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John's Reviews > Thinking, Fast and Slow
Thinking, Fast and Slow
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An unrelentingly tedious book that can be summed up as follows. We are irrationally prone to jump to conclusions based on rule-of-thumb shortcuts to actual reasoning, and in reliance on bad evidence, even though we have the capacity to think our way to better conclusions. But we're lazy, so we don't. We don't understand statistics, and if we did, we'd be more cautious in our judgments, and less prone to think highly of our own skill at judging probabilities and outcomes. Life not only is uncertain, we cannot understand it systemically, and luck has just as much to do with what happens to us -- maybe even more -- than we care to admit. When in doubt, rely on an algorithm, because it's more accurate than your best guess or some expert's opinion. Above all, determine the baseline before you come to any decisions.
If you like endless -- and I mean endless -- algebraic word problems and circuitous anecdotes about everything from the author's dead friend Amos to his stint with the Israeli Air Defense Force, if you like slow-paced, rambling explanations that rarely summarize a conclusion, if your idea of a hot date is to talk Bayesian theory with a clinical psychologist or an economist, then this book is for you, who are likely a highly specialized academically-inclined person. Perhaps you are even a blast at parties, I don't know.
But if you're like me and you prefer authors to cut to the chase, make their point, and then leave you with a whopping big appendix if you're interested in the regression analysis of how many freshmen would watch a guy choke to death because they think someone else will come to the rescue, then this book is not for you.
If you want to take the Reader's Digest pass through the book, then Chapter 1 and Section 3 are probably the most accessible and can be read in less than an hour, and still leave you with a fair understanding of the author's thesis.
If you like endless -- and I mean endless -- algebraic word problems and circuitous anecdotes about everything from the author's dead friend Amos to his stint with the Israeli Air Defense Force, if you like slow-paced, rambling explanations that rarely summarize a conclusion, if your idea of a hot date is to talk Bayesian theory with a clinical psychologist or an economist, then this book is for you, who are likely a highly specialized academically-inclined person. Perhaps you are even a blast at parties, I don't know.
But if you're like me and you prefer authors to cut to the chase, make their point, and then leave you with a whopping big appendix if you're interested in the regression analysis of how many freshmen would watch a guy choke to death because they think someone else will come to the rescue, then this book is not for you.
If you want to take the Reader's Digest pass through the book, then Chapter 1 and Section 3 are probably the most accessible and can be read in less than an hour, and still leave you with a fair understanding of the author's thesis.
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Reading Progress
January 19, 2012
–
Started Reading
January 19, 2012
– Shelved
January 20, 2012
– Shelved as:
economics
January 20, 2012
– Shelved as:
psychology
January 20, 2012
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-50 of 143 (143 new)
The book feels so repetitive so far! I'm really disappointed. I was going to slog through the rest of it but after reading this, I'm not so sure.
I could write a number of rude things.Things that appear simple (to you) but are routinely not done cannot be solved / explained by a short cut to 'the chase'. You need the relentless explanation so you can find one example that works for your experience, bias, worldview and culture to escape from the disasters inherent in the way our minds work
Richard wrote: "I could write a number of rude things.Things that appear simple (to you) but are routinely not done cannot be solved / explained by a short cut to 'the chase'. You need the relentless explanatio..."
Thank you Richard for not writing rude things.
With all due respect to you, I will be the judge of what I need, and I will let you be the judge of what you need.
I said what I needed from the book, and the book didn't give me that. If the book gives you something that you need, then I think that's the mark of a good book (for you).
Cheers,
John
Not all people have the discipline or the desire to control their System 2 for prolonged periods. Understandable.
The point that the book makes is not that we are lazy - this is the way we are 'programmed' to work. This is why we do stupid things, and is actually the one of the root causes of why the world is such a mess (someone attacks you, you attack back, escalating and escalating - all system 1-system 2 might ask why? And realise that just bombing your enemy back into Stone Age is not ultimately going to work, and many other examples - including positives like why buying and selling insurance is win win and ethical on both sides). So I think it is worth a little effort and application to make sure we understand how our brain work - before we accidentally destroy ourselves and or the world and my children have no future. This is serious work which has been written to explain - not a summer holiday light read for the beach
Hopefully, looking back in the 22nd century this will be seen as when the tide started turning and we "grew up"
Nice well said I couldn't agree more I definitely think it's important that we understand how our brain works also
I could not agree more with your comment... I found it boring by the time I was on page 5.... And took a break by page 60, never to pick it up again. I got it as a gift from one of my colleagues and thought the tile to be very intriguing. But after reading a few pages, the look, feel, and tone of the book were just SO BORING....... I thought why would anyone want to read this book? Maybe I'm not enough of an intellectual bore to actually enjoy this. Pity for me... I'm sure there is some interesting content, should you be able to ignore the mathematical, boring monotone tone to the book. I'll maybe pick it up again one day when I'm bored and have ran out of books to read (never). As for now, it's on my pile of books to read in the future (which is the pile of books I may probably never pick up again ...) lets wait and see.
For an academic, I thought the author wrote in reasonably, jargon free prose. I think the problem with some readers lies in their inability to concentrate and think, not in the author.
So my father read ths and said that the author is just summarizing what we already know. Your review now strengths my resolve to chuck this book and pick up another. Any recommendations ?
Looking at your book reviews- and seeing that you read books about rune magic and chaos magic its clear you were hoping for something different from what the book offers. I have the suspicion you wished for a book to elucidate and clarify how to think better, something to provide an aha moment to change your life and unlock the mysteries of the brain- and in turn help you better utilize your rune magical thinking. Alas, you were disabused of this notion when he decided to use logic instead of withcraft. A pity.
Holy shit, John. Is that all you took away from this book? If so, I sincerely feel sorry for you. This book offers a long array of ways to make your thinking more effective. Looks like the Dr. tried to administer medicine to the dead.
But if you're like me and you prefer authors to cut to the chase, make their pointThe point Dr Khaneman is trying to make is that we should probably slow down and actually think instead of "cutting to the chase." Obviously, this was lost on you.
All of you should go for the Cliff's notes version. But if you care about the way the studies were conducted over a long and productive career, and want to know how the results have had an impact on society, just slow down a little and let your Lazy System 2 have a go.
hahaha! You hit the nail on the head with this review!
I payed 16$ plus tax for this, and I'll be damned if I don't read this through.
Exactly right! What YOU see is all there is.
Thank you for this review. I was wondering why the book was at about 500 pages long when the premise seems pretty straightforward. This is a common trend today though: writing 10 pages for something that can be written in a paragraph. Or in this case, writing 500 pages on a topic which could be explained in a single chapter. Publishers have to make money, though. This is why I'm starting to read shorter books and short stories to avoid needless detail and filler information.
i didn't read the book yet, but everytime someone told me that a certain good book is too long, i find out that it's because his/her failure to understand that the author sometimes focuses on his points and illustrates them by many examples from different sides to transfer the whole idea to the reader, i'll read the book and know it that so or not
While I have a higher tolerance for meticulous descriptions of science experiments, I completely agree with your opinion. I may rate this book higher because I like what I learn from it.I think that many popular science books nowadays are being made overly long on purpose, as a marketing ploy. Editors feel that the crowds are more impressed by a larger tome and the market confirms it.
This is a nice sample of what's in the book. I have read the book three times. It's chock full of practical wisdom based on sophisticated research. 
I believe the book have many great ideas, but the author doesn't know how to set it up in an entertaining way.Its the most boring book Ive ever bought in my life.
Th last two books i read were: The evolutionary mind and Antifragile.
I believe the book have many great ideas, but the author doesn't know how to set it up in an entertaining way.Its the most boring book Ive ever bought in my life.
Th last two books i read were: The evolutionary mind and Antifragile.
I believe the book have many great ideas, but the author doesn't know how to set it up in an entertaining way.Its the most boring book Ive ever bought in my life.
Th last two books i read were: The evolutionary mind and Antifragile.
Quite a good laugh from this review as I finish reading TF&S. Thanks!
I may still read this - eventually. Maybe I'll find it fascinating and thought provoking. If not, I have been forewarned. Thanks for the amusing and informative review!
Maybe it should have been called 'Reading quick and reading slow'
Your review sums up my opinion entirely. While I agree there is very good and useful information, the author is not able to convey it in a book format. If Malcolm Gladwell could have taken the author's ideas and written the book, there probably would not be enough stars. The good stuff is there but the writing didn't reflect it.
An unrelentingly tedious comment that can be summed up as follows: I don't like the style of this book and prefer to read bulletpoint lists of facts instead of a deeper understanding of how and why those conclusions were reached. My crappy summary of the book: we don't think good.
"If you want to take the Reader's Digest pass through the book, then Chapter 1 and Section 3 are probably the most accessible and can be read in less than an hour." Waw. That's 134 pages of not so easy text in 60 minutes, or 2.2 pages a minute. No wonder you have missed a thing or two.
Good points, hella repetitive 😪
Please don't rate this book 1 star because you didn't understand it's implications or liked how the scientific process was used to make these discoveries about the human brain. Your review is terrible and will put people off the book just because you don't seem to grasp revelations in psychology with context doesn't mean other people won't. Also, Would you rather the author omit the various examples that demonstrate his point? The examples and puzzles he provides are crucial in showing the reader what he's talking about in a clear way. Otherwise the reader will be left with a vague statement, with only few ways to test it for themselves.
I really liked the book, but this review is on point 😂
I was not sure if I wanted to read this book and after reading your review I am sure I wan to. I love the books that back up their claims with actual research. There are so many of quick fix books out there that just spew a list of 7,8,9,10 "rules" for us to follow and everything will be just fine because their aunt did that and lived for 106 years. I am tired of starting and leaving such books.
Same here! I mean I liked the points he made (you summed it up very well), but it was to long too many similar and unnecessary examples, just as you described!
I believe you only said you knew is because it logically makes sense. However, it is difficult to conceptualise them and apply them in real life. This book not only aims to provide knowledge, but also provoke thought of these different psychological findings into various aspects of our lives. Reading through this book exactly offers this privilege.
Although I really enjoyed the book this review is SO-FREAKING-ON-POINT!And yeah... That's pretty much my idea of a hot date 😂 and I'm a blast a parties.
This "review" is nothing more than a shortsighted personal opinion about the entire life work of a rigorous academic. Not everything worth learning should be boiled down into three key takeaways that you can digest in an afternoon commute.
I wonder if the split opinions on this book align with the thinking styles described in the book. I don’t wonder enough to suffer through what the reviewer portrays.
'John the Revelator'...
I loved the book 4 stars but this review gets 5! Totally on point.
This book is about how a lot of human thinking and decision making is flawed and misleads us...no wonder people are critical of it
You wrote the review using your System 1 brain. Put your System 2 on practice as well, life is usually better this way!
These tone of some of these comments is just fascinating, my feelings on the book aside. (I have not finished it yet but I'm entering the field of social psychology that Dr. Kahneman more or less founded, along with his collaborator/partner Dr. Tversky, so I'm not surprised to find that I'm absolutely loving it.) Your review's first paragraph shows that you understood the major takeaways, so people accusing you of misunderstanding the book's ideas are clearly off base. And if you're not at all emotionally or professionally invested in the field of decision science, then why would you be versed in its history? Because that's really why these ideas are so important--even though they seem obvious to us today (i.e., people are irrational and bad at statistics, etc.), they are relatively new, and were in fact first proposed and gathered in a meaningful way by Drs. Kahneman and Tversky. Before their work, the prevailing idea was that people are essentially rational and logical, and errors in judgment were due to mistakes in our logic. Then they proposed that we are in fact systematically prone to mistakes, and likely to be influenced by all sorts of factors that are not logical at all. This turned the academic world of economics upside down, and is why Dr. Kahneman received social psych's only Nobel Prize. (Tversky would have shared it, if he hadn't died in the 90s).
But if you're just in it for the information and concepts... there are way more accessible and much shorter avenues to it.
Now that I think about it for another minute, it's probably your dismissive tone that is riling people up. Your line about Kahneman's "dead friend Amos" did rub me the wrong way, I'll admit. But for my part, reading a a tedious book is draining, and complaining about it afterward always cheers me up. So, for whatever it's worth... I get it.
I don't agree with your rating, but your summary was spot on.
Well I guess if we were all Econs like you this complaint would be valid. However, as I'm sure you know, Humans are suckers for stories. I don't know about you but a list of heuristics would certainly strike me as a much less interesting read.
You didn't mention much about part 5, which the intro says is about the conflict between the remembering self and the experiencing self. I haven't gotten there yet, hope it is worth a skim.