The World's Best Book Summaries
What does it mean for something to be “non-scalable”? What does it mean for something to be “scalable”? Can a job be scalable or non-scalable? We’ll cover examples of jobs that are non-scalable and jobs that are scalable to give you a better idea of the benefits of a scalable job.
What is Extremistan? Where is it? Where does the word come from? What elements of our lives fall under the purview of Extremistan? Extremistan is a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the randomness and deviations from the mean of most social, man-made aspects of human society. The term was popularized by Taleb’s book The Black Swan. We’ll cover what Extremistan is, how it differs from Mediocristan, what kinds of events and characteristics come from the land of Extremistan, and why Extremistan often makes prediction impossible.
What is the law of small numbers? How does ignoring it lead to biased decision-making? The law of small numbers is the bias of making generalizations from a small sample size. In truth, the smaller your sample size, the more likely you are to have extreme results. If you’re not aware of this principle, when you have small sample sizes, you may be misled by outliers. We’ll cover two examples of the law of small numbers in action and how to use your awareness of it to make better decisions.
What is Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s prospect theory? How does it explain human behavior? Prospect theory is a theory in economics developed by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. It says that Utility depends on changes from one’s reference point rather than absolute outcomes. The theory suggests that people don’t always behave rationally. We’ll cover what Kahneman’s prospect theory is, how it works, and how it challenges traditional utility theory.
What does “regression toward the mean” mean in psychology? How does it apply to everyday life? Regression toward the mean refers to the principle that, over repeated sampling periods, outliers tend to revert to the mean. High performers show disappointing results when they fail to continue delivering; strugglers show sudden improvement. We’ll cover what it means to regress toward the mean in psychology, 7 examples of regression toward the mean, and how to counter biases related to this phenomenon.
A premature birth occurs before 36 weeks and occurs in 12% of pregnancies. Early-term is between 37-38 weeks, and full-term is 39 and beyond. Over the past decades, survival for preterm babies has increased dramatically due to improvements like assisted ventilation (lungs develop later in pregnancy). It’s a marvel that even babies born at 22 weeks still have a shot at survival. What are the specific chances of survival for each week of pregnancy? How likely is a baby to survive at 24 weeks, vs 26 weeks, and 28 weeks?
Can money buy happiness? Some might say it depends on who you ask, but social scientists might say it depends on how much you have. Learn how money affects your levels of happiness, why more isn’t necessarily better, and why more might actually be worse.
What are the different types of curves you can graph? How do the curves differ from each other? We’ll cover curves, with examples from real world statistics.
![Is the World Getting Better or Worse? [Statistics]](https://www.shortform.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/factfulness-earth-750x350.jpg "Is the World Getting Better or Worse? [Statistics]")
If you’ve turned on a TV or read a newspaper in the last two decades or so, you’d have a pretty grim picture of the world. Terrorism. Extreme poverty. Deadly epidemics. And it’s getting worse all the time. But this view is completely wrong. Not only are things much better than we think—they’re better than they’ve ever been.