<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,1225304,00.html?=rss">Singapore has removed its famous ban on chewing gum. </a>The article follows the history of gum. While mentioning that it was the addition of latex which made the stuff widely available, the article fails to mention that it was originally developed as a form of synthetic rubber. That experiment failed. The rest, as they say, was history.
Despite the following sub-title, this book has an intriguing thesis: THE WISDOM OF CROWDS: WHY THE MANY ARE SMARTER THAN THE FEW AND HOW COLLECTIVE WISDOM SHAPES BUSINESS, ECONOMIES, SOCIETIES, AND NATIONS, by James Surowiecki.
<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0525/p15s02-bogn.html" title="review of "Wisdom of Crowds"">According to the review</a>, "As counterintuitive as it sounds, however, the mathematics work so long as Surowiecki's three key criteria - independence, diversity, and decentralization - are satisfied. "If you ask a large enough group," he says, "to make a prediction or estimate a probability," the errors they make cancel each other out. "Subtract the error, and you're left with the information." In this fashion, the TV studio audience of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," guessed the right answer to questions 91 percent of the time, torching the "experts," who guessed the right answer only 65 percent of the time."
Only asking "experts", incidentally, makes the fatal error of not asking a group with enough diversity. Again from the review, "Take national security. In one section, Surowiecki describes how the US blundered into the Bay of Pigs because the decisionmaking group - the president and his advisers - all shared similar conceptions and assumptions. In short, the group lacked diversity and, as a result, demonstrated a colossal example of the failings of groupthink."
New book on anxiety and stress in the modern world, STATUS ANXIETY
By Alain de Botton. I wouldn't ordinarily mention this link except for the oh-so-scintillating by-line I read: <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0518/p14s03-bogn.html" title="McLeary book review">"Her house is bigger, his wife is prettier …". </a>
So who can't relate to those twin emotions? As Joseph Campbell neatly summarizes in his critique of Buddhism, fear and desire are the quintessential negative elements of life in this world.
So what makes this book different and special? Not much. Except perhaps de Botton's main thesis: we don't envy everybody - just our friends.