Published: 2005 (Little, Brown and Company)
Setting: Gladwell’s Brain
Summary: Blink is a study about “thin slicing”, how we make snap decisions, when we are most used to making them, and what they mean. Gladwell produces economic and psychological case studies which explore the phenomenon of seconds and the decisions we make within them. Police shootings, marble statues, war games, and tennis form are discussed in this book with an equal amount of detail. Gladwell is concerned with how we make snap judgements in a world that prizes long and drawn-out analytical thinking. Gladwell posits that sometimes we make decisions better under pressure, and that sometimes the decisions we make need time. This seems like an easy assumption to make, but Gladwell explains how we often confuse the effectiveness and application of each approach.
Quote of the book: “Blink.. is an attempt to understand this magical and mysterious thing called judgement” (260).
This is the thesis of the book, one that is deftly defended and explored.
Favorite character: Van Riper, his success in U.S. simulations and war games leading up to the War in Afghanistan is a story everyone should read.
Favorite setting: Bronx, I think Gladwell’s tackling of race-related shootings is of his era in some ways, and ahead of his time in many others.
Favorite pop culture reference: Allen Iverson, you have to wait for the afterword, but his short discussion of AI is a debate raged to this day in basketball circles.
Please Stay for: Almost everything, I think this study does its job well.
Please Question: The fact that it was written in 2005, I wonder how AI technology changes how we see “thin-slicing”.
Will Reviews Things 