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Comment by rohitb91 | Hacker News Reader

I honestly have no clue how his books are so popular

They’re like for a person who wants to appear like they read and have interesting though but it’s just a few anecdotes and a complete waste of time frankly

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How pretentious. A person reads what they read because they like it. That's all that's necessary. For everyone else, there's textbooks and papers.

Yes it does that but it also makes them feel smart.

You've answered your own question. Actual wisdom is difficult to attain and often times difficult to further express in spoken or written language (ie. "tacit knowledge", if you believe such a thing exists I suppose). The kind of wisdom you DO attain may not be socially acceptable, either. But, you still want to have the appearance in front of your friends, colleagues and potential "partners" that you are somehow wise. So you turn to statistics, and damn lies that follow.

> Actual wisdom is difficult to attain...

In fact I think I've read that it takes 10,000 hours to attain wisdom or expertise.

I don't quite remember where I read that...

ba doom cha! God, as a musician and fan of Ericsson's actual work, that one drives me bloody bananas. Ericsson's own book "Peak" is worth reading. One must assume the motivation to write some for lay people was at least partly out of frustration at hearing his academic work mis-quoted so damn much because of Outliers. It would make me CRAZY.

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