Thinking, Fast and Slow

I started listening to this audiobook on February 2. It's a very dense book! I had to pace myself, often - relisten to certain parts. I've been with it for so long that it was really strange to finish it tonight, but I've got to say - it was worth it.

I want to get one thing out of the way - unless you listen to this book at home, where you can glance at the accompanying pdf any time it is mentioned, this is not a good book to listen to. It requires careful reading, often - stopping at thinking about a graph, or a thought experiment, suggested by the author. Then again, I might actually re-read the book in the future anyway.

I liked how Daniel Kahneman presents his ideas, how he gives us a lot of different stories and examples, makes us engage with the book. There were times he sounded a bit too critical of people for succumbing to biases they weren't aware of, but he also pointed out when he himself made common cognitive mistakes, which gives him a more genuine voice. More often than not, I found the book to be fascinating, making me think a lot about my own biases.

The book does have its flaws, however, and one of them is the fact that some of the studies Kahneman uses to justify his claims fell victim to the replication crisis (when it was discovered that a huge number studies were hard or even impossible to replicate). As Jason Collins states in his review

The first substantive chapter of Thinking, Fast and Slow is on priming, so many of these studies are right up the front. These include the Florida effect, money priming, the idea that making a test harder to read can increase test results, and ego depletion (I touch on each of these in my recent talk at the Sydney Behavioural Economics and Behavioural Science Meetup).

Meu Deus, que livro interminável e TEDIOSO!

Como em alguns livros de negócios que já me aventurei a ler, aqui a fórmula não muda: os conceitos básicos estão todos no capítulo 1 e são exaustivamente repetidos ao longo dos demais capítulos, tornando o livro repetitivo e cansativo ao extremo.

O resumo é o seguinte: o cérebro é dividido em 2 sistemas, um mais imediatista, chamado de Sistema 1; o outro, mais racional, responsável por analisar mais friamente as questões em busca de respostas inegavelmente mais elaboradas e corretas, o Sistema 2. Mas somos seres preguiçosos e tendemos a nos valer de intuições e análises mais superficiais que provém do primeiro sistema, o que nos leva a deduções e conclusões errôneas, quando a recomendação para seres dotados de inteligência como somos seria investir um pouco mais de tempo e usar o segundo sistema.

O conceito é interessantíssimo, e merece 5 estrelas. Mas é impossível dizer que a leitura é atrativa, então a menos que você vá debater com matemáticos ou discutir teoria Bayesiana com sua namorada, passe a leitura e fique com uma classificação honesta de 1 estrela.

Incredibly tough book to get through but one that overflows with insights about the way we think, why do we often make mistakes and how to learn to try and avoid them, if only a little.

This book is a fascinating look at decision making, it convinced me my life is much more driven by chance that I would like to admit. Key themes are to be on the look out for for when and how you might substitute an easy question in place of answering a hard question (without knowing it), how decisions are framed can dramatically alter the answer evening with professionals and experts, and that we're very bad at applying fully rational logic to decisions of probability. I highly recommend the book, it made me aware of many potential flaws we make around decisions - but my only compliant is that it offered few tools to improve how we make decisions.

This is probably the book that I liked the most in a few years. It made me think, and it taught me to think. It helped me identify flaws in my thoughts and decisions, to categorise them, and then approach them... like an Econ.
It also helped me develop empathy - by helping understand why we sometimes do what we do, when we shouldn't be doing it.
If only it were not so hard to read in the earlier bits, I'd love to give this 6 stars out of 5 🙂

This book contains endless knowledge and significant psychological experiments you definitely should read about.

Making decisions is complex, but trying to write a book about it seems even more so. But Kahneman executed it perfectly. His witful writing style got me to finish this (long-ass) book. I had a hard time getting through the third chapter because it was very technical, but the fourth chapter made everything right again. Great book, I recommend it to people who are interested in psychology (how we think and how we make decisions) and behavioural economics.

- PS: The Dutch translation isn't quite good, so I'd recommend the English book for Dutch speaking people.

A fascinating book with a very insightful look into the workings of the mind. I can see myself using the knowledge I've gained in my personal and professional life. It is a long book but don't let that deter you, it is very well written and easy to read.

It seems humans consider much less information than we should when thinking. We make decisions using only trace amounts of information, while being convinced we are being super duper smart. This is a phenomenon that could lead to unhappiness and anxiety if confronted head one. Fortunately, were too dumb to realize this in the first place.

Dense and well thought out.

Valuable reference. All told, could have been shorter.

This was a fun one. He got hte drop on me a few times.

This is a dense book and it took me a few months to get through, mostly due to me forgetting to pick it up, but the material is excellent. I've read a few books on biases and heuristics before and always enjoyed the material, but I felt like this book did a better job of really focusing on the repercussions of them and how they might affect you.

The ending is a bit of a letdown as the author concedes that he's not sure how to fix these problems, but being aware is an excellent start.

I had high expectations since it's so popular, but I thought it read like a watered down statistics book with overly repetitive examples. While there are some good nuggets in here, I only finished about half before skimming the rest with Kindle X-Ray (cool feature!!).

My key takeaways:
- Bayesian statistics should be front of mind when analyzing results and predicting outcomes.
- Don't fall for the mistake of using insufficient and small samples
- I will forget the other 2 takeaways frequently. Statistically speaking. :)

Happy for the takeaways, but the book itself left much to be desired.

Quite interesting (and a bit dismaying). Many of the concepts were familiar, as they have entered mainstream (or at least tech circle) jargon, but I enjoyed the numerous examples that make it hard to deny the flaws in your own thinking! Would've liked a longer section on combating biases. Recommended if you think of yourself as a rational actor, or if you just enjoy thinking about how you think. Caveat: It's mostly pretty accessible, but it does read a bit like a textbook, especially some of the longer sections in the middle.

No wonder this man won a Nobel. The power of deduction he possesses is amazing. Such simple but powerful insights!

Clear definition and exemplifications of two systems, two species and two selves sheds light on various aspects of our decision making and rationality.
I have plan to re read this, few month in the future.

Absolutely fascinating in the first quarter, but unfortunately becomes very repetitive and dull after that. Picks up in the final few chapters again. Would recommend everyone to read the first part.

Just like all the classic Gladwells, this has been quoted and discussed and referred to so much that it's lost its wow factor entirely.

Still though, I believe we're morally obliged to work through our biases, so this is an essential resource / reference point.

Also, I will never forget the feminist bank teller case — everyone fails on this one!

Decent pop psychology book, but more Nate Silver than Malcolm Gladwell.

Short Review: This book is not bad. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had not just read another behavioral economics book right before it. But I did. So there was a lot of overlap, many of the same studies being cited. And frankly Daniel Kahneman is not as interesting of a writer as Dan Ariely. So I got bored. And when I get bored, I read slow. And this was a library book and it is now due. And I am not likely to check it out again soon.

I am fascinated by behavioral economics. And Daniel Kahneman has won a Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in behavioral economics. He is one of the founders of the field. So you may like the book.

Advertisers and politicians know this stuff. We should know it too.

Kahneman documents the almost paradoxical differences between our “automatic” thinking (à la Gladwell's “Blink”) and our “rational” (prefrontal cortex) selves. How the automatic systems frequently trick us, and sometimes in dangerous ways.

Psychology, economics, and statistics all in one brilliantly accessible package.