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A review by ederwin
Head in the Cloud: Why Knowing Things Still Matters When Facts Are So Easy to Look Up by William Poundstone
3.0
Fun to read, but short and a little repetitive.
Divided into three sections: (1) The Dunning-Kruger Effect: people who are the least informed are often the most confident in their wrong ideas; (2) The knowledge premium: knowing things, even apparently trivial things, correlates with success (measured mostly by income); (3) Strategies for a Culturally Illiterate World: the authors advice.
The three sections are all based on surveys of general knowledge and trivia, most conducted on behalf of the author himself. It is interesting, but sadly not surprising, to see how much ordinary people do not know. It is frightening, but sadly not surprising, to see how people who know the least are often very confident in their beliefs.
Even though we can look-up anything online, having a well-stocked storehouse of facts helps you know what you don't know, so that you know when you do need to look something up. And helps you critically evaluate the information you have looked up.
Knowing random facts correlates with success. It isn't clear what to do with that fact, because it isn't clear what the order of causation is. A pessimistic possibility is that if you are born with the right abilities you will easily learn lots of facts and also achieve success. A more optimistic possibility is that having an attitude of wanting to learn can lead to success.
Luckily for me, the big exception is that knowing random facts about sports does not correlate with success. So I don't need to worry about that!
The last section, with the authors advice, is the least interesting. The most useful bit is that you should try to get your news from sources that give you exposure to a wide variety of things that you wouldn't have individually sought yourself. Avoid clicking on links in your Facebook feed based on their popularity or sensationalism. Instead, listen to a full news program or read a full magazine.
Divided into three sections: (1) The Dunning-Kruger Effect: people who are the least informed are often the most confident in their wrong ideas; (2) The knowledge premium: knowing things, even apparently trivial things, correlates with success (measured mostly by income); (3) Strategies for a Culturally Illiterate World: the authors advice.
The three sections are all based on surveys of general knowledge and trivia, most conducted on behalf of the author himself. It is interesting, but sadly not surprising, to see how much ordinary people do not know. It is frightening, but sadly not surprising, to see how people who know the least are often very confident in their beliefs.
Even though we can look-up anything online, having a well-stocked storehouse of facts helps you know what you don't know, so that you know when you do need to look something up. And helps you critically evaluate the information you have looked up.
Knowing random facts correlates with success. It isn't clear what to do with that fact, because it isn't clear what the order of causation is. A pessimistic possibility is that if you are born with the right abilities you will easily learn lots of facts and also achieve success. A more optimistic possibility is that having an attitude of wanting to learn can lead to success.
Luckily for me, the big exception is that knowing random facts about sports does not correlate with success. So I don't need to worry about that!
The last section, with the authors advice, is the least interesting. The most useful bit is that you should try to get your news from sources that give you exposure to a wide variety of things that you wouldn't have individually sought yourself. Avoid clicking on links in your Facebook feed based on their popularity or sensationalism. Instead, listen to a full news program or read a full magazine.