You think people don’t read books if they confidently disagree with the title? (Not rhetorical; I read books I confidently disagree with but I’m not an average book reader.)
What about people who aren’t coming in with a strong opinion either way? Isn’t that most potential readers, and the main target audience?
E.g. “The Myth of the Rational Voter” book title implies a strong claim that voters are not rational. If I had walked by that book on a bookshelf 15 years ago (before I knew anything about the topic or author), I imagine that I would have been intrigued and maybe bought it, not because I already confidently believed that voters are not rational but because, I dunno, it might have seemed interesting and fun to read, on a topic I didn’t already know much about, so maybe I’d learn something.
Yes, I was thinking of adding that it could appeal to contrarians who may be attracted to a book with a title they disagreed with. As for people who don’t have a strong opinion coming in, I can see some people being attracted to an extreme title. And I get that titles need to be simple. I think a title like “If anyone builds it, we lose control” would be more defensible. But I think the probability distributions from Paul Christiano are more reasonable.
You think people don’t read books if they confidently disagree with the title? (Not rhetorical; I read books I confidently disagree with but I’m not an average book reader.)
What about people who aren’t coming in with a strong opinion either way? Isn’t that most potential readers, and the main target audience?
E.g. “The Myth of the Rational Voter” book title implies a strong claim that voters are not rational. If I had walked by that book on a bookshelf 15 years ago (before I knew anything about the topic or author), I imagine that I would have been intrigued and maybe bought it, not because I already confidently believed that voters are not rational but because, I dunno, it might have seemed interesting and fun to read, on a topic I didn’t already know much about, so maybe I’d learn something.
Yes, I was thinking of adding that it could appeal to contrarians who may be attracted to a book with a title they disagreed with. As for people who don’t have a strong opinion coming in, I can see some people being attracted to an extreme title. And I get that titles need to be simple. I think a title like “If anyone builds it, we lose control” would be more defensible. But I think the probability distributions from Paul Christiano are more reasonable.