This past week I have been fortunate enough to stumble upon two amazing books, both by the same author. These two books are some of the most interesting and thought provoking books Ive read in awile - and I go threw alot.
The first is the Tipping Point. Its a book about social dynamics, amoungst other things. Its basically an observation on how small events and single people, or small groups of people, can have society and culture changing effects. How trendsetters set trends, how a single, dynamic individual, either positively or negatively, can greatly change the environment around him and influence of other people.
There is some extremely interesting info in here about Paul Revere, the decline of crime in New York City and outgoing salesmen and people.
The second is one Im sure a few of you might be familar with - Blink. Its basically a psychology book. It discussed how split second decisions are made, how we are unconsciously making decisions about other people, events, things, and attitudes toward ourselves.
There is some very cool stuff here about face recognition, on how some people who are trained can recognize personality traits of an individual based on facial lines, on how some trained individuals can accurately predict wether or not a marriage will succeed or fail by just
few minutes of interview with the couple.
Anyways, I urge you all who are interested to check them both out. Brilliant.
[quote]buck mulligan wrote:
Yep, he’s pretty good. Along the same lines, so is Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Smart, interesting stuff.[/quote]
Yes! I absolutely loved that book. Ive read it twice now.
I am compellingly intrigued on the link between abortion and falling crime. One of the most interesting, and downright frightening links I’ve ever read about.
[quote]T-Nick wrote:
buck mulligan wrote:
Yep, he’s pretty good. Along the same lines, so is Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Smart, interesting stuff.
Yes! I absolutely loved that book. Ive read it twice now.
I am compellingly intrigued on the link between abortion and falling crime. One of the most interesting, and downright frightening links I’ve ever read about.[/quote]
But not in the least bit surprising if you think about it. If you killed everyone in Detroit I’ll bet the crime rate would drop.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
T-Nick wrote:
buck mulligan wrote:
Yep, he’s pretty good. Along the same lines, so is Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Smart, interesting stuff.
Yes! I absolutely loved that book. Ive read it twice now.
I am compellingly intrigued on the link between abortion and falling crime. One of the most interesting, and downright frightening links I’ve ever read about.
But not in the least bit surprising if you think about it. If you killed everyone in Detroit I’ll bet the crime rate would drop.[/quote]
Yea but then I would have never existed ;). Not everyone born in Detroit ends up a criminal. Ive found a way to avoid it.
Well obviously. The theory is that during the 70’s after Roe vs Wade, alot of would be criminals were simply never born. The types of people that would consider such a thing as abortion are often the types of unfit parents in unfit situations that would lead to eventual criminals.
Quite simply, by the mid 90’s when these would be criminals would be in their prime 20’s of a life of crime, they simply didn’t get born into this world. The Freakanomics people aren’t giving a position of wether or not it was a good idea, just stating theories for why violent crime dropped in pretty much every major city in the United States throughout the mid 90’s…
Anyways, this all deserves its own thread. Hijack over