IMO the real story here for ‘how’ is “the book is persuasive to a general audience.” (People have made claims about the overton window shifting—and I don’t think there’s 0 of that—but my guess is the book would have gotten roughly the same blurbs in 2021, and maybe even 2016.)
But the social story for how is that I grew up in the DC area, one of my childhood friends is the son of an economist who is not a household name but is prominent enough that all of the household name economists know him. (This is an interesting position to be in—I feel like I’m sort of in this boat with the rationality community.) We play board games online every week and so when the blurb hunt started I got him an advance copy, and he was hooked enough to recommend it to Ben (and others, I think).
(I share this story in part b/c I think it’s cool, but also because I think lots of people are ~2 hops away from some cool people and could discover this with a bit of thought and effort.)
This might be an ignorant question, but, since you bring up how many people are within 2 hops of other people, can you ask your friend to ask Bernanke to ask Obama to read the book?
IMO the real story here for ‘how’ is “the book is persuasive to a general audience.” (People have made claims about the overton window shifting—and I don’t think there’s 0 of that—but my guess is the book would have gotten roughly the same blurbs in 2021, and maybe even 2016.)
But the social story for how is that I grew up in the DC area, one of my childhood friends is the son of an economist who is not a household name but is prominent enough that all of the household name economists know him. (This is an interesting position to be in—I feel like I’m sort of in this boat with the rationality community.) We play board games online every week and so when the blurb hunt started I got him an advance copy, and he was hooked enough to recommend it to Ben (and others, I think).
(I share this story in part b/c I think it’s cool, but also because I think lots of people are ~2 hops away from some cool people and could discover this with a bit of thought and effort.)
This might be an ignorant question, but, since you bring up how many people are within 2 hops of other people, can you ask your friend to ask Bernanke to ask Obama to read the book?
Done, we’ll see how it goes.
Is there a way we can ask Jon Wolfsthal to ask Obama too?
(That was indeed my first thought when Bernanke said he liked the book; no dice, though.)