This is a fascinating book about how human beings can potentially get better at predicting the future and the types of people who are probably better at predicting the future. (Not pundits, I’m sure you’re shocked to hear.) I suspect I would have liked it more had I not already been familiar with Tetlock’s work.
Tag: Psychology
The Memory Illusion (2016) by Julia Shaw
This is an extremely accessible and thought-provoking tour through all the ways in which the human memory is not as reliable as we all believe. Though, like many of these books, it does contain a bit of a Greatest Hits of psychological studies and cognitive biases, the focus on memory is usually clear enough to …
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) by Daniel Kahneman
S0, I made the mistake of reading The Enigma or Reason before I read this much more famous book. That’s a mistake because the central argument of The Enigma of Reason is that the dichotomy (or tichotomy) of the brain is an illusion, that it doesn’t fit evolution. Whether it was philosophers or current psychologists, …
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (1987) by Susan Jeffers
This self-help book is only 34 years old, yet it feels like it was written some time earlier, perhaps in the ’60s even. Reading this book, especially after you’ve read more recent self-help books, is like going back in time. It’s incredible how sophisticated self-help and “wellness” has gotten in the interim. (That is both …
Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions (2016) by Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
This is a pretty excellent overview of computer science theories relevant to our daily lives. As someone who took computer science only once, in high school, I didn’t know so much of this and found most of it (accept the game theory chapter) basically entirely new. Every chapter contains new discoveries and new, provocative ideas.
Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business and Life (2019) by Rory Sutherland
Reading this book, I can’t help but wonder “who is this for?” It’s like a Greatest Hits or Best of for evolutionary psychology and behavioural economics but filtered through the mind of someone with no attention span (or who strongly believes his readers don’t have one). It’s utterly bizarre and works only as a very …
Journal of the Pandemic Year: Vaccine!!!!!!
The first people in my region will be vaccinated next week, roughly a year after the virus first started spreading. It’s one of the great achievements in medical history. By summer or fall I should be vaccinated and I am already planning a party to take advantage of our fantastic new backyard which somebody else …
70 Million Americans Voted to Re-Elect a Con Man to the Presidency [Updated]
In August of 2016, before his election to President, I wondered whether or not Donald Trump was the Greatest Con Man of All Time. (The GOAT-Con? The Con-GOAT? The GCMOAT?) A year and a half later, still mystified by his support, I wondered how people continue to trust him, as he burns one after the …
4 Issues You Have To Overlook In Sports Films
We all have our favourite sports movies. But it’s fair to say that there’s a lot that Hollywood ultimately gets wrong about our favourite sports. That’s why documentaries like The Last Dance feel like such a breath of fresh air. It provides an honest perspective of the game. So, let’s run down some of the …
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984, 1994, 2007) by Robert Cialdini
When this book was published in 1984, it was probably one-of-a-kind, and an absolute must-read. A pop psychology treatment on how businesses (and con men) manipulate us into buying things we don’t want, there was probably not much else out there like it. It’s a landmark and it was likely essential reading pre-internet.
The Psychology of the Thought-Leading CEO
The archetypal CEO is a man who combines instinct and intelligence, who knows when to go with his gut and when to listen to the experts. He has strong convictions. He reads a lot, or as much as he can. He keeps in shape. He knows what to do and when. He is not afraid …
Status Rewards for Paying Taxes
As I have written elsewhere, I feel like tax avoidance/evasion is the second biggest problem humanity faces right now. The rich move most of their money out of the societies they earned that money in, and it sits in off-shore bank accounts, benefiting the account holder far more than it benefits the society where it …
The Enigma of Reason (2017) by Hugo Mercier, Dan Sperber
I liked it so much, I bought the book!
How Do People Create Conspiracy Theories?
How do people come up with conspiracy theories? I was a former koolaid drinker, but I discovered a preexisting conspiracy theory (Oswald was a patsy) and drank it up. I never created my own, I just read about one that was already extremely popular. But someone had to be the first person to suggest that …
Conspiracyland (2019)
This is a fascinating and infuriating, brief (6 episode) podcast about the conspiracy theories that spiraled out after the murder of Seth Rich in Washington, DC in 2016. If you can handle it, it’s well worth your time.
Intelligence: All That Matters (2015, Stuart Ritchie)
I am of a generation where skepticism over IQ was widespread. I don’t know where it comes from exactly but I know that it is everywhere. Essentially I was raised with the idea that IQ had been “debunked”. The reason I read this book is because I got into an argument with someone and afterwards …
Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side (2019) by Julia Shaw
So I listened to the audio book, which I think made a pretty big impression on me. I think I might have enjoyed the book more had I read it instead. This is a wide-ranging examination of the nature of “evil” from the perspective of psychology and, occasionally, philosophy. (Nietzsche gets a lot of references.) …
Rule Makers, Rule Breakers (2018) by Michelle Gelfand
This is a fascinating book about how cultural norms impact our lives. You might not get that from the title, but I’d say ignore the title and look at the subtitle. (The title, to me, sounds like it’s some kind of business success book or something.)
The Misinformation Age (2018, Cailin O’Connor, James Owen Weatherall)
This is a compelling examination of mathematical models about the way beliefs spread through human social networks.
Remembrance
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we remember people lately, particularly since John McCain died. To read the American media’s coverage of McCain’s death, he was some sort of saint. Yet, in reality, he was human, just like the rest of us. Worse, he was a Republican, and a successful Republican at that; a …
Candyman (2010, Costa Botes)
This is a messy, poorly made documentary about a really interesting story and a fascinating person, both of which deserve a competent film to tell their story.
What if One of Your Core Beliefs is Based Upon a Lie?
Like any self-reflective adult, I like to believe that the beliefs I hold are based upon facts, not other beliefs. I spent a long time between the ages of 18 and 25 working to come to what I thought were defensible beliefs, beliefs based upon objective reality (as much as possible), rather than what I …
A More Beautiful Question (2014) by Warren Berger
This is an interesting and inspiring book that is also flawed in such a way that I wonder how much of it is actually valuable. So that’s a problem.
Infinity Mirrors by Yayoi Kusama
I do not normally write about art. I go to art exhibits at least a few times a year (more when I travel) but I never write about them. One reason is that I have long felt I do not have the education to find the language to discuss paintings or art installations, at least …
Predictably Irrational (2008) by Dan Ariely
This is a fascinating and sometimes amusing exploration of behavioural economics through descriptions of experiments that the author has conducted, and some he’s read about. It’s a pretty good introduction to behaviourial economics and social psychology. A number of these experiments were unfamiliar to me and some of them are really illuminating. I’m particularly interested …
How Does Donald Trump Have Friends?
This morning, I read an excerpt from the new book about Donald Trump’s first year in office as President of the United States of America. It was a fascinating read, confirming many things I believed and giving me much more of an in depth portrait into the madness that is the White House currently. But …
2017 was The Worst
2016 was The Worst Year. But somehow, 2017 was so much worse.
Fooled by Randomness (2001) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This is an important, valuable book. It’s basically a must-read. It would go on my list of essential non-fiction only I have a few reservations (all of them stylistic). Still, very, very important stuff.
Jung: A Very Short Introduction (1994) by Anthony Stevens
When I was a teenager, some adult told me about Jung’s collective unconscious. I didn’t read a thing about it, but took whatever they told me and created my own elaborate theory about our thoughts influencing others (which has nothing to do with Jung). Ultimately, that theory was a responsible for a lot of mental …
The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) by Steven Pinker
If you watch the news today, you will be told the world is awful. Even if, like me, you do not have cable, you can still get enough news of the awfulness of the world from your antenna or the internet. The news is an endless barrage of controversy and tragedy; controversy over the supposedly …