LESSWRONG
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by lukeprog
1 min read
16

17

 

Veteran Less Wrongers are unlikely to find anything new here, but I've found the examples and exposition herein to be useful when I try to explain rationality concepts to other people in a fun and concise way.

 

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17

Recent popular books on human irrationality to recommend to your friends
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[-]djcb50

Also, Dan Ariely's second book, The Upside of Irrationality is pretty good. For an introduction, I can recommmend Ariely's TED-talks.

Then, for the other books, Í read Sway, which was not bad, but not outstanding either.

I very much liked The Invisible Gorilla though, whose author did a good job of defending everyday-rationality, for example with respect to the 'antivax'-movement.

Lukeprog: of the other books, are there any you specifically recommend?

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[-][anonymous]20

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[-]wedrifid30

p.s. I'm an idiot. Where did the HTML cheat sheet for comments go?

The only 'idiocy' is the 'HTML' assumption. You have the HTML right but the markdown that you need is an asterix on either side (or, equivalently, an underscore on either side). The references is in the 'Help' link on the bottom right of the comment box.

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[-][anonymous]20

.

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[-]wedrifid40

Thanks... but I see no such 'Help' link. I use Chrome. Are there issues with Chrome?

I use Chrome myself but now notice that there is no link appearing now. 30 seconds debugging informs me that now there is no 'Help' when replying directly to a comment on the main page but there is the link when replying via 'Recent comments'. Bug!

For now: the wiki.

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[-][anonymous]00

.

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[-]florian20

I recently read Stuart Sutherland's Irrationality, which also explains a lot of the more common biases and errors in reasoning. Decent book, but -again- probably not a lot of new ideas for less wrongers.

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[-]lukeprog10

Sutherland's book is good but older.

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[-]florian10

Sorry, I somehow missed the "recent" in the title.

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[-]Dr_Manhattan00

I read a number of these but particularly liked Sutherland, don't remember why tho.

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[-]mstevens10

It's maybe not so recent, but I'm a huge fan of Influence, and it's extremely readable.

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[-]Fhyve00

When was this last updated? Has anything new come out since?

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[-]beoShaffer00

I found sway entertaining and the fact that I had already been exposed to the concept of bias probably made me slightly more open to less wrong. At the same time I don't think I got much direct benefit from it rationality wise.

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[-][anonymous]00

Also, Dan Ariely's second book, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NSVE50/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=1278548962&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=006135323X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0SCAH2GVK33FBAQ2VFN3)[The Upside of Irrationality] is pretty good. For an introduction, I can recommmend Ariely's (http://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_ariely.html)[TED-talks].

Then, for the other books, Í read Sway, which was not bad, but not outstanding either.

(http://foo.bar)[foo bar] http://foo.bar [foo bar] (http://foo.bar) (foo bar)[http://foo.bar]

I very much liked The Invisible Gorilla though, whose author did a good job of defending everyday-rationality, for example with respect to the 'antivax'-movement.

Lukeprog: of the other books, are there any you specifically recommend?

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply
[-]alexvermeer00

Awesome, thanks for the list!

I'm part-way through Mistakes Were Made and it's great so far.

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[-]torekp00

Mistakes Were Made is immensely enjoyable.

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