Unearned Wisdom reader route
When Good Advice Fails
A reading path for people who suspect that tidy advice can obscure the conditions in which a decision must actually be made.
Questions worth following
- The problem with the regret minimization framework
- How do you follow your passion?
- Four good reasons to read self-help books
- The problem with the 37% rule
Which piece of advice sounds true only because its assumptions have been left unstated?
Essays on advice and judgment
Get selected essays that examine familiar ideas about success, discipline, happiness, and judgment before treating them as universal rules.
Go further with The End of Wisdom
A provocative examination of why conventional wisdom so often fails us, and why popular self-help principles can be counterproductive.
See whether The End of Wisdom is for you
- Start with an essay that challenges a conclusion you have heard too often.
- Use the Assumption Audit to name the context in which that conclusion might fail.
- Continue with a book-length inquiry into why conventional wisdom so often survives weak scrutiny.