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The book is superficial and goes on a huge tangent sometimes. For example, the chapter about global warming or the monkeys was interesting and entertaining but the scientific ideas were completely crappy and I felt like the authors were talking about something what they don't understand. The prostitution chapter and the chapter about the witnesses were awesome. Who would have known that some facts might get misreported and from there a huge amount of money and time were spent on researching anthropology and human' behavior. My tip: don't think that everything in this book is true.
adventurous
funny
informative
medium-paced
A worthy follow-up to Levitt and Dubner's first effort, Superfreakonomics delivers more of the same, which may be both its greatest strength as well as its weakness. Ostensibly about microeconomics and the role of incentives in people's behavior, the book keeps the humor and style of its predecessor but falls short on interesting subject matter. Many of the stories from the first book pop up here, and there is a liberal amount of shameless self-endorsement. In some chapters, you can't help but feel like the authors are treading water. Still, it's a brief and pleasant ride for your mind that is meant to be enjoyed in small chunks.
All in all, if you liked Freaknomics, you will get something out of this sophomore effort; If you didn't, this will do nothing to change your mind.
All in all, if you liked Freaknomics, you will get something out of this sophomore effort; If you didn't, this will do nothing to change your mind.
My flight back to Atlanta got delayed by 3 hours today, making a 5 hour trip into a 10 hour odyssey. I read Superfreakenomics front to back in this time. It reminded me what drove me to major in economics in undergrad in the first place. Economics is much more than financial models plotted on a curve. Social Economics in particular looks at what decisions people make, and what incentives drive them to make these decisions. Great read if you are at all interested in looking at social issues with the cold, calculating eye of an economist.
I read [b:Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything|1202|Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Freakonomics, #1)|Steven D. Levitt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327909092s/1202.jpg|5397] last year and really liked it. I was also playing Plablo while I read it and that made it even more ingrained in my mind. This book was decent and not as great as the original, however. Could have been that I'm more worn out at work than I was last year. Still a good, informative book though.
The point of these little freakonomics stories is that people respond to incentives. True incentives.
One of the stories is about prostitutes. At one point it was discovered that they are more likely to have beep with a cop than be arrested by one. That's wild. But not too surprising. Now I know what Turning Tricks means. I wonder if that Dire Straights song about getting your money for nothing and your tricks for free is talking about that stuff.
Scrutiny has a powerful effect on humans and altering our behavior. However, in animals or other things, scrutiny has no effect.
The author talked about a few neat devices to assist with natural disasters and global warming. The first is this hurricane killer mechanism. Basically a huge net over the water than would change the temperature a tad to reduce the force of a hurricane while it comes a-roaring. Hopefully this won't flop like the hurricane seeding idea. The second device would be a huge rod that goes to the stratosphere and would distribute sulfur to cool off the earth a tad. This works the same as many volcanoes erupting.
The author made a comment that local farming increases more greenhouse gas than huge big "efficient" farms. That's peculiar because we just learned in [b:Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life|25460|Animal, Vegetable, Miracle A Year of Food Life|Barbara Kingsolver|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480104279s/25460.jpg|1582285] they said the opposite. There is always two sides to a coin I suppose.
I wonder how many people have LowJack? Is it 1% of the population? You'd think the car industries would make it standard like how they do with Bluetooth. LowJack helps even those people who don't have it because the crooks are more skeptical.
The point of these little freakonomics stories is that people respond to incentives. True incentives.
One of the stories is about prostitutes. At one point it was discovered that they are more likely to have beep with a cop than be arrested by one. That's wild. But not too surprising. Now I know what Turning Tricks means. I wonder if that Dire Straights song about getting your money for nothing and your tricks for free is talking about that stuff.
Scrutiny has a powerful effect on humans and altering our behavior. However, in animals or other things, scrutiny has no effect.
The author talked about a few neat devices to assist with natural disasters and global warming. The first is this hurricane killer mechanism. Basically a huge net over the water than would change the temperature a tad to reduce the force of a hurricane while it comes a-roaring. Hopefully this won't flop like the hurricane seeding idea. The second device would be a huge rod that goes to the stratosphere and would distribute sulfur to cool off the earth a tad. This works the same as many volcanoes erupting.
The author made a comment that local farming increases more greenhouse gas than huge big "efficient" farms. That's peculiar because we just learned in [b:Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life|25460|Animal, Vegetable, Miracle A Year of Food Life|Barbara Kingsolver|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1480104279s/25460.jpg|1582285] they said the opposite. There is always two sides to a coin I suppose.
I wonder how many people have LowJack? Is it 1% of the population? You'd think the car industries would make it standard like how they do with Bluetooth. LowJack helps even those people who don't have it because the crooks are more skeptical.
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
I liked the first book better but I still liked this one a lot.
Not as consistently engaging as the first book. Starts out strong but the ending chapters especially I thought were somewhat weaker. If you enjoyed the first one though, it's still a worthwhile read.
Decent, but too much info that felt repetitive (or was repeated from gladwell among others).