Category Archives: Books

Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson – The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Posted on July 23, 2019 | Comments Off on Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson – The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson – The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Brutal honesty has been a running theme of Hanson’s career, and he has caused some controversy because of it, though it is nearly always overblown. Simler has a similar approach in his research, and the two make a good pair in this book. Mostly a blend of psychology and economics, Simler and Hanson explore why people lie to themselves as well as to others in justifying their actions in a number of spheres, from work to romance to everyday life.

The drawbacks of this are obvious, from the lies themselves to the bad behaviors they can enable and rationalize. But the benefits are an avoidance of cognitive dissonance and negative views of self and others. Total honesty would decimate nearly everyone’s sense of self-worth, as well as peoples’ ability to trust and interact with others.

In that sense, Hanson and Simler have put together a view of human nature that mixes Hobbe’s nasty and brutish view of human nature with a David Hume- or Adam Smith-style emphasis on humanity’s inherent need for social interaction. As Smith put it, people need both to love and be lovely (by which Smith means worthy of being loved). Reconciling the two is a messy business, but Hanson and Simler do it uncomfortably well, backing their arguments with plenty of empirical research.

Comments Off on Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson – The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

Posted in Books, Economics, Philosophy, Uncategorized

Frank Knight – Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit

Posted on July 19, 2019 | Comments Off on Frank Knight – Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit

Frank Knight – Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit

A 1921 classic in economic theory. Knight emphasizes the inadequacy of the perfect competition model. He also offers frequent psychological insights on human behavior that foreshadow today’s behavioral economics movement, though Knight lacks that movement’s ideological commitment to a top-down approach to public policy. Knight, as a student of emergent order processes, is skeptical of top-down direction as an effective way to nudge human behavior.

The book is most famous for Knight’s insights on economic change and a rejection of Walrasian static equilibrium modeling. A lot of the discussion hinges on Knight’s boutique definitions of the terms “risk” and “uncertainty.”

For Knight, risk is something that can be quantified—I know there is a 50 percent chance of such-and-such happening in the economy, and its general impact on my company, for example. Uncertainty cannot be quantified; it is a true mystery. I have invented a brand new product; will it sell?

A world of pure predictability, in which things sit in a Walrasian equilibrium, sounds comfortable. But it would have no progress or positive change. The whole reason people and companies gamble on risks and uncertainties is because they want profits—all three words in Knight’s title are essential. Standing pat won’t put food on the table. Adapting to change, and creating change, are the ways to succeed in the market.

Comments Off on Frank Knight – Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit

Posted in Books, Economics

Inequality in History

Posted on July 18, 2019 | Comments Off on Inequality in History

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, had a personal allowance of one thirteenth of national income, per p. 292 of Robert K. Massie’s Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.

By way of context, this would be equivalent to about $2.7 trillion per year in the modern United States. This annual income is more than the combined lifetime fortunes of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. While that mathematical ratio isn’t particularly interesting, from an ethical standpoint it is crucial that Catherine did not earn this income by creating value for others. She took it away from them in a zero-sum game.

Today’s entrepreneurs gain wealth by creating value for others in exchange–about 50-fold more than their own earnings, by William Nordhaus’ estimate. Rent-seeking remains a significant problem, but fortunately is less severe than in Catherine the Great’s time.

Today’s economy has much room for improvement, but reformers on all sides would benefit from taking stock of how much things have improved over the last few centuries, and why.

Comments Off on Inequality in History

Posted in Books, History, Inequality, International, Uncategorized

Ed Yong – I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Posted on July 18, 2019 | Comments Off on Ed Yong – I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Ed Yong – I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Every human being contains a good pound or two worth of microbes, and we could not live without them. Yong gives a good popular-level account of who these little guys are, what they do, and shares plenty of insights about symbiosis, evolution, and more, while puncturing a few common myths about health and microbes. It’s a good way to see the world a little differently, and hopefully dispels the common notion that all bacteria are bad.

Comments Off on Ed Yong – I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Posted in Books, Science

David Salsburg – The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

Posted on July 17, 2019 | Comments Off on David Salsburg – The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

David Salsburg – The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

A history of the discipline of statistics that I found immensely useful. Rather than memorizing by rote what a p-statistic is or what regression does, this book tells the stories behind them. Salsburg tells the why and the how, rather than explaining the what and being done with it. Salsburg tells the stories of the people who invented modern statistical techniques and concepts, their historical context, why their innovations were needed, what types of problems they were built to solve, and what their techniques’ drawbacks and limitations are, as well as their positives. This book was recommended by Michael Munger, who heads Duke University’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program, and I am glad I listened.

Comments Off on David Salsburg – The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

Posted in Books, Economics, History, Science, Uncategorized

Edward Dolnick – The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

Posted on July 16, 2019 | Comments Off on Edward Dolnick – The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

Edward Dolnick – The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

A look at the 16th-century Scientific Revolution as one of the founding processes of modernity, with a special focus on England and the Royal Society. Pairs well with much of Joel Mokyr’s work on how cultural attitudes affect technological progress. Dolnick’s book is narrower in focus and not as rigorous, but it is more accessible, and provides a good look at the Republic of Letters, though its England-heavy focus doesn’t fully capture the scientific movement’s cross-national and cross-religious character. Dolnick could also have done more on the Scientific Revolution’s greater historical context. Its secular, cosmopolitan, and dynamist outlook built upon earlier Renaissance and Reformation thought, or at least their more liberal strains. At the same time, the Scientific Revolution was a necessary practical predecessor to the more philosophical Enlightenment that flowered in the 18th century in Scotland, France, America, and elsewhere. A useful book, but more of a sketch than a full-fledged investigation of the beginnings of modernity.

Comments Off on Edward Dolnick – The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

Posted in Books, History, Science, Technology

Ron Chernow – The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

Posted on July 12, 2019 | Comments Off on Ron Chernow – The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

Ron Chernow – The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

More of a corporate history than a history of the Morgan family. But this 1990 book, Chernow’s first, also chronicles the evolution of banking and finance from the Industrial Revolution up to about the 1980s. I picked this up due to an interest in antitrust law, competition, and the rise of big business. While this book is ultimately more useful for financial regulation scholars, I still found it useful. And though its characters are not as compelling as Chernow’s Rockellers in Titan, it is an enjoyable read.

Comments Off on Ron Chernow – The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

Posted in Antitrust, Books, Economics, History

Stephen Greenblatt – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Posted on July 11, 2019 | Comments Off on Stephen Greenblatt – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Stephen Greenblatt – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

This book-about-a-book is a colorful history of Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things with the larger purpose of shedding light on the origins of modernity. Lucretius argued for a materialist view of science and philosophy that has far more in common with modern thought than with early Christian doctrine.

Perhaps not coincidentally, On the Nature of Things was nearly lost for nearly a millennium. During this long post-Roman dormant period, Lucretius was occasionally copied by monks and forgotten by the secular public. But a nascent humanist movement led to a growing number of book-hunters interested in finding and reviving old texts.

This movement eventually became the Renaissance, and Lucretius was unknowingly one of its leading intellectual inspirations. As far as afterlives go, Lucretius has had a good one.

Greenblatt writes well, and his accounts of the early humanist bookhunters and their interactions with disinterested monks in their monasteries are particularly vivid, though the contrast between the two camps was probably not quite as dramatic as he portrays it. He also has a good eye for the big picture, and traces the arc of Lucretius’ influence over an impossibly long timeframe. If you ever doubt the power of books, Greenblatt puts up a strong affirmative case.

The Swerve would pair well with Christpher Krebs’ similar but rather darker A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich.

Comments Off on Stephen Greenblatt – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Posted in Books, History, Uncategorized

James S.A. Corey – Tiamat’s Wrath: The Expanse, Book 8

Posted on July 10, 2019 | Comments Off on James S.A. Corey – Tiamat’s Wrath: The Expanse, Book 8

James S.A. Corey – Tiamat’s Wrath: The Expanse, Book 8

This book’s theme is hubris. Though the book’s universe and most of the characters are secular, it has an underlying tone of angering the gods. The totalitarian Laconian regime is continuing to consolidate its rule over the entire 1,300-world ring gate system, and the main characters are continuing a small underground resistance in ways reminiscent of dissenters under Stalin and Hitler. But High Consul Duarte, in his hubris, attempts to wake up the forces that destroyed the civilization that destroyed the protomolecule’s long-gone creators. It goes about as well as one would expect.

There is also a bit of game theory involving the prisoner’s dilemma game. Duarte’s misuse of it results in a spectacular mistake about a third of the way into the book, and at least two facepalms from this reader. The book ends on a rather large cliffhanger, presumably to be resolved in the series-concluding book 9, which will likely come out in 2020.

Comments Off on James S.A. Corey – Tiamat’s Wrath: The Expanse, Book 8

Posted in Books, Literature

Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere: A Novel

Posted on July 9, 2019 | 1 comment

Neil Gaiman – Neverwhere: A Novel

Heavy on the atmosphere. I imagine this book was written with a film adaptation in mind. The plot is a typical ordinary-guy-goes-on-magical-quest story. Most of the book takes place in London Below, an alternate-reality version of London where the protagonist sees strange sights, meets strange people, and to his surprise, finds himself much happier than in his ordinary life. The imagery is dreamlike, with characters and settings somewhat disjointed and not always wholly making sense. Something about it evoked in this reader’s imagination a poorly lit, musty-smelling place, with recently rained-on worn brick buildings framing dirty, potholed streets, in a perpetual night punctuated here and there with dim blue, red, and yellow neon lights. The characters and story are far less memorable than this sort of imagery and feeling Gaiman evokes. A good cinematographer with the right sensibilities could have a field day recreating London Below.

1 Comment

Posted in Books, Literature, Uncategorized