Summary: Don’t Trust Your Gut

10/10

My One-Sentence SummaryContent ExtractionAnalysisIntegration

My One-Sentence Summary

My Book Summaries.

We’ve been wrong for decades/centuries/millennia about the most important questions in life—such as dating, success, and happiness—and data science is just now starting to provide real answers that are often counter-intuitive.

Content Extraction

All quotes here are from the book itself unless otherwise indicated.

The discipline of data science can be seen as “Moneyball for life.”

An analogy he uses in the book is “Moneyball for Life”, which is the idea of using high quality data analysis to find ways to get advantages in life that others don’t know aboutThis is based on something that happened in Baseball where someone figured out they could buy less expensive players and win way more than they should because the popularity of players did not correspond to their actual effectivenessOne example is the emotional expressiveness of salespeople. It’s obvious that negative emotions probably won’t work, but many think being super emotionally positive might work best. But the data science says a more even keel is most effective

You can make better life decisions. Big Data can help you.

MarriageMarriage might be the most important life decision a person makesPeople have been trying to figure out how to make a good match for thousands of yearsThere are now massive datasets to use in answering this questionCommon attributes looked at include demographics, attractiveness, sexual tastes, interests and hobbies, mental health, values, etc.Analysis of all this data turned out to say that you couldn’t much from it; there weren’t any big factors that predicted romantic successIt’s easy to predict what people will like, but not what will be a good matchThey looked a lot at dating data and found that certain things were true on dating sitesAttractive people got more responsesTall men, but not tall womenRace was unfortunately a major factor in who responded to whoBlack females responded least to Black males of all racesIncome had the biggest response effect for malesAfter income the occupation mattered a lot as wellSexy names mattered a lotThe biggest predictor for success with a given person was the answer to:Were you satisfied with your life before you met Sally?Were you free from depression before you met Sally?Did you have a positive affect before you met Sally?These mattered more than anything about Sally. The effect was four times stronger than all the traits of the partner combined.His summary of the analysis:

In the dating market, people compete ferociously for mates with qualities that do not increase one’s chances of romantic happiness.

REMARKABLE!Most likely best mates: someone satisfied with life, secure in themselves, who constantly tries to better themselvesWOWAfter looking at all the data the best thing they could say was that if you’re happy now you’re more likely to be happy laterParentingTLDR: Parenting matters way less than people thinkGenetics matter most, and way more than parentingWhen you raise biological kids apart, they tend to reach the same levels of successWhen you raise adopted kids together they tend to have different levels of success based on their genesBreastfeeding, TV exposure, and lots of other popsci factors didn’t have much impactIncluding being bilingualBut there is one thing that has a massive impact! NEIGHBORHOOD!A major study looked at siblings who moved as kids to see how much neighborhoods mattered for good outcomesBy looking at kids that moved you could control for things outside of the neighborhoodThe best places for increases in adult income were: Seattle, Minneappolis, Salt Lake City, Reading, and MadisonBut it wasn’t just city; it was neighborhoodThey found three major predictors for neighborhoods doing well (the people raised there do well)Percent of residents who graduated collegePercent of two-parent householdsThe percent of people who return their census formsSo, educated parents who are in a stable family who care about being good citizensRole models also mattered, e.g., seeing female inventors and Black fathers in the neighborhoodSo the adults you expose your kids to really matterAthletic successMany sports come down to mostly genes, but some more than othersEvery inch of height nearly doubles one’s chances of being in the NBASo a man under 6 feet tall has a 1 in 1.2 million chance while someone over 7 feet has a 1/7 chanceThere are also body types for sports. Phelps has freakishly long arms and freakishly short legs, for exampleTwin studies help differentiate this as well, by how many twins are in a given sportHe found that NBA ability was 75% natureHe found that football and baseball were 25% natureHighest were Olympic Track and Field, Olympic Wrestlers, Olympic Rowers, and NBALowest were Baseball, Football, Shooters, Cyclists, Fencers, etcWho’s Rich in America?Rich people own stuffOnly 20% of the top .1% of earners make most of their money from wages; the rest own businessesThe top businesses with the most millionaires:Lessors of real estateActivities related to real estateOther financial investmentsIndependent artists, writers, and performersDurable goods wholesalersGet rich checklist:Do I have a businessHow do I avoid ruthless price competition?How do I avoid getting dominated by a behemoth?Grinding to successA 60-year-old startup founder has a 3x higher chance of creating a valuable business than a 30-year-oldAverage age of successful tech startup founder is 42.3 yearsOutsiders are said to have an advantage from unique perspective, but it’s the insiders that normally winCounter-counterintuitive IdeasThere’s a lot of wisdom that was considered accepted, then got turned on its head, and has again been shown to be trueThe most successful employees actually found the most successful firmsNBA players are most likely to come from middle-class, two-parent backgroundsJokes are most looked for when people are happy, not sadIQ advantage doesn’t level off at a certain pointHacking luckEveryone gets opportunities, and luckThe question is how you manage and maximize that luckThe art world is a great example, where you can be X good at art but you will basically have no chance of being seen unless you’re hustling to get your stuff in galleries and showsThe Mona Lisa become popular due to a fluke, not because it was specialOnce the artist becomes successful, it magnifies the value of all their artPeople like Dylan and Springsteen and Picasso have something in common: they produced a massive amount of contentMore content is more changes to get luckyMore chances to start a snowballYou can use the Picasso dynamic for dating as wellUnattractive men going after attractive women have low odds, but if you simply make lots of attempts you will get responses. Same as PicassoNerd MakeoversPictures of people and how competent they look is a powerful predictor of who wins electionsThe more competent picture person won in 72% of elections by one analysisSame with military careers and faces that appeared more “dominant”Change your life by leaving your couchWe misjudge what makes us happyThere’s a difference between how bad pain is during a prolonged event vs. how we remember itAn app called Mapiness pinged users throughout the day and asked them:What are you doing (different activities)How are you with?HOw do you feel from 1 to 100?They collected this for multiple years and had over 3 million measurements from over 60,000 people for 40 activitiesSex made people happinessTheater/Dance/Concert was nextExhibition/Museum/LibrarySports/Running/ExerciseGardeningSinging/PerformingTalking/Chatting/SocializingBird/NatureWatchingWalking/HikingHunting/FishingDrinkingHobbies/Arts/CraftsMeditation/RelaxationWatching sportsPlaying with kids

Playing with pets

From the bottom

Sick in bedWork/StudyQueueingFinances/OrganizationMeetings/Seminars/ClassesCommutingHousework/ChoresTexting/Social Media

Browsing the Internet

Notably, reading was only 26. Gaming was 22. Relaxing and sleeping was only 29.

Top overrated activities: resting/relaxing/sleeping, gaming, watching TV, eating, browsing the internetTop underrated activities: museum/library, exercise, drinking, gardening, shopping/errandsMisery traps

Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy.”

Working reduces happiness by 5.43 pointsWorking at home gives you 3.59 points backWorking while listening to music gives you 3.94

Working with your friends gives you 6.25

Join the Unsupervised Learning CommunityI read 20+ hours a week and send the best stuff to ~50,000 people every Monday morning.

He guesses that an average person working with their friend would be as happy as relaxing alone

The highest gain in happiness comes from hanging with your romantic partner; then friendsHanging with other family members is like 5 times less than friendsThe Mapiness data says social media might make us unhappySports fans don’t seem to benefit much in happiness because there are about equal wins and lossesI wonder though about the overall social aspect of hanging with friends and watching sports, which wasn’t addressed in the bookDrinkingHe says you might want to drink during transit and downtime between peak events, and then enjoy the peak events soberNatureThe best nature-based happiness comes from spending time marine and costal areas (6), then mountains (3), then woodland and others are around 2Other factors typically impact happiness more than weather, e.g., people are happier hanging with friends in bad weather than alone in good weatherThey’d rather be on a lake in cold weather than in a city with nice weather

Analysis

Most people don’t know the data around the most important decisions in our lifeWe’ve often been told so-called wisdom that’s very wrong about these decisionsSometimes the real answers are counterintuitive, and other times they’re counter-counterintuitiveHappiness perhaps isn’t as complicated as it seems: hanging with friends and walking by lakes do wonders

Integration

I value practical books by how they change my actual behavior.

Here are the tangible behavior updates I’d consider updating routines around:

If you’re a high-strung parent, relax. It’s mostly genetics.If you’re about to raise a kid, find a place with lots of educated, two-parent households with high census response numbers.Try to exposure your kids to lots of high-quality adults that they might want to model afterIf you’re looking for a mate, know that the biggest predictor of happiness with them is how happy and stable they are before they met youAlso know that there’s no magical combination of traits and attributes that will lead to a good or bad matchYour best bet is to do like Picasso and meet lots of paintingsSpending time with your romantic partner, or friends, in nature, is some of the best time you can spendMaybe try to avoid lots of the activities that the data show don’t give much happinessIf you’re going to be doing something fun, maybe drink before and/or after rather than during (and obviously do so responsibly while watching for addiction)Read the whole book.

The book’s final summary on happiness:

Be with your live, on an 80-degree sunny day, overlooking water, having sex.

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Alright, that’s it for this book capture, analysis, and summary. You can find my other summaries here.

Daniel

NotesYou should also read his first book, Everybody Lies, on search engine queries that reveal hidden truths.Related posts:Summary: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k Summary: Algorithms to Live By Recommended Summary: Atlas Shrugged Summary: Human Hacking