What's Our Problem?
A Self-Help Book for Societies
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4.7 • 190 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
From the creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why, a fun and fascinating deep dive into what the hell is going on in our strange, unprecedented modern times.
Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world’s most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articles about everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff?
This massive topic sent Tim tumbling down his deepest rabbit hole yet, through mountains of history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience, and modern-day political movements, as he tried to figure out the answer to a simple question: What’s our problem?
Six years later, he emerged from the hole holding this book. What’s Our Problem? is a deep and expansive analysis of our modern times, in the classic style of Wait But Why, packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and 300 drawings. The book provides an entirely new framework and language for thinking and talking about today’s complex world. Instead of focusing on the usual left-center-right horizontal political axis, which is all about what we think, the book introduces a vertical axis that explores how we think, as individuals and as groups. Readers will find themselves on a delightful and fascinating journey that will ultimately change the way they see the world around them.
Anyway he wanted to say a lot more about all of this but there was a word limit on this book description so just go read the book.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
With keen observations and self-awareness, Tim Urban dives into the origin story behind the U.S.’s current political mess. Modeling U.S. politics after the human brain, he divides the system into four quadrants: the low-minded and the high-minded on both the left and the right. In theory, the four should provide balance in a functioning democracy, but as he observes, the equilibrium has become out of whack. The Wait But Why blogger shows how we’ve gotten into a vicious cycle of uncompromising, win-at-all-costs tactics employed by power players on both sides, posing a very real danger to our entire political future. As always, Urban explains himself through approachable language and helpful metaphors, and his conversational narration helps takes the edge off these controversial topics. Plus, his trademark stick figure drawings are there to illustrate his arguments. Urban makes a strong case that high-minded thinking needs to make a comeback—before it’s too late.
Customer Reviews
This is probably a must read.
3 things about this book and about Tim:
1) if you read the entire huge series - the story of us, you would still want to read this which is quite different.
2) In general I think Tim Urban is a great read and I liked a good deal of his waitbutwhy posts. Some are really eye-opening.
3) it feels quite 'short' compared with the wait but why pieces - it's clear there is editing, editing and more editing, it feels like 10 sentences in the blog are encapsulated into 1 in this book, which is fantastic as more ideas gets through in less time, but I would pay to read the pre-edited 5 million pages or so :)
Who is this book for?
- anyone using social media
- anyone who interacts with others
- anyone that takes interest in current events, news, politics, voters
- politicians
- everyone
A Breath of Fresh Air
Tim Urban provides a much-needed framework for talking about the world we inhabit. While some may take issue with how much he focuses on low-rung thinking in social justice movements, I found it to be a pretty natural balance—enough has been said by others about the same phenomenon on the right that we really didn’t need it all spelled out for us again. I plan to recommend this book to anyone who’s open-minded enough to appreciate it. Thanks Tim!
A behemoth!
Well written, entertaining but also largely depressing.
Only at page 340 of 352 is Tim finally tuning around to give some advice how we can fix things.
So the problem is huge and complex compared to how simple the solution is.
It made me look critically at my own beliefs and pledge to be a better steward of our liberal society because I know now where things turn if we continue to be too complacent and simple minded about our own thinking - for this I recommend this book to everyone.