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Please Help Us With Our Newest Sponsor - Tim Urban Book - What's Our Problem? (1 Viewer)

Done. Been meaning to buy this anyway so might as well help out FBG. I love Tim Urban but if I'm being honest I really have to be in the right frame of mind to read him. Very entertaining but detailed enough that if I try to read casually I get distracted. His illustrations are priceless and remind me a lot of The Oatmeal.
 
Done. Been meaning to buy this anyway so might as well help out FBG. I love Tim Urban but if I'm being honest I really have to be in the right frame of mind to read him. Very entertaining but detailed enough that if I try to read casually I get distracted. His illustrations are priceless and remind me a lot of The Oatmeal.

Thank you GB. I bet you like it. I'm just about 1/4 of the way in but loving it so far. His stuff about the different ways to see the world was excellent.
 
I'm paraphrasing but he says some ways to view the world:

1. Like a Scientist. Don't really care where the truth is, you're just looking for it. Objections are weighed out based on credibility.
2. Like a Sports fan. You have a definite opinion on what you want the outcome or truth to be. But you accept reality.
3. LIke an Attorney. You are seeking a certain result or truth and you do whatever it takes within the rules to get there.
4. Like a Zeolot. You don't care about anything other than getting the result or truth you want and anyone who opposes you is the enemy.

Super interesting.
 
Just bought it, looks like something I'll enjoy even if it makes me sad(der) about humanity.
 
I haven't read his latest book yet, but I read the series it was based on ("The Story of Us") when it came out a few years ago. I am really looking forward to the longer, book-length version, which I assume references back to some of the events of the past few years. He's obviously a very quirky writer, but his material is good on the merits IMO, and the way he lays out his arguments is a nice change of pace from long-form prose.
 
Stoked to shout about our newest sponsor, Tim Urban's book, "What's Our Problem?" You probably know him from his popular Wait But Why blog. The book is fantastic. I bought it a couple of weeks ago on my own and am proud to shout about it.

I hope you'll buy the book here But even if you don't, please check it out and see what you think. Link here. Thanks.
Hi J - Is there a backstory you care to share?
 
Just bought it, looks like something I'll enjoy even if it makes me sad(der) about humanity.

Thanks. I haven't read the whole thing but for me, it's been a hopeful thing. It's helpful to get arms around the different frame works for how some folks are seeing the world and then that helps me think about better ways forward. So for me, it's been more hopeful than sad.
 
Hi J - Is there a backstory you care to share?

Hi @BassNBrew Not sure what you mean. Backstory for the sponsor? They are sponsoring the Daily Email Update for a few issues. Here's the one from Monday.
This is an interesting sponsor. I was curious what would bring an author to a fantasy site to sell more books. This surprised me along the lines if an ice skate retailer had decide to sponsor the daily e-mail. I was wondering if he was a big FF fan or there was some other connection. On the surface it seems like advertising to a population so engaged in another hobby with their free time would be an uphill battle. Also many of your customers are dedicating their reading time to your print and audio material. Maybe you have some information on FBG e-email subscribers that indicates they read more books than the general population. My cursory look https://testprepinsight.com/resources/us-book-reading-statistics/ shows males 45-64 read the fewest books. Of course maybe they have more disposable income to purchase a book. As a business owner I'm always interested in what advertising decisions.
 
Checking the link… Is it just available as an ebook or audiobook?
I don't think there's going to be a normal "book" edition printed on paper. Urban illustrates his arguments with little cartoons and stylized diagrams about as much as actual prose. It's an eccentric, but still rigorous, approach to building an argument. But it would make a regular book extremely expensive.
 
1. Like a Scientist. Don't really care where the truth is, you're just looking for it. Objections are weighed out based on credibility.
2. Like a Sports fan. You have a definite opinion on what you want the outcome or truth to be. But you accept reality.
3. LIke an Attorney. You are seeking a certain result or truth and you do whatever it takes within the rules to get there.
4. Like a Zeolot. You don't care about anything other than getting the result or truth you want and anyone who opposes you is the enemy.
1-2-3 are basically the foundation of democracy: technocrats (work for the best outcomes), loyal partisans (accept the results, even when they lose), and loyal politicians (play by the rules, even when they lose). When #4 takes over a system nothing good is going to happen.
 
This is an interesting sponsor. I was curious what would bring an author to a fantasy site to sell more books. This surprised me along the lines if an ice skate retailer had decide to sponsor the daily e-mail. I was wondering if he was a big FF fan or there was some other connection. On the surface it seems like advertising to a population so engaged in another hobby with their free time would be an uphill battle. Also many of your customers are dedicating their reading time to your print and audio material. Maybe you have some information on FBG e-email subscribers that indicates they read more books than the general population. My cursory look https://testprepinsight.com/resources/us-book-reading-statistics/ shows males 45-64 read the fewest books. Of course maybe they have more disposable income to purchase a book. As a business owner I'm always interested in what advertising decisions.

Those are all good questions. My gut feel is the author is a great fit for our audience. Tim Urban is thoughtful and curious and thinks deeply on stuff I think is important. His blog is wildly popular.

I've been a fan for a while. I bought the book on my own when it came out. And then a friend of mine put me in touch with their advertising people and they asked if we'd like to run a few ads for them and I said I'd love to.

It'll be super interesting to see if the ads connect.

They FEEL like they have as I've had several folks message me saying they were Tim Urban fans and would buy the book. But the book sales will ultimately tell the tale and determine if they want to do any more ads.

I hope they do as it's very easy for me to promote a product like that.
 
This book is terrific. Love the tone, the writing style, and the in depth study of humanity in prose I can mostly understand.
Not finished yet, reading on my commute into NYC and am so engrossed I look up I'm sitting on an empty train in Grand Central.
 
I read this while I was on vacation last week, and it was about as good as I expected -- you can see from my posts above that I came in with high expectations. For those who aren't familiar, Urban is trying to diagnose and explain why political discourse and behavior in America has become so toxic over the past 10 or so years. It's impossible to do that without getting into very firmly "this is political" territory so I'll just leave it there, but it's important to point out that while this book is political, it definitely is not partisan. He goes to great lengths to show how people of all sorts of different political ideologies can complement or damage social institutions, depending on their approach to truth-seeking.

Urban himself is a center-left lifelong Democrat, so he naturally spends more time criticizing what he sees as problems on his side of the aisle, but that's just because of who he is and who he knows his intended audience is. A conservative writer (like, literally me) could have written this exact same book with more emphasis on issues plaguing the right-hand side of our spectrum. You know the feeling you get when someone takes an idea that you've batting around for a while and states it more clearly than you ever could? For me, this is one of those books. There are little things here and there that I would quibble with, but nothing that seriously troubles his main argument. Strong recommend if you're looking for a book that defends enlightenment liberalism in a novel way.
 

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