You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Logic. The paragon of human superiority. People have achieved so much because we’re plain smarter than everyone else on this planet. Right?
Maybe not so right. David McRaney, creator of the You Are Not So Smart blog which inspired this book, thinks that people are greatly overestimating their ability to rationally make heads or tails of the world. With a collection of almost 50 articles based on a rich bibliography of psychological, neurological and sociological studies, the author deconstructs, bit by bit, all of your sense of personal superiority, security and general feeling of “I’m simply smarter”. But it’s OK, the author re-assures us; deluding ourselves is part of what makes us human.
After reading the book, one might feel that he has gained some valuable knowledge that might just make him this much smarter. I felt that way too. But alas, this is also another delusion that was unfortunately not included in the book. Read all about the Illusion of Asymmetric Insight. It would have been the perfect conclusion.
Read this book and second guess your life. If you dare.
(I have mentioned this blog in another post of mine: Link)
