Book Review: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Now I’ll be honest, I almost quit this book during the intro. The writing is fairly dry, and it feels like it’s written by someone who just thinks a little too much of his research.

But this is the kind of book you read and it changes your everyday life. I guess I should talk about what the book is actually about.

There’s a long introduction (that isn’t incredibly engaging) about how the book is a story with two characters: “System 1” and “System 2” thinking. System 1 is fast and intuitive. It’s how we recognize people and objects and make intuitive connections. System 2 is more analytical. It’s what we use to solve problems we’ve never seen before.

But System 2 is lazy. And so we end up using System 1 for a lot of things where we should really use System 2. The book is an exploration of this idea, exploring cognitive biases and mistakes people make. Kahneman takes you through countless examples of these cognitive biases, citing a lot (a LOT) of studies.

But, to be honest, I found the studies to be superfluous. As I read the book, a lot of the arguments Kahneman made about human behavior were confirmed by my own. Each chapter was some variation of “oh yea, I do that,” then “I can’t believe I do that; it’s so nonsensical.” And yet, though the book, I found myself learning things that I could’ve never learned on my own.

If you want a book that will make you smarter, you’ll read Thinking, Fast and Slow.