Tim Urban begins by making entertaining and creative descriptions in laying out the framework for his argument. However when he shifts to emphasize the radical nature of SJF (social justice fundamentalism) he does exactly what he’s preaching against. He lost all credibility for me when he defended Bret Weinstein and attacked Naima Lowe in less than neutral fashion. He neglects to say that both Naima Lowe and Bret Weinstein were forced to resign. And in fact, it appears that Bret Weinstein received a greater severance than Naima Lowe. (Easy enough research to google). And he also doesn’t mention the extremely harmful and dangerous misinformation that Bret Weinstein has spread about COVID vaccines and HIV/AIDS. I enjoyed Tim Urban’s popular YouTube video and was very sad to find out he is probably a stealth right winger or libertarian. He should have spent more time in his book focusing his otherwise interesting theories on the very real threat that Trump and his overtly dangerous and hateful followers present to our country and the world rather than the more subtle and nuanced “micro aggressions” he is criticizing.

This book is required reading for those who want to understand why our society is so polarized and weird lately.

Too political

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.

I learned a lot from this book, even though I’d already read some of the themes on Wait But Why. This is well worth your time to read right through to the end. The clear way of looking at where we are as a society is really helpful when dealing with our own biases.

Long, but worth the read!

A great analysis and a wake-up!

Very engaging and informative book. It made me really think about how I think about the world. It got a bit dense towards the end, but I’m glad I pushed through as it was well worth it. I love the Wait But Why blog, so I was really excited to finally read this book. Thanks for all your hard work Tim!

Tim’s book should be required reading for everyone under the age of 25. The battle for a sane world where freedom of speech is respected and not denigrated may be lost on the older generations.

Great book!