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 discourage 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.

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

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