Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It is a good read. But I could bear this book because it has matter on “Tracing errors to the design of machinery of Cognition”. Building abstractions and theories is cool but zero talk about who is benefitting from these abstractions does not sit well with me. Thinking, explained in its “nature” and how it affects economy, which is the obvious-unchanging-free-market-“nurture”, is the one-dimensional framework of this book. (The other two are cognition and research methodology)See, I believe, the reason there has been a massive rise in “Nuance” in these times, is the historical lack of it. Deriving theories from large numbers, discounting smaller extremes/margins. Validating existence of a “statistical” stereotype, discarding the context in which it exists that makes it harmless/harmful to its sample population.
And calling “unknown factors” that are correlated to the objective outcome as “Luck” (Don’t you have the experience of whose “luck” works and whose doesn’t?). All of these could’ve found a notable “independent” mention in the authors’ work detailing the two systems but I guess the free-market does not function on free-thinkers. Yes, exclusion of said nuances is machination. Perhaps, solely for profit or loss aversion (who am I to judge;).
But I don’t think it nullifies or diminishes the great cognitive-psychology work performed by Kahneman and their peers, which is definitely worth a reading.