Signed Book Giveaway

Plus, stats from the past 5 months, and a 50%-off holiday special on paid subscriptions

Issue No. 12

We’re nearing the end of the year and I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for making the first leg of this experiment such a joy. Last issue’s quote from Dickens is worth repeating—no one is useless in this world … who lightens the burden of it for any one else. You’ve certainly done that for me. And I hope, in my little way, that I’ve managed to do it in return.

I’ll be taking this month off, and can’t wait to be back in January to continue the work. I plan on covering the sunk cost fallacy in that issue. The more I think about it, the more I realize it’s one of the reasons why we sometimes hold onto an entrenched view despite new data. The topic for language will likely be the intriguing way meanings shift once you take a word from its original language and transport it to another one. It’s something I observed during my recent travels.

(Paid subscribers, you should have received a 30-day comp this morning, though if it didn’t get applied for whatever reason, let me know.)

Reflecting on the past five months

Here are some stats from the past five months that I figured would be interesting to share:

• Our readership is currently at 6,222 subscribers, which includes 18 paid subscribers.

• We had 11 published issues that covered 31 topics on reasoning, rethinking language, and rethinking images.

• We had 6 audio issues.

• 7 readers referred 47 new readers to the newsletter. (Here’s the leaderboard.)

• The most viewed issue was issue no. 2 on survivorship bias, with 5.7 k views.

• The most hearted issue was issue no. 1 on confirmation bias, followed by issue no. 9 on dehumanizing language.

• The least viewed issue was issue no. 7 on slippery slopes, with 4.7 k views.

• We had 3 episodes of Goat & Bear published on YouTube—a series of silly musical shorts on critical thinking. One episode was on false dilemmas, one was on slippery slopes, and one was on hasty generalizations.

• We have 184 subscribers on YouTube. Up from 1. (Hi, Dad.)

• 3 Substack publications recommended The Critical Thinker.

And then, a few personal memories:

• Two readers signed up as paid subscribers when the project was still nascent. Before I’d published a single issue. It was deeply touching.

• A reader unlocked all three referral awards in one go, by referring 38 readers to the newsletter. We later had a wonderful, off-the-cuff, chat about a variety of topics.

• I received a letter in the mail from someone I’d mailed a book to a decade ago. The reader had been then, and was again now, stationed overseas.

We truly do build monuments in our our minds to kind people. I forget which writer said that. The way someone makes you feel in a certain moment, even if it’s fleeting, stays with you.

Signed book giveaway

To celebrate making it to the end of the year, I’d like to give away several signed books. I’ll include with each book an original page from the very first unbound edition of Bad Arguments. I only have one of it. Some of you might remember that it was an 8x8 inch book and had a sort of a pigskin cover.

The cover ended up being prone to scratches. The new material and the new form factor, as well as other brilliant editorial and production decisions, came from a person whom I cherish a lot—Karen Giangreco, general director and roving editor at Experiment Books. She’s brilliant.

To enter the giveaway, all you need to do is like (❤️) this post by clicking the heart button at the very bottom or top. I’ll then pick a few names at random and reach out asking for a mailing address in the next couple of weeks. Feel free to share the link with friends. The only requirement is that they be current subscribers to qualify. The giveaway is open to everyone in the world.

Get a subscription at a 50% discount

One final note. There’s a holiday special running right now that you might be interested in. It offers a paid subscription at a 50% discount ($30 for the year). You can redeem the offer from here, any time before December 7. My goal is to get to 1% paid subscriptions by next year.

Until next time

Be well. I’ll talk to you all again in January.

My best,
—Ali