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Introduction - A discussion

#85: June - Aug. 2010 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Introduction - A discussion

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Introduction - A discussion
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DWill

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Re: Introduction - A discussion

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I often hear Dan Ariely on NPR commenting on behavioral economics. He's an engaging guy, and his research is about as down-to-earth as it could be. I expect to enjoy this book. The only question is whether I might become a little weary of following the research protocols described.

He's so on-the-money with this statement from the chapter:

I believe that recognizing where we depart from the ideal is an important part of the quest to truly understand ourselves, and one that promises many practical benefits. Understanding irrationality is important for our everyday actions and decisions, and for understanding how we design our environment and the choices it presents to us.

The barrier I see regarding this is that we always try to deny the hold that irrationality has over us; it's something that we want to think applies to the other guy.
Last edited by DWill on Sun May 30, 2010 7:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Introduction - A discussion

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FYI

Dan Ariely has done 2 TED talks. He is very personalable and the talks are fun to listen to. If you are not familiar with TED --TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer

Our Buggy Moral Code
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_ ... _code.html

and

Are we in control of our own decisions
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_a ... sions.html


Has anyone seen Ariely's new book, The Upside of Irrationality? I've just gotten it out of the library.
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Re: Introduction - A discussion

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My first discussion post :)

I started this book a bit late, and I'm guessing the discussion will be over by the time I've finished it, but nether the less, I'm glad I came across this book,

I always held the opinion that there's 2 types of people in this world, robots, and conscious beings.

If someone gets shot in the head, or has an accident like Dan Ariely they are suppose to be dead, or at least very handicapped for the rest of there lives, that what there suppose to do. As robots.

Or you get the conscious beings, who decide not to hold the opinion that they will die if they get run over, or whatever.

I think, if your not a robot, and you survive a bad accident, you become more aware of yourself, and realised some3thing some one told you turned out to be incorrect. So you start questioning everything else you was told, like men only like good looking women, and not ugly women, is it true that paper notes have a real value, etc etc etc

It seems to be that this author has gone through the same thought process and wrote this book, I may be wrong, maybe he was into behavioural economics before his accident, either way, I still feel close to this book same way.

I didn't no this author had any other work out there, and I am now interested in seeing his other projects to do with this subject or anything else he has to say, so thank you Dwill and safron for letting us no.
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