41–50 of 324 posts
I remember years ago Penn Jillette talking about his book "Thinking Fast and Slow". And I was like why is a magician talking about a book written by an economist?? Well, read it and you'll understand why it fits so well with their brand of magic. Dr. Kahneman expresses in words what's going on in your brain while watching someone like them perform.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s worth noting that many of the results in Thinking, Fast and Slow didn’t hold up to replication. It’s still very much worth reading in its own right, but now implicitly comes bundled with a game I like to call “calibrate yourself on the replication crisis”. Playing is simple: every time the book mentions a surprising result, try to guess whether it replicated. Then search online to see if you got it right.
Yeah I wouldn't read too much into any single study. But what I would defend vigorously is System1 / System2 distinction as something so clear/fundamental that you can see it constantly once you understand it.
Like, it was in all my cog psych textbooks more than twenty years ago, with cites back in the 80s (which weren't him).
This is my favourite paper of theirs: http://stats.org.uk/statistical-inference/TverskyKahneman197...
I got into a bunch of trouble with some reviewers of my thesis for referencing this repeatedly.
Fantastic book - I certainly had to read it slowly, not fast. Two things bothered me about it though - firstly, it landed shortly before the reproducibility issues of such research became more widely known. Secondly - towards the end of the book, it espouses the idea that using some methods of psychlogical and behavoural manipulation is at worst a net neutral, especially if there was nothing to see of the manipluatio…
I think you may be objecting to the idea of manipulation here rather than his point. Influence is not necessarily bad, if a dentist notices some poster which causes his patients to floss more shouldn't he keep it up?
Suggesting all manipulation is bad implies we shouldn't do public health education etc if it happens to be effective.
Kahneman was one of those people where I was just waiting to have a problem tough enough that I'd have a good reason to email him with a question, whether or not I'd get a response. I guess no longer.
I'm not one to give an exaggerated eulogy nor rhapsodize about all those "Books with a white cover and a weird picture" -- but I will say I read thinking fast and slow for the first time last year, after decades of resisting, and felt it covered some generally profound ideas that still are relevant as ever and not widely understood. (Though at some point, maybe the 2nd half of the book, drags on and you can skip most…
I find that most nonfiction books follow a common structure: * 1st third of the book: Lays out the basic ideas, gives several examples * 2nd third of the book: More examples that repeat the themes from the 1st part * 3rd third of the book: ??? I usually give up at this point I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book.
Sam Harris jokes, "I have met these people". Daniel replies, "We have met them and we see them in mirror" [0]
[0] 17:25 @ https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/150...
I'm not one to give an exaggerated eulogy nor rhapsodize about all those "Books with a white cover and a weird picture" -- but I will say I read thinking fast and slow for the first time last year, after decades of resisting, and felt it covered some generally profound ideas that still are relevant as ever and not widely understood. (Though at some point, maybe the 2nd half of the book, drags on and you can skip most…
I'm not one to give an exaggerated eulogy nor rhapsodize about all those "Books with a white cover and a weird picture" -- but I will say I read thinking fast and slow for the first time last year, after decades of resisting, and felt it covered some generally profound ideas that still are relevant as ever and not widely understood. (Though at some point, maybe the 2nd half of the book, drags on and you can skip most…
I find that most nonfiction books follow a common structure: * 1st third of the book: Lays out the basic ideas, gives several examples * 2nd third of the book: More examples that repeat the themes from the 1st part * 3rd third of the book: ??? I usually give up at this point I sometimes wish that more books were like "The Mom Test" - just long enough to say what they need, even if that makes for a short book.
most non fiction could be well-summarized as a lengthy blog post