Difference between revisions of “Malcolm Gladwell”

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{{cquote|malcom gladwell is a novelty writer posing as a serious thinker, he’s like the opposite of chumbawamba|||(https://twitter.com/Eve6/status/1556395283717582849 Eve 6)}}

((File:Outliers the story of success malcolm gladwell.jpg|thumb|185px|left|Outliers, 2008))

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”’Malcolm Gladwell”’ {{lived|1963}} is a well-known ((United Kingdom|British)) born in ((Canada|Canadian)) ((author)) of ((Pop psychology|pop sociology)) books such as ”Outliers: The Story of Success”, ”David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants”, and ”Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference”. The common thread in his work is that important world-changing people, events and ideas all have innocent similarities that form the secret of their success. These similarities are presented in the form of several short stories.

”’Malcolm Gladwell”’ {{born|1963}} is a famous ((United Kingdom|British))-born ((Canada|Canadian)) ((author)) of ((Pop psychology|pop sociology)) books such as ”Outliers: The Story of Success”, ”David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants”, and ”Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference”. The common theme of his works is that great world-changing people, events, and ideas all have innocent similarities that form the secret of their success, brought together in the form of several short stories.

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While the human appeal of his stories is very great, the real usefulness of his analyses is hampered by immeasurably large sums ~~((bullshit))~~ ((survivorship bias)), ((selection bias)), and ((confirmation bias)). For example, in ”Outliers” Gladwell presents a story that all the early tech billionaires were born in exactly the same year, 1955 (a fact demonstrated by ignoring those who weren’t), had difficult childhoods that taught them to overcome adversity (((Cold reading|but vaguely defined so it could apply to anyone))), and that most dropped out of college. All while carefully ignoring the hundreds of thousands of people who had the same life stories and ended up broke.

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((File:Blinkgla.jpg|thumb|185px|left|Blink, 2005))

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==10,000 hour rule==

A now common belief, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, in the book Outliers, is that 10,000 hours is the “magic number” of diligent, deliberate practice to become a master of a skill. He cited a fairly focused study that looked at amateur and professional musicians on various instruments as the basis for this rule. While later research has found some consistency in the importance of deliberate practice in games, ((music)), and sports, the 10,000 hour barrier appears to be purely an artifact of the methodology of the particular study he cited. And in the area of office occupations, for which Outliers implied the rule was central, the number of hours of deliberate practice explains about 1% of the variation in performance(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24986855 Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: a meta-analysis.) PubMed, 2016..

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==Bibliography==

*”Outliers: The Story of Success”

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““As humans, we have a storytelling problem. We are a little too quick to come up with explanations for things that we actually have no explanation for.

—Malcolm Gladwell accidentally describing his own work⁽¹⁾

““Malcom Gladwell is a novelist who pretends to be a serious thinker. He is like the opposite of Chumbawamba.

—Eva 6

Malcolm Gladwell (1963–) is a well-known British-born Canadian author of popular sociological books such as Outliers: The Success Story, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Fighting GiantsAnd Tipping Point: How Small Things Make a Big Difference as well as his articles in the New Yorker magazine. The common theme of his works is that important world-changing people, events, and ideas all share innocent similarities that are the secret to their success, presented in the form of several short stories. However, many writers and academics have criticized Gladwell’s work for containing numerous inaccuracies, reaching dubious conclusions, and prioritizing compelling storytelling over verisimilitude.

Books

While the human appeal of his stories is immense, the real usefulness of his analyses is hampered by immeasurably large amounts of ~~nonsense~~ survivorship bias, selection bias, and confirmation bias. For example, in OutliersGladwell presents a narrative that all of the early tech billionaires were born in the exact same year, 1955 (a fact demonstrated by conveniently ignoring those who weren’t), had difficult childhoods that taught them to overcome adversity (but in a vaguely defined way that could apply to anyone), and that most dropped out of college. All this while carefully ignoring the hundreds of thousands of people who had the same life stories and ended up broke. Moreover, this claim not only promotes victim-blaming “bootstrap” myths that have failed both the working class and the poor⁽²⁾it completely erases the oppression and daily struggles that marginalized people (such as African Americans) face⁽³⁾) for generations, while the advantages of people with inherited wealth are ignored.

In his 2021 audiobook The Bomber Mafia⁽⁴⁾Gladwell focuses on the titular group of American servicemen who, while fighting in the Pacific theater during World War II, became convinced that by using precision bombing (that is, deploying large numbers of long-range heavy bombers against key enemy targets) the United States could win the war with few, if any, civilian casualties.

Hot Takes from the Galaxy Brain

Fear mongering against weed

In the January 2019 edition of the New Yorker⁽⁵⁾Gladwell wrote an article expressing his concerns about the increasing legality and normalization of marijuana in modern society, claiming that the drug’s effects have been under-researched, while fearing that proponents of decriminalization ignore its potential dangers at their peril. Needless to say, this did not go down well online.⁽⁶⁾

10,000 hour rule

A now common belief, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, in the book Outliersis that 10,000 hours is the “magic number” of diligent, focused practice to become a master of a skill. He cited a fairly focused study that looked at amateur and professional musicians on various instruments as the basis for this rule. While later research has found some consistency in the importance of deliberate practice in games, music, and sports, the 10,000-hour barrier appears to be purely an artifact of the methodology of the particular study he cited. And in the realm of office occupations, where Outliers implied that the rule was central, deliberate practice hours explained about 1% of the variation in performance⁽⁷⁾.

Justifying transphobic discrimination in sport

Gladwell played ‘devil’s advocate’ for transgender people in sports, a sports reporter quotes on Twitter Ross Tucker‘s tweet defending the IAAF’s practice of “sex testing” the hormones and genitals of trans athletes.⁽⁸⁾