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Farsighted
Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most | Steven Johnson
4 posts | 3 read | 1 reading | 6 to read
The hardest choices are also the most consequential. So why do we know so little about how to get them right? Big, life-altering decisions matter so much more than the decisions we make every day, and they're also the most difficult: where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, whether to start a company, how to end a war. There's no one-size-fits-all approach for addressing these kinds of conundrums. Steven Johnson's classic Where Good Ideas Come From inspired creative people all over the world with new ways of thinking about innovation. In Farsighted, he uncovers powerful tools for honing the important skill of complex decision-making. While you can't model a once-in-a-lifetime choice, you can model the deliberative tactics of expert decision-makers. These experts aren't just the master strategists running major companies or negotiating high-level diplomacy. They're the novelists who draw out the complexity of their characters' inner lives, the city officials who secure long-term water supplies, and the scientists who reckon with future challenges most of us haven't even imagined. The smartest decision-makers don't go with their guts. Their success relies on having a future-oriented approach and the ability to consider all their options in a creative, productive way. Through compelling stories that reveal surprising insights, Johnson explains how we can most effectively approach the choices that can chart the course of a life, an organization, or a civilization. Farsighted will help you imagine your possible futures and appreciate the subtle intelligence of the choices that shaped our broader social history.
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review
Pedrocamacho
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I really loved “The Ghost Map”, so I wanted to give this one a crack. It‘s all about the how the science/ art of decision making has improved over the centuries. I enjoyed reflecting on the process of making decisions and how key various human faculties are to a successful process.

CoffeeK8 This sounds really interesting! 1y
Pedrocamacho @CoffeeK8 It is 🙂 1y
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TheSpineView
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Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 💛📚💛 3y
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Hey! I just wanted to thank you again for the awesome care package! It‘s really helping me try to relax with this back pain ❤️ 3y
TheSpineView @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks You're welcome! So glad you are enjoying! Fell better soon! 3y
TheKidUpstairs 💜📚 3y
55 likes4 comments
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ManyWordsLater
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Mehso-so

A+ for the first half of this book. But Johnson lost me in chapter 4.
As I feel with a disproportionate number of nonfiction reads - the first half has all the useful meat.

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balletbookworm
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Mehso-so

I was really interested to see Johnson take on neuroscience and decision making analysis. He‘s packed a lot of information into the book, with several major examples he returns to as a way of explaining concepts (the capture of bin Laden, Washington‘s loss in Brooklyn, etc). However, this just didn‘t gel as a compulsively readable work of narrative science reporting.

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