Rob Henderson Profile picture
Dec 22, 2022 33 tweets 15 min read Read on X
Best books I read in 2022

1. The Daily Laws @robertgreene

"long term goals tend to generate anxiety...break tasks into smaller bites...have microgoals..what you are after is a series of practical results and accomplishments, not a list of unrealized dreams and aborted projects"
2. Quit by @AnnieDuke

"Every time you rationalize away new information to cling to a belief, that belief becomes more woven into the fabric of your identity...the next time you discover conflicting information...you're going to be even more motivated to stick to those beliefs"
3. Talent

"Raising the aspirations of other people is one of the most beneficial things you can do with your time...Don't underestimate how little people think of themselves. There is an ongoing crisis of confidence in many human beings" amzn.to/3MWwEiM
Hidden Games @erezyoeli

People with lots of positive attributes can afford to be modest because odds are at least one of their good traits will be uncovered. People with only one particular strength will be eager to show it, because it's all they have amzn.to/3iMqW59
The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

"Generation X is, by almost any barometer, the least significant of the canonical demographics. Yet one accolade can be applied with conviction: Among the generations that have yet to go extinct, Generation X remains the least annoying."
Friends by Robin Dunbar

"loneliness is an evolutionary alarm signal that something is wrong...Even just the perception of being socially isolated can be enough to disrupt your physiology...that, if unchecked, can lead to a downward spiral and early death" amzn.to/3Ftjpmk
Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature

"personality predicts how long you are likely to live...most important traits conducive to living a long life are high conscientiousness, positive emotionality (extraversion), low hostility, and low neuroticism."
Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

"Surveys in the 1940s and 1950s found that younger people were happier than older people. By 1975 age and happiness were essentially uncorrelated. By 1999, however, younger people were unhappier than older people." amzn.to/3cC9JeM
Writing Life Stories

"Good writing is an illusion. The primary illusion is of ease. We read a beautifully constructed book with pleasure and admiration, forgetting the writer had to sit down day after day to do the job. We forget—because it’s the writer’s job to make us forget"
Don't Trust Your Gut by @SethS_D

"A 6-foot man earning $62,500 per year is, on average, as desirable as a similar 5'6" man who earns $237,500. In other words, those six inches of height are worth about $175,000 in salary on the dating market." amzn.to/3uddDRu
Of Boys and Men

"The most common high school grade for girls is now an A; for boys, it is a B...girls now account for two-thirds of high schoolers in the top 10%, ranked by GPA, while the proportions are reversed on the bottom rung." amzn.to/3Siwmo1
Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple

"Communists were inclined to believe people who wore glasses were their enemies...shortsightedness is particularly prevalent among intellectuals, and intellectuals..have ideas that might cast doubt on the ultimate truth of communist ideology"
Naturally Selected

"Young men...without male role models are at a disadvantage when it comes to learning how to conform to societal norms...if a parent is not around to provide leadership, a child will frequently turn to less positive role models" amzn.to/3rPWADk
The Sweet Spot by @paulbloomatyale

"We are not built to be happy. Evolution doesn't want us to be in constant bliss...Some degree of unsettledness, anxiety, and ambition might be baked into the human condition." amzn.to/3IDPBDD
"a pretty high proportion of successful individuals seem to be ADHD in some manner...they have learned to redirect their cognitive impatience as a force that propels them through an enormous amount of work and learning" amzn.to/3JdJ0AZ
"bullies in childhood were more likely to become juvenile delinquents in adolescence & criminals in adulthood. An astonishing 65% of boys classified by their Grade 6 teachers as bullies ended up having felony convictions by the time they were 24 years old" mheducation.com/highered/produ…
Pride by Jessica Tracy

"This general principle—that narcissists react to perceived threats against their ego with intensified anger and aggression—has been replicated...narcissists can’t deal with any negative feedback—in any domain they might have staked their ego on—at all"
"Men's friendships, like their conversations, are typically more confrontational than women's, involving more joking at the other's expense...in a way that is perceived by men to be friendly but by women as threatening or even intentionally aggressive" amzn.to/3Rd2t97
"People will say almost anything to justify their actions, to give them a moral or sanctimonious veneer...Judge people by the results of their actions and maneuvers, and not by the stories they tell." amzn.to/3tMatDY
Ritual by @xygalatas

"our cognition did not evolve to be rational; it evolved to be efficient in dealing with the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their environment. Rituals are found in every human culture because they help solve some of those problems"
"pay less attention to the words people say and greater attention to their actions. People will say all kinds of things about their motives and intentions...Their actions, however, say much more about what is going on underneath the surface." amzn.to/3LISQMr
"human nature is complicated. The primate inside us craves power and dominance because that is how we spread our genes. Yet our evolutionary history as foragers has taught us the benefits of cooperation and equipped us with an egalitarian ethos" amzn.to/3EKApWK
"people who score highly on Machiavellianism and narcissism often surface as temporary leaders because their charm and enthusiasm attract followers. In the long run, however, their selfishness and exploitative nature bring them,and often their group, down" amzn.to/3Sx979V
If you enjoyed these excerpts, be sure to sign up for my newsletter: robkhenderson.substack.com

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Rob Henderson

Rob Henderson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @robkhenderson

Mar 6
3 interesting findings:

1. If you want a happy and long-term romance, pick a partner with high levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. These traits are associated with longer and happier marriages. Men and women high in conscientiousness tend to be more faithful.
2. Seventy years ago the psychologist Hans Eysenck found evidence that authoritarianism existed among left-wingers as well as right-wingers. He was ignored by both American and British intellectuals because, at the time, they greatly admired Joseph Stalin.
3. Machiavelli's reading routine: Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 6
3 interesting findings:

1. Unlike motherhood, which is relatively evenly distributed across the female status hierarchy, men with higher lifetime earnings, higher net worth, higher educational attainment, and higher leadership skills have more children over their lifetimes.
2. People under 25 are evenly split on the question of whether JK Rowling should be dropped by her publishers for her criticism of transgenderism, while nobody over 45 thinks she should be cancelled. These more illiberal generations will be the median voter by the 2040s.
3. Women are more likely to wear high heels if they anticipate interacting with an attractive male, and less likely if they anticipate interacting with an unattractive male. Desire predicts the inclination to wear high-heeled rather than low-heeled shoes.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 18
Three interesting findings:

1. While men are nearly 18 percent faster than women in 5K races, they are only 11 percent faster in marathons, 3.7 percent faster at 50 miles, roughly even as they approach 100 miles, and then women routinely outpace men at races 195 miles and up.
2. In a longitudinal study on happiness, the most reliable indicator of being happy and healthy at age 80 was relationship satisfaction, especially within marriages, which proved to be the strongest predictor of a fulfilling and healthy life.
3. Behaviors associated with high Openness on the Big 5:

•Eating something spicy for breakfast

•Lounging around the house with no clothes on

•Spending an hour at a time daydreaming

•Buying a book

•Swearing

•Reading poetry
Read 4 tweets
Sep 19, 2024
Some pieces of advice Machiavelli offers to rulers:

•Punishment should be delivered in a swift and brutal manner, while rewards should be dispersed in small amounts over time

🧵 1/
•Religion must be promoted regardless of how truthful it is, because it supplies social solidarity

2/
•When you confer benefits to the people, make sure to do so yourself. But let minions do the dirty work of inflicting punishments because then they, not you, will be blamed, and you can then gain the people’s favor by cutting off your minions’ heads

3/
Read 16 tweets
May 30, 2024
Fertility among college-educated women hasn't changed much since a generation ago. Fertility collapse is among poor women. In 1994, the average age of a first-time mother without a university degree was 20. Today, two-thirds of women without degrees in their 20s have no children. Image
A generation ago, a poor woman would have children with a man in the hope that this would lead to marriage and family. This seldom happened. Those children witnessed this failure, absorbed its lessons, grew up, and now are simply not having kids.
Read 4 tweets
May 20, 2024
Wrong. They're expensive. Takes yrs to cultivate an understanding of them; to keep up with them, to express them without error. Helps to be immersed in affluence from birth. This is why Bourdieu, Fussell, Fitzgerald etc wrote real mobility is something of a myth.
Saying defund the police in 2024 is like wearing Canada Goose in 2019. You reveal yourself as behind the fashion; a wannabe; an arriviste. Cringe. etc. Gotta be close to the source of the trends (typically elite institutions). Requires money, connections, cultural capital etc.
Luxury beliefs are expensive for the believer to acquire (money, connections, education, habitus, cultural capital, etc.) and costless to express.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(