More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics | Steven E. Landsburg

More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics | Steven E. Landsburg | Terse, Disappointing

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More Sex Is Safer ...

	More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics Steven E. Landsburg Free Press, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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To the Easily Offended

What an incredible, thought provoking book! There's a common complaint in to reviews that it's not like Freakonomics. Can I just say, Fantastic! The funniest thing about reviews suggesting that this book is trying to "Cash-in on Freakonomics" is the fact that Landsburg published The Armchair Economist in 1993, one of the first books of the genre that Levitt would capitalize on 12 years later. More sex is certainly not a book that looks at correlations in data in order to make you smile. If that's what you're looking for, buy a different book.

The purpose of More Sex, in my opinion, is to show you how economic logic and reasoning can get you to surprising solutions to problems. This review is addressed to the easily offended because some of the solutions and ideas presented will go against your moral intuition. This does NOT make them bad ideas! Many of the ideas, such as using more sex in order to slow the spread of STD's, make me cringe to the point that I would never support them. Nevertheless, I found the logical journey showing that the ideas would indeed work (if it were possible to implement them) absolutely fascinating.

Bottom line - If you're looking for a fuzzy book that will give you some facts for your "gee-whiz" file, this probably isn't the book for you. If you're looking for a book of sound economic reasoning that will make you cringe and that will leave you thinking, this book is outdone only by Landsburg's prior book, The Armchair Economist. Kudos to Landsburg on another great piece of work!

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Terse, Disappointing

Landsburg's arguments are certainly provocative, but his style (both of argument and of writing) get in the way of enjoying this book. It reads like what it is: a series of magazine articles collected somewhat arbitrarily under a provocative title.

His complex arguments with multiple assumptions are presented as if they were simple arguments with no unstated assumptions. Many are reduced to three or four terse sentences. I found myself thinking more about his starting points than his conclusions.

In fact, I would not say that I either agree or disagree with his conclusions. Some seem inevitable, others seem insane. There are at least a couple that I believe could be demonstrated as blatantly false (if the underlying assumptions were enumerated and evaluated). But mostly I feel like I do not have enough supporting information to make a truly informed response.

If his goal was to teach readers how to use economic principles in decision-making, the goal was not met. If his goal was to show how making decisions using economic principles leads to surprising conclusions, again it was not met. If his goal was something else, it is difficult to discern. Ultimately, I see little point for this book. It was only modestly entertaining.

But I think the biggest sin in these essays is that they are all logic and no heart. Throughout all of the "cost-benefit" reasoning, there is no acknowledgment that feeling good about a decision (regardless of its soundness) must be tallied in the "benefit" column.

Yes, this is irrational (see Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions) and generally leads to bad decisions, but it must be considered. Mr. Landsburg is not only rather dismissive toward such a notion, he writes with a somewhat arrogant tone which discourages further conversation.

There are lots of popular books out there about economics. I found this one to be rather disappointing.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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