Trade-Offs, Unspeakeasy, McDonald's
Links and recommendations
New York City Event:
There’s an exciting event I’ll be part of this coming October in New York City.
It’s a weekend-long “small gathering for big ideas” that offers a chance to meet and have private, off-the-record conversations with some of your favorite independent thinkers. It’s part of The Unspeakeasy, which was founded by Unspeakable Podcast host Meghan Daum and offers “free speech vacation retreats” (sometimes known as “sanity spa retreats”) all over the country. They usually do women-only retreats, but this one’s coed and open to a larger group, with a great lineup of speakers.
Those speakers include me and also linguist and columnist John McWhorter, evolutionary biologist and author Carole Hooven, Mike Pesca of The Gist, Tablet Magazine editor Alana Newhouse, author and policing expert Peter Moskos, Open Therapy Institute founder Andrew Hartz, and writers Lisa Selin Davis and Ben Appel. And of course, Meghan Daum, who will be the ringleader of this whole circus. This is taking place October 11-12 from 9am to 5pm both days in a private location in Soho.
This is different from a typical ideas festival in that instead of regular audience Q&As where you raise your hand and wait for someone to run to you with a mic, we’ll have actual conversations with actual back and forth dialogue and, best of all, lots of downtime for mingling with other thoughtful, intellectually curious people from all over the country. Lunch (a very nice lunch, they assure me) will be served. Nothing will be recorded, no social media is allowed. This is all about in-person, real-life conversations.
Spaces are limited and tickets are selling fast, so go to theunspeakeasy.com/nyc to sign up. This is not a cheap ticket. But they’re offering my readers a special promo code ROB1800 at checkout and receive a large discount.
Again, this is happening October 11-12 in SoHo. Visit theunspeakeasy.com/nyc to learn more.
From the archives:
The Unspeakable Truth About Children
The Only Reading App I Use:
I’ve been using Readwise since April of 2021.
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter/X, you’ll know I regularly share screenshots like this from books or articles I’ve read:
These screenshots come from my Readwise app.
Readwise aggregates your reading highlights from various sources like Kindle, Apple Books, Substack, Twitter, and so on. It stores your highlights in one place, making it easier to stay on top of your reading.
Each morning, it emails me 8 random excerpts from different books I’ve read. Since 2021, that daily message has been a quiet ritual for me: fragments from books I half‑forgot are resurfaced, like my own past self giving me a tap on the shoulder.
Moreover, when I’m thinking about a particular topic, a quick search pulls up not just my notes but every highlighted Kindle passage I’ve ever saved on the topic.
Exclusive Offer for My Readers
Use this link → https://readwise.io/robkhenderson/ to try Readwise free for 60 days (double the length of the standard free trial).
I suspect, like me, you’ll wonder how you ever read without it.
Links and recommendations:
The Return of Trade-Offs by Allison Schrager
Feminism Against Fertility by Darel E. Paul
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter/X, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
You can follow me on TikTok here
Three interesting findings:
Women typically believe their marriages have about the right frequency of sex, whereas men wished for more (twice as much) sex as they were having. This suggests many couples adjust their sexual frequency to the lower rate of desire by the wife. (source).
In middle age, when people have largely succeeded in building their own life, many struggle with questions along the line of “Is that all that there is?” The best way of resolving this crisis of meaning is becoming a source of support to younger generations. (source). More on this point here.
McDonald’s is wildly popular with every group of Americans—urban, rural, male, female, middle or working class; it unites every demographic in the U.S., with a single exception: the highly educated, especially academics. (source).
The paperback version of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class is now available.
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Audible (I narrated the audiobook myself)
I'm a fan of McDonald's. Unlike some of our notable politicos, I was a fryman. I started before the feds deducted Medicare from one's paycheck. It was my first job where I paid taxes. The sign used to read "over 500 million sold." I peeled, cut and washed them (of starch). I then blanched (partially cooked for storage) and cooked them in "real" fry fat. Boy were they good!
Your Thomas Sowell quote is very similar to one from George Orwell, On how only someone of the intelligentsia could consider Stalin a wise person.