The World's Best Book Summaries
What is preferential attachment? Who benefits from preferential attachment? Who loses? Preferential attachment is the innate human tendency to flock to past successes, regardless of whether those successes are the product of merit or chance. Preferential attachment is a form of cumulative advantage. We’ll cover examples of preferential attachment, look at how it increases inequality in society, and discover when it’s wrong.
What is epistemic arrogance? Who’s guilty of epistemic arrogance, and how does thinking we know what we actually don’t get us into trouble? Epistemic arrogance is the tendency to overestimate our ability to predict when we’re overconfident in our knowledge. We’re all guilty of epistemic arrogance, but it hits “experts” the hardest. We’ll cover how epistemic arrogance leads to bad predictions and why more information isn’t always better.
What was Milgram’s “small-world experiment”? How did it research the way people are connected with one another? What does it say about our world? The small-world experiment was a study in the 1960s by psychologist Stanely Milgram. During the experiment, he sent chain letters and counted how many letters were sent before they reached their final destination. We’ll cover Milgram’s small-world experiment and look at how it spawned the six degrees of separation theory.
Accurate predictions are hard to make. The world is full of uncertainty. How do you make plans when you can’t know the future? How do you deal with uncertainty? We’ll cover the difficulties with making accurate predictions and how to deal with uncertainty in an unpredictable world.
Why do you make bad predictions? Is there any way to make better predictions? According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Black Swan, some of the most world-altering events are unpredictable. Although many day-to-day events can be predicted, humans are bad at making accurate predictions about many major events. We’ll look at 12 fallacies and cognitive biases that encourage your bad predictions.
What is silent evidence? How does ignoring it give us an inaccurate picture of the world? Silent evidence is the “flipside” to any story we’re told. It’s the tendency to forget that there are details of a situation that we don’t have access to. We’ll cover how the distortion of silent evidence leads to cognitive biases and why these distortions leave us surprised by and unprepared for the world’s randomness.
What is rational choice theory? What is a good rational choice theory example? Rational choice theory is an economic theory that holds that, when faced with an economic decision, individuals will choose the option that gives them the greatest economic benefit. There are many critics of rational choice theory–after all, individuals aren’t always rational. We’ll cover a rational choice theory example and explore the above rational choice theory definition further.
No one can predict the future. But why? Why are some situations and events more predictable than others? We’ll cover the nature of predictability according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb and look at why it is that no one can predict the future.
What is the black swan fallacy? How is it most famous today? The black swan fallacy is the tendency of people to ignore evidence that contradicts their beliefs and assumptions. This fallacy can also refer to the tendency to believe that things they’ve never witnessed don’t exist. We’ll cover the roots of the black swan fallacy and look at modern-day, black-swan-fallacy examples.
What is stage 3 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey? What is the significance of supernatural aid? Supernatural aid is the stage of a hero’s journey during which the hero meets an otherworldly helper. This supernatural aid is a personification of the hero’s destiny. Supernatural aid is stage 3 of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces. We’ll cover what forms this supernatural aid may take and look at an example of a hero encountering supernatural aid.