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Petra It's a year now, still in a dark place's Reviews > Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
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Petra It's a year now, still in a dark place's review
bookshelves: 2015-reviews, popculture-anthropology, psycho-neurology-crime, reviewed, 2015-read
May 31, 2015
bookshelves: 2015-reviews, popculture-anthropology, psycho-neurology-crime, reviewed, 2015-read
“I asked them why when they persecute men, for religion or colour it was seen by the world as oppression and when they persecute women, it was dismissed as tradition.” Emer Martin
This book is generally brilliant if you ignore the misogyny. It is a book written by a man about a man's world for men. The "Our' in the title does not include half the world.
The misogny, the putting down of fat women, ugly ones, old ones in this often otherwise insightful and percipient book is making me groan. The author is trying to prove something we all know, that we (he uses 'we' and 'our' to sound inclusive, but he only means men really) do not make good decisions when sexually aroused. To that end he sets up an experiment where the men, MIT students, will have to answer a set of questions 'sober' and while they are wanking to pictures of buxom young women flashed on their computers.
The questions include, Would you want to have sex with a really fat woman? An ugly one? A woman over 50? All the undesirable women.
All these women are put down as sexual objects these really clever guys wouldn't want to have sex with unless they were so aroused by any stimuli they didn't care. That their general powers of discernment and decision-making ie. we don't screw fat,ugly or old women, would go by the board because at that stage they'd screw anything. Also, that in such an aroused state, those clever MIT men, future leaders of technology and business, perhaps even footballers) those men might deliberately get a woman drunk and/or persist in pushy or downright aggressive sexual advances even after she had said 'no' and they wouldn't give a monkeys about using a condom either.
(Part of me wonders how those men felt who had girlfriends who didn't look like supermodels).
Personally I think he wrote up the experiment so as he could begin with describing the visual of a cling-film (saran wrap to Americans) wrapped computer (to protect it from splashes of semen) flashing porn and questions and a man 'furiously wanking with his left hand' while propped up on the bed.
Ok, so I'm predictably irrational about books that slag off my half the human race. You know that I will pick up the misogyny and be compelled to write about it.
This book is generally brilliant if you ignore the misogyny. It is a book written by a man about a man's world for men. The "Our' in the title does not include half the world.
The misogny, the putting down of fat women, ugly ones, old ones in this often otherwise insightful and percipient book is making me groan. The author is trying to prove something we all know, that we (he uses 'we' and 'our' to sound inclusive, but he only means men really) do not make good decisions when sexually aroused. To that end he sets up an experiment where the men, MIT students, will have to answer a set of questions 'sober' and while they are wanking to pictures of buxom young women flashed on their computers.
The questions include, Would you want to have sex with a really fat woman? An ugly one? A woman over 50? All the undesirable women.
All these women are put down as sexual objects these really clever guys wouldn't want to have sex with unless they were so aroused by any stimuli they didn't care. That their general powers of discernment and decision-making ie. we don't screw fat,ugly or old women, would go by the board because at that stage they'd screw anything. Also, that in such an aroused state, those clever MIT men, future leaders of technology and business, perhaps even footballers) those men might deliberately get a woman drunk and/or persist in pushy or downright aggressive sexual advances even after she had said 'no' and they wouldn't give a monkeys about using a condom either.
(Part of me wonders how those men felt who had girlfriends who didn't look like supermodels).
Personally I think he wrote up the experiment so as he could begin with describing the visual of a cling-film (saran wrap to Americans) wrapped computer (to protect it from splashes of semen) flashing porn and questions and a man 'furiously wanking with his left hand' while propped up on the bed.
Ok, so I'm predictably irrational about books that slag off my half the human race. You know that I will pick up the misogyny and be compelled to write about it.
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Reading Progress
May 31, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
May 31, 2015
– Shelved
June 3, 2015
–
Started Reading
June 7, 2015
– Shelved as:
2015-reviews
June 7, 2015
– Shelved as:
popculture-anthropology
June 7, 2015
– Shelved as:
psycho-neurology-crime
June 7, 2015
– Shelved as:
reviewed
August 2, 2015
–
Finished Reading
August 21, 2015
– Shelved as:
2015-read
Comments Showing 1-50 of 70 (70 new)
message 1:
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Ashley
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Jun 03, 2015 09:59PM
I bought it a while but still haven't gotten to it...interested to see what you think!
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The beginning hooked me. A teenager who was the victim of a magensium flare fire and suffered burns for three years and the pain of having the dressings ripped off and replaced each day. He had plenty of time to think.
Gosh that sounds horrendous. This is on my t-r lists. I look forward to your review.
"I bought it a while [a go] but still haven't gotten to it.." Why is it that we book hoarders purchase books and hoard them like squirrels do nut, not even knowing where to find them. I have so many books I couldn't read in a life time or ten after lives...
Hmmm! Mummy, I wonder if you replaced the horrors of man with the horrors of nature? One has to wonder why there is so much human suffering on this planet. Is it the lack of luck or destiny?
I don't mind that, I quite like text books and lecture courses.
Cliff: I'm not sure why we book-hoarders do it, but I *am* glad that I confine my hoarding to the digital realm now instead of taking up more and more space in my home! I had reached the point where I had "floor piles" in multiple rooms...whoops. :)
Ashley wrote: "Cliff: I'm not sure why we book-hoarders do it, but I *am* glad that I confine my hoarding to the digital realm now instead of taking up more and more space in my home! I had reached the point whe..."I just got Kindle the other day and I love it. I don't mind walls and walls of books, but when you move THAT is the problem!! ha ha. I look at my books like money in the bank. They're always worth a quarter to a dollar. And if the power grid goes down?...
Think about it. You can put as many books on a little thumbnail Kindle file as you could three large u-hauls back to back...
But books decorate a room and make it a home in a way nothing else does. When I go to someone's house I always look at their bookshelves. It tells me who they are. (I also look in the bathroom cabinet, but that's more common nosiness).
I think I'd be evicted from the house if I picked up someone's ebook or phone and started swiping through it.
I could never live in a home without books. Alas, my home had effectively become nothing *but* books, to the point that I had begun giving serious thought to whether I could start hanging my folded clothing in my closet and thereby free up my dresser drawers for more impromptu "shelf" space. When you've reached the point of debating whether to fold or hang your socks, it's time for a technological intervention.
Mummy wrote: "But books decorate a room and make it a home in a way nothing else does. When I go to someone's house I always look at their bookshelves. It tells me who they are. (I also look in the bathroom ca..."
Ha ha, I think you are correct on all accounts.
In fact, Mummy, I kind of relate the internet stealing of someone's work like would you walk into someone's home and lift their picture off their wall? Then why do you do it on the Internet. (But I guess I'm guilty, too. It's because we can get away with it... usually.)
Ashley wrote: "I could never live in a home without books. Alas, my home had effectively become nothing *but* books, to the point that I had begun giving serious thought to whether I could start hanging my folde..."You are correct, Ashley. I've seen some neat pictures on the net of wall to wall, floor to ceiling of books, beds made out of books, tables etc.
THANK YOU, Petra, for commenting on the misogyny like this. Drives me nuts when people do "studies" like this.
Carmen wrote: "THANK YOU, Petra, for commenting on the misogyny like this. Drives me nuts when people do "studies" like this."LOl, it is a bit much when we are a told that for guys to fancy us when they are not sexually aroused or sober we have to be young, slim and beautiful otherwise we are dogs.
Not to mention blatantly false, as you mentioned. Goodness gracious. If only young, slender, gorgeous women had sex/got married/had boyfriends this world would be a very different place.
Perhaps the men who fancy the rest of us once we pass 120lb, 25 and have ceased to even place in pageants, are drunk, stoned or in throes of sexual arousal so strong they don't even notice our shortcomings. :-)
Mummy wrote: "But books decorate a room and make it a home in a way nothing else does. When I go to someone's house I always look at their bookshelves. It tells me who they are."
Yes, yes, yes.
But have you seen the bizarre wallpaper that looks like books? Heresy.
No. Link please. I want it. I have a narrow drive outside my kitchen window with a retaining wall the other side. Very shady and undercover. It sounds nasty but it is hurricane-proof and keeps the kitchen very cool. However it's phenomenally boring looking at a pinky sort of wall, so book wallpaper would be wonderful.
You always say such nice things, thank you. *embarrassed*.
Mummy wrote: "No. Link please. I want it..."http://www.remodelista.com/posts/wall...
http://www.photowall.co.uk/photo-wall...
http://www.ilovewallpaper.co.uk/wallp...
http://www.diy.com/departments/bookca...
Ooooh they are fun, I don't think they are bizarre. Well not all of them! I will have to find them in the US now as the shipping from the UK is ridiculous.
Wow, that stuff you describe from the book sounds awful! Thanks for the warning!
I think I would have been so annoyed with the author. And then society wonders why women go to extreme measures to fit a cookie mold.
So why are women over 50 undesirable? I find over 50 is often a plus.
David wrote: "So why are women over 50 undesirable? I find over 50 is often a plus."I don't know. Ask the author! He thinks that a man would have so aroused he'd fuck anything but in his right mind he would reject such old women.
I don't think the author thinks that intelligent, discerning young men, the flower of American society (!) actually like and fancy women for anything other than youth, beauty and big tits.
Good review, Petra. Think I'll pass on this one.
Women after 50 are unf*ckable? Bummer!Not sure I want to read this either....:(
OMG! I'm so fucking glad I'm gay.
Debbie "DJ" wrote: "OMG! I'm so fucking glad I'm gay."Best comment of the day :-D
Debbie "DJ" wrote: "OMG! I'm so fucking glad I'm gay."Awesome!
Petra X wrote: "Debbie "DJ" wrote: "OMG! I'm so fucking glad I'm gay."Best comment of the day :-D"
Completely agree Petra!
A few years ago-my ex-boyfriend had a disgusting friend he had kept around since college. He was on Facebook freaking out and making posts about how outraged he was Katy Perry had made it to the top of the sexiest women Maxium magazine list. He thought she was gross and ugly. I kept thinking to myself have you looked in the mirror lately? And seriously with everything wrong in the world, THIS is what you choose to be outraged about??? It amazes me every day how many veeeeeeeeeeeeery imperfect men- sit around and pick apart women for what they see as their flaws. And women do it to other women as well. It is getting worse instead of better. Very sad.
Great review Petra...and great comment Debbie!! :)
Totally agree, Petra, that there is a lot of author bias in the studies he uses. He is a professor, and my conclusion was that he was a bit lazy--so many of the experiments he cites (or runs) were done with college students. It is certainly easy to recruit for a study on a college campus ($20 for an hour of your time), but that means results really are only generalizable to a small percent of the population. And of course, his friends and colleagues are professors as well and recruit from the same population.
I read of a test done on pigeons and students in some book in the last few years. They had to press something when something flashed up on the screen and the pigeons got a food reward each time. The students probably got paid. The pigeons out-performed the students! Then they gave the students a food reward (M&Ms I think) and then the students did better too!
Says more about the dominance of our lizard brain than any intellectual development since!
I would consider making an 'ugh' shelf only for this book.
message 40:
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Petra It's a year now, still in a dark place
(last edited Aug 22, 2015 12:38PM)
(new)
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rated it 3 stars
The book is a good read, a solid 3 star. It's just that parts of it are obnoxious because the author really regards men as real people and women as... adjuncts, the spare rib, something not quite equal to those who have willies! Which is why we call authors like that dickheads. :-)
Ya know it's just the fact that, given all of the potential research topics in the world, this person felt compelled to analyze such a question the was born of his transparently subjective and biased social views. What men really want is really young vacuous women right? Let's prove if that's always the case. My question: who cares????
Do I care if a man would deign to sleep with less than the socially acceptable norm while in the midst of wanking??? I understand the concept of men who can't control their impulses and I have read some to understand triggers of rape in some men - but what does it really have to do with sleeping with chubby women? Who cares?
I'm glad I read your review because I'll save feeling insulted.
Nina wrote: "Do I care if a man would deign to sleep with less than the socially acceptable norm while in the midst of wanking??? I understand the concept of men who can't control their impulses and I have read some to understand triggers of rape in some men..."I fail to understand why men can't control themselves, because I think they can. They do. It's just a few men, a minority, but a damaging, violent, evil minority who won't. In countries where they shroud women, it isn't done to control men's temptations, it's done to control women, because they can.
As far as wanking to less than socially acceptable women in the sense of peer group norms, it is just as well that norms vary according to societies. West Indians are a lot less fussy about age, figure or face and more about the total package and actually being lucky enough to get a woman.
Thank you.
Love the review! This sounds horrible. I think the misogyny alone would make this a 1-star for me (or 0, were that possible). Always love the way you manage to see the good in books, beyond the initial ARGH reaction.
Ioana wrote: "I think the misogyny alone would make this a 1-star for me (or 0, were that possible). Always love the way you manage to see the good in books, beyond the ini..."It wasn't a bad book, it just started off in this totally misogynist way. The rest of it was fairly sensible and a good read.
It would be difficult to put aside his misogyny but well, the rest of it sounds rather interesting. I'm adding it just in case. Wonderful review!
Florencia wrote: "It would be difficult to put aside his misogyny but well, the rest of it sounds rather interesting. "There are many books by men that regard men as representing the human race and that women are just adjuncts and not even worth writing about unless they are beautiful (ie. fuckable). Look at Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings, Ernest Hemingway was a misogynist, homophobic, anti-semitic and racist yet people have no problem reading and praising these authors. So it is with this book. The author is overtly misogynist but still writes interesting stuff worth reading.
Arguably the author would himself describe his misogyny as predictable irrationality.
Petra X wrote: "Ioana wrote: "I think the misogyny alone would make this a 1-star for me (or 0, were that possible). Always love the way you manage to see the good in books, beyond the ini..."It wasn't a bad boo..."
I bet he is not a supermodel ...
