Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things

by Laurence Gonzales

Laurence Gonzales turns his talent for gripping narrative, knowledge of the way our minds and bodies work, and bottomless curiosity about the world to the topic of how we can best use the lessons of our evolutionary history to overcome the hazards of everyday life. He finds that natural laws profoundly affect our actions, and he reveals the hidden causes and costs of our behavior, whether as individuals or as a species whose decisions may be leading to darker times. Whether you are climbing a mountain or the corporate ladder, Everyday Survival will change the way you view your choices in our complex, dangerous, and quickly changing world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Science, Survival, Audiobook, Sociology, Anthropology

Audible Audiobook

First published August 19, 2008

About the author

Laurence Gonzales is the author of Surviving Survival and the bestseller Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. He has won two National Magazine Awards. His essays are collected in the book House of Pain.

Reviews

[Kater Cheek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected this to be a book about psychology, peppered with anecdotes about how common decision-making errors caused smart people to die. I'd hoped also for maybe a little advice about how to avoid making stupid mistakes. Alas, what I got was something completely different.
Not that there weren't interesting ideas in this book. Gonzales talks about entropy, global warming, deep-sea bacteria, caving, global warming, Alzheimers, ancient Mexican cultures, and global warming.
For starters, I could have done without the diatribe on global warming. I understand that authors hope that they can inspire people to get concerned about this, but honestly, I'm pretty sick of being hit over the head with the fact that we're all turning the earth into an inhospitable wasteland and that no one's doing anything to stop it. Maybe some people find that a call to arms, but it just makes me feel miserable and hopeless.

I suppose Gonzales did answer the question on the cover "Why Smart People Do Stupid Things" but not in a way I expected. His answer seemed to be "because life has evolved as agents of entropy, and smart people are biologically engineered to carry out the second law of thermodynamics." Not quite psychology.

Mostly I just feel that this book was a bait and switch. It was as if I had picked up a novel called "Dragon Fire" that promised "a non-stop adventure of magic and mayhem" and got a cozy mystery set in Connecticut about a woman who owned a book store named "Magic and Mayhem." Even if it's a very well done cozy mystery (and even if you like cozy mysteries) one would be rather disappointed.

Gonzales has some interesting ideas, and did a lot of research, but I think a better title for this book would be "Stuff Laurence Gonzales finds interesting."

[David Rubenstein · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a really fun book, and parts are fascinating. So why just two stars? I still don't know what the book is about. The first six or so chapters are truly about "why smart people do stupid things". But then the book becomes practically a free-for-all. I just never knew what subject would come up next; ecology, caving, consumerism, black holes, water vortices, evolution, cosmology, global warming, entropy and war, anthropology. There simply is no connection between all of these topics. It's fun to read, but what is it all about?

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much like and as enjoyable as Gonzales' Deep Survival, but with a more general outlook (actually, the most general of all outlooks). Gonzales, if you haven't read any of his stuff, is extremely easy to read; he's one of those authors whose books you put down without realizing you blew threw 50 pages. Without a doubt, you can improve your understanding of the world -- and maybe even the rate at which you improve that understanding -- by reading this book. That's Gonzales' main take-away: constantly update your mental model of the world to optimize your chances of survival and success. As well, he gets in to the meaning of life and the origins of the universe, etc... which, for such an easily-read author, is quite a commendable task. this may be spoiling a suprise, but he reasons that life exists to increase entropy, and that, not only is life NOT a miracle -- it was a foregone conclusion because of its role/ design/ purpose of increasing randomness.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this from my local library on a whim. To me it is fascinating.
Gonzales approaches human error from several perspectives: psychology, sociology, cognitive science, evolution, and philosophy. I expected the book to deal with the psychology of error and fallibility but the scope is much more broad. Gonzales approaches human error holistically and moves from individual and group error resulting from biases and blindness to foibles to the roots of error on a cosmological scale. I found the early chapters thoroughly engaging as Gonzales blended case studies from a variety of contexts with personal anecdotes and crisp explanation of behavioral, cognitive and social mechanisms that lead to automatic unthoughtful behavior and thereby to tragedy. As the author moved to more generalized and abstract principles, his exposition seemed more circuitous or convoluted causing me to fear he'd lost focus and wondered into a sort of new age hymn or rhapsody. I wondered whether he had a coherent thought train and was feeling that I hadn't the time for the paean when Gonzales abruptly startled and delighted me by noting that any reader who'd followed that far must be wondering whether the discussion then was relevant or connected to the opening chapters, and artfully pulled disparate threads back together to summarize his argument.

I find Gonzales use of metaphor both entertaining and enlightening. While his ideas may be speculative they make sense to me, at least as provocative metaphors. More than case studies and a model of human error, I feel that Gonzales ideas approach a philosophy of fallibility and mistakes based on evolution. This book is making me think and smile which makes me count it as well worth reading again in the future.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the psychology of error, why human beings have a quality called groupiness and are often hostile to groups that are other or outside their particular affinity or social groups, or what the chances of are of jumping outside human behavioral scripts and biases to address pressing environmental problems we've created.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm JUST NOW reading this book, though I've known of Deep Survival for decades and actually use it as the spine of my course for the frosh I instruct at UCLA (not for writing; they have a style guide for that). I teach the hell out of that book - chapter by chapter - because it so prepares their mindset for the new foreign environment of competitive college expectations. I believe this would have been a three-star reading experience, though I find his research impressive, were I not a devotee of Deep Survival. I'm so used to transferring those lessons into real life, partially because Gonzales does so as its author. This is less so in Everyday Survival. Deep Survival's first chapter is a bit of a well-orchestrated mess; I note it as difficult to get through for my students, but subsequent chapters are much more focused in both storytelling the lessons pulled from those stories. Everyday Survival read in the opposite direction for me. It went from specific to purposely broader and more obscure and he didn't fully answer several of his own questions. This is because he was genuinely asking them as he researched and wrote. Still, this was a valuable reading experience for me, as it reinforced and expanded on Deep Survival in a few critical contexts (sand pile effect, mental maps, scripts, etc.) and I can pull what to apply. I was also moved by Gonzales's description of his dad's mental deterioration, as I'm facing something quite similar (or exactly this) with a loved one and the nature of it - how it is natural and so commonplace - strikes me as cruel and inevitable, though - as Gonzales points out - choices are always to be made. I'm eager to finally check out Surviving Survival now.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shortly before finishing this book I was babysitting my niece who, through non-verbal communication, suggested she would like something to eat. I put her in the toy car seat her parents had just brought up from the basement, gave her a couple of animal crackers, and went to the refrigerator for milk. When I turned back from refrigerator I glanced at her high chair and, for a few seconds, completely freaked out. She wasn't there! My 1 year old niece had vanished into thin air! And then I realized that I had put her in the new toy car seat and she was happily munching away. As Laurence Gonzales explains in Everyday Survival, I had written a behavioral script for feeding Jessica. I was basically on automatic pilot, performing an action I had done dozens of times before, albeit with a small aberration.

The author examined behavioral scripts, simultaneous processing, and the way people act in groups and points out that these have an unconscious effect on our survival, both as individuals and as a species. If he stayed in the realm of the psychological I probably would have enjoyed the book more. I felt like the discussion of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy, and how the universe was created were also interesting, but belonged in a different book. Still, Everday Survival has supplied me with lots a great conversation-starting anecdotes for future dinner parties (although not the one about the chimpanzee attack) and for that I am grateful.

[Lianne Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a huge fan of Deep Survival, I looked forward to this book despite the warnings from other readers that it might go off-topic. Yes, the book wanders through many subjects, always turning the lens in the author's attempts to make sense of the subtitle, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

My curiosity must work like the author's, because I followed him through caves and jungles and sociological studies, fascinated by the discoveries he makes and the answers he's reaching for. I loved it, right up until the last few pages, when 2 plus 2 does not equal 4, even though he tries to wrap things up neatly without ever calling upon some external, intelligent Source to explain the otherwise inexplicable intelligence of nature's ways.

The book is also a subtle, loving tribute to his deceased scientist father, as well, so I don't blame the author for trying to honor materialistic science, even though his own visionary qualities and reaching mind keep pointing him toward some kind of universal intelligence behind it all. He staunchly avoided saying so.

Don't deny yourself the pleasures of this book if you're in an open-minded, questioning mood about this world we've created. I'm grateful for all the non-mathematical interpretations of recent scientific studies, and the book's primary question seems ever more relevant in 2017. Even if we have no clear answers yet.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay it's not the audio cd version of the book, but that was all I could find. He gets really into depth with evolution of both the body and the brain and for some it could get a little overwhelming... but it is a short book unlike say Jared Diamond who he refers to several times... so it is much easier to digest the information... so far... not finished yet but hard to put it down. Might be because I am finding so much of it relevant to my work at the moment.
Awesome, incredible and thoroughly interesting at so many different levels. A perfect compromise between fact and illustrative stories which come to insightful conclusions.
A must read for the right people.

[Elizabeth Perez]

I enjoyed many parts of Deep Survival but felt I missed something or just didn't get it and needed to give the author another chance. Well this one fell flat as well. I expected how to avoid making silly mistakes or deadly ones and more of why people do those thing but Gonzales just did not go over it like I had hoped. I wouldn't say there is any new examples or stories I haven't heard a million times. The author also goes way out in left field with subject matter.

Normally I love random facts all over the place but I guess if it isn't weaved in to the story or does not relate to the title it just does not work for me. I think this was more of a 2 stars although I really did not want to even finish it.

[Raz Pirata · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Mental models make our world, but they also shape and constrain the possible”

Everyday Survival is not a book about surviving today, it is a book about surviving for a lifetime, one day at a time. Laurence Gonzales expose on Why Smart People Do Stupid Things, is a book that cannot help but cut through to the bone of human nature.

Tracing a winding path from our cognitive infancy into our uncertain future Everyday Survival explores the how’s and why’s of the way we think. Where our thinking excels and where it is failing us catastrophically. What the costs of our thinking processes might be and what we might do to change the trajectory of where our current state of thinking is leading us. Our minds are at work doing all they can to automate our thoughts and actions for the sake of efficiency but what are we to do when our automated internal program lets us down, individually, societally and globally?

“Are we doomed to do what is natural, or can we go against natural law and do better?”

Everyday Survival is a thinker's book on thinking. While being expertly researched and well crafted it asks as many questions of the reader as it answers. It inspires you to join the author in a deep contemplation about where we came from and where we are going.

Beginning by outlining how our behavioral scripts and mental models dictate the majority of our decision making, Laurence Gonzales implores us to see the need for the disruption of this process for our survival.

As the book plows its way through our evolutionary past through the faulty thinking systems we apply in modern times it ponders the consequences for our future. Taking us from inside the human mind to the core of our rotting earth and looking at how our decision making has contributed to its decay.

It examines our role and influence in a world that is ultimately governed by natural laws, ones that elections and policy cannot adjudicate over. Finally, we end up in the cosmos, taking a necessary perspective to see what most needs to be seen. That it is only life that is certain, but our position in that life is not. That ultimately we might not be the ones who get to decide our fate unless we change the way we decide.

As the book plows its way through our evolutionary past through the faulty thinking systems we apply in modern times it ponders the consequences for our future. Taking us from inside the human mind to the core of our rotting earth and looking at how our decision making has contributed to it’s decay. It examines our role and influence in a world that is ultimately governed by natural laws, ones that elections and policy cannot adjudicate over. Finally, we end up in the cosmos, taking a necessary perspective to see what most needs to be seen. That it is only life that is certain, but our position in that life is not. That ultimately we might not be the ones who get to decide our fate unless we change the way we decide.

“Once we can disrupt those mental models and truly see, then seeing becomes believing and believing begets doing”

Choosing to read Everyday Survival will compel you to reexamine the choices you make, how you think and ultimately the kind of world you want to live in. It explains how we came to be so ‘stupid’ and what we can do to prevent such foolishness in the future. An important book on a critical subject that will reverberate long after you have put it down.

Overall score: 4.0 / 5.0

In a sentence: If we want to survive we need to reexamine the way we think, everyday

[Katherine Addison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle of the book is "Why Smart People Do Stupid Things," and the tl;dr answer is "because they're not paying attention." Gonzales is arguing that there are a lot of things in our lives that we* aren't paying enough attention to--he talks about what he calls a "vacation state of mind"--and discussing what happens when we don't pay attention, both in terms of what our brains do, the automatic scripts that run because (a) this situation is LIKE another situation, or (b) this script has always worked in this situation before (He doesn't mention the terrible fire in the London Underground, where a woman had people walk right by her into the boiling greasy smoke as she was trying desperately to get them to stop. Because that script had always worked before.) and in terms of what happens when an automatic script runs that isn't appropriate.

I was disappointed by this book because it is a bait and switch. Most of what Gonzales is talking about isn't why smart people do stupid things; he's really talking about why we are destroying our environment and how we can make ourselves stop, a question which requires him to go all the way back to the Big Bang to make his argument. Please note, I don't disagree with him about the importance of that question, but (1) that's really not what I was hoping for and (2) he is terribly didactic, and that's offputting whether I agree with him or not. I don't even want to be put off by it, since (not being stupid) I do think the topic is important and I thought his take was interesting and useful, but I spent half the book feeling like he was beating me over the head with a hammer.

And I really would have liked more on the original question, because what he had was fascinating.

---

*For the purposes of this book "we" are middle-class Americans. "We" are decidedly not anyone else.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, thought-provoking book, although it's extraordinarily random. The sub-title is "Why Smart People Do Stupid Things," but that's really just a small part.

For the most part, this book is a collection of thoughts on the meaning of life from a very smart guy who has access to lots of other very smart guys. So it's a fascinating read, even though it really goes all over the place.

I have to say that his explanation of life as a necessary function of energy and entropy -- rather than a strangely fortunate combination of kismet, or a grand plan by a ruler of the heavens, so to speak.-- is really something worth chewing on. The book is fun to read because he narrates and explains so well, but what makes it worth reading is the notion that "The Earth is rotting, and life is the waste" (courtesy of Nobel Prize physicist Murray Gell-Mann)... and Gonzales explains it well enough that even I can understand it!

The overriding theme of the book, however, might actually be "Why are Humans Doing Such a Stupid Thing" as ignoring the environment and global warming. He points out that there are two key stages: 1) Understanding that there's REALLY something going on here, and 2) Caring enough to do something about it. We've finally gotten past #1, but we seem to still be a long way from #2.

Thanks to Gloria for recommending it to me!

[Arash · Rating 2 out of 5]

After really enjoying his first book "deep survival," I was really disappointed by this follow-up. The first few chapters were interested and engaging and seemed to conjure the same spirit as the first book in discussing real life cases of people making illogical and poor decisions that threatened their well-being and delving into the reasons why that happened.

About halfway through the book, it all went downhill. Gonzalez went on some serious tangents: climate change, physics, chemistry, cosmology, and astronomy, to name a few. The writing was scattered and inconsistent, and I kept hoping that he would relate his science rants back to the main point of the book, but was disappointed to find out that this did not happen.

I sludged through the last few chapters just wanting to finish and move on. Definitely read the first book, but skip this one as I think it was a waste of my time,

[Joshua Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorites. It starts off asking why smart people do stupid things. It then takes you on a ride through order, entropy, the universe, and why life exists.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't bad necessarily. I just found it kinda boring, and well, it didn't tell me why smart people did stupid things. That was my intention for reading this book.
The tag on the front cover literally says, "Why smart people do stupid things". And while I think Laurence Gonzales answered this question, it wasn't as in depth as I would've liked. The entire book was very broad. From the Big Bang to psychology, this book had it all. However, I think it was too broad. It's like he was searching for some treasure and was headed in the right direction, and then started digging a different way. (I know, I know, my analogies are flawless). It simply wasn't what I expected. I wanted a full in-depth explanation of why smart people are idiots, and how to stop making stupid mistakes, and how the world around me is ever dynamic and other stuff found on the back. Instead, only about the first 1/3 to 1/2 was about what the book was advertised about.
Futhermore, of the things I was interested, I already knew. Do I know for a concrete fact why smart people do stupid things? No. But I do know a few reasons, thanks to this book. However, the explanations for why were very shallow, and I already knew some of the case studies, and the facts he presented in this book.
It was interesting, dotted with plenty of neat anecdotes, but in the end, it wasn't what I was expecting, and what I wanted out of this book. I read it to find out why smart people act stupid sometimes. Did I find that out? Partially. But discussed to more detail, were the origins of earth and life, and great, big cosmic stuff that I wasn't intending to read about. It wasn't boring, (it was at times, but I read more fiction, so that's expected), just not what I wanted to read. I will, however, check out more of Laurence Gonzales' works, as I fairly enjoyed his stories, and I think I can gain from reading more of his books.

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laurence Gonzales is starting to have a major impact on me. This book is more wandering than his others. I started to feel as though he were just throwing in every interesting thing he'd ever thought or read about, which unfortunately weakened his main point, which is whatever are we going to do to survive as a species... seemed like he might have an answer, but no. At one point he appeared to be going somewhere with how mass movements might be harnessed for the positive, and also that he might be able to give firmer statistics and dollar amounts and just how we might get to profit land with alternative energy and conservation, but that was vague as well.

Instead we wandered off into the origins of the universe, and that was all pretty basic if you've ever taken intro to astronomy or watched Sagan or what's his name, the new guy (menopausal moment, sorry). The part about how universal and in some cases non-organic-seeming life is was very interesting but kind of non-germane. Anyhow, as usual with Gonzales there's a lot of synthesis, which means non-original thought, but a lot of gems mixed in with the cement and you have to just keep reading along (or in this case listening during a long road trip) and sure enough along comes something you did not know and are glad to find out.

Mainly this was about the importance of counter-intuitive thinking to both individual and species survival, which we need to get on, pronto.

And the part about genocide was well worth the price of admission.

One of several nits was that I didn't think he was thinking about evolution properly--apes, like us, have continued to evolve. Who knows how smart animals are? Judging their cognitive skills in terms of ours has been shown by now to be a flawed model--he needs to revise his own mental map in that area. :)

[QT Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

#EverydaySurvival
#LaurenceGonzalez

Have you ever been in a fight? What did you learn from that fight?

I can recall 3 fights I've been in throughout my life.

One fight was with other 4th or 5th grade girls. I don't remember the details of that fight. I do remember that I didn't wield an arm or land a punch. In essence, I hadn't participated physically; yet each of us involved (I.e. "present") got into trouble.

Another fight was me and a younger boy. I DID wield an arm and busted a lip of the boy. Oh my! I did that.

The third that I recall, in my anger, two arms were involved. The man who was the recipient of my anger (I.e. "survival tactic") flew over tables and was frightened of me after then.

What did I learn? My own ability to inflict harm, to draw blood, to send an adult body careening into the air--that frightened me. I didn't want to be frightening. I did want to be respected.

What have you learned in your fighting? Whether spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical what have you deduced about YOU?

If "fighting" is a means of survival, how can you better survive without harming others or yourself?

How can we, as humanity, better understand our emotional needs, the physical means we use to work through those needs, and help others in their quest to understand themselves and this, better survive so that they too, can thrive?

Life continues to learn as well... The atoms, the molecules, the elements that exist in nature, in the galaxy, in all the world continue to live and die, rise and fall, combine and de-combine as we humans continue to create, experiment, destroy, and recreate.

How are you recreating joy or another hope filled catalyst to continue this life and how you come to understand your ability to thrive rather than just survive another day.

Are you surviving? Are you thriving?

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Should be called, "Everyday Random Order: How a Smart Person Can Write a Stupid Book." I loved "Deep Survival" with it's rich practicality. This book has very little to do with surviving everyday and has more to do with "Green Philosophy and Politics". Bonobo...blah,blah,blah...Lucy Cave Lady...blah,blah,blah...Global Warming...blah,blah,blah...Origins of the Universe...etc,etc,etc. Not that I disagree with these principles at all. I agree that we should all be good stewards of the Earth and adhere to principles of good management of our resources. The "blah,blah,blah" that I am referring to is lack of practicality and therefore lack of point to this drawn out diatribe. I should have stopped reading long before the end but I kept thinking that it had to get better. I would have loved to read a book on why everyday people do dumb things sometimes along with how to avoid that kind of thinking. Sadly, this was not it. I did ,however, enjoy the Stanford Prison Experiment and the explanation on how rules/laws can actually stifle thought and common sense. That was about the extent of my interest. A great title to a lame book.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really cant be reviewed. Its throwing some knowledge, some history and leaves it to you- to do want you want with it. Its touches all bases really, from why some of the most educated people make some of the most irrational decisions to how remembering to tie your shoe. Its about how we lost out natural instincts to danger. How now a days we see and understand "danger". From a natural disaster, to a training scar, to everyone else around you. Its about your brain, how its evolved, and why some technology has clouded normal basic instinct. It jumps around but all in all is quite interesting.

[Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Laurence Gonzales would find many of the Goodreads reviews amusing, as they illustrate his point that our mental models prevent us from seeing things as they really are. When people complain that they didn't like the book because it was different from what they thought it would be, they are exhibiting the rigidness of thought that so often endangers us. True, the title seems to indicate that the book will be about individual decisions, when in reality it relates to global, corporate, humankind-wide actions. (A publisher's title pick, probably.)

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amazon reviews I agree with on this one… “After chapter six, the book unravels…”, “meandering, free-association ramble…”, and “a collection of unfocused essays about miscellaneous topics.”

I really enjoyed the first few chapters. He really gave some great examples of how and why we go on auto-pilot sometimes and end up making bad decisions (or lack of decisions, since we are on auto-pilot). There was a great section on unintended, unforeseen consequences. But after that, the book veered into the land of WTF…

[Joe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Since the base theme of the book seemed to be the universe moving toward entropy, I was hoping the epilogue would let us in on the tongue-in-cheek joke that this book was really a great example of entropy. But no luck, I suggest it should be renamed 'Great thoughts and ideas reduced to random nonsense all in no particular order'

en·tro·py
noun
2. lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.

[Susie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some interesting parts to this book - but the author wandered and then half-heartedly makes the case that we really have to do something about the environment before it's too late. Still not exactly sure what the whole point was except to show how smart he was and stories about his father and his microscope.

[Kathy Loden · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its not everyday that the back cover description of a book has absolutely nothing to do with its content.

[Malachi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like his writing style and insights, thus the 4 star.
I thought this would be a more practical application of day-to-day concepts of Deep Surival.
It seemed more like philosophical exploration of mindset.
Still very interesting.

This book, like many, loses a wonderful opportunity to much more timeless than they are when they spend inordinate amounts of time exploring, discussing, and borderline preaching on contemporary subject matter with the one-sided mindset of "settled-science".
It actually really limits the reach and impact of the book to contemporary times and it ends up being rather distracting in terms of feeling preached at about "settled-science".
I get it - people feel passionate about whatever contemporary issue is at hand and primary in the news at their given time in history. It's just distracting from the larger impact the books could have and unfortunately limiting for them.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two chapters are interesting, using the theory of mental scripts and "lizard brain" to explain why we do things wete are incredibly stupid. The chapter on groupism had some interesting points.

However, it feels like this book does not know what it wants to be. A discussion on evolution, sociology, climate change, big bang and mass extinction, scientific journal, historical facts of places around the globe, or humanoid species who came before us? These topics are all loosely tied back to the lizard brain theory that we are closer to apes than highly evolved beings.

The entire purpose of the book seems, most of the time, to provide the author an outlet for the author to talk about his worldly travels and vacations, and family, most notably his father.

It was a slog to get through and I don't feel as though it was worth the effort.

[thuys]

thực ra đọc chưa được nửa nhưng đọc thêm nữa có làm gì, bỏ qua chuyện bản dịch tiếng Việt nhàu nhĩ (mà luôn luôn tôi có niềm tin không phải tiếng Việt không đủ sức diễn đạt những khái niệm trừu tượng hay duy lý) thì bản thân nội dung đã quá ư hổ lốn, tư duy không có con đường rõ ràng kể cả là con đường chưa biết sẽ đến đâu thường thấy khi người ta đang mò mẫm, nếu thích trình bày quan điểm ăn xổi thì một bài đăng báo mạng là đủ chứ không cần phải viết sách, vả đem các thứ kinh nghiệm ra là luôn thiếu thuyết phục, dẫn chứng rất nhiều nhưng chừng như chỉ là phỏng đoán hầu đáp ứng lập luận của người viết, các môn khoa học xã hội thường khó làm ra vẻ nghiêm cẩn và chính xác như kiểu một cộng một bằng hai hay chứng minh sự tồn tại của trọng lực, nhưng dầu sao mặc lòng, cuốn sách đã có thể khá hơn

[Ap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chapter 1

interesting. The book is about the behavioral scripts we create through action -- how to tie a shoe, how to drive, how to act/re-act in certain situations. We create these scripts so that we can go on auto-pilot during these times. However, auto-pilot can be dangerous. He uses a lot of examples and has an overarching anecdote for each chapter.

Auto-piloted scripts enforce learned behaviors -- for example, if someone cuts you off in city traffic, you may have to cut the wheel to avoid hitting the car. Your learned, auto-pilot response becomes -- driving obstruction? Cut wheel. However, this can be dangerous when those scripts get applied to other situations that /appear/ similar, but are really very different. People who try cutting the wheel at very high interstate speeds, for example, will flip the car.

So, scripts serve a purpose, but the more automated and the less mindful we become, the less we learn, the more danger we are in.

Gonzales is a big advocate of continued learning through life. The book seems well-written and -researched so far -- My media player skipped ahead to a later chapter, though. The chapter on climate change seems a little too... preachy right now to me, but I'll revise my opinion once I hear it in order and have the context for what he is writing.

Good book so far.


----

Chapters 1-3

Anecdotes about plane crashes due to pilot's behavioral scripts being used in the wrong circumstances, people dying from volcano eruptions and tsunamis because they flocked to the sites, having no experience/recognition of the danger.

Then the next chapters move to discuss the link between the evolution of the human hand, language, frontal cortexes/brains. Discussion of the evolution of the scapula to allow humans to throw overhand (accurate ballistics), the ability to manipulate the world via our amazing hands helped give rise to language, enlarged frontal cortexes, and human complexity. He discusses how this may be manifested in Homo erectus, Homo habilus, humans...

An interesting link between humans, chimps, and bonobos. He describes humans as people with two souls -- the mundane rational side, and their irrational, inner animal with either chimp-like or bonobos-like tendencies. Chimps representing the violent, hierarchical side and bonobos representing the sex-over-violence hippie side.

Chapters 4-7

The hubris of success -- anecdotes about NASA, Xerox, and Intel. Success gives people a false notion of perfection -- they lose their caution, but they still need it just as much as ever. Success once is not the end product. If people or companies can't see past their success, and see that they are still vulnerable to failures -- if they are not malleable, not adaptable -- then they will probably fail. They think they have a grasp on what's going on around them -- but they won't always. Your behavioral scripts need to be malleable, you need to be alert to what's going on around you, so you can adapt -- do not become complacent.

So, interesting, but I don't see how we can have more chapters on how smart people doing stupid things. I feel like we've covered it. Additionally, I've noticed that he talks about how we are only limited by what we perceive as our limitations, and in some of his musings on the human race, he's imposing limits on our whole species. Interesting.

Some thoughts on alcohol -- Alcohol turns off our frontal cortexes -- it robs us of our civilized humanity and reduces us to our inner ape. However, our motor control and language remain intact much longer. Why? We become apes, irrational and subject to our inner emotions -- and we can act and speak on these things. And because we have weapons, if we have an inner chimp, we'll lose our rationality and become more prone to violence? I mean, a stretch, but an interesting concept.

Couple that with -- what makes us civilized, human, separate from apes? Gonzales discusses the roles that clothing and private sexual encounters plays on society. If we went about naked and sex was just out in the open, then we couldn't mask our emotions, he suggests. Clothing and private sex put up barriers and allow us to keep our human side in controls. What - again, interesting food for thought, but what? Earlier he said that chimps are very advanced -- they have strong concepts of good, evil, status, hierarchy. They keep a tight society -- but I guess he also said that chimps move to violence while bonobos move to sex. Oh, I'm taking all his thoughts as interesting concepts, but not as factual end-all evidence of anything. We're human because we construct our humanity by manipluating the world around us, and then thought, as long as we keep our animal sides hidden, then we can rise above it. Churchy at all?


Chapter 7 introduces us to the Tarahumara -- what a coincidence, since my last book was all about these mythical long-distance runners. But he is using them as an example of people who never lost their edge and adopted the vacation-state-of-mind that runs rampant in our Western culture. Their behavioral scripts are malleable, the people are sharp, adaptive, ever watchful, amazing, mythical, magical, you know all this. Gonzales is amazed at their hand-eye coordination, their skill with their weapons and tools, their ability to scamper up and down the rocks of the Copper Canyon, and how the rough existence out there pushes even 12-year old boys into adulthood down there.

But I think I'm against the climate change part -- once it started up again, it still felt preachy and I now abandon this endeavour.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strange book. I read it twice to make sure I didn't miss anything.

The purpose of the book is unclear. My guess is he wanted to demonstrate his broad and deep understanding of how the world works, and his new found awareness and concern about the human overshoot predicament. Except he didn't study the latter long enough to really understand the problem.

He spends thousands of words describing different aspects of our predicament. Then in one sentence says if we only woke up and spent xx billion dollars we could fix our problems. He clearly doesn't have a clue.

It reads like an essay written by a teenager except I think he's in his 70's.

[Sirpease · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book cover details a very interesting subject that's outlined in the subtitle "why smart people do stupid things." Gonzales spends the first third of the book exploring this subject with a few interesting anecdotes that grabs your attention. However, the remaining two thirds of the book seem completely unrelated to the subject and the book suffers because of it. I'm not sure if it was the PR team or the author himself, but this disconnectiveness substantially detracts from the book and makes you simply wonder what the point of reading this is. This book would've been better if marketed as a collection of articles as opposed to something consisting of one overarching theme.