Bad Thoughts
I recently finished the book Bad thoughts – a guide to clear thinking by Jamie Whyte.
It was a really interesting and engrossing read.
The book is split into a number of chapters, each dealing with a type of logical fallacies. These include “The right to my opinion” and “morality fever”. It is well written and funny, dissecting statements from the great and the good, showing their flawed reasoning. As well as contrasting hypothetical positions of liberals, socialists, conservatives and libertarians.
One timely chapters deals with stock brokers. After discussing whether their high salaries are rewarded for luck or for skill, and discussing statistics of results and how some of the traders will have good runs he concludes:
Investment banks should employ former winners of Lotto tickets for them. No salary could be too high for these wizards of ticket selection.