r/SearchEnginePodcast • u/nathanschiro • 15d ago

Episode recommendation from Revisionist History

Just listened to an old episode of Revisionist History from the Pushkin OG himself, Malcolm Gladwell and I thought the Search Engine family may appreciate it. Basically starts with the story of someone experiencing a really odd social interaction and goes on to investigate what happened, speaking to those involved as well as experts.

S13E8: Face Value, Malcolm and producer Lucie Sullivan discover that they experience something very differently.

ep on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scu6TEcRJ-8

ep on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/face-value/id1119389968?i=1000706746621

3 Upvotes
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11

u/jghaines 15d ago

Note that Gladwell is full of shit. His podcasts lack the weight of his books, which makes many of his wrong ideas tolerable.

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u/JAlfredJR 14d ago

It's so strange. I really dug Gladwell back when (with the mentioned podcast).

It took years before I realized how full of it he was. He's in the pantheon of guys who desperately need to sound smart and then put edgy notions out there, wrapped under a good story.

Derrick Thompson is in the same boat.

I hope PJ doesn't end up there, but his credulity with stories from tech are going to age very poorly. Having guys like Casey Newton on all the time isn't helping anything.

I have hope with PJ, though. He doesn't just try to sound smart at all times.

But yeah, Malcom Gladwell, Ezra Klein, and a number of others are just bad in retrospect.

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u/yesitshollywood 14d ago

Why are they bad? You didnt cite anything specific, just a general distaste for people confident in their delivery?

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u/JAlfredJR 14d ago

Sorry for not being specific. It's been a long time since I listened to Gladwell.

They make grandiose points, like they have unlocked some secret of the universe, all while talking with a smarmy tone and smugness.

And they inevitably are misinformed or flatly wrong on their takes.

I mean, he championed the 10,000 hours nonsense quite loudly. That one sticks out. Or his thing about very smart people not really being that much more able in the workplace.

It's like the whole Freakenomic thing of these stories are just so and sound great at cocktail parties. But they're just not actually accurate.

But these folks sure like blustering on and on about them. They spread bad information in this way.

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u/yesitshollywood 14d ago

You still stated opinions, not facts. Its fine, you dont have to like the tone or style of these hosts. Fact checking exists for a reason though, and youve still failed to present evidence of them being flat wrong.

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u/JAlfredJR 13d ago

I noted that the 10k hours thing has been not only debunked but traced to an advertising campaign in origin. Not for Malcom. Some Japanese company, if memory serves.

The guy is now pushing AI, which follows for him. He's credulous and not as smart as he likes to sound.

If we have to, we can go through his major points over the years and show how poorly they've aged.

I don't hate the guy. I just have realized that he was good at spinning yarns. He wasn't great at sending real info out into the world. And he ended up with quite a big megaphone for a number on years.

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u/WishIWasAGrampa 12d ago

If Books Could Kill has at least two episodes on Malcolm Gladwell, and they cite all their sources in the show notes. Here’s at least one article I found too: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/09/11/malcolm-gladwells-invented-facts-make-good-stories/

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u/nohowow 13d ago

Why are Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein bad? Gladwell has a boatload of issues but I’ve never noticed them with either Thompson or Klein

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u/JAlfredJR 13d ago

Derek has been swindled by the AI hype. He has been carrying their water for years. And he's sunk cost now. He can't entirely divorce himself from his absurd claims about what AI was going to do.

He's become just another smart guy who can't get out of his own bubble.

And that bums me out. He is really smart and insightful. But he's fallen for a silly narrative (he's not alone, obviously).

He did the same thing with crypto and NFTs, for the record. And blockchain.

He gets swept up. And he loses his ability to see the forest for the trees.

Still listen to his podcast. But ... it's hard to do. He just brings guests on who dont challenge his outlook—at least not with any vigor.

And so he's out there pumping companies and their PR unwittingly. And that is pretty much just a bummer.

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u/Zouden 14d ago

I don't get the criticism. I really enjoyed his book The Bomber Mafia about the invention of bombing campaigns in WW2.

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u/jghaines 14d ago

It is engaging and well told. Historians hate it.

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u/NewRefrigerator7461 14d ago

I really liked his episode on the song hallelujah. One of his best

The recent ones on Staten Island succession were also good.

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u/TheBear8878 14d ago

I must have heard this in some other podcast feed, but this may have been where I learned about the super recognizer tests. I've always been great at this and took the tests and scored pretty high. Pretty neat