I used to enjoy Ariely’s books and others like him before I started reading better stuff. All that behavioural economics genre seems to be a good example of content that holds up as long as you don’t read any more on the subject.
I saved this quote from an episode of the If Books Could Kill podcast
53:10 in the The 5 Love Languages episode: Michael Hobbes “This is something that is becoming a theme on this show. How these books take over the culture without anyone really noticing or caring - “Ok 30 million people bought The Secret there’s no reason for the New York Times to write a lengthy review or for anyone to publish a thorough authoritative debunking. Something like Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I could not find lengthy reviews of, the only people that have debunked it are other fucking real estate grifters, like people trying to sell their own book. If you’re someone who is looking for 101-style advice and you see this on a poster somewhere and think “oh I’m gonna check this out” there is really no authoritative source being like “Here are the reasons why it doesn’t hold up” like the elite liberal media has kind of just been like “eh, it’s just for the plebs” but these books are wildly influential”
If Books Could Kill is great. I believe the first podcast was about Freakonomics, another one of those incredibly popular books based on behavioral economics. They took it apart.
