But didn t answer any of my questions re conspiracy theories and other dangerous ideas English Solid read that gave a balanced look at a lot of topics that are less than simple to talk about to day It gives this interesting insight into how the US Government actually makes decision from the perspective of someone who was actually involved and willing to share how hard decisions get made English The most controversial essays from the bestselling author once called the most dangerous man in America collected for the first time. The nation s most cited legal scholar who for decades has been at the forefront of applied behavioral economics.

But I would suggest that you have a dictionary handy English I have to admit that this book was written in an academic way that was not fun to read It s a bit like reading textbook. Except the conspiracy theory seems to be still fun to read I focus on animal right and carbon tax global warming I always try to understand what this so called carbon tax will be used for Collecting from targeted biggest carbon producing countries and then to compensate the countries who don t produce that much but got environmental damage because of it But this is just like the indulgence a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins The carbon doesn t get reduced because humans pay for it Plus the least carbon produced countries could even out sell their quota to other countries in exchange of money or local infrastructures.

Overall not an easy reading Some chapters are incredibly interesting and the most famous essay is indeed quite engaging Others dive so deep into legal philosophy that become kind of sterile for the general public The Right to Marriage and Animal Rights are a good example Interesting topic and of course excellently structured discourse but a bit dry for my taste. An interesting thinking exercise English I found this book to be so informative with many topics surrounding 9 11 politics and other relevant topics As this book was published of June this year many of the facts and other factual ideas are quite up to date as theories surrounding people like Donald Trump Hillary Clinton and Lizard People such as Justin Bieber and Barrack Obama This language features included in this are so compelling even though this book should situate in the NON FICTION section of Paper Plus and the language features shouldn t need to be compelling it should definitely sway some uncultured swines that are artificially defected from the truth from today s modern media In this book it does cover some very touching topics such as 9 11 and Religion and world conflicts in the past and present It also has a great list of potential world ending dates such as some time in the year 2239 This is date presented by the church of Orthodox Judaism This was a great and informative read and would reccomend to anyone and everyone interested in the TRUTH English I read this years ago and have been thinking about it again recently I was basically a dupe in those days like most people This book is supposed to bully you and others into remaining exploited exploitable dupes while generating consent for the state to do its part in doing the same work This and Sunstein generally is a kind of IDW intervention The IDW appeals to people wiggling away from the reservation whereas here Sunstein appeals to the people who manage the reservations Same parachuting in of convenient leaders for groups I m your buddy on your side just don t go and do any Unauthorized sense making guys Don t escape Charles Murray s bucket get drawn back down to delusion by socialization Be a dupe of the state the internationalists the biological pest control agents inserted into your life and preach materialism while wearing a logic shirt Be a dope and let everything go according to plan English The first half of the book touched somewhat on conspiracy theories but I had hoped for pros and cons regarding same JFK assassination 9 11 UFOs Not what I had hoped for when I purchased the book Very well written and the bestselling author of Nudge and Simpler Cass Sunstein is one of the world s most innovative thinkers in the academy and the world of practical politics In the years leading up to his confirmation as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs OIRA Sunstein published hundreds of articles on everything from same sex marriage to cost benefit analysis Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas is a collection of his most famous insightful relevant and inflammatory pieces Within these pages you will learn Why perfectly rational people sometimes believe crazy conspiracy theories What wealthy countries should and should not do about climate change Why governments should allow same sex marriage and what the right to marry is all about Why animals have rights and what that means Why we misfear meaning get scared when we should be unconcerned and are unconcerned when we should get scared What kinds of losses make us miserable and what kinds of losses are absolutely fine How to find the balance between religious freedom and gender equality And much Cass Sunstein is a unique controversial and exciting voice in the political world A man who cuts through the fog of left vs right arguments and offers logical evidence based and often surprising solutions to today s most challenging questions Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous IdeasThe title and cover are a bit misleading The title makes it seem like the book is mostly about ideas clustered around conspiracy theories but the book is in fact just a collection of law review articles by Sunstein that he likes A accurate title would be A Collection of Law Review Articles by Cass Sunstein lead by an article about Conspiracy Theories but that probably isn t as an exciting of title However I still found the collection enlightening For a writer as prolific as a Sunstein it can be a bit overwhelming to wade into his work so it s useful to see what he considers his best and most interesting work The topics span conspiracy theories animal rights the second bill of rights minimalism and nudges Some central themes do emerge from the cluster of articles In particular the variety of phenomena from conspiracy theories to availability cascades that can be explained by cascades informational and reputational There is an emphasis on applications of behavioral economics to public policy In one article Sunstein advocates cost benefit analysis as an anti dote to the human tendency to overweight certain probabilities of disaster availability In another article Sunstein discusses the failure of people to realize how adaptable they are to hardship and how focusing on hardship makes juries and judges overweigh the pain and suffering of extreme events while underweighting the effects of chronic unignorable pain Sunstein instead advocates moving to a compensatory damage system based off of loss in capabilities A recurring theme in Sunstein s work is that there is no real separation between negative and positive rights He argues that even negative rights require a tax subsidized court and police system to enforce In a similar vein Sunstein argues that the market only exists as a result of government intervention property rights and contract rights require a government to maintain them in their socially efficient state However he advocates for market oriented solutions to most social ills contrasted to the lack of understanding by central planners of the unintended consequences of their commands In his essay New Progressivism Sunstein exercises trimming another later article about principled compromising that tries to combine social democratic ends with market means My favorite essay in the collection was about minimalism This was partially because I had read extensively about Sunstein s work in behavioral economics and cascades The minimalism essay is a sustained discussion on the concept of incompletely theorized agreements when people agree on what to do but not why Sunstein argues that some agreements can be categorized by their their depth and width The depth of an argument is the reasoning given for the argument how much does the argument rest on foundational principles and the width of the argument is how broad the rule is just the narrow situation or situations Incompletely theorized agreements occur when people agree on the conclusion but not the argumentation arriving at the conclusion The agreement can be shallow but this could be a virtue The shallowness of the agreement allows compromise who cares why we do x as long as we do x lowers the cost of disagreement the losers can still employ their reasoning for later debates demonstrates respect for different points of view and builds in flexibility for the principle or agreement to change over time Sunstein also praises narrow agreements which again allow institutional compromise lowers costs of error and information a wrong narrow rule is less likely to be disruptive than a broad rule and requires less information gathering to make a comprehensive rule avoids unintended consequences and in the case of judges allows the societal debate over contentious issues to continue Of course Sunstein also describes cases where narrow and shallow decisions are not appropriate in many cases they shift the burden of the decision into the future or are just intrinsically inappropriate English NOTE All quotations are taken from an uncorrected digital galley and are therefore provisional Quotes will be corrected when the book is released When I first saw the book I was definitely intrigued Conspiracy theories are an interesting subject with a lot of very elegant theoretical constructs behind them Despite the other dangerous ideas in the tagline after reading the blurb I expected a variant on the pop psychology and sociology books that I tend to devour like candy Unfortunately I think the title and blurb are somewhat misleading I noticed in passing as I started this review that the ratings seem a bit low I suspect that this may be due to a mismatch between readers and subject. Personally I think the title gets it wrong I d say that the book is actually a collection of very loosely related essays about various human biases and the author s beliefs on how government should take these factors into account I found it interesting and it is certainly different from my standard read However I think I was something of a mismatch for the book As I said I expected an entertaining retelling of various experiments dealing with human ideation of conspiracy perhaps with some ties in with the author s experiences with the law and politics Instead I got Mr Sunstein giving me his opinion on a wide variety of topics from the Bill of Rights to the costs and benefits of cost benefit analysis to animal rights to religion and sexism to marriage to climate change to a rosy tinted description of New Progressivism It s still an interesting book but if you pick it up keep in mind that the conspiracy business peters out at about the 20% mark and I m not sure which of the other ideas were supposed to be dangerous so make sure you re not in it for the paranoia. For me the style was a misfit When I dig into nonfiction I don t want to read about someone s opinions I want the facts For me this means that authors shouldn t state psychological theories as fact they should explain one or relevant studies and let the reader draw his own conclusions Call me suspicious and overly sceptical a conspiracy theorist if you will but I don t appreciate grandiose claims without being handed at least a little of the evidence that backs them up Instead in Conspiracy Theories the author tends to state various theories as fact and backs up the claim with a citation It s up to you to hunt down the hundreds of papers and determine whether or not they support the sweeping statements Maybe I m just lazy but I tend to expect my nonfiction to give me all the necessary information rather than requiring either blind belief or heavy homework. The book itself tries to remain quite measured in tone but there are a few breaks in objectivity that may be irritating to readers who do not share the author s political beliefs My favourite bit actually came from the intro to the conspiracy theory section Mr Sunstein complains that some of his beliefsStruck an especially raw nerve and actually endangered my chances at senate confirmation As I learned the negative attention was partly a product of the desire of many people to attack anyone associated with the Obama administration No he provides neither proof nor citations for that little conspiracy theory Given the context I found this little bit of ironic paranoia to be hilarious. Actually I think the first section encapsulated both the best and worst aspects of the books I really liked the discussion of how conspiracies provide an underlying intentional order and his descriptions of crippled epistemologies conspiracy cascades reputational cascades availability group polarization and pluralistic ignorance He also claims that conspiracy theorists tend to believe in multiple conspiracies even ones that might be inherently contradictory The evidence he provides however is yet another reference to a study that I d have to dig up before ascertaining how well it supported the claim. The most problematic aspect of this section was his discussion of cognitive infiltration a term and topic destined to give even the most credulous person a bit of paranoia The term coined by the author includes a variant in which Government agents and their allies might enter foreign chat rooms online social networks or even real space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises causal logic or implications for action political or otherwise Government officials would participate anonymously or even with false identities He notes that the latter might have ethical concerns but also states that it would have higher returns I am disgusted to find a government official evaluating such strategies mainly on their effectiveness rather than the absolute betrayal of the system he stands for He does note that it should be used only in unusual circumstances but that s the slip n slide of slippery slopes Not only is cognitive infiltration creepy even just hearing him coolly lay out the pros and cons of using such sockpuppets validates and confirms the very conspiracies that were supposed to be discrediting The book leaves the quagmire of conspiracy at around 20% to talk about FDR s proposal of a second Bill of Rights then a segue into cost benefit analysis Building on Kahneman s thinking fast and slow he argues that misfearing leads us to high inaccuracy in predicting happiness after tragedy To me this section was dubious because it depends heavily on accurately quantifying happiness He then takes a total right turn into his opinions on how to legislate animal rights marriage climate change and the tension between freedom of religion and gender equality As the book progressed it drifted and into a political or law based perspective I think the climate change chapter was probably my favourite Sunstein lays out the various culpability and distributory models and the problems with each Although it was once again a very political and opinion heavy piece I greatly enjoyed his exploration of the various rationales and their pitfalls. The last section of the book dips entirely into political theory Sunstein provides a rosy tinted portrait of what he terms New Progressivism Starting with the claim that humans are terrible at predicting long range effects of interference he defines New Progressivism as ultimately interested in outcomes rather than means I absolutely agree with many of its tenets from emphasis on education and empowerment to the harnessing of social norms It all felt very facile and not necessarily well thought out something it shares with the rest of U. S policy The last two sections define two useful techniques for avoiding conflict minimalism in which one tries to put off big decisions or make them as narrow as possible and trimming a policy that attempts to play peacemaker by either compromising or preserving The book then ends abruptly without any form of summary or attempt to tie the disparate threads into a unified whole. I think the content of the book was quite interesting the most problematic aspect for me was simply a mismatch of preconceptions I was looking for a book of facts not a series of proposals and opinions Perhaps the most troubling aspect was the discussion of cognitive infiltration no matter how much Mr Sunstein protests I found the idea both revolting and disturbing and I think it has probably had the amusing effect of making me susceptible to conspiracy theories against the government All the same I really enjoyed some sections especially the part about climate change Even though it wasn t what I expected I thought it made for an interesting read I certainly learned a lot about how policymakers think I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher SimonSchuster in exchange for my honest review Excerpted from my review on Booklikes English Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass R Sunstein published by Simon and Schuster. Category Conspiracy Publication Date March 18 2014Depending on whom you are and what kind of reading you do will largely determine the popularity of this book The book will be of major interest to those interested in politics and the law It is definitely not a book for the casual reader. The book is a compilation of the writings of Cass R Sunstein They cover subjects that range from animal rights religion sex discrimination and other subjects that are controversial in today s society Sunstein is controversial in his beliefs and the reader should be aware that this is brought out in his conclusions In all fairness to Sunstein he does put forth other theories and beliefs to give the reader a balanced view of the topic. If the reader is a liberal he will find himself agreeing with many of the proposals or solutions held by Sunstein but if one is a conservative he will oppose his theories for the most part. Although the book will be considered controversial it should be noted that Cass R Sunstein is a legal scholar that is held in high esteem He is considered to be one of the most innovative thinkers and has written many books on various subjects ranging from applied economics to the full political spectrum. The book is academic in its subject matter and its writing so if you are looking for a book that will make you think and weigh the various possibilities of a given subject this would be a good choice but very usually this money would never reach their poor people only in the hands of country leaders or you know those in power So my point is why not collecting the carbon tax money to develop something really can reduce carbon producing alternative energy is a must do measures but i means there should be way to transform CO2 into something else efficiently I saw some technology seems undergoing but the scale is still slow We should at least do something before it s too late English Before this book I had never read anything by Cass Sunstein but I knew the name Partially it came from his time as head of the Office of Management and Budget in President Obama s first term but so from his frequent mentions by Glenn Beck as a living breathing pillar of evil From the tone and volume of Beck s cries against anything Sunstein has to say I imagined the book would be filled to the brim with radical communist socialist agenda promoting fantasies from the far left but I was somewhat sadly misled. Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas is a collection of essays by Sunstein ranging over a number of topics He covers same sex marriage global warming free speech and a number of other hot button issues that we face in the country today In each chapter he lays out the original problem or situation and proceeds to break it down from each side measuring the common responses for and against to see which ones pan out It s a book written to make you think not tell you what to think. When Sunstein first walked into the limelight of the White House administration the political extremes in the country saw diametrically opposed illusions The left side of the country imagined wild and radical shifts in government opening the doors to a wild wonderland of progressiveness and equality for all The right imagined the complete and utter destruction of personal rights and capitalism a roller coaster launch straight into the bread lines of Old World Russia When he turned out to be much moderate and reasoned in his policies instead of either side taking a deep breath and releasing some of their fervor they just hated him. This book is a perfect reason of why You cannot pin him down or pigeonhole his outlook into a cozy little box He references New Progressivism numerous times throughout as the way forward but since it is a political ethos of his own design he can make it fit whichever legislative outcome he likes The anti capitalist crowd might be surprised by Sunstein s argument against excessive damages in civil trials including those awarded for emotional loss suffering or even lost limbs While the anti government folks might be shocked by one of his core tenets for the New Progressivism This is the sense in which New Progressivists endorse the old idea that there should be No rights without responsibilities That sounds much libertarian than communist. The idea most pursued in this book is the need to really think about your standpoint and follow it beyond the horizon see where it leads and whether it is worth the journey Many choices sound beneficial in the outset like massive increases to the minimum wage to help the working poor rise out of poverty but when drawn out in studies and historical data they can lead to much different conclusions dramatically increasing the minimum wage historically creates higher unemployment since only a fraction of the working poor retain higher wage jobs while the rest are cut completely Sunstein is a hero for the moderate and studied middle over either extreme Neither the devil of Glenn Beck s nightmares nor the revolutionary of radical left he uses his studies to navigate the chaos of public policy in the modern age English

Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas By Cass R. Sunstein

1476726620

9781476726625

English

288

Hardcover

Cass R Sunstein is an American legal scholar particularly in the fields of constitutional law administrative law environmental law and law and behavioral economics who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration For 27 years Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor Sunstein is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he is on leave while working in the Obama administration.Or maybe it s all part of some grand conspiracy or other..