4 ms·

The King of Human Error: Michael Lewis on Daniel Kahneman (2011)

25 points by tim_sw 11y ago

elcapitan 11y ago
I was wondering, is Moneyball actually a good read in case you are not American and not really familiar with Baseball? (because I liked some of Michael Lewis' other books). Btw, there's an upcoming Coursera course on Mathletics/Moneyball: https://www.coursera.org/course/mathletics https://www.coursera.org/course/mathletics
- ablation 11y ago
  Yes. Or at least, I found it interesting and engaging despite have almost zero knowlege of baseball. That being said, I'm a huge fan of many other sports, so that no doubt contributed to the enjoyment.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  I would think so. Baseball is only a ... background element in the story, really. Warning: I used to follow baseball closely, so I may need to recuse myself :) IMO, this is one book of a "trilogy" - the Kahneman book, "Moneyball" and "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande. They all came out in roughly the same time and are three different views on this problem.
  - elcapitan 11y ago
    Interesting - how does the Checklist Manifesto relate to that? Because of human error/misperceptions? I only had a quick look at it once.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      There's a lot of book there, but the short riff is : - checklists reduce error - surgical staff may or may not embrace checklists even when they know it reduces error. - they backslide and the error rate comes back. Using "Fast and Slow" as a template, they have a weird and hard to understand balance between their System 1 and System 2 thinking. I've used a basic "checklist" ( eg, the motor has to be at X RPM +/- Y RPM for X seconds before you disengage the clutch ) as the central element in some controls automation, and I've seen people be really confused by that. Machines people do not think in terms of "proofs" even though they embrace chunked operations.
- jeffcoat 11y ago
  I enjoyed it: not a sports fan, knew little of baseball except that the one game pro game I've seen in person was super-boring [to me]. _Moneyball_ isn't about baseball so much as it's about how easy it is for humans to be tricked by our intuitions and habits. Moneyball talks about baseball from the point of view of someone who everyone just assumed would be good -- and wasn't -- as he's trying to make more and more objective assessments of players, and wielding his conclusions against competing, more traditional managers.
- Lazare 11y ago
  Yes, it is. Baseball is just the background; you don't need to like baseball, or know anything about baseball.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
This was a good read, as was "Thinking Fast and Slow". I remember thinking, while watching "The Mentalist[1]" that people who are practiced in that sort of deception that the character Patrick Jane used probably mainly understand how to execute exploits on the interface between System 1 and System 2 thinking. The wheel of fortune story sort of confirms that for me now. [1] That was a pretty good show for network, for a while. It also makes me wonder if people who are mistrustful of System 1 or somehow depend more on System 2 are somehow perceived as obnoxious by people who are not. I would think that a very potent source of friction.

25 points by tim_sw 11y ago

I was wondering, is Moneyball actually a good read in case you are not American and not really familiar with Baseball? (because I liked some of Michael Lewis' other books). Btw, there's an upcoming Coursera course on Mathletics/Moneyball: https://www.coursera.org/course/mathletics https://www.coursera.org/course/mathletics

ablation 11y ago
Yes. Or at least, I found it interesting and engaging despite have almost zero knowlege of baseball. That being said, I'm a huge fan of many other sports, so that no doubt contributed to the enjoyment.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
I would think so. Baseball is only a ... background element in the story, really. Warning: I used to follow baseball closely, so I may need to recuse myself :) IMO, this is one book of a "trilogy" - the Kahneman book, "Moneyball" and "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande. They all came out in roughly the same time and are three different views on this problem.
- elcapitan 11y ago
  Interesting - how does the Checklist Manifesto relate to that? Because of human error/misperceptions? I only had a quick look at it once.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    There's a lot of book there, but the short riff is : - checklists reduce error - surgical staff may or may not embrace checklists even when they know it reduces error. - they backslide and the error rate comes back. Using "Fast and Slow" as a template, they have a weird and hard to understand balance between their System 1 and System 2 thinking. I've used a basic "checklist" ( eg, the motor has to be at X RPM +/- Y RPM for X seconds before you disengage the clutch ) as the central element in some controls automation, and I've seen people be really confused by that. Machines people do not think in terms of "proofs" even though they embrace chunked operations.
jeffcoat 11y ago
I enjoyed it: not a sports fan, knew little of baseball except that the one game pro game I've seen in person was super-boring [to me]. _Moneyball_ isn't about baseball so much as it's about how easy it is for humans to be tricked by our intuitions and habits. Moneyball talks about baseball from the point of view of someone who everyone just assumed would be good -- and wasn't -- as he's trying to make more and more objective assessments of players, and wielding his conclusions against competing, more traditional managers.
Lazare 11y ago
Yes, it is. Baseball is just the background; you don't need to like baseball, or know anything about baseball.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

This was a good read, as was "Thinking Fast and Slow". I remember thinking, while watching "The Mentalist[1]" that people who are practiced in that sort of deception that the character Patrick Jane used probably mainly understand how to execute exploits on the interface between System 1 and System 2 thinking. The wheel of fortune story sort of confirms that for me now. [1] That was a pretty good show for network, for a while. It also makes me wonder if people who are mistrustful of System 1 or somehow depend more on System 2 are somehow perceived as obnoxious by people who are not. I would think that a very potent source of friction.