Thinking, Fast and Slow

20. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a dense book, and be warned: the type gets even smaller in the appendices, but a fascinating read.

Kahneman breaks down how we come to the decisions we make, for better or worse, in great detail. Roughly speaking, we're rather biased without realizing it. We often favor our automatic intuitions because our more effortful, discerning side is lazy.

As I was reading this book, I told my Dad about parts of it and kept saying, "This is why our brains are broken!"

Our brains work, it's just there's a lot of conflicting stuff going on behind the scenes and our conscious mind is not running the show as much as we would like to believe.

The book is full of real stories and examples from numerous studies that help illustrate fast and slow thinking. The concepts gets applied to all sorts of scenarios: investing, health care, how we remember versus how we experience things, assessment of life satisfaction, and more.

Highly recommended!


A year ago on TTaT: Before and After: How to Design Cool Stuff