13 thoughts on “My New Book on Kindle

  1. Have you thought about selling a pdf yourself? I don’t use Kindle and am not particularly interested in using Amazon’s Cloud Reader in a web browser. On a related note, have you considered putting up a donation button on this blog? Presumably you are selling this ebook to make some money off your writing, but I’d be more interested in paying for this blog than buying the ebook.

  2. This is very interesting, but I’d really like to see an argument that it makes an advance over Wildavsky’s cultural theory of politics.

    Wildavsky, Aaron. “Choosing preferences by constructing institutions: A cultural theory of preference formation.” The American political science review (1987): 4-21.

    Thompson, Michael, et al. Cultural theory. Boulder: Westview Press, 1990.

    And the retrospective issue of PS Political Science and Politics 44, no. 4 (2011), edited by Brendon Swedlow.

  3. Worth mentioning that the book falls under the “kindle lending library” so amazon prime members who own a physical kindle can borrow the book for a month and Arnold still gets paid.

  4. Why do Libertarians, who do not contest races let along govern, deserve equal treatment with the great political strands of our time?

  5. Haven’t purchased it yet; only having the Kindle App on my phone and not an actual Kindle, I’ll have to wait until next month when my data usage recycles to zero.

    The description you have there for it could be a bit more, er….descriptive, don’t you think? Those couple of sentences don’t give much of a hint as to the contents of the book.

  6. I am well into the book, enjoying it and finding it insightful. I understand that the 9 question survey doesn’t entirely avoid ambiguity, but I am mystified by your “answers” to item 6:
    In 1992, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found a high rejection rate for mortgage applications by African-Americans. What explains this? a) racial discrimination [Libertarian]; b) African-Americans were more likely to have poor credit histories or insufficient incomes to qualify for mortgages [Progressive]; c) the officials who directed the study had an agenda [Conservative].

    I would think a) to be a Progressive statement and b) to be a Libertarian one. The latter because Libertarians (IMHO) are more likely to focus on the actual factors affecting mortgage-application rejections, instead of imputing motives — as is don in a) and c).

  7. BTW, I have long thought of myself as a conservative libertarian, a view that is confirmed by my responses to the survey and my choice of dominant heuristic. On the latter, I am torn between Y and Z. On the former, I chose 2 C answers, 3 L answers, and in another 4 cases was torn between the C and L answers. (I count my choice of 6 b) as an L answer, per the preceding comment.)

  8. I read and liked it; not earthshaking, but insightful. My main suggestion here is (a):
    (a) If you simply used CreateSpace to generate print copies, I’d buy a few as gifts.
    (b) You have various quotable points, I think, some of which are clearly offset and others not. It might be nice to have a section called “Refrigerator Wisdom” (i.e., the sort of thing that some people put on refrigerators or tape to monitors) collecting them.
    (c) Since you’re advocating a shift in the way people handle discourse, it might be nice to have an explicit strategy section: 12 Steps to a More Charitable You. It might annoy people who would then start productive discussions.
    (d) I can understand the cover as a subtle hint about the validity of different views, but I’d prefer a straightforward cover specifically about your model…a three-axis picture with the axes labelled Oppression, Coercion, and Barbarism (in RGB?).
    (e) I’m wondering at what point essay-handling software will be able to classify opinion pieces by 3D points, so that one webapp would be able to take a topic, say the Grosnell trial, and link to progressive, conservative, libertarian (and mixed) pieces about it….

    But mainly, it would be nice to have it as a small book.

  9. I’m midway through it. So far what I like most is your distinction between closure and finding the truth. It is very hard for people to distinguish between rhetoric (by which I mean a persuasive argument, not empty words) and reasoning, which is much less intuitive and naturalistic. So a lot of private reasoning is simply the practice of internal rhetoric.

    One thought: Ps and Cs in western countries seem to have strong beliefs that the components of society have been divided up along ideological lines ,and that the other sides has much tighter control over its assets than one’s own side does. For example, Cs believe that Ps exert an exquisite level of control over media, entertainment, education, and urban life, while Ps believe that Cs control the private-sector economy, the military, and rural life .Each side is convinced that the other’s control and permeation of those assets is profound. This distortion is very precious to them. For example, if you point out to Ps that many people in the top 10% are those who make a living primarily off the state, they are outraged. If you claim to Cs that most media content defends median-to-conservative social values, they reject the claim.

    Then there are the ambiguous assets. Some of the biggest ideological wars are wars of liberation: healthcare (to be liberated from profit-seeking or lethal statism), or the management of the poor (their worst fate being either dependency or cruel exploitation).

  10. Are there plans to publish your book in epub? I would really like to read your book , but honestly I would prefer not to buy a kindle first.

  11. The Amazon Kindle is a series of e-book readers produced by Amazon.com. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media via wireless networking. The hardware platform, developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126, began as a single device and now comprises a range of devices – most using an E Ink electronic paper display capable of rendering 16 tones to simulate reading on paper while minimizing power consumption.”;;-

    http://healthmedicinelab.comOur very own blog site

  12. I listened to the Econtalk podcast. Please consider blog posting with your view on how one could use Three Languages beyond politics maybe from a philosophy of life approach.
    Thanks.

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