Yeah Yeah behavioral economics has been around for a couple decades. But it's NEW to me! I listened to The Undoing Project about the friendship between psychologists Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky and there were times when I wished I was reading it because the concepts are something I needed to see and mull over. All the while alarm bells are ringing in my head about how I can apply these concepts to my own job and work. Why does cross-discipline happen so slowly or so happenstance? In any event, these two amazing brilliant people somehow had the good fortune (for us) to meet at Hebrew University in the early 70s/late 60s and change how we understand how people make decisions. Until Kahneman and Tversky, everyone assumed that people are rational creatures who make decisions loosely aligned to statistical probabilities and sound logic. But guess what?! We're not. We're crazy emotional beings who make decisions against logic and failing to account for this was causing economists to miss wildly in predictions. So behavioral economics comes along and takes Kahneman and Tversky's theories and findings and blows apart all the traditional thinking about decision making and now it's a whole field and gah when can I get in on this and where can I find out more? I love the story of two brilliant people creating very lovely mind expanding theories based on the combined strengths of the group. This was well written (of course it was it's Michael Lewis FGS). And while the science could get a little heavy it was still accessible. Loved this book and the way it made my brain want more.
4/5 Stars.
With Dark Matter I did something I haven't done in a while with a book - finished it in four days.
An incredibly fast read, Dark Matter takes a familiar "It's a Wonderful Life" trope and jazzes it up for the modern age.
Jason Dessen, a community college physics professor has always wondered how his life would turn out if he had walked away from his pregnant girlfriend in his 20s and pursued his planned scientific research. As he watches his college roommate receive a prestigious scientific award, his feelings of regret become acute. But Jason is happy with his wife and teenage son.
On the way home from celebrating his friend's award, Jason is abducted and drugged. When he awakens, he finds himself in a world where he is a renowned scientist on the verge of a breakthrough. Missing for 14 months, this Jason Dessen is welcomed back as a triumphant hero. Turns out he's been working on this box that collapses time and space, allowing you to move through multiple realities in which reality forks off whenever a choice is made. Jason knows this is not his world, but since he's not the brilliant scientist who invented the box, he's not quite sure how it works, or how he is supposed to get home to his family.
Jason doesn't spend long in his new world - it's instantly apparent he doesn't belong or want to be there. I don't want to give any more plot points away since mega spoilers folks, but you get the drill. He opens a lot of wrong doors to other worlds in his attempts to find the right ones. Sometimes the descriptions come off as a bit too manufactured, but since the book moves so lightening fast, so do the descriptions.
There's no time to rest in this book. The short declarative sentences keep you moving from one scene to the next. It kept my attention and kept me moving through the whole story. I was thoroughly entertained. It's gonna make a great movie.
4/5 Stars.
