Oblique
Many of the great mistakes of history, including the problems financial markets have continualy re-experienced, have been caused by a basic error of judgement – the idea that it’s possible to define, plan and control the outcomes of the world around us despite the rampant uncertainty we daily take in our strides. So instead of relying on expert judgement and feeling our way carefully towards outcomes we’ve found ourselves traduced by people with tunnel vision and a strong but unjustified confidence in their ability to navigate unerringly to a correct solution, whatever that might be.This is the argument presented in a new addition to the popular literature on human decision making by the economist John Kay. At the heart of this book, Obliquity, are many arguments readers here will find familiar, but perhaps the most notable is the idea that those economists who argue that people are irrational are wrong. It’s the economists who misunderstand the nature of human decision making, not their subjects,
