Friday, May 31, 2019
Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life
Labels:
2005,
audiobooks,
Billy Fitzgerald,
books,
Michael Lewis,
sports
The Undoing Project
Michael Lewis starts The Undoing Project by providing anecdotes of showing the fallacy of human judgement. In sports, picking the right players can have a serious impact on the success of a franchise. However, scouts are prone to use their gut, often missing out on great players. Using data can help avoid some of the human fallacies - but even the data requires some human judgement. The narrative then dives in to the biography of the psychologists.
Both Kahneman and Tversky had a rebellious streak. They didn't fully trust common theories - especially full rationality. People are prone to many biases that allow them to be fooled. When discussing a past event, people often engage in hindsight bias, exaggerating their perceived odds that the event would have occurred. When choosing among multiple items, it is not uncommon for people to prefer A to B, B to C and C to A, seemingly contradicting basic logic. Due to endowment and sunk costs, people are more likely to hold on to something they already have - even though they would never purchase it. The fear of loss is more powerful than the desire for gain. Even if two outcomes are the same, most people would much rather avoid the outcome with loss rather than one with a gain.
The title comes from one of their final works together. What does it take to mentally "undo" something. People experience much more grief if they appear close to gaining something than if they were nowhere near. Missing a winning lottery number by one digit would be traumatic, while missing it by 5 would barely be noticed. However, both cases have the identical outcome of no win. In one, it was just easier to visualize moving over. When undoing events, we often look at the most proximate, easy to visualize causes, even if they are not the most probable.
Knowledge of inbuilt human biases can be used to help improve decision making. However, these same biases can also be used to manipulate people.
Labels:
2016,
Amos Tversky,
audiobooks,
books,
Daniel Kahneman,
Dennis Boutsikaris,
economics,
israel,
Michael Lewis,
psychology
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Humanimal
Labels:
2018,
Adam Rutherford,
anthropology,
audiobooks,
books,
evolution,
humans
Monday, May 20, 2019
I am Malala
Her story shows the intersection of education and traditional cultural and religious beliefs. It is possible to be well educated, and still adhere to a traditional religion. We often see the baby thrown out with the bathwater as educated people appear to abandon religion altogether, leading to cultural wars. Her case shows a more surgical adoption of the religious teachings without the cultural baggage. (The Taliban, however, would often advocate for a "strict" religious interpretation based more on perceived historical practices than actual religious teachings.) It does pose an interesting question. Is the religious doctrine really what is important to people, or is it just used as a means of expressing what is really important: cultural conformity?
The early descriptions of life in Pakistan are also interesting. It is still very tribal. There was an interesting case of a society that would switch lands every 5 years. This would prevent people from worrying about who got the better land. But, it also disincentived taking care of the land and planting fruit trees. Despite being a fairly conservative Muslim country, Pakistan was one of the first countries to have a female leader. However, the country has also had multiple military coups, and people have a strong distrust of the government.
Labels:
2013,
afghanistan,
Archie Panjabi,
audiobooks,
autobiography,
books,
Christina Lamb,
Malala Yousafzai,
pakistan,
taliban
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Chile and Argentina
Labels:
1992,
audiobooks,
books,
history,
Mark Szuchman,
Richard C. Hottelet,
south america
Friday, May 17, 2019
Mrs. Dalloway
Labels:
1925,
2003,
audiobooks,
books,
literature,
Phyllida Law,
Virginia Woolf
Sunday, May 12, 2019
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything
The Element criticizes the modern education system. Schools are modeled after the needs of industrial production. They fail a great number of people that do not match the prototype. We need to encourage writers, dancers and others that just don't meet the system, but have great talents that can help elsewhere in society. He compares our education system to fast food. A McDonald's restaurant follows a precise formula. However, a better system is something like the Michelin guide. Provide general criteria of what we expect, and let the schools do it however they see fit. This produces a higher quality diversity (but is not as predictable.) It does require high quality teachers (while the current system treats teachers as mindless cogs in a system.) The arbitrary age grouping and the hierarchy of educational subjects are also problematic.
It is also helpful for people to find their tribe to be able to realize there are others like them. This is not to be confused with group think, which is confining instead of liberating. Youth often "rebel" against societal norms, but then have a subculture with its own norms.
Finding a good mentor is also extremely valuable in the pursuit of one's passion. There are many challenges in the process that a mentor can help with. There are many things on the road that can be discouraging. One example mentioned was the music teacher that managed to turn half of the Beatles off of music. Luckily, they "recovered" from their music education to find "mentors" that could help teach them what they needed to know.
I do wonder how many people really can find "the element". Doesn't society also need the conformist industrial workers? It seems we need a lot of people that are passionate about being the best department store attendant or restaurant server. What if the passions do not match the needs of society? How can he help people to find what they are passionate about doing, while still providing all the cogs that are needed for the world to function?
Labels:
2008,
audiobooks,
books,
education,
Ken Robinson,
Lou Aronic,
psychology,
self help
On Writing
In between the biographical elements, he gives his advice about writing. The main bits of advice are to read a lot and write a lot. The first draft should be private and finished quickly. Later drafts involve readers. You are writing for an audience, so it is ok to take their feedback. It is often useful to write with a particular reader in mind. For mechanics, he suggests clear and concise. Adverbs are your enemy. The dialog should tell the story. Flowery language may be ok, but excessive ornamentation can get in the way of the story. Revisions should reduce the size of the manuscript and increase the quality. He believes that some writers are awful, and some are great. Most writers are in between. Through work, "competent" writers can become good writers. There is some "luck" in getting the right contacts in publishing industry. However, that luck is mostly overrated. Through work, any good writer can find the right audience and get published.
Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero
People tend to treat big businesses as other "people". They also use anecdotal strategies to attack large companies. They are run by people. People make mistakes. It is human nature to amplify the 1 mistake at the expense of the 1000 good things that were done. Thus, the few bad actors tend to unjustly malign big business. There are problems with big businesses. However, the capitalist system does a good job of weeding out the bad actors. (Protective regulations tend to make things worse, allowing dinosaurs to remain around longer than they should.) Maybe we should give businesses a little more respect.
Labels:
2019,
audiobooks,
books,
business,
politics,
steve edwards,
tyler cowen
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
The book paints a very laudatory picture of his business dealings. He carries out his activities out of principle. He is constantly doing the moral thing and helping to increase the value of companies rather than simply extract money. The book seems to portray him in almost too positive of a light. He is seen as the humble businessman who only monopolized industries to help people out (or to exact revenge on bad actors.) There may be some truth to it, but it does feel like too much of a deification. Perhaps his moral compass is what enabled him to succeed where others failed. He wasn't after the graft. He wanted a big successful company. He started working on steamships. He was able to move boats around and make money where it was needed. He was involved in the pre-Panama-Canal route through Nicaragua. It was faster, but ended up dying due to politics, including "filibusters" who try to claim foreign land for America. He gradually ended up more involved with railroads, taking over the poor performing Harlem line and helping it to succeed, before taking over other New York Lines.
It is interesting to think that when he was alive and building his fortunes, places like Seattle barely even existed. The times also saw a conversion from individualists to large corporation. Boats could be bought and run by an individual. Only through government interference and "gentleman's agreements" were monopolies created. It was very easy for one boat to move to a new location. Horses and carriages were also individualistic. They could go just about anywhere, though not super fast. A good road would help (and thus some toll roads were created). However, these tended to be shorter distance turnpikes. Railroads started in this framework before changing everything. First they were similar to the toll roads. They were small rail lines serving local traffic. They were also quite dangerous. Then the railroads grew larger and larger. They needed to maintain the tracks, the cars and the engines. The expenses necessitated much more capital and large corporations. Long distance traffic involved traveling over a large number of different lines. There were often switches involved. This was costly and time consuming. Consolidation helped freight and passengers move faster. However, there were still plenty of opportunities for graft in the structure. After the experience with railroads, America turned to a more socialist transportation structure. Highways were built on the public dime, and open to everyone with an automobile. Airports were similarly often built with public funds and open to private airplanes. This seemed to appeal the individuality of users. (Anybody could be an operator on the transportation system with a minimum of capital), in spite of the large expense needed for infrastructure and maintenance. Even the railroads have become partially under the pervue of the government.
Vanderbilt would not recognize what has become of his "empire" today. However, he would likely appreciate the significant changes that have occurred in society.
Labels:
2009,
audiobooks,
biography,
books,
business,
Mark Deakins,
railroads,
T.J. Stiles,
transportation,
Vanderbilt
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