Re: "why write a book if you have contempt for the readership?" and "why repeatedly tell your readers they shouldn't be reading your book," I think it makes sense if you factor in opportunity costs and think counterfactually about what his readers would be doing with their time if he had not written it.
He may believe, "my readers are the kind of people who waste their lives reading insight porn and esoteric bullshit on the internet, when they should be putting their energy into real things like taking care of their families and advancing their careers. If I don't write this book, they'll waste their lives reading some other kind of esoteric internet bullshit instead. If I write something that will appeal to the kind of people who want to feel special by convincing themselves they understood and benefitted from some esoteric internet bullshit, maybe I can trick them into noticing that they're wasting their lives."
I bailed on this book less than halfway through, feeling stung but also spurred, and I think I did take some unusually direct actions relative to my baselines in the weeks after.
Re: "why write a book if you have contempt for the readership?" and "why repeatedly tell your readers they shouldn't be reading your book," I think it makes sense if you factor in opportunity costs and think counterfactually about what his readers would be doing with their time if he had not written it.
He may believe, "my readers are the kind of people who waste their lives reading insight porn and esoteric bullshit on the internet, when they should be putting their energy into real things like taking care of their families and advancing their careers. If I don't write this book, they'll waste their lives reading some other kind of esoteric internet bullshit instead. If I write something that will appeal to the kind of people who want to feel special by convincing themselves they understood and benefitted from some esoteric internet bullshit, maybe I can trick them into noticing that they're wasting their lives."
I bailed on this book less than halfway through, feeling stung but also spurred, and I think I did take some unusually direct actions relative to my baselines in the weeks after.