Reflections and Random Thoughts
Jan 18, 2025
Continuing my read of Thinking, Fast and Slow via the Shortform summary, I came across a discussion that essentially debunks the concept of priming. The summary notes that even the author, Daniel Kahneman, admitted to having relied too heavily on results from experiments that lacked sufficient rigor—yet he remains a believer in the concept. I wouldn’t have known this without reading the summary, though I imagine there’s plenty written about it elsewhere. And, I wouldn’t have realized that I had completely bought into the theory of priming myself—not sure if I was introduced to it in this book or at some earlier time.
Insights
Key Take-Aways
System 1 automatically generates suggestions, feelings, and intuitions for System 2. If endorsed by System 2, intuitions turn into beliefs, and impulses turn into voluntary actions.
This summary was provided ShortForm –
Something Actionable
My rating of this book is not based on the quality of its writing or content but rather on how practical and valuable it has been in my life.
What Everyone Else Thinks
I started reading Thinking Fast and Slow in Dec of 2022 – it was recommended by Chip & Dan Heath in their book Decisive – in fact, they called it essential reading.
“… our recommended decision books, but to understand the problems we face in making decisions, essential reading would include Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, mentioned above, and Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational. One of the handful of books that provides advice on making decisions better is Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which was written for “choice architects” in business and government who construct decision systems such as retirement plans or organ-donation policies. It has been used to improve government policies in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries.” (Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Decisive)
It’s also on Nassim Taleb’s list of 25 Best Non-Fiction books of all time – which you can find on Medium here.
While I’ve gotten some value from this book I’m not enjoying the read.
March 26, 2023
So, I dislike reading this book enough that I’ve committed myself to reading it daily for 10 minutes until I’ve finished it. The gist of the five pages I read seems to be that 1. Preference for the status quo is a consequence of loss aversion, and loss aversion is built into the “automatic evaluations” of what he calls system 1, which I believe (I still get confused on this point) is our subconscious thought process.
This is one of the reasons I dislike this book. System 1 and System 2 – why make up new terms for commonly understood terms? System 1 is for the subconscious, and system 2 is for the conscious; what’s the point? It just makes the book hard to understand. I have to keep thinking about what the terms mean rather than what he is trying to say. Very annoying.
March 28, 2023
As usual, I barely understand what I’m reading. This 10 or maybe 15 minutes was a discussion about the perception of fairness and reference points in economics. And a brief discussion of “altruistic punishment.” The tendency of one stranger to punish another for what they perceive to be unfair behavior. i.e., refusing to purchase from a store perceived to be “gouging.”
Seriously hate this book.
April 2, 2023
I’ve started counting the number of times this author tells the reader what they are thinking – seriously can’t get thru a 10 minute reading without another instance of him saying “you just thought…” – this is one of the most unreadable popular books I’ve ever tried to get through.
I leave room for the possibility that I will feel differently about it with a second read, but I doubt I can get through a second read. I downloaded a summary from Ninja Reads – perhaps that will help.
July 1, 2024
This book is referenced in so many of the books I’ve read since – I’m going to make a list of them here.
- Decisive
- Wait – Frank Partnoy
