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Showing posts from October, 2017

Chance Disguised as Skill

I just finished the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  Being in the general cultural bubble (of tech culture, skeptical, philosophical, ethical podcasts, blogs, etc.) that reference the material in this book constantly, I figured I better go back and read it even though I feel like I've absorbed most of the ideas by osmosis already.  Kinda like the way I made myself watch Blade Runner for the first time a couple years ago; and yeah, it's impact on me was almost negligible because its ideas have be retread, expanded upon, and improved over the years.  I was afraid that would be the case with this book, and most of it was indeed kind of a slog over the various cognitive biases I've heard about a hundred times now.  (Kahneman and his research partner were the ones who discovered and named many of them.)  Also, I should note, this is an extra hard book to read when you’re aware of the replication crisis that is apparently extra bad in the social sciences, and ho