8 Gospels of Contrarian Ideas

Books and blogs that challenge the mainstream

A while ago, I made an assumption about you. And so far, it has turned out to be entirely accurate.

I do that occasionally with the people I interact with. As a keen observer of my environment, I can’t resist. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t do that wishing to be correct and claiming myself to be a mind-reader of some sort.

I observe people and come up with a bunch of theories about their personalities and behavior. But before putting them out in the world, I test them for their validity. After that, I keep the ones that work and discard those that don’t.

I have written about this habit in extensive detail in my blog — Creating Mental Models — one of the most successful pieces I have ever written in this newsletter.

Now I know what you are looking for. The assumption that I made about you guys was that you have a large appetite for contrarian ideas — Ideas that challenge mainstream narratives, that are offensive for the intolerants, that put a big question mark on the face of those who never dare to question the popular ideas.

As a writer, cultivating and promoting this spirit of skepticism has been one of the most outstanding achievements of this newsletter. I am sharing this small list of books, blogs, and podcasts that the mainstream hates to entertain to celebrate the new year.

New year, new ideas.

1. I am below average

Ninety-six percent of cancer patients claim to be in better health than the average cancer patient.

Ninety-four percent of professors say they are better-than-average teachers.

Ninety percent of students think they are more intelligent than the average student.

Ninety-three percent of drivers say they are safer-than-average drivers.

I don’t think you’re blind to observing the paradoxical nature of these statements.

It’s easy to assume that you’re better than the average population regarding a few specific things. But the chances are that you’re not. Even if you are, it pays to believe that you aren’t because that belief pushes you forward to learn and be more open to helpful information when it strikes you.

2. Tyranny of Time

There are two types of people in this world — one who shit once a day, precisely at 8 AM, and the second who take their dump whenever they want to.

One who is a slave of mechanical ticks and clicks, and the other who’s a fucking hippie.

Now, these are two extremes, and I’m not a Gastroenterologist (yes, I Googled it) to objectively claim which of the above-mentioned defecation routine is more healthy.

The gist of this insightful essay is that clocks are suitable for meetings and deadlines, but your body has a rhythm of its own, and not everything about it deserves to be controlled at the whims of your clock.

You can read it here.

3. Psychology’s Replication Crisis

I started this newsletter as a journey to explore human psychology and behavior. But my brain is a pervert for ideas.

And that’s how I started to flirt with a bunch of different topics—from economics to science to business management and a lot more.

My respect for and attention to psychology diluted as it became a part of the mainstream with time. That’s when I came across this article.

Psychology is going through a crisis. Most of the studies conducted in the past don’t hold true when replicated today: same theories, same parameters, same measurement criteria, different results.

This puts a big question mark on whether we should even consider psychology a form of science as most theories are not objectively true.

4. 12 rules for life

It’s a sad sight that nihilism has become mainstream these days. Something that used to be on the extremes is now in the middle, turning us into lazy, irresponsible, and weak individuals.

12 Rules for Life is the most sigma book I’ve read. Jordan Peterson is a Chad, and his words are transformational.

A very few books are capable of doing this, but I am definitely a different person than I used to be when I started reading this book. And as a kid, I would’ve admired the new me.

5. Antifragile

It’d be a surprise if I didn’t include this book in this list. This book challenges the post-modernist narrative that intervention is necessary to improve the effectiveness of specific systems.

Taleb openly criticizes economists and healthcare experts. He shares a lot of case studies where intervention did harm to a system while leaving it alone to endure its randomness was far more effective.

It might seem like that, but Taleb’s argument is not against interventionism. He admits that in a lot of situations, interventions are necessary. What he’s trying to convey is that we should intervene only when it’s required instead of being blind to the upsides of non-interventionism.

To read some of the case studies, he shared in his book; you can read my previous blog — Death of God and the Denial of Antifragility.

6. The Rational Optimist

Bad news spreads like wildfire while good news moves like a fucking snail. The world is obsessed with negativity, with the messages of doom -- Experts flaunt their intelligence by making gritty predictions about the world.

Humans and their self-loathe have become mainstream. The idea that humanity and human society have degraded over time is becoming more popular.

Rational Optimist shares deep historical data to claim that we have made significant progress to make lives better, contrary to what the media makes us believe. This is an excellent book with an in-depth analysis of refreshing ideas.

7. Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science

A few years ago, I struggled to communicate my views about the subjectivity-objectivity argument. Things would have been a lot easier for me if I had read this book.

My argument was that a lot of human behavior that is labeled as social constructs with no logical rationale, in fact, has objective roots. They say: beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. I tried to argue against that in a thread once.

There are a bunch of such arguments post-modern intellectuals usually quote, where they say that certain things are the way they are because a section of society enforced it upon others. And if things are to be turned the other way, it would make the world a better place. However, there is a reason why those things are like that; there are hidden upsides to them.

Alan Sokal’s book addresses the biased use of lousy science these pseudo-intellectuals do to prove their argument’s validity. Don’t miss out on this one.

8. Range

One of the most interesting books I read in 2021. David Epstein’s book talks against the mainstream narrative that glorifies specialization.

With a bunch of anecdotes and evidence, David points out that many geniuses like Federer and Da Vinci were not specialists, rather they were generalists who followed along with the intellectual fetish of curiosity.

The most important takeaway from this book was the mental model of analogical thinking. It states that having knowledge of one system, say engineering, can improve your understanding of some other unrelated system like business or poker.

To read more about this mental model, you can read my blog that I wrote a while ago.

Analogical Cognition: Thinking Outside Experience