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Sebastian Ritscher
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FARSIGHTED

Steven Johnson

How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most

A groundbreaking book about making big once-in-a-lifetime decisions in many small steps.
Plenty of books offer useful advice on how to get better at making quick-thinking, intuitive choices. But what about more consequential decisions, the ones that affect our lives for years, or centuries, to come? Our most powerful stories revolve around these kinds of decisions: where to live, whom to marry, what to believe, whether to start a company, how to end a war.

Full of the beautifully crafted storytelling and novel insights that Steven Johnson's fans know to expect, Farsighted draws lessons from cognitive science, social psychology, military strategy, environmental planning, and great works of literature. Everyone thinks we are living in an age of short attention spans, but we've actually learned a lot about making long-term decisions over the past few decades. Johnson makes a compelling case for a smarter and more deliberative decision-making approach. He argues that we choose better when we break out of the myopia of single-scale thinking and develop methods for considering all the factors involved.

There's no one-size-fits-all model for the important decisions that can alter the course of a life, an organization, or a civilization. But Farsighted explains how we can approach these choices more effectively, and how we can appreciate the subtle intelligence of choices that shaped our broader social history.

For fans of Dan Pink, Daniel Kahneman, and Charles Duhigg, and business-book readers who appreciate great storytelling.

Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of ten books, including Wonderland, How We Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad Is Good for You. The founder of a variety of influential websites, he is the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. Johnson lives in Marin County, California, and Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and three sons.
Available products
Book

Published 2018-09-04 by Riverhead

Book

Published 2018-09-04 by Riverhead

Comments

Farsighted was heavily featured and referenced in The New Yorker in an article about "The Art of Decision-Making" which runs in the January 21st issue! Read more...

Heleo announced FARSIGHTED as a book club pick! Read more...

Author's article on "The human brain is a time travler"... Read more...

Recommendation: Read this!: Steven Johnson's new book, Farsighted, makes the case against "going with your gut" when it comes to life-altering decisions and argues that one crucial tactic is to generate more options than you think you have. Read more...

Radio Interview: Steven Johnson discusses his new book Farsighted Read more...

FARSIGHTED is chosen as one of the Most Anticipated Books of Fall... Read more...

It's difficult to rein in our cognitive biases and faulty intuitions, but there are tools that can improve our ability to make decisions. David A. Shaywitz reviews "Farsighted" by Steven Johnson. Read more...

An anecdote-packed, insight-laden exploration of what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to our most complex decisions, Johnson's latest book makes a convincing case for adding more storytelling to the C-suite and beyond. Read more...

UK: John Murrays ; Arabic: Dar Altanweer ; Brazil: BestBusiness/Record ; China: CITIC ; Italy: Edizioni Erickson ; Japan: Asahi Shimbun ; Korea: KED ; Romania: SC Publica ; Thailand: Se-Education

In this bright, nuanced, story-filled book, [Johnson] draws on the work of behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists to explain how to decide about things that really matter. Read more...

3 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Decision Making: Author Steven Johnson offers the counterintuitive advice he learned from studying how people make their most important choices. Read more...

FARSIGHTED was recently featured in Inc's gift guide. Read more...

Steven Johnson's interview on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS aired on Sunday (January 6) where he brilliantly discussed how the science of decision-making and prediction can better inform U.S. policy decisions. Read more...

... After reading "Farsighted," am I more aware of all the difficulties of making long-term decisions? Definitely. Do I feel better equipped to make those decisions? I'm not sure. This is an idea book. You won't find the easy formulas that dominate the self-help genre or the 2x2 matrices common to business books. Johnson left me more convinced than ever of the psychologist Ellen Langer's advice for making tough choices: "Don't make the right decision. Make the decision right." Since you'll never have enough information to make the best choice, all you can do is make the best of the choice you've made.... Read more...

A worksheet for the moral mathematics of decision-making from America's original prophet of self-improvement. Read more...

Author's article on "How to Make a Big Decision" Read more...

Johnson is particularly interesting on some of the momentous collective decisions facing humanity today, such as whether to make superintelligent machines that might ultimately outsmart their creators.. Johnson is a succinct, colorful, and skillful writer, and this book is one of those rare works that is highly relevant to the daily functioning of just about everybody. Read more...

... This book's benefit is the promotion of deliberative decision-making. It is designed to keep us from falling into preconceived assumptions.... Read more...

A popular science and history writer illuminates why we're so vulnerable to poor long-term decision-making, combining behavioral science with riveting stories ranging from the raid on bin Laden to Darwin's dilemma about whether or not to marry. Read more...