Patrick
Added to listPhilosophywith 5 books.
Added to listWork Bookclubwith 4 books.
Note: I read "The Final Edition" version, which is an update and revised edition that was published 12 years after the original. I would argue that this is probably the best version to read, as it encompasses feedback from the original and talks about recent events and trends.
I recommend it, though with caveats. Overall it's an interesting idea around how to structure choices made in society, by organizations, and by government, but I think it suffers from some missteps in talking about how those choices can interact and apply in a variety of complex situations.
I will concede that Part V: Complaints Department does seem to provide some reasonable explanation into the brevity and choices the authors made writing this book. That has tempered some of my opinion on the reasoning behind claims, but the citation issue still remains. Ultimately I agree with a lot of the arguments explained in Part V, and it may be possible that I'm being too harsh in my review (for example, the authors call out in Part V the nature of companies preying on consumers [paraphrasing here], which was a discrete complaint of mine below). Maybe my opinion could really be summed up in a way that I just wanted a longer and more in-depth book.
Citation Issues
There are some statements that rely on external research in this book that are cited, and no evidence is provided besides the words of the authors. Frustratingly, not only does this erode confidence in the authors credentials, but it makes it difficult to self-educate on the topic using the same sources.
In some cases, there's enough background information given that one could Google the study and study author, and probably find similar information, but there's no guarantee that its the same report being cited, that it's the same conclusion that the study author and book authors come to, and in some cases, not enough background information is given.
It is difficult to reconcile because these authors probably are a level of expertise, but only in the field of which they're writing. The main problem here is that the specific references they make are from fields where they are not experts, and I would ask that those be properly cited.
Is this an overreaction on my part? I doubt the authors are peddling intentional misinformation but it still sparks concern. Perhaps I am over scrutinizing how references in a book like this should be handled?
Here are some examples:
- "There are about twice as many gun-inflicted suicides as homicides" - p.30 - not cited
- Hotel Guests Influence in towel reuse - p.85 - not cited
- Tire Safety Rating - p. 120 - "This example comes from actual deliberations within the U.S. government, on how best to convey the safety ratings of tires" - not cited and something I really wanted to read more about.
- Voting Intention changes from 2008+ - p. 93 - not cited (see below)
This list is not comprehensive, and there are plenty of times where they -do- provide references.
Logicality of Claims
Some claims follow to conclusions that don't necessarily make sense:
'voter perception of candidate shifting helped account for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, for that of Donald Trump in 2016, and for his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in 2020'
Not only is this information not cited, the context is important, because the authors are making the claim that social influence (social pressure) of voter perception helped influence election outcomes. It's a conclusion they're coming to based on a previous examples given that showed that social influence played a part in the Salganik, Dodds, Watts study of music downloads, and the 'mass panic' of the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. I personally believe that social influence for music downloads, mass panic, and voter perception are all separately distinct contexts, and that tying this to the outcome of a Presidential election is a questionable-cause fallacy.
- Chapter: Choice Architecture was really where I felt like the meat of the book started. This chapter gives a lot of examples of sensible defaults and nudges in our everyday lives.
- Part: #Sludge resonated strongly with me, though some of the problem statements seem reductionist (yes, college application entry is a convoluted process, but the authors' solution is "just don't be" which glosses over the many different backgrounds and scenarios that applicants are in)
- Government Sludge is not always intentionally tedious - and some regulations that doctors, truckers, and nurses have to complete is to protect the end-recipient of healthcare, or impose restrictions on trucking loads that create danger on the road. The failure of individual companies to police these things without regulation is what led to sludge to begin with, the idea that the government must make a doctor fill out a form because otherwise a hospital would cut corners to save money. Important to point out: this is a balancing act. As the authors mention, I'm not trying to say that every single thing should be regulated, nor that regulations are all created equal, just more-so that I've found in my lifetime that the government seems to be the only entity with the power to keep companies from hurting, deceiving, or swindling customers (and much worse outcomes.)
- p. 170- The authors mistakenly attribute failure to adhere to GDPR compliance regarding cookies as a failure of the EU legislation, when they actually highlight the reality that sludge-based tactics and patterns that encourage users to blatantly accept all cookies are a result of companies trying to subvert the EU law, not a factor of the law itself.
- There is a push-pull mechanism here: The EU says you have to inform users when you're going to use cookie data (especially for tracking and advertisements) and companies respond by designing patterns that encourage users to consent (highlighting the 'accept' button green, making the 'reject' button smaller.) These patterns are not a failure of the EU, they are a failure to continually regulate those companies that would do their best to subvert user privacy in the name of selling user data that they collect. When the EU forces them to allow users to have a choice in how their data is used, the company responds with psychological tricks to nudge the user in the direction that is beneficial to the company, not the user.
- From a complete review, I think Part V may be the most impactful section of the book in aligning to what I think about the concepts presented in the rest of it. Most of my complaints above in terms of reasoning are echoed (even if the authors misunderstood GDPR, they still understand the downstream impact of allowing users the right to privacy)
In some cases, I distinctly felt that there was a reductionist element at play here, where behavioral economics was supposed to reveal this "one neat trick to solve X" mindset - Examples of these can be found in the book as a whole, but one of the most recent ones was on page 282:
Concerning climate change, the authors put forward the following ideas:
Building sea walls can reduce the risk of flooding from higher sea levels, and if we can shift home building toward places where flooding is less likely, we can do even better. It is possible to develop hybrid corps that are more resilient to heat drought, but farmers might need to be nudged to switch to those crops, having grown something else for generations.
Now, I am neither in home construction, nor a farmer, but I understand these are absolutely massive changes, that can't just be nudged, and are significantly more complex than the authors are implying. Farmers "just grow heat resistant crops" hand-waves away all the logistical, societal, regulatory, and industrial change that would need to take place first. "Just build sea walls" glosses over the construction effort (and money) required for these projects, and "just build homes where flooding is less likely" ignores the fact that we can't even get home inventory/home buying to a healthy constant even in places where flooding is not an issue. I'm not saying that nudges aren't valuable here, but the authors are approaching topics that could have entire books written about them and how to influence change as "this is very simple, we just need nudges" and I simply don't agree with that.
Note: I read "The Final Edition" version, which is an update and revised edition that was published 12 years after the original. I would argue that this is probably the best version to read, as it encompasses feedback from the original and talks about recent events and trends.
I recommend it, though with caveats. Overall it's an interesting idea around how to structure choices made in society, by organizations, and by government, but I think it suffers from some missteps in talking about how those choices can interact and apply in a variety of complex situations.
I will concede that Part V: Complaints Department does seem to provide some reasonable explanation into the brevity and choices the authors made writing this book. That has tempered some of my opinion on the reasoning behind claims, but the citation issue still remains. Ultimately I agree with a lot of the arguments explained in Part V, and it may be possible that I'm being too harsh in my review (for example, the authors call out in Part V the nature of companies preying on consumers [paraphrasing here], which was a discrete complaint of mine below). Maybe my opinion could really be summed up in a way that I just wanted a longer and more in-depth book.
Citation Issues
There are some statements that rely on external research in this book that are cited, and no evidence is provided besides the words of the authors. Frustratingly, not only does this erode confidence in the authors credentials, but it makes it difficult to self-educate on the topic using the same sources.
In some cases, there's enough background information given that one could Google the study and study author, and probably find similar information, but there's no guarantee that its the same report being cited, that it's the same conclusion that the study author and book authors come to, and in some cases, not enough background information is given.
It is difficult to reconcile because these authors probably are a level of expertise, but only in the field of which they're writing. The main problem here is that the specific references they make are from fields where they are not experts, and I would ask that those be properly cited.
Is this an overreaction on my part? I doubt the authors are peddling intentional misinformation but it still sparks concern. Perhaps I am over scrutinizing how references in a book like this should be handled?
Here are some examples:
- "There are about twice as many gun-inflicted suicides as homicides" - p.30 - not cited
- Hotel Guests Influence in towel reuse - p.85 - not cited
- Tire Safety Rating - p. 120 - "This example comes from actual deliberations within the U.S. government, on how best to convey the safety ratings of tires" - not cited and something I really wanted to read more about.
- Voting Intention changes from 2008+ - p. 93 - not cited (see below)
This list is not comprehensive, and there are plenty of times where they -do- provide references.
Logicality of Claims
Some claims follow to conclusions that don't necessarily make sense:
'voter perception of candidate shifting helped account for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, for that of Donald Trump in 2016, and for his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in 2020'
Not only is this information not cited, the context is important, because the authors are making the claim that social influence (social pressure) of voter perception helped influence election outcomes. It's a conclusion they're coming to based on a previous examples given that showed that social influence played a part in the Salganik, Dodds, Watts study of music downloads, and the 'mass panic' of the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. I personally believe that social influence for music downloads, mass panic, and voter perception are all separately distinct contexts, and that tying this to the outcome of a Presidential election is a questionable-cause fallacy.
- Chapter: Choice Architecture was really where I felt like the meat of the book started. This chapter gives a lot of examples of sensible defaults and nudges in our everyday lives.
- Part: #Sludge resonated strongly with me, though some of the problem statements seem reductionist (yes, college application entry is a convoluted process, but the authors' solution is "just don't be" which glosses over the many different backgrounds and scenarios that applicants are in)
- Government Sludge is not always intentionally tedious - and some regulations that doctors, truckers, and nurses have to complete is to protect the end-recipient of healthcare, or impose restrictions on trucking loads that create danger on the road. The failure of individual companies to police these things without regulation is what led to sludge to begin with, the idea that the government must make a doctor fill out a form because otherwise a hospital would cut corners to save money. Important to point out: this is a balancing act. As the authors mention, I'm not trying to say that every single thing should be regulated, nor that regulations are all created equal, just more-so that I've found in my lifetime that the government seems to be the only entity with the power to keep companies from hurting, deceiving, or swindling customers (and much worse outcomes.)
- p. 170- The authors mistakenly attribute failure to adhere to GDPR compliance regarding cookies as a failure of the EU legislation, when they actually highlight the reality that sludge-based tactics and patterns that encourage users to blatantly accept all cookies are a result of companies trying to subvert the EU law, not a factor of the law itself.
- There is a push-pull mechanism here: The EU says you have to inform users when you're going to use cookie data (especially for tracking and advertisements) and companies respond by designing patterns that encourage users to consent (highlighting the 'accept' button green, making the 'reject' button smaller.) These patterns are not a failure of the EU, they are a failure to continually regulate those companies that would do their best to subvert user privacy in the name of selling user data that they collect. When the EU forces them to allow users to have a choice in how their data is used, the company responds with psychological tricks to nudge the user in the direction that is beneficial to the company, not the user.
- From a complete review, I think Part V may be the most impactful section of the book in aligning to what I think about the concepts presented in the rest of it. Most of my complaints above in terms of reasoning are echoed (even if the authors misunderstood GDPR, they still understand the downstream impact of allowing users the right to privacy)
In some cases, I distinctly felt that there was a reductionist element at play here, where behavioral economics was supposed to reveal this "one neat trick to solve X" mindset - Examples of these can be found in the book as a whole, but one of the most recent ones was on page 282:
Concerning climate change, the authors put forward the following ideas:
Building sea walls can reduce the risk of flooding from higher sea levels, and if we can shift home building toward places where flooding is less likely, we can do even better. It is possible to develop hybrid corps that are more resilient to heat drought, but farmers might need to be nudged to switch to those crops, having grown something else for generations.
Now, I am neither in home construction, nor a farmer, but I understand these are absolutely massive changes, that can't just be nudged, and are significantly more complex than the authors are implying. Farmers "just grow heat resistant crops" hand-waves away all the logistical, societal, regulatory, and industrial change that would need to take place first. "Just build sea walls" glosses over the construction effort (and money) required for these projects, and "just build homes where flooding is less likely" ignores the fact that we can't even get home inventory/home buying to a healthy constant even in places where flooding is not an issue. I'm not saying that nudges aren't valuable here, but the authors are approaching topics that could have entire books written about them and how to influence change as "this is very simple, we just need nudges" and I simply don't agree with that.
Note: I read "The Final Edition" version, which is an update and revised edition that was published 12 years after the original. I would argue that this is probably the best version to read, as it encompasses feedback from the original and talks about recent events and trends.
I recommend it, though with caveats. Overall it's an interesting idea around how to structure choices made in society, by organizations, and by government, but I think it suffers from some missteps in talking about how those choices can interact and apply in a variety of complex situations.
I will concede that Part V: Complaints Department does seem to provide some reasonable explanation into the brevity and choices the authors made writing this book. That has tempered some of my opinion on the reasoning behind claims, but the citation issue still remains. Ultimately I agree with a lot of the arguments explained in Part V, and it may be possible that I'm being too harsh in my review (for example, the authors call out in Part V the nature of companies preying on consumers [paraphrasing here], which was a discrete complaint of mine below). Maybe my opinion could really be summed up in a way that I just wanted a longer and more in-depth book.
Citation Issues
There are some statements that rely on external research in this book that are cited, and no evidence is provided besides the words of the authors. Frustratingly, not only does this erode confidence in the authors credentials, but it makes it difficult to self-educate on the topic using the same sources.
In some cases, there's enough background information given that one could Google the study and study author, and probably find similar information, but there's no guarantee that its the same report being cited, that it's the same conclusion that the study author and book authors come to, and in some cases, not enough background information is given.
It is difficult to reconcile because these authors probably are a level of expertise, but only in the field of which they're writing. The main problem here is that the specific references they make are from fields where they are not experts, and I would ask that those be properly cited.
Is this an overreaction on my part? I doubt the authors are peddling intentional misinformation but it still sparks concern. Perhaps I am over scrutinizing how references in a book like this should be handled?
Here are some examples:
- "There are about twice as many gun-inflicted suicides as homicides" - p.30 - not cited
- Hotel Guests Influence in towel reuse - p.85 - not cited
- Tire Safety Rating - p. 120 - "This example comes from actual deliberations within the U.S. government, on how best to convey the safety ratings of tires" - not cited and something I really wanted to read more about.
- Voting Intention changes from 2008+ - p. 93 - not cited (see below)
This list is not comprehensive, and there are plenty of times where they -do- provide references.
Logicality of Claims
Some claims follow to conclusions that don't necessarily make sense:
'voter perception of candidate shifting helped account for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, for that of Donald Trump in 2016, and for his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in 2020'
Not only is this information not cited, the context is important, because the authors are making the claim that social influence (social pressure) of voter perception helped influence election outcomes. It's a conclusion they're coming to based on a previous examples given that showed that social influence played a part in the Salganik, Dodds, Watts study of music downloads, and the 'mass panic' of the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. I personally believe that social influence for music downloads, mass panic, and voter perception are all separately distinct contexts, and that tying this to the outcome of a Presidential election is a questionable-cause fallacy.
- Chapter: Choice Architecture was really where I felt like the meat of the book started. This chapter gives a lot of examples of sensible defaults and nudges in our everyday lives.
- Part: #Sludge resonated strongly with me, though some of the problem statements seem reductionist (yes, college application entry is a convoluted process, but the authors' solution is "just don't be" which glosses over the many different backgrounds and scenarios that applicants are in)
- Government Sludge is not always intentionally tedious - and some regulations that doctors, truckers, and nurses have to complete is to protect the end-recipient of healthcare, or impose restrictions on trucking loads that create danger on the road. The failure of individual companies to police these things without regulation is what led to sludge to begin with, the idea that the government must make a doctor fill out a form because otherwise a hospital would cut corners to save money. Important to point out: this is a balancing act. As the authors mention, I'm not trying to say that every single thing should be regulated, nor that regulations are all created equal, just more-so that I've found in my lifetime that the government seems to be the only entity with the power to keep companies from hurting, deceiving, or swindling customers (and much worse outcomes.)
- p. 170- The authors mistakenly attribute failure to adhere to GDPR compliance regarding cookies as a failure of the EU legislation, when they actually highlight the reality that sludge-based tactics and patterns that encourage users to blatantly accept all cookies are a result of companies trying to subvert the EU law, not a factor of the law itself.
- There is a push-pull mechanism here: The EU says you have to inform users when you're going to use cookie data (especially for tracking and advertisements) and companies respond by designing patterns that encourage users to consent (highlighting the 'accept' button green, making the 'reject' button smaller.) These patterns are not a failure of the EU, they are a failure to continually regulate those companies that would do their best to subvert user privacy in the name of selling user data that they collect. When the EU forces them to allow users to have a choice in how their data is used, the company responds with psychological tricks to nudge the user in the direction that is beneficial to the company, not the user.
In some cases, I distinctly felt that there was a reductionist element at play here, where behavioral economics was supposed to reveal this "one neat trick to solve X" mindset - Examples of these can be found in the book as a whole, but one of the most recent ones was on page 282:
Concerning climate change, the authors put forward the following ideas:
Building sea walls can reduce the risk of flooding from higher sea levels, and if we can shift home building toward places where flooding is less likely, we can do even better. It is possible to develop hybrid corps that are more resilient to heat drought, but farmers might need to be nudged to switch to those crops, having grown something else for generations.
Now, I am neither in home construction, nor a farmer, but I understand these are absolutely massive changes, that can't just be nudged, and are significantly more complex than the authors are implying. Farmers "just grow heat resistant crops" hand-waves away all the logistical, societal, regulatory, and industrial change that would need to take place first. "Just build sea walls" glosses over the construction effort (and money) required for these projects, and "just build homes where flooding is less likely" ignores the fact that we can't even get home inventory/home buying to a healthy constant even in places where flooding is not an issue. I'm not saying that nudges aren't valuable here, but the authors are approaching topics that could have entire books written about them and how to influence change as "this is very simple, we just need nudges" and I simply don't agree with that.
Note: I read "The Final Edition" version, which is an update and revised edition that was published 12 years after the original. I would argue that this is probably the best version to read, as it encompasses feedback from the original and talks about recent events and trends.
I recommend it, though with caveats. Overall it's an interesting idea around how to structure choices made in society, by organizations, and by government, but I think it suffers from some missteps in talking about how those choices can interact and apply in a variety of complex situations.
I will concede that Part V: Complaints Department does seem to provide some reasonable explanation into the brevity and choices the authors made writing this book. That has tempered some of my opinion on the reasoning behind claims, but the citation issue still remains. Ultimately I agree with a lot of the arguments explained in Part V, and it may be possible that I'm being too harsh in my review (for example, the authors call out in Part V the nature of companies preying on consumers [paraphrasing here], which was a discrete complaint of mine below). Maybe my opinion could really be summed up in a way that I just wanted a longer and more in-depth book.
Citation Issues
There are some statements that rely on external research in this book that are cited, and no evidence is provided besides the words of the authors. Frustratingly, not only does this erode confidence in the authors credentials, but it makes it difficult to self-educate on the topic using the same sources.
In some cases, there's enough background information given that one could Google the study and study author, and probably find similar information, but there's no guarantee that its the same report being cited, that it's the same conclusion that the study author and book authors come to, and in some cases, not enough background information is given.
It is difficult to reconcile because these authors probably are a level of expertise, but only in the field of which they're writing. The main problem here is that the specific references they make are from fields where they are not experts, and I would ask that those be properly cited.
Is this an overreaction on my part? I doubt the authors are peddling intentional misinformation but it still sparks concern. Perhaps I am over scrutinizing how references in a book like this should be handled?
Here are some examples:
- "There are about twice as many gun-inflicted suicides as homicides" - p.30 - not cited
- Hotel Guests Influence in towel reuse - p.85 - not cited
- Tire Safety Rating - p. 120 - "This example comes from actual deliberations within the U.S. government, on how best to convey the safety ratings of tires" - not cited and something I really wanted to read more about.
- Voting Intention changes from 2008+ - p. 93 - not cited (see below)
This list is not comprehensive, and there are plenty of times where they -do- provide references.
Logicality of Claims
Some claims follow to conclusions that don't necessarily make sense:
'voter perception of candidate shifting helped account for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, for that of Donald Trump in 2016, and for his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden in 2020'
Not only is this information not cited, the context is important, because the authors are making the claim that social influence (social pressure) of voter perception helped influence election outcomes. It's a conclusion they're coming to based on a previous examples given that showed that social influence played a part in the Salganik, Dodds, Watts study of music downloads, and the 'mass panic' of the Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. I personally believe that social influence for music downloads, mass panic, and voter perception are all separately distinct contexts, and that tying this to the outcome of a Presidential election is a questionable-cause fallacy.
- Chapter: Choice Architecture was really where I felt like the meat of the book started. This chapter gives a lot of examples of sensible defaults and nudges in our everyday lives.
- Part: #Sludge resonated strongly with me, though some of the problem statements seem reductionist (yes, college application entry is a convoluted process, but the authors' solution is "just don't be" which glosses over the many different backgrounds and scenarios that applicants are in)
- Government Sludge is not always intentionally tedious - and some regulations that doctors, truckers, and nurses have to complete is to protect the end-recipient of healthcare, or impose restrictions on trucking loads that create danger on the road. The failure of individual companies to police these things without regulation is what led to sludge to begin with, the idea that the government must make a doctor fill out a form because otherwise a hospital would cut corners to save money. Important to point out: this is a balancing act. As the authors mention, I'm not trying to say that every single thing should be regulated, nor that regulations are all created equal, just more-so that I've found in my lifetime that the government seems to be the only entity with the power to keep companies from hurting, deceiving, or swindling customers (and much worse outcomes.)
- p. 170- The authors mistakenly attribute failure to adhere to GDPR compliance regarding cookies as a failure of the EU legislation, when they actually highlight the reality that sludge-based tactics and patterns that encourage users to blatantly accept all cookies are a result of companies trying to subvert the EU law, not a factor of the law itself.
- There is a push-pull mechanism here: The EU says you have to inform users when you're going to use cookie data (especially for tracking and advertisements) and companies respond by designing patterns that encourage users to consent (highlighting the 'accept' button green, making the 'reject' button smaller.) These patterns are not a failure of the EU, they are a failure to continually regulate those companies that would do their best to subvert user privacy in the name of selling user data that they collect. When the EU forces them to allow users to have a choice in how their data is used, the company responds with psychological tricks to nudge the user in the direction that is beneficial to the company, not the user.
In some cases, I distinctly felt that there was a reductionist element at play here, where behavioral economics was supposed to reveal this "one neat trick to solve X" mindset - Examples of these can be found in the book as a whole, but one of the most recent ones was on page 282:
Concerning climate change, the authors put forward the following ideas:
Building sea walls can reduce the risk of flooding from higher sea levels, and if we can shift home building toward places where flooding is less likely, we can do even better. It is possible to develop hybrid corps that are more resilient to heat drought, but farmers might need to be nudged to switch to those crops, having grown something else for generations.
Now, I am neither in home construction, nor a farmer, but I understand these are absolutely massive changes, that can't just be nudged, and are significantly more complex than the authors are implying. Farmers "just grow heat resistant crops" hand-waves away all the logistical, societal, regulatory, and industrial change that would need to take place first. "Just build sea walls" glosses over the construction effort (and money) required for these projects, and "just build homes where flooding is less likely" ignores the fact that we can't even get home inventory/home buying to a healthy constant even in places where flooding is not an issue. I'm not saying that nudges aren't valuable here, but the authors are approaching topics that could have entire books written about them and how to influence change as "this is very simple, we just need nudges" and I simply don't agree with that.
