I’m about half way through this book. The challenging of the “culture of niceness” is absolutely correct. His break down on economic development and productivity are insightful. His criticism of religion comes across as horribly arrogant. The other issue I have is the statement: “Grudgers can live in a society and get along fine”, yet he comes across as a “don’t be perfect, please, so I can be pissed off at you, too, you scum bag”. We’re all roadblocks to his productivity, even if we’re self sufficient and leave the guy alone.
If he’d had only the economic discussions, it would have come across as ground breaking communication of evolution of productive technology and why automation leads to more regulation.
The endless paragraphs of why he fired people and others he has worked with make that half of the book real like a “why I hate people” vent.
And cutting out the venting would have made it a good book.
A lot of good ideas from these folks. But they have bete noirs which diminish some of their value.
I note that this books is available for the Kindle ($19.95 seems unusually high for a Kindle copy). I'm considering downloading it.
I don’t disagree with any of that! It’s a very imperfect book. I almost chucked it out a window a few times. But it is very thought provoking, even in disagreement.
I think that his criticism is less about religion than it is about the Ponzi scheme that too many of its imnterpreters turn it into for fun and prophet. His advice is consistent: cut out the middleman. My advice is to seek spiritual sovereignty rather than spitirual slavery.