Rob Henderson Profile picture
Dec 22 33 tweets 15 min read
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

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More from @robkhenderson

Dec 16
Chinese Shadows was originally published in 1974. In the book, the author (Simon Leys) describes his observations of the cultural and political destruction of China shortly after the Cultural Revolution.

Thread on this fascinating book🧵👇
The catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution led Mao and the communist regime to disavow their shock troops.

They claimed an "extreme left" had been responsible for the various atrocities that transpired, despite previously insulting those who had made the same observations.
Under the communist system, any change of the "party line" is cosmetic. Shifts from "left" to "right" do not change the overall character of the regime.

Communist regimes undergo intervals of relative relaxation punctuated by unexpected periods of extreme revolutionary terror.
Read 45 tweets
Dec 1
René Girard on physical versus metaphysical desire:

johnathanbi.com/interpreting-g… ImageImage
"Even our desires for our partners tend not to be informed fully by our partners but by people around them...This is a full-scale attack on the modern conception of individuals who can form their own decisions through reason, who have an authentic core of desires to tap into." Image
This is very good. Almost nobody ever achieves this level of introspection and self-awareness. ImageImage
Read 15 tweets
Nov 22
"A citizen in a Marxist nation must either adhere to the ideology or settle for a life of obscurity in a hard, low-paid job...whatever culture or entertainment available will be carefully censored and monitored by bureaucrats who do adhere to the ideology" podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lec…
"All these countries have been taken over by political and cultural penetration. In countries not yet taken over, the supporters of Marxism form and manipulate complex networks of pressure groups. These groups attack the institutions as oppressive and promise liberation."
"Marx said the ideal is to choose a range of jobs, 'To hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner.' This is the opposite of actual Marxist countries, where one is forced into vocations by bureaucrats" podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lec…
Read 25 tweets
Oct 18
“Males in all these small scale cultures hunt large, dangerous animals, but it would actually be more calorically efficient if they hunted rabbits. The purpose of hunting large animals is to display their skill and strength…the ‘show off hypothesis.’” podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mod…
Read 4 tweets
Sep 26
Highlights from Richard Hamming's classic 1986 talk "You and Your Research" 🧵 👇
"Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work..luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance..You don’t have to tell other people, but shouldn’t you say to yourself, 'Yes, I would like to do something significant'" cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAnd…
The role of fortune: "The particular thing you do is luck but that you do something is not."
Read 25 tweets

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