Title: Hey Guys,<p>I just finished reading Risk (The Science of Politics and Fear) by Dan Gardner and figured I should recommend it as a great read. I wouldn't normally recommend a book here but I <i>suspect</i> it is the kind of book a lot of people would dismiss as not-relevant to the hacker sort of mentality (I thought the same).<p>Basically it sums up the Human reaction to perceived risk. One way to describe the whole thing is how many people, after seeing a coin land heads up 5 times in a row will bet it has a higher chance of landing heads up again next time - regardless of the random aspect.<p>The most interesting thing I found in the book though was when he presented common "risk puzzles" where our gut causes a knee-jerk answer to a posed question. Several times I thought "that's silly, I'd never fall for that" only to read on an find that I had done :) one big point he makes there is that bad responses to risk and fear are just as much a problem in "intelligent" people.<p>If I had to sum it up Risk is a good link between some of Dawkins/Hitchens anti-mythology books and popular science concepts (like A Brief History of Time etc.).<p>His initial example is how after Sept. 11th people stopped using Aeroplanes whilst car travel went up: except more people <i>extra</i> died in that year than died in the Sept 11th tragedy. Car travel was perceived as "safer" even though it wasn't in the slightest.<p>I think it is really relevant to some of the stuff people here are working on: because it assess how people respond even after considering a problem. It's also proved useful (to me) in making several tough(ish) choices in the recent past. If nothing else it has sat there in my mind so that when "gut" kicks in I have a little bookmark to stop it and rethink what I just did/said/thought.<p>Anyway, I found it incredibly fascinating &#38; enlightening to read so.... recommended :)
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