Knowledge and Decisions
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Narrated by:
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Robertson Dean
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Written by:
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Thomas Sowell
About this listen
This reissue of Thomas Sowell’s classic study of decision making, which includes a preface by the author, updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell, one of America’s most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency but our very freedom. This is because actual knowledge is being replaced by assumptions based on an abstract and elitist social vision of what ought to be.
Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a landmark work and selected for this prize “because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government.” In announcing the award, the center acclaimed that the “contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [this] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant.”
Thomas Sowell is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has been published in both academic journals and such popular media as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fortune and writes a syndicated column for newspapers across the country.
©1980 Basic Books, Inc. Preface 1996 by Thomas Sowell (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.You may also enjoy...
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Essential to understanding the world in all times.
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The Vision of the Anointed
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The Vision of the Anointed is a devastating critique of the mindset behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Thomas Sowell sees what has happened not as a series of isolated mistakes, but as a logical consequence of a vision whose defects have led to disasters in education, crime, family disintegration, and other social pathology. In this book, "politically correct" theory is repeatedly confronted with facts-and sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a whole set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites.
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Essential 2022 reading. all about Trudeau
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In Plays Well With Others, Eric Barker dives into these questions, drawing on science to reveal the truth beyond the conventional wisdom about human relationships. Combining his compelling storytelling and humor, Barker explains what hostage negotiation techniques and marital arguments have in common, how an expert con-man lied his way into a twenty-year professional soccer career, and why those holding views diametrically opposed to our own actually have the potential to become our closest, most trusted friends.
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Very relatable and relevant
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By the end of on average day in the early 21st century, human beings searching the Internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information - unprecedented in history - can tell us a great deal about who we are - the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than 20 years ago seemed unfathomable.
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Totally worth the effort.
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Dull and Underwhelming .
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Race and Culture
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Thomas Sowell is one of America’s leading voices on matters of race and ethnicity. In his book, Inside American Education, he surveyed the ills of American education from the primary grades to graduate school with “an impressive range of knowledge and acuity of observation”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Now, in his book Race and Culture, he asks the question: “What is it that allows certain groups to get ahead?” and the answer will undoubtedly create debates for years to come.
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Paris 1919
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- Unabridged
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Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, renowned historian Margaret MacMillan's best-selling Paris 1919 is the story of six remarkable months that changed the world. At the close of WWI, between January and July of 1919, delegates from around the world converged on Paris under the auspices of peace. New countries were created, old empires were dissolved, and for six months, Paris was the center of the world.
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Very important book
- By AvidReader on 2023-02-13
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The Infinite Machine
- How an Army of Crypto-Hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum
- Written by: Camila Russo
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- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of Ethereum begins with Vitalik Buterin, a supremely gifted 19-year-old autodidact who saw the promise of blockchain when the technology was in its earliest stages. He convinced a crack group of coders to join him in his quest to make a super-charged, global computer. The Infinite Machine introduces Vitalik’s ingenious idea and unfolds Ethereum’s chaotic beginnings. It then explores the brilliant innovation and reckless greed the platform has unleashed and the consequences that resulted as the frenzy surrounding it grew.
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Great info, poor narration
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Written by: Camila Russo
What the critics say
What listeners say about Knowledge and Decisions
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- Aaron
- 2022-05-07
Awesome
adjective,
extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear.
My only criticism of this great work is that more people haven't read/heard its message.
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- M. Yakiwchuk
- 2023-05-29
One of the best
Knowledge and Decisions is one of the best books I have ever read. Reading this book, you will understand the motives and incentives of various decision makers and groups and the feedback loops (if any) they encounter from those impacted by their decisions.
Downsides: A bit academic/textbook-like at times. Narrator is best endured in short doses and when wide awake.
Upsides: Equips the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the world as it is, vis a vis the knowledge and decisions made by those of us living in the world as it is.
Overall: Strongly recommended to those looking to understand why the world is as it is, by one of America’s most grounded intellectuals, Thomas Sowell. 5/5
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- RobKYEG
- 2018-10-23
Both enlightening and devastating.
Immensely challenging to contemporary political, social and ideological notions. The evidence is formidable and verifiable, the arguments and explanations are thorough.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Lexloco
- 2022-11-21
Thought-provoking
It is trite to say that we are living in times of polarized thinking and divisive politics. I have personally found that I tend to look for confirmatory news and commentary rather than those that challenge my current beliefs. (That said, I did try to listen to Fox News for a week, but found it was intolerable.) Thomas Sowell’s views are by no means unassailable, but are so well argued that I found myself actually changing my views on some “political” issues. I recommend listeners across the political spectrum listen to it.
One caveat: it is not a light listen. I usually listen to fiction at 2x speed and nonfiction at 1.5. I had to listen to this at regular (1x) speed and back up several times to understand the points being made.
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- Matt
- 2023-04-26
Listen and understand.
Incentives drive human behaviour and therefore society. A brilliant explanation of the information that drives the world. A must listen for those interested in the truth of human nature and the way the world works.
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- Matt
- 2018-04-26
Brilliant. Required material for modern humans
Sowell helps you understand the complex society we inhabit and destroys the political rhetoric of all sides. It's difficult to understand all he discusses in the first pass, but issues become clearer with more listens. I think this is required reading for anyone who wishes to advance their knowledge of society.
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4 people found this helpful