Michael Lewis : The Undoing Project —Interview with Kathryn Ryan #RNZ

Link received 27/12/2016 at 3:21 p.m.
Message: A lesson for some Dunedin ‘luminaries’ perchance?

It’s amazing how resistant, particularly powerful men, are to people coming from outside and giving them advice on how to make decisions.
—Michael Lewis

RNZ National
Trust your gut? Think again
From Nine To Noon with Kathryn Ryan, 10:09 am on 21 December 2016

[Abridged.] Michael Lewis is one of the most famous non-fiction writers in America. He has written 14 books, edited one and is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair. His books include the global best-selling Flash Boys – an expose of high speed scamming in the stock market; The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine – an account of shady financial transactions and accounting that led to the 2008 global financial meltdown and on which the film The Big Short was based and Moneyball, the story of a maverick outsider who beat the system.

Lewis’s new book is called The Undoing Project in which he profiles the professional and personal relationship between the behavioural psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Kahneman and Tversky’s work shed new light on how humans make decisions when faced with risk and uncertainty. They established that we generally trust our gut instinct, over the evidence, to guide our decision-making.

[simonandschuster.com]

Lewis says he came across Kahneman and Tversky after writing Moneyball. He says the two were very different personalities and that made for the perfect team.

“They sensed in the other something they wished they had. Kahneman is an unbelievable creative mind he really has a mind more like a poet or a novelist filled with these flashing insights about human nature. Tversky wanted to be a poet but he has a scientific, logical mind. He’s a brilliant logician.”

The two decide to come together and study how the human mind works. That work became an examination of human fallibility – the weakness of the human mind. They designed experiments to show how our mind plays tricks on us.

One they stumbled on was a phenomenon they called anchoring that skews human decisions. They also established that we are terrible at assessing risk – we rate risk based on what’s most memorable which tends to be what happened most recently.

[marketwatch.com]

“People long for the world to be a far more certain place than it is, instead of dealing with uncertainties they tell stories that make it seem much more certain and respond to stories that make it seem much more certain than it is. A politician speaking in certain terms as if he’s infallible has weirdly an advantage – even though we shouldn’t believe him. We’re very vulnerable to people who simulate certainty.”

Lewis is unsure whether this inbuilt fallibility can be fixed.

“I hate to sound fatalistic but one of the big takeaways from [Kahneman and Tversky’s] work is just how hard it is to correct for human fallibility – they equate cognitive illusion with optical illusion.”
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█ Audio | Download: Ogg MP3 (26′07″)

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Michael Monroe Lewis (born Oct 15, 1960) was born in New Orleans to corporate lawyer J. Thomas Lewis and community activist Diana Monroe Lewis. He attended the college preparatory Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. He then attended Princeton University where he received a BA degree (cum laude) in Art History in 1982 and was a member of the Ivy Club. He went on to work with New York art dealer Daniel Wildenstein. He enrolled in the London School of Economics, and received his MA degree in Economics in 1985. Lewis was hired by Salomon Brothers and moved to New York for their training program. He worked at its London office as a bond salesman. He resigned to write Liar’s Poker and become a financial journalist. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009. More at Wikipedia.

Vanity Fair – Hive: Politics
█ Donald Trump and the Rules of the New American Board Game
By Michael Lewis Dec 18, 2016 7:00 pm
While volunteering at his daughter’s new high school, Michael Lewis watched kids of all races and backgrounds react to Trump’s election with a peaceful demonstration of their grief and fear. It inspired a game he’s devised for thinking about the future. Link

Vanity Fair – Hive: Politics
█ Obama’s Way
By Michael Lewis Sep 11, 2012 6:12 pm
To understand how air-force navigator Tyler Stark ended up in a thornbush in the Libyan desert in March 2011, one must understand what it’s like to be president of the United States—and this president in particular. Hanging around Barack Obama for six months, in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and on the basketball court, Michael Lewis learns the reality of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sent Stark into combat. Link

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

*Image: Michael Lewis by Tabitha Soren / W.W. Norton Company
blackwhite by whatifdunedin

Commissar Obamanation

Maurice Prendergast says:

I would like to share this very ‘solemn summary’ of the modus operandi of a charlatan and the curiously common characteristics to those exhibited by Farry and his fellow travellers.
This reminds me of the sales pitch used to hypnotise the people into believing that a ratepayer funded stadium would deliver salvation to the all. There are some real parallels – Barack Obama and Malcolm Farry seem to sing from the same song sheet.

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Email received.

Subject: This belongs in the EMAIL HALL OF FAME
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:56:44 -0400

How’s this for apocalyptic literature. This was written by a pastor’s wife in biblical prose as a commentary of current events. It is brilliant.

*****

And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land Called America, Having lost their morals, their initiative, and their Will to defend their liberties,
Chose as their Supreme Leader that Person known as “The One.”

He emerged from the vapours with a message that had no meaning;
But He Hypnotised the people telling them, “I am sent to save you.”
My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego,
And my Association with evil doers are of no consequence.
I shall save you with hope and Change.
Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the Land that he who preceded me
Is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed.
And the people rejoiced, For even though they knew not what “The One” would do, he had promised that it was good; and they believed.
And “The One” said “We live in The greatest country in the world.
Help me change everything about it!”
And the people said, “Hallelujah! Change is good!”
Then He said, “We are going to tax the rich fat-cats.”
And the People said “Sock it to them!”
“And redistribute their wealth.”
And the people said, “Show us the money!”
And then he said, “Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody..”

And Joe the plumber asked, “Are you kidding me?
You’re going to Steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??”
And “The One” Ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe’s personal
Records were hacked and publicised.
One lone reporter asked, “Isn’t that Marxist policy?”
And she was banished from the kingdom.

Then a citizen asked, “With no foreign relations experience and having
Zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with Radical terrorists?”
And “The One” said, “Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them
How nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!”
And the people said, “Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons
Into free cars for the people!”

Then “The One” said “I shall give 95% of you lower taxes.”
And one, Lone voice said, “But 40% of us don’t pay ANY taxes.
“So “The One” Said, “Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!”
And the people said, “Hallelujah! Show us the money!”
Then “The One” said, “I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!”
And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed.
And He said. “I shall mandate employer-funded health care for every worker
And raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every Person unlimited healthcare
And medicine and transportation to the Clinics.”
(And no Muslim shall pay for their share of healthcare.)
And the people said, “Give me some of that!”
Then he said, “I shall penalise employers who ship jobs overseas.”
And the people said, “Where’s my rebate cheque?”

Then “The One” said, “I shall bankrupt the coal industry and
Electricity rates will skyrocket!”
And the people said, “Coal is Dirty, coal is evil, no more coal!
But we don’t care for that part about higher electric rates.”
So “The One” said, Not to worry. If Your rebate isn’t enough to cover
your expenses, we shall bail you out.
Just sign up with the ACORN and your troubles are over!”
Then He said, “Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted.
Let’s Grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches,
Free medical care, bilingual signs and guaranteed housing…”
And The people said, “Hallelujah!” and they made him king!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and Ever-higher taxes,
raised their prices and laid off workers. Others Simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff.
The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a Crawl.
And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then “The One” said, “I am the “the One”- The Messiah – and I’m here To save you!
We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!”
But our foreign trading partners said unto Him. “Wait a Minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more…
And “The One” said, “Wait a minute. That is unfair!!”
And the world said, “Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced.
Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power.
Now you shall play by our rules!”

And the people cried out, “Alas, alas!! What have we done?”
But yea, verily, it was too late.
The people set upon The One and spat upon him and stoned him,
and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more;
and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope.
And the Change “The One” had given them was as like unto a poison
that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built.

And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish,
“Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!”
But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Ridding DCHL of conflicts of interest, Otago business monopoly ‘by director’, and other ghouls

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 12/08/2011
Council votes to revamp City Holdings
By Wilma McCorkindale – Southland Times / D Scene
The Dunedin City Council has voted to accept radical recommendations in a confidential report that slams governance of its holdings company. Mayor Dave Cull last night said the council was seeking legal and accounting advice on how it could implement the measures suggested by the report’s author, governance and business leader Warren Larsen. Mr Larsen suggests a radical overhaul of governance of the council-owned holdings company Dunedin City Holdings Ltd and a review of the “fit” of its subsidiary companies to council requirements.

The Dunedin City Holdings board should be “entirely reconstituted”, it said, recommending three externally sourced directors for an initial three-year term. All should be independent and drawn from a New Zealand-wide recruitment search, initially beyond the Otago region. Ideally, there should be an increase in the pool of women directors and “younger, high-potential, competent directors”.

Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Landscape urbanism + ‘larger infrastructure of the territory of our cities and towns’

“Landscape is doing some serious environmental heavy lifting.”
–Adriaan Geuze, West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture

### architectmagazine.com October 6, 2010
Source: ARCHITECT October 2010
Urban Design
Systems, Not Icons: The unstoppable rise of landscape urbanism
By John Gendall
Not long ago, landscape architects were often dismissed as the consultants who put finishing touches on a building site—the broccoli around a steak. But with landscape architects increasingly taking lead positions on large-scale projects, winning urban design competitions around the world, and expanding the design market share, broccoli, clearly, is a thing of the past.
In many ways, the bellwether for these changes was James Corner’s career arc. As a young designer in Richard Rogers’ office, he grew frustrated by a lack of collaboration between disciplines on the postindustrial London Docklands project. Setting out on his own, he founded Field Operations, which has transformed itself from a boutique landscape practice turning out small projects and academic essays into a significant urban design firm with high-profile projects around the world. The critical step in that transition was when Corner won the competition to turn Freshkills, a huge former landfill in New York City, into a public park.
Underscoring this trend, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is in the midst of expanding its landscape faculty by six professorships over two years, and its landscape student body by 50 percent. And landscape architecture’s academic expansion holds up with the most tried-and-true indicator: It’s following the money. Large corporate architecture firms are ramping up their urban design and landscape divisions, as AECOM notably did in 2005 when it acquired EDAW, then among the world’s largest landscape firms.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Grimwood's world

The Transition Towns phenomenon, the rapid expansion of farmers markets and garden networks, and things like Sustainable Dunedin, and Enviroschools… “collectively, they understand that energy curtailment means transportation curtailment, means localisation of everything”.

### ODT Online Mon, 15 Jun 2009
Opinion
Hide’s ‘Mad Max’ approach to local govt

By Murray Grimwood

Murray Grimwood canvasses two approaches to local government, one “private” and resource-heavy, the other sustainable and community based.
Read more

• Murray Grimwood is a Waitati farmer and occasional commentator.

!!!! Rodney Hide visits Dunedin on Wednesday, June 17.

To find out more about Transition Towns, go to If DCC had sustainability in its head (June 5, 2009…7:07 pm)