For those that enjoy the former trader’s way of looking at things, here are a couple of older Vanity Fair stories from Michael Lewis.
The King of Human Error
Note that the logic of the “availability heuristic” is to avoid exerting too much effort when we are looking for answers—we use information that is readily at hand. The connections to Lewis’s Moneyball are clear, but he hadn’t been aware of Kahneman & Tversky’s work. Thinking, Fast and Slow wasn’t out yet, so maybe we shouldn’t blame him. Lots of interesting connections in this piece—including a strong connection to Thinking, described as “both intellectual memoir and an attempt to teach people how to think.” In my read of Thinking, I find the former most compelling, all the more so after reading that “the psychologist kept trying to trick himself into doing things he didn’t want to do and failing to fall for the ruse.”
Obama’s Way
It’s a long one—including basketball (especially near the top, but incidentally near the end), and the observation, “Eight years ago he could have taken a group tour of the White House and no one would have recognized him.” The transitions between Obama’s story and fighter pilot Stark’s story are a bit jarring at first. There’s a useful description of a president’s role as decider (and a nod to the progenitor of that term) and the concomitant job of shaping public opinion. Lewis describes Obama’s tendency to “subvert established status structures” as both “a warm personality trait as much as a cool tactic.”
In additional to early reference to Obama as a writer, around page 8, while describing his reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize, there’s an interesting connection to the writerly spirit of Kahneman. Given that Lewis must think carefully about his craft, it’s not so surprising that he has connected to the writer in both of these subjects, and it’s interesting to read the two pieces together.