Daniel wrote one of my favorite books, Thinking: Fast and Slow (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp...). If you haven't read it, and you're into economics, behavioral psychology, and thinking about thinking then I'd highly recommend it. The first half of the book is especially compelling.
You will be missed! Sad to hear he passed, but glad he was able to go out on his own terms.
Part of the book has been swept up in the replication crisis facing psychology and the social sciences. It was discovered many prominent research findings were difficult or impossible for others to replicate, and thus the original findings were called into question. An analysis[51] of the studies cited in chapter 4, "The Associative Machine", found that their replicability index (R-index)[52] is 14, indicating essentially low to no reliability. Kahneman himself responded to the study in blog comments and acknowledged the chapter's shortcomings: "I placed too much faith in underpowered studies."[53] Others have noted the irony in the fact that Kahneman made a mistake in judgment similar to the ones he studied.[54]
A later analysis[55] made a bolder claim that, despite Kahneman's previous contributions to the field of decision making, most of the book's ideas are based on 'scientific literature with shaky foundations'. A general lack of replication in the empirical studies cited in the book was given as a justification.
I had read so many raves about that book, and heard the author got a Nobel prize for his ideas, so I started reading it.
I just could not digest it. I understood the words but I couldn't make whatever message he was trying to convey... it felt too "dense" for me. Maybe im just stupid, but I could not get past I think the first two chapters.
Since you’re giving an edgy take in a thread discussing the death of a respected author, I’ll be pedantic: you’re wrong about those people not reading a word of Smith or Keynes, since it’s impossible to avoid reading at least one of their common quotations if you have even a passing interest in the field.
I suffered through the book and I just think it is a rather boring writing style.
The poseur part is that it doesn't matter if you know what is in the book or not. That is actually the interesting part of the book to me but also why it is largely an exercise in futility.
I would assume someone who says it is their favorite book just has not read that many non-fiction books.
Don't worry, it doesn't matter, because at best a lot of claims in this books just cannot be replicated, and at worst the book is completely useless because it's based on shitty science - depends on your POV.
I really didn't get on with that one. Felt very much like a book that could have easily been shortened down to an essay and suffered for the additional length.
> His next big book, Noise, is possibly even better.
Commenter above means "Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment" by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein, first published on May 18, 2021.
Writing & style commentary: "next" as used in the comment above will confuse many who don't already know about the book, as in time-related usage "next" typically connotes the future (implying i.e. "the book hasn't been released yet"). Alternative words to "next" with less ambiguity include "later", "subsequent", or "follow-up".
You started and perpetuated a completely unnecessary flamewar here, and of all the offtopic things to do that about, someone's use of the word "next" is particularly superfluous.
An isolated comment of that sort is forgivable, but perpetuating the flamewar and crossing into personal attack, as you did below, is not. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that.
I disagree about "next". I wasn't confused by the original usage. "Next" is more associated with "subsequent" than "upcoming". The "future" component is contextually inferred.
Probably nobody at all got confused by that word choice.
It didn’t take me long to parse out the meaning but the phrasing was confusing.
“The next book he wrote, Noise, ….” Would have been better or “After that book he wrote Noise….”.
I absolutely was confused for a second or two and thought “wait, are we talking about a different person? He isn’t going to have a ‘next’ book unless he had one queued up?”.
Did I need the explanation above? Not really, I’d come to the right conclusion on my own but I can imagine someone who isn’t a native speaker (reader?) might stumble on that more and I enjoyed the confirmation.
You seem quite interested in right versus wrong. I wonder if you will be intellectually honest if/when I reveal errors, mistakes, oversimplifications, and so on?
> I looked up the word in a few different dictionaries and the top entry aligns more with "subsequent" in every one.
Even if you had looked at every dictionary, would you claim such a process resolves ambiguity in general? I hope not.
As you know, there are other entries other than the first in a dictionary. Multiple entries means there are multiple usages: there can be ambiguity. Sometimes usage diminishes or eliminates ambiguity, but not always.
> I looked up the word in a few different dictionaries...
You only took a small sample. How can you offer this as definitive evidence? You can't.
In case you didn't check it or overlooked it, here is the first entry from the Apple Dictionary:
> 1 (of a time or season) coming immediately after the time of writing or speaking: we'll go next year | next week's parade.
Anyhow, my argument does not rely on pointing to a dictionary and saying "I'm right" and "you are wrong". I am saying:
1. Reasonable people see ambiguity (in this specific case and in general)
2. No one person is the arbiter of what is ambiguous for others.
3. Claiming there is a definitive process to resolve ambiguity for everyone is naive.
The sheer irony of your unwarranted pedantic critique of the usage of “next” is that all HN threaded comments, including yours, have a “next” link in their headers which clearly does NOT refer to unwritten future comments.
This is inaccurate. Here is what troll means to many people "a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post." My response clarified without being offensive. I was careful to word it neutrally. I hope than a charitable reader can see this.
To put in the terms of Kahnemann's Thinking Fast and Slow: it is worth considering if maybe the commenter above got triggered first (a System 1 emotional reaction) and then later sought to rationalize (System 2) a "reason" for that: namely "he's a pedantic troll".
> If people can construct a simple and coherent story, they will feel confident regardless of how well grounded it is in reality. - Daniel Kahneman
I'm reasonably sure this is not what happened, judging by my own recollection of when I have been tempted to write similar things, and my discussions with people who have written similar things. However, your story is both simple and coherent.
It's much easier to point out others' alleged irrational thinking, but the main purpose of books like this is to help you better understand your own thinking.
> It's much easier to point out others' alleged irrational thinking, but the main purpose of books like this is to help you better understand your own thinking.
That sounds right. I only can make probabilistic guesses as to what is happening in someone else's brain. By posing a question to someone else, there is some chance that person may ask it of themselves. If not today, then perhaps in future.
Would you please stop perpetuating flamewars and taking HN threads on generic tangents? You've been doing this a ton lately, it's not what this site is for, and the effects your posts have been having on the threads is regrettable.
Also, please stop crossing into name-calling and personal attack, as you did here. jeffwass shouldn't have referred to you as "a troll" but there's no question that your posts have been having trollish effects in the threads, and this is actually what matters (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
Hello. I've taken some time to think about this. I appreciate your explanation, I care about HN, and I'm open to feedback.
> Also, please stop crossing into name-calling and personal attack, as you did here.
I see many of my comments were unkind and unnecessary. I'm sorry, and I will stop. Here are three examples in this thread of where I went wrong, in my own words:
- I was accusatory, mean, and condescending when I wrote "I wonder if you will be intellectually honest if/when I reveal errors, mistakes, oversimplifications, and so on?"
- I did some psychoanalysis (which is unwarranted), such as when I wrote "You are clearly upset and bothered and resorting to rationalization and attacks."
- I accused someone of bad faith when I wrote: "You exaggerated and trivialized. You deflected and moved the goalposts. These are signs you want to win more than discuss in good faith."
I will keep these course corrections in mind.
P.S. I know this isn't a full reply to your comment; I am still processing some parts.
This kind of defensive and dismissive response is so common we should make a name for it! Perhaps we could call it the "It Was Obvious To Me" Fallacy.
Here's one way to commit the fallacy: when someone points out a communication issue, mock them for being "too literal" or "pedantic" rather than acknowledging the ambiguity existed.
> I literally thought some unpublished book. But you shouldn't have doubled down on 'next'. Your first para was enough.
Thanks for the feedback.
To focus on "should" for a second. If I would not have written my second paragraph, I would not have made my main point: I'm trying to get people to pay attention to ambiguity more broadly and tamp down this all-too-common tendency for people to think "the way I see things is obvious and/or definitive" which pervades Hacker News like a plague. Perhaps working with computers too much has damaged our cognitive machinery: human brains are not homogeneous nor deterministic parsers of meaning.
Perhaps the second paragraph got some people thinking a little bit. We are discussing Kahnemann's life's work after all. This is a perfect place to discuss our flawed intellectual machinery and our biases. Kahnemann would be happy if people here improved their self-understanding and communication with each other.
Two things, in the spirit of answering your question and explaining myself.
1. The argument above is sound, but it overstretches my metaphor and sidesteps my point which is: "if there is negligible cost in helping a customer, do it." Stated another way: "if reducing ambiguity helps a customer and has negligible cost, do it." (If a one word change reduces some ambiguity for some people, that's an easy win. Copy-editors do this frequently.)
2. Another angle: broadly speaking, I'm asking the question "What is better?" not just "What is necessary?". The first motivates improvement, no matter where you are. While the latter can sometimes be pragmatic, too often aiming only for 'necessity' justifies the status quo.
You will be missed! Sad to hear he passed, but glad he was able to go out on his own terms.