Sublime
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To write these questions, I first had to decide which of two ways to ask the question: either in terms of “willingness to pay” or “willingness to accept.” The first asks how much you would pay to reduce your probability of dying next year by some amount, say by one chance in a thousand.
Richard H. Thaler • Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
Roots of Progress • Why Has Nuclear Power Been a Flop?
while supposedly holding up his hands in surrender. The reportedly unjustified nature of the shooting sparks violent riots, stokes the Black Lives Matter movement, and creates a new protest gesture known as “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” It’s followed by a rash of black men ambushing and murdering police officers around the nation. But in 2015, the U.S.
... See moreSharyl Attkisson • The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote
Says why worry about something you can’t see, feel, hear, or smell? Says it’s just as bad to frighten people to death as kill them with radiation, and I must say that I agree with him.”
Pat Frank • Alas, Babylon: A Novel (Harper Perennial Olive Edition)
Every day we are assaulted by scientific or biomedical questions that we don’t even know how to think about, from toxic wastes and “Star Wars” and nuclear energy to acid rain and gene splicing and surrogate motherhood. Many of them are the legacy of scientists who now admit that they didn’t understand how their decisions would affect the quality of
... See moreWilliam Zinsser • Writing to Learn: How to Write - and Think - Clearly About Any Subject at All
Bernoulli observed that most people dislike risk (the chance of receiving the lowest possible outcome), and if they are offered a choice between a gamble and an amount equal to its expected value they will pick the sure thing. In fact a risk-averse decision maker will choose a sure thing that is less than expected value, in effect paying a premium
... See moreDaniel Kahneman • Thinking, Fast and Slow
When the activity is made safer, they behave more recklessly, at least partly nullifying the safety gains.
Michael W. Preis • 101 Things I Learned® in Business School (Second Edition)
John Fagan is a molecular biologist who for more than twenty years was funded by the National Institutes of Health to conduct genetic engineering research. But in 1994, he returned more than $600,000 to the NIH and withdrew his proposals for another $1.25 million. Then he launched a global campaign to alert the public about the hazards of genetic
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