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Radical Uncertainty

Decision-making for an unknowable future

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Radical Uncertainty

By: Mervyn King, John Kay
Narrated by: Roger Davis
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LONGLISTED FOR THE FT/MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020

'A brilliant new book'
Daily Telegraph

'Well written . . . and often entertaining'
The Times

'A sparkling analysis'
Prospect

'Entertaining and enlightening . . . This is a necessary critique and they make it with verve, knowledge and a wealth of stories'
Financial Times

'An elegant, wise and timely book' Irish Times

'Jam-packed with erudition' New Statesman


This major, critically acclaimed work asks a vitally important question for today: when uncertainty is all around us, and the facts are not clear, how can we make good decisions?

We do not know what the future will hold, particularly in the midst of a crisis, but we must make decisions anyway. We regularly crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have, forgetting that humans are successful because we have adapted to an environment that we understand only imperfectly. Throughout history we have developed a variety of ways of coping with the radical uncertainty that defines our lives.

This incisive and eye-opening book draws on biography, history, mathematics, economics and philosophy to highlight the most successful - and most short-sighted - methods of dealing with an unknowable future. Ultimately, the authors argue, the prevalent method of our age falls short, giving us a false understanding of our power to make predictions, leading to many of the problems we experience today.©2020 Mervyn King Career Success Decision-Making & Problem Solving Career Capitalism Business Socialism Taxation
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Delivery, explanations, examples were great. Sadly forgets uncertainty theory, which explains risk vs uncertainty rigourously.

Good explanation but forgot uncertainty theory

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I loved all the themes talked about in this book and the structure around them.

The importance of uncertainty and risk, the history of probability, it’s impact on economics

However, the key question for our time is what do we do about all this? How do we build adaptive systems.

An important topic we’ll described but lacking advice

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Thorough examination of the foundations of decision theory with profound implications for the "science" of economics. The shape of a more limited but more useful toolkit emerges.

Economics may have a practical futue

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Very readable and informative: definitely worth the time. The only drawback is that it is two chapters too long.

Lukas

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Absolutely essential reading if you want to know what’s wrong with the way Finance has “functioned”. Working in the City myself I recognise so many of these flaws. If you are interested in how we can organise and plan for a better world - listen to this book.

Utterly Brilliant

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