Superfreakonomics

Intro


This was a very good introduction to the second book, as well as a continued ending from the first. The paragraph in the intro explaining the importance of the, as I formally considered somewhat trivial, statistics and norms of situations helped me see the importance in learning these things. As it says in the book, it's valuable to know the baseline of how things usually occur to understand why unusual things happen. So far so good on the second book.

How Is a Street Prostitute Like A Department-Store Santa

I thought the term "pimpact" was incredibly clever and should be trademarked by the authors of this book if it isn't already. Just wanted to make sure I wrote about that because it really made the chapter special for me. I also thought this topic had to have been a business decision by the authors. I'm sure they wanted to start their first book off with the most shocking and motuh-dropping topic possible, excluding maybe religion. I'm guessing that the most responded to segment of their first book was the crack dealers chapter, which I honestly thought was the best chapter as well. I obviously have many problems with the idea of prostitution, but that's not what the chapter is about. It's about the type of incentives out there that would make a woman decide to pursue prostitution. So I liked this chapter because of the frequent humor and insight into a world I have no real information about, aside from movie depictions that are most likely false.

Well here is the first of the five pictures on this particular blog.

While reading this chapter, right about when it measured the pimpact versus rimpact (rimpact just wasn't nearly as clever as pimpact, disappointing), I thought of the Spike TV show called Manswers. If you haven't seen the show, the idea is to answer questions dudes want to know the answers to (How many light beers would you have to drink to get drunk?). I could imagine this being one of the Manswers' questions, "Which has more power, a pimp or a real estate agent?"

Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance?

This chapter starts out with the accumulative advantage of age in sports, which we already went over in sociology, so this section wasn't too thrilling. I thought that this topic was forced into this chapter. The authors do admit that they intended to have a separate chapter for the topic, but was seen as unneeded due to other books that cover the topic in much more detail (Outliers). They also do a poor job of transitioning from topic to topic in this particular chapter. One minute I was reading about being born in January to gain advantage in sports, the next I'm reading about terrorism. The only transitional sentence written was "Some families produce baseball players. Others produce terrorists." I'm not a learned English professor, but I do believe smooth transition is desired when writing. This chapter was also a little dull because the hospital statistics didn't intrigue me as much. I believe a factor causing me to be bored by the topic of "who is the best doctor?" is I know doctors have a very minuscule role in saving people's lives. (I know this week's theme isn't Christian application, but I guess I'm an overachiever) God is the one who decides whether someone is going to live or die. That's not to say that doctors are useless and we should only pray for our health (like Scientologists, Tom Cruise{above}), but we shouldn't put our full faith in humans, who are sinful as well.

Unbelievable Stories About Apathy And Altruism

This chapter begins with the story I previously read about in The Social Animal, 38 witnesses who did nothing to help. The first half of the chapter was leading toward the conclusion that humans are innately altruistic and this murder case was just an unconventional anomaly, which I voiced my opinion about in my blog on Freakonomics. I actually was so opposed to this idea that I took notes on specific things in the book I disagreed with. For example, I wrote multiple possibilities for why the Dictator game could have produced inaccurate data, which the book thankfully covered later (many of those reasons were also covered in The Social Animal). The ultimate conclusion the authors come up with is that "people are people" and respond to incentives. I have no problem with people responding to incentives, both books do a superb job of proving that statement. I do however have a problem with "people are people". An obvious question that people would ask would be what all is involved with being a "person". I'm assuming that they say that "people are people" to further stress that people are not merely "good" or "bad" naturally. Well I won't go into deep detail, but yes mankind is naturally bad and is evident in their actions. People can be enticed by incentives to do good, as well as bad, which is said in the book. It would seem that we, as Christians, are enticed by an incentive to live our lives better. This incentive of course isn't a manipulative or evil one, its the act Jesus performed on the cross, taking our sins away. This topic about incentives in Christianity seems to be a deep topic that a book could be written about. If none exist, as I've said before, keep an eye out for a cleverly titled book by Michael Reginald Anderson. This was the best chapter I've read in both Freakonomics books so far.

This picture obviously shows exaggeration, which was written about in this section of the book. The authors further investigate the actual facts of the bystanders murder. There were not supposedly 38 bystanders watching for over 30 minutes without helping. They discovered that some of the possible half dozen witnesses called the police, while others yelled from their windows. It is probable that the news exaggerated this story to fit certain peoples' agendas. In one specific example outside the book, the author of The Social Animal used this story to its full exaggeration to explain the "bystander effect" and other acts of conformity. Since the story supported these theories so well and was so widely believed, it was easy for the author to take the story to maximize the support.


The Fix Is In - And It's Cheap And Simple

This chapter is about the importance of simple and cheap solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems. They give several examples of simple solutions, including the polio vaccine, Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, and seat belts. This was an interesting section that cited many ways great minds came up with simple answers to complex questions. It was a nice section that didn't arouse any disagreement from me.

This picture symbolizes one of the last ideas expressed in this chapter. The idea is that government officials always look for the big expensive solution to a complex problem, while outside persons or agencies are usually the ones that come up with the simple, cheap, and effective solution. On an unrelated note, this picture also reminds me of the book on the marker board, "The wisdom of crowds" or something similar to that. Haven't read the book, but this picture seems to fit with the premise of that book as well.



What Do Al Gore And Mount Pinatubo Have In Common?


This chapter talks about more simple and cheap solutions to complex problems, specifically global warming. I personally don't worry to much about the topic because I believe of all the fear that "experts" try to instill in everyone isn't anything to worry about, especially when I already know how the world is going to end. How can scientists predict the weather years from now when meteorologists can't predict rainfall the next day? I don't put much faith in all these "experts" trying to scare people into changing their behavior (which in The Social Animal, the author explains that the best way to persuade human behavior is through evoking strong emotional behavior, fear, while providing specific directions, cutting down on driving). I also find it amusing how celebrities think it's their job to also change the entire world's behavior to save the planet. they should stick to acting rather than preaching on topics they do know the first thing about. It is comforting to know that there are people in the world that have real solutions, conveniently cheap as well, that we can fall back on. The solution of building "chimneys to the sky" does have some interesting difficulties. One difficulty mentioned in the book is who would control the chimneys? Who would we put in charge of essentially playing God on the weather? How would the U.S.A.'s reputation be changed, positively or extremely negatively? I don't see this actually happening anytime soon, but it is an interesting situation to think about. Go Green!

This is a cartoon about none other than Al Gore. I came extremely close to posting a Man-bear-pig picture but decided it wasn't in my best interest to do so. The cartoon shows how global warming is another, not hoax as it may appear being next to "the sky is falling", but at least an exaggeration. Global warming possibilities are real, but I don't see it as the monster most people make it out to be.


Monkeys Are People Too: Epilogue

Another ininteresting little section about monkeys adapting as it seems humans have. This type of research is somewhat offensive when the results show that we apparantly are nothing but a minute step above monkeys. disheartening for some I'm sure, but entertaining to me.
This was another good book about a wide variety of things that peaked my interest. I enjoyed the first book as a whole a little more just because it dealt more with human behavior instead of hospital stats and global warming, which were also good topics, just not as interesting to me.

TOTAL READING TIME: 23 hr.

Page: Complete 219 Pages