includes many that connected with someone, with the hope that some fraction will connect with any given person. That's why people complain about "fluff": they're annoyed but the stuff that doesn't connect with them, but they haven't thought about it beyond their own personal experience. Maybe they could redact the book down to 10 pages, but so can everyone else, and all the redactions would be different.

> It then seems to me these kinds of books must be made for people who want others to think for them.

You're being uncharitable and kind of conceited. Would you say Calculus textbooks are for people who want others to think for them? Do Real Men take a short primer on mathematical logic and the axioms of ZFC set theory, and go derive Calculus for themselves?

[chmod775]

> they're annoyed but the stuff that doesn't connect with them, but they haven't thought about it beyond their own personal experience.

Emphasis mine.

> Would you say Calculus textbooks are for people who want others to think for them? Do Real Men take a short primer on mathematical logic and the axioms of ZFC set theory, and go derive Calculus for themselves?

My response was argumentum ad absurdum, so I gain nothing from defending the position, but still:

Walter Rudin's Principles Of Mathematical Analysis would be a terrible book if it tried to relate the matter's purpose at every step. Nobody expects a mathematical textbook to do that.

In fact Principles Of Mathematical Analysis is a great book for being extremely concise and containing just what is necessary for a reasonably intelligent reader to understand the material.

To be more clear, I don't believe that your explanation could possibly be a good reason for these stories being included in a self help book, but without precluding they may serve another purpose.

[tablespoon]

> ...just what is necessary for a reasonably intelligent reader to understand the material.

What about readers who aren't "reasonably intelligent" (which often means "quite a bit more intelligent than the typical person")?

> To be more clear, I don't believe that your explanation could possibly be a good reason for these stories being included in a self help book, but without precluding they may serve another purpose.

What's the reason for your emphasis there? Are you reading the "self" part too literally or idiosyncratically? IIRC, the "self" just means the book is meant to help the reader with his problem without personal guidance from some professional. It doesn't mean the reader is supposed to figure it out on his own.

As I've gotten older, I've gotten more wary of certain biases that engineer-types often tend to indulge in. One of them is along the lines of "I'm so smart, I think I can figure it out on my own, therefore everything I think I don't need is unnecessary." Another is temptation to confirm one's intelligence by seeing the "real" reason as some cynical ploy that works on lesser people.

Also, I'm not saying every self-help book is good, or that it never happens that examples are truly just padding. It's just that there's good, non-cynical reasons to not to reduce everything down to some pithy list of axioms, and I know for a fact that at least one well-regarded one is structured that way, and it was a bit of a slog because of all the examples and stuff that didn't connect with my particular circumstance (but there's no way for someone I never met writing a couple years before my birth to tailor anything to me).

[solarmist]

People can’t think deeply about everything they do.

Examples are shortcuts find relevance. Once I’ve decided a topic is relevant to me then I think deeply about it.