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Not Reading a Book
I am Not Reading a Book, thanks to some advice I read on PG.
PG recently had a post where people were describing how they decide whether to buy and/or read a book. Numerous people advocated heavily for reading the “Look Inside” text. I have been having the sample sent to my kindle, which I _think_ is the same as the “Look Inside”, but I’m not entirely certain. In any event, I was recently reading NRC’s coverage of Rolf Dobelli’s book, _The Art of the Good Life_. I thought perhaps I was having trouble understanding the review that I was puzzling out, so I switched to reading about the book in English on Amazon instead, and, on a lark, I thought, oh, hey, I haven’t used the “Look Inside” feature in a long time, I’ll give this thing a look see and decide whether to bother with the sample. What follows is in no way the responsibility of any of the aforementioned people. It’s all one me.
I was so startled by what I read in the first chapter, “Mental Accounting”, that I sat on what I immediately thought, and came back and read it two more times before finally deciding no, I actually should post this. I am a _huge_ believer in reframing, and Dobelli is advocating for reframing in this short chapter as a tool for being happier. Yay! I should love this, right?
Alas, Dobelli’s example of reframing is so breathtakingly reprehensible that I am now unable to think of him without immediately thinking of Jon Ronson’s book _The Psychopath Test_. And not in a good way.
Dobelli has created a fund in his mind for donations to worthy causes. And now, when he _breaks the law_ and incurs a fine, he thinks of the resulting cost as a donation to a worthy cause, thus entirely breaking the feedback system that this fine represents. We are telling Dobelli, hey, don’t speed. Don’t park illegally. Don’t be a jackass. And when we fine him to get his attention, Dobelli thinks, I’m donating to a worthy cause! Yay! I should do it more!
And he has written a book about the good life where this is his _FIRST_ example of what other people should be doing.
Gah.
And people wonder why when I hear someone has a philosophy degree, I just assume they are running the equivalent of a rape camp somewhere.
PG recently had a post where people were describing how they decide whether to buy and/or read a book. Numerous people advocated heavily for reading the “Look Inside” text. I have been having the sample sent to my kindle, which I _think_ is the same as the “Look Inside”, but I’m not entirely certain. In any event, I was recently reading NRC’s coverage of Rolf Dobelli’s book, _The Art of the Good Life_. I thought perhaps I was having trouble understanding the review that I was puzzling out, so I switched to reading about the book in English on Amazon instead, and, on a lark, I thought, oh, hey, I haven’t used the “Look Inside” feature in a long time, I’ll give this thing a look see and decide whether to bother with the sample. What follows is in no way the responsibility of any of the aforementioned people. It’s all one me.
I was so startled by what I read in the first chapter, “Mental Accounting”, that I sat on what I immediately thought, and came back and read it two more times before finally deciding no, I actually should post this. I am a _huge_ believer in reframing, and Dobelli is advocating for reframing in this short chapter as a tool for being happier. Yay! I should love this, right?
Alas, Dobelli’s example of reframing is so breathtakingly reprehensible that I am now unable to think of him without immediately thinking of Jon Ronson’s book _The Psychopath Test_. And not in a good way.
Dobelli has created a fund in his mind for donations to worthy causes. And now, when he _breaks the law_ and incurs a fine, he thinks of the resulting cost as a donation to a worthy cause, thus entirely breaking the feedback system that this fine represents. We are telling Dobelli, hey, don’t speed. Don’t park illegally. Don’t be a jackass. And when we fine him to get his attention, Dobelli thinks, I’m donating to a worthy cause! Yay! I should do it more!
And he has written a book about the good life where this is his _FIRST_ example of what other people should be doing.
Gah.
And people wonder why when I hear someone has a philosophy degree, I just assume they are running the equivalent of a rape camp somewhere.
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