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July 21
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Nathan
gave
 
to:
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (Hardcover)
by Dan Ariely
bookshelves:
science-fact
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Nathan said:
"I wanted to dislike this book, as it had a lot of positive press and I had enjoyed "Kludge" so much, but I'm forced to admit that it was not only a pleasant read but an enlightening one. It didn't have the tedious repetition common in othe...more
I wanted to dislike this book, as it had a lot of positive press and I had enjoyed "Kludge" so much, but I'm forced to admit that it was not only a pleasant read but an enlightening one. It didn't have the tedious repetition common in other books, and he did a great job of making the science relevant.
Of all the behavioural economics books I've read so far, I'll be rereading this one first....less
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July 17
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Nathan
gave
to:
How We Know What Isn't So (Paperback)
by Thomas Gilovich
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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July 21
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Nathan
gave
to:
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why (Paperback)
by Richard Nisbett
bookshelves:
science-fact
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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July 17
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Nathan
marked as to-read:
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (Hardcover)
by Natalie Angier
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
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Nathan
marked as to-read:
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Hardcover)
by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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July 09
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Nathan
gave
to:
1984 (Paperback)
by George Orwell
bookshelves:
sf
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: everyone I meet
read in July, 2008
Nathan said:
"Having reread "Brave New World", I reread 1984 for comparison and it's amazing what a difference 15 or so years made to the books. BNW is dated, chiselled into the time it is from, every page crying relic of a bygone age. 1984, however, i...more
Having reread "Brave New World", I reread 1984 for comparison and it's amazing what a difference 15 or so years made to the books. BNW is dated, chiselled into the time it is from, every page crying relic of a bygone age. 1984, however, is as bitterly brilliant as the day it was written, and it could have been written in 2004. The only exception is that Orwell's world is a vision of a Socialist future gone horribly wrong, and I'm sure modern retellings would be a Capitalist future gone horribly wrong.
I loved Orwell's essay on clear political writing (check my delicious stream for it) and the book practices what the essay preached. Every word cuts to the essence of a meticulously realized grim future. And "grim" is the world I keep coming back to. It's depressing, not a book with a Hollywood ending that sets up a sequel, but not in the abrupt disappointing fashion of the Brave New World ending either. Every scene in the book is meant to make you depressed, so there's no room for counter-revolution or a proletariat uprising. Orwell is saying that technology plus propaganda plus ideology gives totalitarian control, and he forces us forward with the sheer strength of his writing until we accept it.
I thought, as I was reading, that perhaps Orwell created the current situation. By imagining it, he made it so. He provided a blueprint for totalitarian regimes, or at the least gave them inspiration. Or perhaps they have a common ancestor in the Nazis, Stalin, and other 20th century tyrants who found that communication and computation are tools of control.
The parallels with current affairs, as they have been for the last fifty years, are chilling. Constant war, constant surveillance, and mindless entertainment for the proles. Are not Top 10 songs practically made from a kaleidoscope machine? Aren't the subpoenaed, mined, wiretapped web site user databases how the television looks back at us? Isn't military (or even business) jargon Newspeak?
It doesn't pay to think too hard about this or you'll be like me, thrusting the book into the hands of everyone you meet saying, "read this again, you've forgotten how horrifyingly real it has become."
...less
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Nathan
gave
to:
Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition)
by Robert B. Cialdini
bookshelves:
currently-reading,
science-fact
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Nathan said:
"It's a roundup of how people influence us through our brain's shortcuts for decision making, and how we can protect ourselves from this kind of behaviour.
Very well written, LOVELY framing and examples, absolutely loving it. Will update when I fi...more
It's a roundup of how people influence us through our brain's shortcuts for decision making, and how we can protect ourselves from this kind of behaviour.
Very well written, LOVELY framing and examples, absolutely loving it. Will update when I finish the book next week....less
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July 08
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Nathan
gave
to:
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (Paperback)
by Barry Schwartz
bookshelves:
science-fact
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my rating:
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Nathan said:
"I've been reading many of the pop-psych brain books lately, particularly interested in our cognitive biases: in which ways are we not perfectly rational creatures? Schwartz focuses on the ways that a wide selection of choices makes us incapable of m...more
I've been reading many of the pop-psych brain books lately, particularly interested in our cognitive biases: in which ways are we not perfectly rational creatures? Schwartz focuses on the ways that a wide selection of choices makes us incapable of making good decisions.
His basic points are few, repeated with anecdotes and accounts of psychological studies throughout the book. His advice at the end is really only three or four things we can do differently, leading to eight or so effects that will make us happier overall with our choices.
His rough points:
1) Many choices mean we're less likely to buy anything. (Study: 6 jams at a supermarket demo table and 30% of tasters bought a jar; 24 james and only 3% bought).
2) When we choose, we focus excessively on opportunity costs (what we're missing out), and more choices means more opportunity costs therefore greater paralysis.
3) Therefore we should voluntarily seek restraints on our choice.
4) The quest for The Best (maximizers vs satisficers) makes us miserable, so we should instead value Good Enough.
5) Our expectations are consistently set too high whereas our brains adjust quickly to new pleasures or pains (hedonic adaptation), so avoid buying things with the belief that they'll make your life better.
6) Regrets about how things could have been also ruin experiences for us. Decisions should be nonreversible.
7) We suck at estimating happiness in others, just as we do for ourselves, so we shouldn't compare our decisions to those of others.
Some interesting findings along the way:
* What we remember about the pleasurable quality of an experience is determined by the peak and how it felt at the end.
* College students selected snacks in advance for a series of weekly lectures. They chose a variety of snacks, expecting that repetition would be unpleasant. Students who selected week-by-week had way more duplication.
* The availability heuristic: people tend to give undue weight to some types of evidence because we remember it better. E.g., anecdotes that are vivid personal and detailed vs cold clinical statistics. Salience vs frequency. Social interactions can cancel this out, as we remember different things (averages of Academy Award predictions better than any individual) or amplify it (we all read the same newspaper headlines).
* We anchor our predictions to any number we've just heard.
* Framing sets a reference point/anchor for our predictions. ("Cash Discount $X-2 cash, $X credit", vs "$X Cash, $X+2 Credit")
* Prospect theory: twice as better off in real life is less than 2x better off subjectively; twice as worse off in real life is less than twice as worse off subjectively. We don't perceive benefit linearly, so require nonlinear risk. Win $100 for sure vs $200 on flip of coin is too linear, would have to be $240 on flip of coin for most people to take it. Similarly, $100 for sure vs flip to lose $200; we take flip because losing $200 isn't twice as bad subjectively than losing $100.
* Loss aversion: the fall-off in subjective happiness is less steep than the fall-off in subjective unhappiness. So the first loss hurts more than the first gain. We are loss-averse.
* Endowment effect: we hate to lose things more than we hate to gain things. We overvalue what we have. Money-back guarantees work this way (most ppl won't want to return something they already have even for the money they paid for it), and "95% fat free" vs "5% fat".
* maximizers vs satisficers. So sick of hearing about these.
* maximizing correlated with unhappiness
* maximizers get better objective results but worse subjective results
* Fred Hirsch: the more affluent a society becomes, and the more basic material needs are met, the more people care about goods that are inherently scarce. Competition for inherently scarce goods demands maximization.
* Learned helplessness: we can learn we don't have control, and it affects our future efforts, our immune system, even perhaps depression.
* Increase in capital wealth not correlated with increase in happiness
* Second-order decisions make decisions easier. (1) Rules, like always buclking up seatbelt. (2) Presumptions, like if it's Chinese-made then it's low-quality. (3) Standards, like must come with a warranty. (4) Routines, sticking with what we know works.
* Cost accounting should stop after the next-best alternative. So cost for your preferred evening entertainment (dinner at a nice restaurant) is your second-best option (quick dinner then a movie) not the whole set of possibilities (including dancing, nightclubbing, cooking dinner for friends, baseball game, ....).
* being forced to confront trade-offs in making decisions makes people unhappy and indecisive.
* when people are asked to give reasons for their preferences, they may struggle to find the words. They grasp at what they can say and identify it as the basis for their preference, and once the words are spoken they take on the added significance to the person who spoke them and influence the decision. Later, those verbalized reasons fade and people are left with their unarticulated preferences, which would have steered them to a different decision.
* while people value being able to reverse their choices, few actually do so. And those who have the option to change their minds are less satisfied with their choices than people without the option. Furthermore, people don't know they'll feel this way about open-ended choices.
* people feel you'll regret something you do more than something you didn't do. Looking back on their lives, though, people tend to regret failures to act.
* near misses felt more strongly. Bronze medal winners happier than silver medal winners.
* regret stronger if we were responsible
* in counterfactual (what if X had happened) thinking, people tend to focus on aspects that are under their control. When asked to imagine a car accident involving someone speeding on a rainy day with poor visibility, they tend to "undo" the accident by having the driver be more cautious rather than having the day be clear and dry.
* we focus more on what we could have done to make the situation better, instead of congratulating ourselves on avoiding what we could have done to make the situation worse
* when confronted with decisions, we often choose the option that minimizes the chances that we will experience regret
* we show greater willingness to take risks when we know we will find out how the unchosen alternative turned out and there is thus no way to protect ourselves from regret
* action inertia: once we've decided we liked X, but X is no longer available, we would rather not buy than to buy the 2nd best. (e.g., X = a product with a discount that's no longer available)
* we should ignore sunk costs. E.g., if we've spent time on something, or money on something, we should ignore them when making decisions and only make decision based on expected outcome. You've bought X and Y, X costs more and Y will be better, you'll choose X so as not to waste the greater investment, even though you should choose Y because duh it will be better. Shoes on the rack that don't fit but you can't bear to get rid of, t-shirts in boxes, ....
* novelty buzz + hedonic adaptation = drive to buy more and more, as the ongoing pleasure is low compared to the pleasure taken in something new
* we'd rather be the best in a mediocre group than better-off yet middle-ranked in a great group. Comparison sets our reference point for assessing how good something would be.
Schwartz's advice:
1) Choose when to choose
2) Be a chooser, not a picker, by setting up second-order decisions to free up time for us to make careful thoughtful decisions when they're needed
3) Satisfice more, maximize less
4) Think about opportunity costs or opportunity costs
5) Make your decisions non-reversible
6) Practice an attitude of gratitude, focusing on positives and not negatives
7) Regret less
8) Anticipate adaptation
9) Control expectations
10) Curtail social comparison
11) Learn to love constraints
...less
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Nathan
gave
to:
Dawkins vs Gould, Second Edition: Survival of the Fittest (Paperback)
by Kim Sterelny
bookshelves:
science-fact
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in July, 2008
Nathan said:
"Despite the silly title and backcover copy, this is a serious and thoughtful book that sheds light on the bits of evolutionary theory that we don't yet know. The danger with any attempt to present evolutionary theory as incomplete is that you'll be ...more
Despite the silly title and backcover copy, this is a serious and thoughtful book that sheds light on the bits of evolutionary theory that we don't yet know. The danger with any attempt to present evolutionary theory as incomplete is that you'll be mistaken for a creationist. Sterelny is no creationist, and this is not ammunition for that battle. He merely attempts to summarize the differences in position between Richard Dawkins ("The Selfish Gene") and Stephen J. Gould ("The Panda's Thumb"), two prominent evolutionary theorists.
There are differences in emphasis (Dawkins feels adaptation to environment is what evolution must explain and so focuses on natural selection; Gould feels evolution's biggest question is why animal lineages change so little over time and so he focuses on variation more than natural selection) and outright different conjectures (can selection happen for a species as a whole or does it only happen for individuals). The most direct opposition is over "extrapolationism"--can you look at changes we see in our lifetimes and then extract to the many billions of years that life has been on our planet, through mass extinctions and ice ages and ... ?
I've realized that "evolution" isn't a complete theory by any manner of means (though because each individual hypothesis is falsifiable, it's still preferable to religious explanations) and that there are many interesting areas in which new work is being done.
The book isn't an easy read, although it's by no manner of means difficult. I had to keep flicking back to remind myself what a "gene lineage" was, what "progressive evolution" means, and so on. Sterelny does a very good job of explaining the commonalities in the men's thinking, and then going into useful detail with meaningful examples to highlight their differences. You don't need a background in biology to read this book....less
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