Beware: Vehicle for Getting Up on a Soap Box

The first 2/3 of the first half of this book were quite interesting and well presented. Presents psychological analysis of how people make decisions and how 'choice architects' can take advantage of these behaviors to 'nudge' you to make a decision. However, much to my displeasure, the book then becomes a soap box for 'libertarian' and liberal positions on global warming, health care and other issues. I felt like I was tricked (not nudged) into getting a book that I otherwise would never have bought. It seemed that the authors simply abandoned their more cerebral analysis of why people make decisions to present incomplete discussions of their personal several social issues. There is absolutely no balance to their discussions - made the book propoganda.

18 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

How to improve health, wealth and happiness!

I highly recommend this audio book to anyone who is open to new thoughts and ideas and is interested in the principles of choice architecture. The authors put forth many low cost ideas that could result in major life improvements. I found it fascinating and very entertaining.

13 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

A Book I Keep Coming Back To

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein covers many of the same studies and experiments, and then puts a public policy slant on the conclusions. I'm finding in these sorts of books that the same academic studies and examples pop-up time after time, which is good as it takes me about 5 times to get them straight. Where Sway helped me understand why I'm susceptible to make bad decisions, Nudge helped me understand how I can use the principles of "choice architecture" to influence events and decisions. Both worthwhile reads for folks like us who have a vision of education we are trying to implement, both in terms of why people do things the way they do, and some "libertarian paternalistic" ways to shape decisions and actions.

10 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Nudge is too long

I enjoyed half the book but it dragged half way through repeating the same concept in different situations. Some may like the application of their theory but for me I ended up skipping some sections.

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

New Knowledge for Me!

This is all new for me, and well worth the time it took to listen to. Unlike many self-motivation books available (I mistakenly thought that is what "Nudge" is), I found this one to be actually motivating, and quite empowering. It became a bit tedious towards the end--as though the author was more into convincing me that he has correct opinions that into teaching me about choices and choicemaking, but I'd hardly call that a problem: I can weed out the bits of information that don't work. Happily, most of them do.

3 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

For those who know better than everyone else.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The narration is great, but the content is insulting rubbish. The most glaring problem with this book is the author's concept of "libertarian paternalism" which is akin to deeming an object to be a black-ish shade of white. The author has a worldview that puts his views of what's best for another individual ahead of what the individual believes is best for him/herself. He believes that individuals are fundamentally stupid and must therefore rely on an enlightened government bureaucrat to make better choices on behalf of said individual. The entire book is about manipulating an individual's environment so that s/he will make choices that the author deems "better" but "better" only from his point of view. For example, the author deems it unacceptable that a default choice for a healthcare plan would be NOT to auto-renew at the end of the term. Instead he suggests that the "libertarian paternalist" should make the default option automatic re-enrollment with the previous year's configuration. This, however, breaks the fundamental rule that each individual is responsible for his own well being and knows best how to sustain his own well being.There are a few bright spots such as the author's view on gay marriage. That is the only chapter I can recommend. The entire rest of the book is just a handbook on how a totalitarian bureaucrat can manipulate the sheeple.If you believe that the one person who can best make decisions for the individual is the individual him/herself, you will find this book appalling. When you realize that this guy currently influences the decision-making process of the president of the United States, it will start to make some news headlines make a little more sense.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

I liked the first half.

I liked the concept of a nudge. The author's political viewpoints and recommendations distracted from this towards the end of the book.

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Mind-numbing Slog Not Worth The Effort

Please “Nudge” these authors toward an alternative medium. They have an excellent article here with arguably worthwhile observations and suggestions. Not a book. Please, not a long, repetitious book applying their solutions to every aspect of life! I could not get to the end of two books in my life, this one and Webster’s Dictionary.

Richard

excelente

un libro para abrir la mente sobre temas muy rutinarios. vale la pena la lectura.

I found very little of this of interest

the first part of the book was interesting. about choice architecture and incentives and nudging. but the authors, when talking about saving for retirement, seem to not realize that 40% of the country - at least - lives paycheck to paycheck and cannot save anything, never mind save for retirement. You would think that two men who are economists would somehow see this fact, and acknowledge it. NO. SUCH. LUCK. They use an example about how someone might decide to buy that condo in Florida [second home] instead of save for retirement. What planet are these two privileged white men on? I guess the planet of privileged entitled white men who somehow don't see that there are poor people in the world. These guys [or at least one of them, I haven't checked] won the nobel prize in economics years after they wrote this book so I guess they have something more to say than got said in this book. but, seriously dudes. wake up. I fast forwarded through the rest of the book. if i had to do it again, I would have just read a bit of it on amazon and not wasted my money.