Algorithms and apps analyze data and tell you how to beat the traffic, what books to buy, what music to listen to, and even who to date—often with great results. But what do you do when you face the big decisions of life—the "wild problems" of who to marry, whether to have children, where to move, how to forge a life well-lived—that can’t be solved by measurement or calculation?
In Wild Problems, beloved host of EconTalk Russ Roberts offers puzzled rationalists a way to address these wild problems. He suggests spending less time and energy on the path that promises the most happiness, and more time on figuring out who you actually want to be. He draws on the experience of great artists, writers, and scientists of the past who found creative ways to navigate life’s biggest questions. And he lays out strategies for reducing the fear and the loss of control that inevitably come when a wild problem requires a leap in the dark.
Ultimately, Roberts asks us to see ourselves and our lives less as a problem to be solved than a mystery to be experienced. There's no right decision waiting to be uncovered by an app or rational analysis. Reality is harder than that and, perhaps, a little more interesting.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
August 9, 2022 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593418260
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593418260
- File size: 1296 KB
-
-
Accessibility
Publisher statement (EPUB)
The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.
Summary
Accessibility features highlighted in metadata are based on this ebook's content and format.
Ways Of Reading
Appearance of the text and page layout can be modified according to the capabilities of the reading system (font family and font size, spaces between paragraphs, sentences, words, and letters, as well as color of background and text).
Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.
Conformance
No information is available.
Navigation
Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.
Additional Information
High contrast between text and background
Color is not the sole means of conveying information
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
Publisher's Weekly
Starred review from June 27, 2022
Many “big decisions can’t be made with data, or science, or the usual rational approaches,” contends Roberts (How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life), president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, in this lucid treatise. Wild problems, according to the author, are the major life decisions—such as choosing a career path and deciding how to devote one’s time—that resist rational analysis and call for alternative modes of evaluation. Roberts tells of how Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and Johannes Kepler attempted to quantify such decisions as whether and whom to marry using balance sheets of pros and cons, which the author suggests are ineffective because of their reliance on subjective judgments (Is each pro equal to each con? How does one decide?). He is equally critical of optimization, arguing that imperfectly reducing a matrix of considerations to a single measurement by which to judge which option is “best” obscures the complexity of choosing a partner or where to go to college. Instead, Roberts recommends that readers “privilege your principles” and base one’s choices on “what kind of person you want to be and who you might want to become.” Roberts’s thought-provoking take on the limits of data and the overquantification of contemporary life provides a bold and original perspective on how humans can make better decisions. Daniel Kahneman’s fans will find much to ponder.
-
Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
subjects
Languages
- English
Loading
Why is availability limited?
×Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget. You can still place a hold on the title, and your hold will be automatically filled as soon as the title is available again.
The Kindle Book format for this title is not supported on:
×Read-along ebook
×The OverDrive Read format of this ebook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.