Dr. Steven Pinker is a very smart person and an exceptionally deep thinker. He’s also probably a good person to get high with and an interesting podcast guest but, an engaging writer he is not.

This is a book that people tell you they read so they can sound smart but, let's be honest, as a book, it is fucking painful to read. There are good examples of how our mind plays magic tricks on us all the time and how hard it is to be rational with such flawed hardware but those are nice little anecdotes to pull out so you can sound smart at work while you throw the rest of this book in the fire for warmth. This book is one of the most boring and convoluted books we have read, which is a shame because if Pinker were a better author it would actually be consistently mind blowing. There is a lot of good stuff in here shrouded in a forest of academic misdirection. 

While we do encourage you to read the cliff notes we also recommend finding a long-form podcast with Pinker and listening to that. They will be endlessly more interesting than this book and you’ll likely retain more information from those either formats than you will be trying to cram this briar-patch of philosophical musings into your limbic system.

BUY THIS BOOK