Review: Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models

Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

May 7, 2022 – 

 20.0% "I mean, this started out so promising. Based on Charlie Munger's "Mental Models", I was ready to gain tons of knowledge. But so far, it seems to be regurgitating a bunch of Behavioral economics, game theory, etc., which you can find in plenty of other books. Covered so far: Being antifragile, Confirmation bias, recency bias, freeriders, framing effect, etc. I'm waiting for the obligatory Ultimatum game and I'm done."

May 8, 2022 – 

 50.0% "aaand the Pareto principle. Ultimatum game must be coming!

Ok, I'm thinking Behavioral econ is very important for business. So how about all entrepreneurs/biz owners be given a crash course in behavioral econ?
Or maybe hire a bunch of behavioral economists to run a business.

Actually, pit those 2 groups against each other, and see which comes out on top. The conclusions to that would probably warrant another book."Aaaand, we got to the Ultimatum game. This is a DNF for me. I might get back to it later. 

Ok, to be fair they actually covered some scientific points (critical mass, homeostasis, inertia). Maybe the moral is that people should study different disciplines and apply them to various industries/specializations in order to bring fresh points of view (and fresh mental models)

Still, as with many of these, this book was a compendium of other books. Books mentioned so far (that I remember):

Thinking fast and slow

Antifragile

Freakonomics

The wisdom of crowds

Superforecasters

Influence (by Cialdini)

Predictably irrational (Dan Ariely)

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Review: How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness

How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness by Russ Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is basically an excellent book review of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" by Adam Smith, which is probably better than just reading the book itself, since Roberts obviously understands a great deal about Smith and about what he meant by certain arcane expressions, etc. In fact, maybe it's more like taking a seminar on the book. Regardless, the outcome is a sort of self-help book, not about economics, but more about what today we might call Behavioral economics. 

Most of the points being made aren't necessarily new, but in fact it is sometimes surprising how certain concepts that get labeled "new age" were in vogue in the late 1700s. 

An interesting parallel Roberts noted was how since the War on drugs started in the 1980s, there has actually been a bigger decrease in smokers than in drug users. Sometimes you can't legislate things out of existence. 

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Review: Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value

Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value by William Poundstone
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

It turns out that spending a couple of years studying behavioral econ, behavioral finance, and behavioral (fill in the blank), and reading Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely and the like, pretty much covers most of what this book seems to offer. 

I'm only 50 pages in, but that's my impression, and skipping ahead I see the obligatory Ultimatum game, prospect theory, and other points. I might come back to it if I want a rehash. 

I expected this book to be more business-related, so this might have been my fault. 

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Review: The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life

The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life by Avinash K. Dixit
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this. A very smart book.

It contains the obligatory decision tree, ultimatum game, prisoner's dilemma and nash equilibrium. But it also has much more. Even concepts like how stores offering to "match any competitor's price" could be a method of enforcing collusion pricing.

Certain terms, like the Minimax theory, Winner's curse, and discussion on the BATNA brought me back to grad school. The method of guessing the correct multiple choice answer without even knowing the question was excellent

I'm not sure how useful some of the multi-player theories are in practice, unless you're dealing with professionals. Let's face it, most people don't think through these decisions all that much, so they might decide to act "irrationally", which would mean your optimal decision isn't all that optimal (people might exchange their number for another, despite the math showing it's always a bad decision, etc.).

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