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More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics |  |
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More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics | |
In More Sex is Safer Sex, Landsburg shows how the rational behavior of each one of us -- when combined together -- produces the often bizarre, seemingly irrational behavior of crowds. We all stand up at the ballpark, so none of us can see. We avoid casual sex, from fear of disease, and we thereby make sex more dangerous. Things really get interesting when Landsburg suggests ways to change the rules, and game the system. Why not charge juries if a convicted felon is exonerated? Why not have each member of Congress represent a national subset of voters, chosen alphabetically? Why not solve the ""overpopulation"" problem by having more children, who will help think of ways to improve our use of resources?
More Sex is Safer Sex will make you laugh and argue -- and it will make you think about the world around you in new and unforgettable ways.
作者简介 Steven E. Landsburg writes the popular "Everyday Economics" column in Slate magazine and has also written for Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is the author of The Armchair Economist, which has been published in five languages. He teaches in the department of economics at the University of Rochester.
编辑推荐 From Publishers Weekly
Economics books full of "uncommon sense" are more common after the success of Freakonomics, but this rambling survey of hot-button and quotidian issues viewed from a libertarian economic perspective doesn't measure up. Landsburg (The Armchair Economist) is sometimes pleasantly counterintuitive, but too often simply contentious. In using cost/benefit calculations to argue in favor of racial profiling or why we shouldn't care about the looting of Baghdad's museums, he strains to celebrate "all that is counter, original, spare and strange." While positing multiple solutions to interesting problems, he forces logical readers to confront uncomfortable positions—as in the title essay, urging chaste citizens to sleep around, thereby diluting the pool of potential sex partners with AIDS. But the chapters typically conclude without resolution—at one point, the author shrugs: "It's not easy to sort out causes from effects." One suspects that a rival economist could swiftly debunk many of Landsburg's arguments—for instance, his chapter praising misers (who produce but don't consume) depends on the assumption that all resources are fixed and finite. By the time he makes the head-scratching case that "it's always an occasion for joy when other people have more children," the reader may be in the mood for some plain old common sense. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Economist Landsburg sets out to explain extraordinary findings and logical arguments about the economics of everyday life. In the same vein as the recently popular Freakonomics, this book aims to assault common sense using the tools of evidence and logic to describe reality. Drawn from evidently popular response to the author's magazine column, the book's title and lengthy first chapter on sex and AIDS could be found tedious by some. Yet his wisdom in subsequent chapters is thought-provoking. His ideas on beauty and ugliness, why insurance rates in Philadelphia are so high, compassion and economic considerations, gains from population size, daughters and divorce, concentrating charitable giving to one recipient, and views on Social Security are a few topics the author tackles with a lighthearted perspective. He tells us, "These are carefully considered arguments about important issues. But they're also surprising arguments, and surprises are fun. This book will give you new insights about how the world works." Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Long before the 'pop economists' there was Steven Landsburg, writing funny, jargon-free, shocking, and true essays on our material circumstances. But Landsburg knows something that other authors of bestsellers on the subject don't. He knows everything. Economics is not the study of money; it's the study of value. Everything is determined by our values. The science of everything is what economics is. And here, in "More Sex," what the reader will find is -- everything."-- P. J. O'Rourke --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Steve Landsburg proves once again that he is better than anyone else at making economics interesting to noneconomists. Landsburg is provocative and playful in his mission to demonstrate how an understanding of economics will change the way you live your daily life. I loved this book."-- Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics
"Long before the 'pop economists' there was Steven Landsburg, writing funny, jargon-free, shocking, and true essays on our material circumstances. But Landsburg knows something that other authors of bestsellers on the subject don't. He knows everything. Economics is not the study of money; it's the study of value. Everything is determined by our values. The science of everything is what economics is. And here, in More Sex, what the reader will find is -- everything."-- P. J. O'Rourke
"Steve Landsburg is one of my favorite economics writers, and his new book is no exception. While I don't always agree with him, he usually gets me thinking, and he always entertains."-- Greg Mankiw, former Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and author of Principles of Economics
文摘
PREFACE:
UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM
Common sense tells you that promiscuity spreads AIDS, population growth threatens prosperity, and misers make bad neighbors. I wrote this book to assault your common sense.
My weapons are evidence and logic, especially the logic of economics. Logic is most enlightening -- and surely most fun -- when it challenges us to see the world in a whole new way. This book is about that kind of logic.
Daughters cause divorce. A thirst for revenge is healthier than a thirst for gold. A ban on elephant hunting is bad news for elephants, and disaster assistance is bad news for the people who receive it. Malicious computer hackers should be executed. The most charitable people support the fewest charities. Writing books is socially irresponsible; elbowing your way to the front of the water-fountain line is not. The tall, the slim, and the beautiful earn higher wages -- but not for the reasons you think.
Each of those statements is closer to the truth than you might imagine. If your common sense tells you otherwise, remember that common sense also tells you the earth is flat.
What you're about to read is a celebration of all that is counter, original, spare, and strange. I mean every word seriously and every word in fun. These are carefully considered arguments about important issues. But they're also surprising arguments, and surprises are fun. This book will give you new insights about how the world works. Sometimes it might outrage you. I hope it also makes you smile.
Copyright © 2007 by Steven E. Landsburg
PART I
THE COMMUNAL STREAM
Come out to my suburban neighborhood on any crisp October Saturday, and I will show you a minor tragedy: on every lawn a man with a leaf blower, blowing his leaves onto the next man's lawn. Eventually, they all go inside to recover from a hard and thoroughly unproductive morning's work.
……
