Freakonomics Review

Ok, so I finally finished one of these days Freakonomics. As all good boys know you can find it at Amazon. Bad boys know, additionally, that you can find it on P2P networks ;). So here should be the promised review.

What I liked about the book was the sheer novelty of the book. There were some new questions asked, and some old questions answered in a new manner. One of these questions was formulated in the following way: If drug dealers make so much money, how come they still live with their moms? The answer is pretty surprising (I will not spoil your fun by giving the answer here).

So the question is... what is this book talking about? Well... it's hard to say. In my opinion it is a book that teaches you how to think about the world. I could say that the style of the guy is similar to the style of Socrates (in Plato's dialogues). He questions everything and always tries to come out with new answers. Some of the answers seemed bold, but all of them had at least some sense. I do believe that this way of thinking is highly beneficial to everyone.

Unlike a typical economic book, which is very dry, this one has some actual novelty in it. I do believe for one thing that most sciences have a more important purpose than to be used by the ones that master them to gain money as employees. I believe that this is where most teachers fail when teaching their disciplines.

For example, economics is a science to teach people how the world works. Mathematics is a science to teach people how to think. Informatics has a similar purpose to mathematics. It teaches people about processes and approaches to solve problems.

To become an employee means almost the same thing as learning English to become a translator. Usually, you learn a foreign language as a means to communicate to other people, to expand your horizons.

I think that this is generally why I liked Freakonomics. It teaches you how to think.