Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony

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The back cover doesn't really hint that this book is a business book, targeted more towards upper management and CEOs than the average me trying to learn to think better. So if you're hoping this book will explain the concept of noise and how you can avoid it to make better judgements in your personal life, I've just saved you 13-ish hours because it isn't. 

Here is a brief illustration of how it feels to read this book. 

  • So what is noise?
    • Bad. Noise interfering with business decisions can cost your company a lot of money.
  • But what is it?
    • Noise is separate from bias, but it isn't as overtly obvious, and it can have a huge impact on business processes.
  • Can you give me a definition of "noise"?
    • Most people don't even realize noise exists, let alone how it interferes with their judgments!
  • Just tell me what noise is!
    • Oh, this book isn't about that. This book just has a bunch of numbers about how bad noise is for your business's bottom line.
 
I read 16% of this book, which is about 62 pages, and I'm still not really sure what noise is. I am sure, though, that the authors think it's really bad for businesses and they have a LOT of studies and numbers and p-values and other things that I don't understand but make me wish I had taken a statistics class in college. 

Imagine, for a moment, you're at a dinner party and you are seated next to an elderly professor. To be polite, you ask him what he's currently researching. Then, obviously very pleased with himself, the professor begins telling you about his work in excruciating detail, everything from "n=" to "et al," and proceeds to follow you around the rest of the night explaining this research with the air of being proud of himself for discovering this great amazing thing and imparting the wisdom on you even though there's so many words flying at you you're not even sure what language it's in anymore. That's what it feels like to read this book.
 
I'm pretty sure the authors were trying to say something. Perhaps they wanted to make a point, or even explain an idea. But there were just so many words involved that whatever they were trying to say, if they were trying to say anything at all, got lost as my eyes glazed over and I let the avalanche of words pour over me as I contemplated why this book had to be longer than a few pages. I'm not entirely sure if this book is targeted towards social scientists or CEOs, but I know it's definitely not targed towards me.
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