What can first-order logic do for your self-esteem?
[N]erds stand to benefit, even more than normal people, from becoming more assertive, outgoing, optimistic, obamalike in temperament, and all those other good things,
… the fundamental problem with nerds is that they’re constantly overthinking everything,
… this means nerds are regularly beaten in life by people who think less than they do,
… it also means that nerds can’t read self-help books without coming up with dozens of (generally sound) reasons why everything they’re reading is a load of crap,
… there’s therefore a large unmet need for self-esteem-boosting, personality-improving materials that would somehow fly under nerds’ radar, disarming the rational skeptical parts of their brains.
The catch-22 of the examined life: sometimes the unexamined life is the only life that leads to success, a fact you will learn only when you have examined life. Then you have to go to considerable effort to unlearn it. (link via.)
