Very smart and a very good read.

Posted July 26th, 2005 by jhuny

James Surowiecki - The Wisdom Of Crowds

I was planning to write about Steven Johnson's book and, while I thought that was a good read, this one is utterly amazing. I only bought it on Sunday and, while I haven't finished it, I getting through it quite quickly. The scope of the book is staggering, covering all manner of things from the mundane like pedestrians in downtown Manhattan and hanging out at bars to the complex and significant like intelligence agencies predicting terrorist activity (not to mention the Challenger Space Shuttle, speaking of which the Space Shuttle Discovery just took off from Cape Canaveral - bon voyage!). Like Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You, this book is based on an idea that goes against popularly held beliefs. but in this instance there are far-reaching consequences of Surowiecki's idea that stirs the mind and it's exciting to think about how it relates to other things in my life.

Like working as a team in a dance company. I've always been a firm believer that it is in the best interest of the group to take care of one's own responsibilities in a self-centred kind of way, a belief that gets challenged by my more conventional notion of being considerate, reinforced by the actions of some of the other dancers. But it's good to be presented with possibility that there is a general and rational explanation as to why this is the most rational thing to do. Sure, the general workings of a conventional dance company is top-down but there are situations like the traditional fire dance, where pathways aren't specifically set but the endpoints are, where this is absolutely relevant and there must be other such situations that require decisions to be made.

That was a slight digression. What about the tipping competition? Why am I beating the collective group (and thus earning the general mistrust from the other tippers)? I've always thought that the general discussion about how people are going to tip is detrimental and this book suggests that this may be an explanation. I don't talk about tipping until the first kick-off (or however they start the match) but maybe if we all did the group would probably fare better. I guess, too, that some of the other tipper are what I call emotionally involved, tipping Queensland in the Origin and going against their better judgement purely because of loyalty. Maybe it's just because the group is not all that big and I'm just a really lucky guy.

Anyway, back to the book. It fires up the brain. So much so that the first night I had the book I simply couldn't get to sleep, my brain just couldn't stop thinking about it. It discusses many questions like "what's the best way to find a sunken submarine?", "Should I phone a friend or should I ask the audience?", "Who was responsible for the Challenger explosion?", "Should we place bets on when Al Qaeda is going to strike next?" I do read predominantly non-fiction books so I'm a bit biased but it's such an intriguing page-turner, it's a must-read.

Tags: , , .