Radical honesty & reframing global problems as puzzles | A.J. Jacobs (2020)

AJ Jacobs' Career Experiments and Methodology

• Jacobs utilizes "immersive experimentation" as a core methodology, turning personal quests into books to explore major themes like religion, health, gratitude, and knowledge.
• He co-hosts a podcast called Good or Bad that applies utilitarian ethics to topics like democracy, the Olympics, and dogs, concluding that while dogs bring joy, their carnivorous nature harms other animals, though he admits to being a "hypocrite" who keeps his dog.
• He is currently writing a book about puzzles, arguing that framing complex global issues (like climate change) as puzzles rather than conflicts encourages cooperation and optimism over polarization.
• His approach to problem-solving involves finding a single "foothold" or entry point in a difficult problem to build momentum, a technique he derives from solving the New York Times crossword puzzle.
• Jacobs abandoned a planned book titled Fact-Checking My Life after realizing it risked promoting epistemic relativism and that the process was making him miserable; he advocates for abandoning projects that cause significant unhappiness to avoid burnout.
• He previously attempted a "radical honesty" experiment for two months, which resulted in severe social awkwardness, such as telling friends he had no interest in seeing them again, leading him to conclude that total transparency is impractical despite its value in specific contexts like admitting mistakes.

Effective Altruism (EA) Views and Community Feedback

• Jacobs is a member of Giving What We Can, pledging to donate at least 10% of his lifelong income to effective charities, and has donated to the Against Malaria Foundation and the Center for Effective Altruism (CEA).
• He advocates for framing EA concepts as "opportunities" to empower donors rather than using "guilt" to shame them, arguing that guilt often leads to burnout and reduced long-term impact.
• He suggests "bait-and-switch" marketing tactics to introduce EA ideas to the public, such as starting an article about helping dogs before pivoting to the argument that chickens deserve similar moral consideration.
• Jacobs believes long-termism is intellectually sound but difficult to communicate viscerally due to its abstract nature; he proposes creating fictional dramas (e.g., a Mad Men-style show set in a long-termist org) to normalize these ideas without being preachy.
• He supports the expansion of EA-focused verticals in major media outlets (like the NYT or WSJ), arguing that while journalism is a shrinking industry, placing EA thinkers in newsrooms is crucial for shifting the narrative from "bad news" to "solutions."
• He argues that media consumption should prioritize "solutions journalism" over reporting on tragedies, noting that constant exposure to negative events (like terror attacks) is dispiriting and uninformative for individual well-being.

Specific Book Projects and Key Takeaways

• Thanks a Thousand: Based on a journey to thank 1,000 people involved in a single cup of coffee, the book aims to counteract humanity's "negative bias" and highlight the interconnectedness of daily life.
• The Year of Living Biblically: Jacobs attempted to follow the Bible literally, exposing the absurdity of selective fundamentalism (e.g., stoning adulterers with pebbles) while discovering the value of rituals and social responsibility over pure individualism.
• It's All Relative: This project involved tracing the "global family tree," which uses DNA data to prove all humans are related, aiming to expand the "circle of moral concern" by making the concept of global family concrete.
• The Know-It-All: Jacobs read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica to fill knowledge gaps, an experience that instilled in him "epistemic humility" and a realization that the "good old days" were often worse than modern times regarding disease, violence, and sanitation.
• Dead Healthy: His quest for physical perfection made him skeptical of health journalism, leading to the conclusion that most "miracle cures" are evidence-free, while basic habits (exercise, sleep, avoiding sugar) remain the most effective strategies.
• Jacobs employs "micro-goals" and "respecting your older self" (visualizing a future version of oneself) to maintain healthy habits, such as putting on running shoes for just one minute to overcome initial resistance.

Personal Philosophy and Life Strategies

• He practices a form of "non-radical honesty," avoiding lies of commission in long-term relationships to build trust, though he acknowledges the difficulty of avoiding lies of omission.
• Jacobs uses "blackmail" strategies for self-improvement, such as writing checks to the American Nazi Party to be mailed if he consumes sugar, leveraging a strong aversion to funding a bad cause to enforce good habits.
• He is a daily meditator using the Waking Up app, which he finds helpful for labeling emotions (e.g., noting "anger" rather than being consumed by it) and detaching from the "self" to reduce negative emotions.
• He views the concept of "multiple selves" over time as a powerful tool for decision-making, advising people to treat their future self with the same compassion they would offer a friend to mitigate self-hatred.
• Jacobs rejects the idea of "Dice Man" style randomness for life decisions, viewing it as too extreme for family welfare, but acknowledges the value of randomization in political philosophy (e.g., randomocracy).
• He suggests that "public humiliation" is a powerful motivator for completing difficult projects, having used the threat of public failure to finish his encyclopedia reading project.

Advice for Writers and Career Pathways

• Jacobs recommends that talented young writers consider journalism as a career path to shape the narrative, despite the industry's financial instability, because effective information dissemination is critical for long-term impact.
• He advises writers to seek feedback quantitatively by surveying a large group of readers (e.g., 20 friends) for their top five favorite and least favorite sections rather than relying on single opinions.
• His strategy for pitching editors involves complimenting their past work, hooking them with a punchy paragraph, and utilizing "social proof" (listing past publications) or even finding personal connections (e.g., distant family relations) to gain access.
• He believes writers should "talk to themselves" out loud to clarify thinking, a practice he finds useful for refining arguments before they are written down or published.
• Jacobs argues that writers do not need to be perfect stylists to be effective; strong ideas can succeed even without beautiful prose, and quantity of output (including unpublished drafts) is valuable for refining thought processes.

Media and Technology Observations

• He views the CBS sitcom adaptation of The Year of Living Biblically as a disaster that dumbed down his core message to make fundamentalism seem beneficial, highlighting the difficulty of conveying nuance in television.
• Jacobs is critical of the "life logging" trend (recording one's entire life), noting that while it has benefits for discipline and memory, it poses significant threats to privacy and marital harmony.
• He supports the use of technology to visualize long-term futures, such as a "letters from the future" exhibit that generates messages to future descendants, as a tool to make the abstract concept of long-termism more tangible.
• He notes that media coverage of shark attacks or airplane crashes creates an "availability bias" that distorts risk perception, suggesting news outlets should contextualize rare tragedies with statistical data on common causes of death.
• Jacobs identifies "both-sidism" as a danger in modern discourse, noting that issues like evolution vs. creationism require clear factual stances rather than equal footing for "two sides."

Listener Tips from Rob Woodland (Intro/Outro)

• Rob Woodland recommends adjusting podcast playback speeds (1.2x to 2.3x) based on the speaker's density to save time without losing comprehension.
• He suggests using apps like Overcast (for silence removal), Pocket (for text-to-speech article reading), and Audible to maximize information absorption efficiency.
• He notes that while Spotify supports speed adjustment, it lacks chapter support and show note links, requiring manual navigation to the host's website for detailed resources.