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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun to Read, Oct 27 2009
Much like Freakonomics, Superfreakonomics is an entertaining book that covers a wide variety of unrelated topics in a fun way. But in contrast with Freakonomics, it is less reliant on econometric analysis and more on anecdotal evidence. As a result, its conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt.
For example, their finding that it is safer to drive than walk while drunk depends on several assumptions that may not hold. One such assumption is that the level of inebriation is on average the same for both drunk walkers and drunk drivers whereas, as they point out themselves earlier in the section, most people believe it is safer to walk when drunk, indicating that those who walk while drunk are probably more inebriated than those who drive while drunk. But to put things in context, that was just a small example and is only a very minor part of the book.
Sadly, many critics and reviewers are basing their entire opinion of the book on the last chapter concerning global warming. Let me just point out that it is not true that they are claiming that global warming is not a problem. Yes, they do mention some old global cooling theories from the 70's. But put this in the context of this book - a random collection of fun facts - and you can see why such theories were mentioned.
But that misses the main point of the chapter. In fact, the purpose of the chapter is to find a way to cool the globe, but using geoengineering, as opposed to restricting emissions of Carbon Dioxide. They propose an idea sponsored by Intellectual Ventures, a company whose business is to accumulate patents in a wide range of fields. The plan basically entails the injection of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which would reflect sunlight and possibly cool the Earth. The authors propose this as a much cheaper and possibly effective solution for global warming.
You can see why environmentalists may be annoyed by this book: it gives their political opponents some ammunition in a critical time when they are trying to pass environmental regulation. It is thus critical, for them, to destroy the credibility of the book and its authors. Perhaps this is an understandable position, but the attacks on this chapter of the book are highly unwarranted in any other context given that it is merely proposing new ideas, and there's nothing wrong with that. For all we know, more research could prove that such schemes are effective.
Buy this book if you enjoy reading a collection of fun, often counter-intuitive, random "facts" about controversial issues. I would give it 5 stars for entertainment value, but I only gave it 4 stars out of 5 because the high level of econometric analysis that could be found in Freakonomics is virtually non-existent here, making the sequel sloppy and less rigorous.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the first..., Nov 4 2009
This book continues on the theme of the first book. There are no real revelations in it over and above what they had already done, though it is interested to see further examples.
As mentioned in another review, the overwhelming distraction is the discussion on global warming. While they don't actually explicity deny it, doubt is so thoroughly implied that one wonders their motives. The interviews with IV have obviously been biased in the direction of scepticism (I would love to read/see the entire thing). Are they just pandering to the global warming denialists? Are they fence sitting to sell books? It is dubious enough to cast doubt on the other, potentially worthy case descriptions.
There are better books out there: Malcolm Gladwell's followups are of a more consistent quality than this one is.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Healthy bit of out of the Box Thinking, Nov 28 2009
These authors are doing what economic thinkers do best: relaxing the constraints of everyday politics and morality and allowing the laws of economics to roam freely. When the constraints of politics and morality are relaxed, a whole new world of thought and perception opens up that goes well beyond the conventional wisdom and thinking, and well beyond much of the old and ossified thinking on many of our common everyday problems. Allowing free reign of their thinking to apply to everyday problems, is what this book is all about.
The authors claim (rather convincingly in my view) that the old ossified thinking about global warming, as sexy as it is to support such thinking, makes little sense when viewed purely in terms of economics. At the very least the old carbon mitigation arguments are deficient, if not entirely flawed. This is not to say that they should be scraped, but only to say that alternative solution needs to be explored, and rather urgently.
The crux of their argument put forth in the last chapter of the book (also surely to be the most controversial one) is that the much touted carbon mitigation approaches wont work because they are too little, too late and much too expensive even if it they were to prove plausible. The authors imply that we have already passed the point of no return when it comes to the efficacy of carbon mitigation techniques.
Why then has no one noticed this and pointed it out to the international community? How is it that we have been wedded to an alternative that cannot work, and which, even if it could, would be too expensive to pay for?
Were we not all following the herd instinct of the conventional wisdom, the debate on this issue would long ago have been opened up to a wider set of perhaps more interesting, and possibly, better alternative ideas. And in this regard, the authors allow their imagination to reign freely. They throw out several trial ideas in the area of geo-engineering that, while at this point must remain in the tentative thinking stage, were they to prove viable, would at least have the potential to mitigate the problem of global warming within reasonable economic bounds. So far, something carbon mitigation approaches cannot do. In fact, reading between the lines, these authors suggest that the carbon mitigation approaches even fail the laugh test when it comes to either the possibility of achieving the goals designed for them, or the goal of being economically reasonable or viable.
But more importantly, these authors larger message is philosophical. It to point out that viewing this (and other) problems from a purely economic vantage point, even if in only a theoretical sense, rather than from a purely moral and political point of view, forces us to redefine what our goals and preferences are and how we are to go about achieving them within clear (but always existing) economic constraints. They thus try to change the way we think about the difference between evaluating political and moral scenarios and embracing the moral and political preferences and implications or the outcomes that such scenarios might suggest. It is okay to study or play out various scenarios in theory, of which our own preferences may not be a part. That is what economists do everyday, and must be allowed to do even when the constraints of politics and morality seem overwhelming and stifling, and even when our own preference sets are not a part of the analysis.
Their study of prostitution in Americas black inner city ghettos serves as a case in point. For some women, making 2-3 thousand dollars per night for a few months in order to finance their way through an expensive college or graduate school is a rational way to achieve this goal. Simply because it does not fit our own moral preference set, does not mean that the economics of prostitution should not be studied, or that it does not make perfectly good sense to someone with a difference morality and set of preferences than our own.
In short, this book is out of the box thinking at its level best. It is the kind of thinking that we Americans used to be the recognize global leaders in. However, these authors seem to be suggesting that we are losing this edge by too easily giving over to our socially adjusted moral and ideological gods, who give us a warm fuzzy feeling but whose solutions often prove to be economic dead-ends, or worse. It is a timely and sobering message that is strong on economic philosophy but weak on analysis. Still it is worth three stars for bravery and good imagination.
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