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Happy holidays! I hope you all get some rest and reflection this holiday season.
-Ben
PS - Maybe subscribe (if you havenāt already) and catch up on some Lying to Ourselves posts?
šThe LTO "Gift" Guideš
Iāve never published a book review or a gift guide, but itās the holidays, and I hope two things are true for you:
You buy yourself, or others, books as gifts and
You have a little extra time to read this time of year
As such, I thought Iād suggest three books I read this year and give you a reason to read them.
Thinking 101
A mentor recommended this book to me, and Iām glad they did. Woo-kyoung Ahnās Thinking 101 is a great introduction to the cognitive biases that shape our lives, perceptions, and world. Ahnās class is one of the most popular at Yale for a reason - not only is she a gifted teacher, but sheās a terrific and relatable storyteller as well.
Read this if: you want the best and most practical introduction you can get to meta-cognition.
Sample passage:
There are at least three key concepts that all of us need to better understand if we are to avoid making blatantly irrational judgments in everyday life. They are: the law of large numbers; regression toward the mean; and Bayesā theorem.
The End of Bias: A Beginning
I avoided this book because itās so dense, so helpful, and so practical that every time I picked it up, I was worried itād take an hour to get through each page. Iād take notes, google the research, etc. ā thatās how jam-packed and well-researched Jessica Nordellās book is.
Read this if: You want a thoroughly researched, honest examination of how bias gets in our way. Also, lots of detailed case studies.
Sample passage - (Nordell is writing about the Supreme Courtās decision that Wal-Mart discriminated against female employees):
In his majority opinion, he [Justice Scalia] maintained that it would be impossible for a company to reach the kind of disparities seen at Walmart without a coordinated master plan of prejudice. "It is quite unbelievable," he wrote, that managers would all discriminate in the same way unless they'd been instructed to do so. "Most managers in any corporationāand surely most managers in a corporation that forbids sex discrimination would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion that produce no actionable disparity at all he wrote. (The emphasis is mine. Reading this opinion, one comes away with the distinct impression that Scalia had never had a job.)
How the Word is Passed
There is a large percentage of the US population that has a hard time acknowledging slavery ever existed. They should read Clint Smithās book How the Work is Passed.Ā
Smithās greatest gift is empathy. He asks simple questions of his readers that lead to some very uncomfortable answers.
Read this if youād like to learn more about our countryās history of slavery and itās consequences.
There are a ton of great passages in this article. I suggest you read them all.
As always, thanks for reading! What are some of the books that changed how you think this year?