Hmm. Interesting, this is the first time I ever heard of Tim Ferris, but what I learned about him in 5 minutes made me classify him in the same set with Steve Pavlina, titled: "Apply extreme caution. May or may not have some possible interesting nuggets in a vast pile of bullshit. Likely a total waste of time".
Should I research further?
I've been aware of Ferriss and Pavlina for some years, and that is my impression as well, of both. And as one of the metabolically privileged (this body does not accumulate fat) I have little personal use for his Four Hour Body material.
Do not read this if you don't know anything about this Tim Ferriss person
I suspect anyone here is less different from Tim Ferriss than they'd like to be able to justifiably claim (see here, here, here, here).
I don't mean Tim the Result. Results are clouded by what has been brought to attention in one of the 2009/2010 rationality quotes here
I mean Tim the method.
The varieties of achievements he's done are behaviourally distinct from living normal life. They are not so complicated to learn though.
I invite you to ask the following question: What is one thing he's done I haven't that probably I could do, and what is the explanation I invented to myself for not having done it? Do I truly believe this explanation? Think for a minute before reading more
When I ask this to friends who read some of his stuff, I see three kinds of answers:
This is impossible for anyone who doesn't have property X (where X is always a fixed characteristic, like place of birth, blondness, impeccable genetic motivation)
We have very different values, and there is no point in trying that about which I don't care - interestingly, with every new book, there are more interests on the table to be considered "not my values", but no one suddenly came to me and said: Wow, finally he cares about throwing knives! I have reason to try after all. Are my friends values narrowing in proportion to Tim's expansions?
There are a lot of people who don't want to have more money, learn languages, work less, or travel a lot, but there are much fewer people who besides all of those don't want to exercise effectively, learn quickly, improve their sex lives, throw knives, memorize card decks, program, dance tango, become an angel investor, be famous, write books, cook well, get thinner, read quicker, contact interesting people, outsource boring stuff and so on...
The third kind is personal attack. People claim he has property E, which makes him Evil, and his evil either is proof of the falsity of his accomplishments, or is proof that emulating Tim means you are a dark creature who shall not pass through the gates of heaven. The most interesting E's are "He's a brilliant marketing man, selling profitable lies, but marketing is Evil." "He doesn't understand survivor bias, and how lucky he was, and has not read outliers to know it takes min4000 hours to get good at stuff" "He's a good looking ivy league blonde, this makes him evil" (this girl probably had in mind Nietzsche's lamb morality, from Genealogy of Morals).
What is one thing he's done you haven't that probably you could do, and what is the explanation you invented to yourself for not having done it? Do you truly believe this explanation? Would your best rationalist friend truly believe that explanation?