No Stupid Questions

Stephen Dubner was noted to have written this book, among others.

Stephen read poetry by Yehuda Amichai for about 10 or 15 minutes after removing himself from an aggravating situation, which made him feel connected to the human family again.

The book was mentioned when describing Stephen Dubner's background as a writer and host of Freakonomics Radio.

This book, which was unpublished at the time of recording but scheduled for release in January 2025, explored topics related to existential psychology and building meaningful lives, referencing Viktor Frankl extensively.

This book was mentioned as being written by Reinhold Niebuhr's daughter, Elizabeth Sifton, concerning her father's famous Serenity Prayer and its evolution.

This book contained the final poem of Raymond Carver's life, which was inscribed on his tombstone, focusing on wanting to feel beloved on earth.

The speaker mentioned reading this memoir and being engrossed by every detail about Steve Jobs' personal life behind closed doors.

This book was cited as an example where a counterintuitive and controversial idea--that crime reduction resulted from abortion legalization--made it widely discussed.

The book was mentioned as being read by the character Alex Dunphy in an episode of Modern Family, which Stephen referenced as a nerdy accoutrement.

This book was mentioned in the context of Jean Twenge's work analyzing trends in pessimism among younger generations using data from the Monitoring the Future survey.

The speaker received this book from the author, who is a chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, to endorse. The speaker initially tried to speed-read it but stopped after the author requested readers to savor the book, which the speaker then did, loving it.

The speaker started reading this book, which suggests we are in a war of distraction, heavily influenced by technology, and recommended by the speaker's 21-year-old daughter.

This book was referenced as coining the term 'generation me,' which relates to the upward trend in narcissistic personality index scores found in data from the early 1980s up through the Great Recession.

This book's subject, Cincinnatus, was discussed as a Roman figure celebrated for being a humble leader who prioritized civic duty, contrasting with the modern political desire for power out of self-belief.

The speaker mentioned that Juliana's father inspired her to read all of the Freakonomics books, which was the reason she wanted to major in economics.

Joel Waldfogel wrote a book that revolved around the concept of dead weight loss, arguing that much of the stuff people buy for others is wasted and they would be better off giving cash instead.

This paper, written by Joel Waldfogel, dealt with the concept of deadweight loss in gift-giving, which measures the gap between the cost of a gift to the giver and its perceived value to the recipient.

This influential 1988 paper discussed how explanations (excuses vs. justifications) function in negotiating reality after a negative outcome. The authors argued that employing an excuse sequence, focusing on external factors, preserved the excuse-giver's self-esteem and sense of control, contrasting with the self-focus of the no-excuse sequence.

This questionnaire, developed by Marty Seligman and colleagues, was designed to assess an individual's spontaneous attribution style following negative events across three dimensions: personal, permanent, and pervasive. A profile scoring high on all three dimensions was found to be characteristic of individuals with clinical depression.

This book was mentioned in the context of how its author forces readers to consider motivations behind actions, which is harder than simply labeling someone as pure evil.