Very late to the game on this one, pun intended. For years people have been urging me to read Michael Lewis. Moneyball, The Big Short, Liar’s Poker; these are required reading for American dads my age. I know his appeal extends beyond that demographic, but I’ve resisted nonetheless, leaning more in the Brandon Sanderson direction […]
Prejudice Like Crack: Confirming Confirmation Bias with Michael Lewis
I’ve been enjoying Michael Lewis’s new book, The Undoing Project, which picks up where Moneyball left off: When it comes to sports recruitment, if the numbers are more reliable than human judgment, the next question is why? What’s going on in the human mind that makes even the experts’ top picks hit-or-miss? One answer is the inevitable confirmation bias. The following definition […]
Another Week Ends: Moral Dieting, Self Illusions, Craig Sager’s Suits, Superhero Saints, LIBERATE, Prometheus, Drive-In Church, and MJ’s Bad
1. We’ve given him a rest for a few months, but the break is over! David Brooks wrote an another incisive column for The NY Times this week, “The Moral Diet,” reflecting on Dan Ariely’s new book on dishonesty. Brooks isn’t afraid to cast the research in historical-religious terms; indeed, the shift in Western self-perception, […]
American Abundance, Lizard Cores and the Parable of the Pheasant
Michael Lewis attempts to uncover the why the Californian economy has “cratered,” and why it is the state most at risk of a prolonged crisis, in his Vanity Fair article “California and Bust.” He’s essentially using the golden state as a petri-dish to look at the factors that have led to the current downturn. While […]
