Noise

A Flaw in Human Judgement

2021 - Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein

153.83 Kahneman Cedar Mill Library

Daniel Kahneman Olivier Sibony Cass R. Sunstein

I read the first few chapters, the message is that people are not consistent or strictly rational.

• p22 Sentencing: legal outcomes vary with judge, mood, weather. Guidelines reduce variance.

  • KL: for punitive justice, variance discourages more offenses.

• p33 Insurance adjusters vary. Results costly.

  • KL: Perhaps fixable, but the insured may cut more corners if there is less risk of doing so.

• p54 Professional Judgment: judgements vary. Wrong? Variance is how evolution explores.

And so on.

Words not in index: mercy, forgiveness, surprise, exploration, discovery, invention, progress, evolution.

In a non-evolving, non-competitive world, rational consistency may optimize utility. But humans are exuberantly noisy copies of microbes, and the beings that replace us may be noisy copies of us.

Yes, hundreds of misguided people look for "low energy nuclear reactions", unaware of Colomb repulsion. But a very few may discover something entirely unrelated to their goals while doing their strange rituals. Or a frustrated "corrector" like me might learn a new way to change misguided minds.

Chapters 26 "The Cost of Noise Reduction" and 27 "Dignity" touch on some of my concerns, but mostly to dismiss them.