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July 2, 2008

Predictably Irritating

On a plane yesterday I read Dan Ariely's bestselling behavioral economics book Predictably Irrational. It is Yet Another Humans Don't Act Like Economists Think They Should (YAHDALETTS)book, up there with Freakonomics, Undercover Economist, and the rest of that sort of thing.

Was Ariely's book any good? It was fine. There were a few decent examples, and one or two things that got me going "huh" for a minute or so, but I found it more irritating than anything else. For starters, it was poorly written, like an editor had told Ariely to write informally, and the tenured MIT prof couldn't figure out what that meant, so he just tossed off mixed metaphors and dated colloquialisms as if that would get him street cred.

More broadly, however, I had a deeper problem, and it has to do with the whole subject. Because I just don't care anymore. I'm not interested in more freakonomo-clones about those nutty human satisficers. I've heard the stories. Over and over. And I've heard enough to make me wonder how all we supposedly idiotic humans manage to step off sidewalks without being killed if we're so dumb.

I'm really, really tired of carnie cognitive sideshows about stupid mind tricks. I get it. We're dumb. We're flawed. We take mental shortcuts. I get it. Really. Now stop telling me that, and tell me something how we idiots survive in our chaotic world.

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