Anybody read this or listen to it on tape? Kind of a different take on the economic impact of actions, and pretty interesting.

He does cover the Chicago Public School system, and Chicago gangs, so I guess it does apply to hope and change.

Freakonomics is a fine read, sort of mental candy, not a life changing read... They look at a lot of super complex systems -- and each time you look at them closely you come up with new insights, but are really not all that much closer to understanding the whole picture. Reminds me of cough, fisheries, cough...

Hadn't heard of it.

Sg

Waiting for one of my co-workers to finish Superfreakonomics. Once I have finished that, I'll give a book report.

I agree, not a life changing read like "Are there God? It's me, Margaret.", but certainly interesting. The abortion issue was one I had heard folks talk about, and the drug dealer part was pretty interesting. Also liked the comparrison between homes with swimming pools, and those with guns.

One of my wife's girlfriends is a WSP trooper who lives on Whidbey. A few parents were concerned about sending their kids over to play because there are guns in the house. I related the story to the trooper, and the statistics, and she found that pretty useful.

The media plays on our fears, and this book exposes that in a non-partisan manner. I think the aim of the books is to make you think differently about what really motivates people.

Read it when it came out. Great read.
Loaned it to someone and never saw it again.

Good read and shows a differant way to look at things.

SG, want my copy?

IR,

Thanks. If I can't find it locally, then yes. I'll let you know.

Sg

I had that same thought when I read it. Hard to know if you know something or think something. Are the correlations valid?

I'm fascinated by the need for people, especially adults, to convince themselves they understand things which they really don't. Kids seem quite comfortable in a world of confusing/not well understood things, but adults are different.

There are a great many complex things -- fisheries/ecosystems, most economics problems, the human body, etc, where we have LOTS of information, but IMHO are far far short of actual understanding... In fact it may be impossible for us *to* understand completely -- the systems are so complex.

So instead we sort of adopt a massively simplified model and think that we've got it. Freakonomics is essentially a book which points out specific pieces of data which are "surprising" because they contradict these simplified models.