Flawed Logics

Can a nation accept limits in an arms competition? James H. Lebovic explores the logic of seeking peace in an arms race. Flawed Logics offers a compelling intellectual history of U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear arms control. Lebovic thoroughly reviews the critical role of ideas and assumptions in U.S. arms control debates, tying them to controversies over U.S. nuclear strategy from the birth of the atomic age to the present. Each nuclear arms treaty—from the Truman to the Obama administration—is assessed in depth and the positions of proponents and opponents are systematically presented, discussed, and critiqued. Lebovic concludes that the terms of these treaties with the Russians were never as good as U.S. proponents claimed nor as bad as opponents feared. The comprehensive analysis in Flawed Logics is objective and balanced, challenging the logic of hawks and doves, Democrats and Republicans, and theorists of all schools with equal vigor. Lebovic’s controversial argument will promote debate as to the very plausibility of arms control.

* Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. By reading this summary, you will learn what the most common thinking errors are and how to guard against them to avoid acting against your own interests. You will also learn : that reasoning is far more fallible than you think; that your emotions betray you; how you can influence the judgment of others; how advertisers push people to buy; why it is difficult to think objectively; how to make better decisions. We think we are free, driven only by logic and reason, but common sense is not as widespread as we would like to think. Decisions are too often made after flawed reasoning, "brain farts" to use the author's humorous trait, which car salesmen, for example, provoke abundantly to achieve their ends. Here's how to recognize them and try to avoid them. *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!

THE IRISH TIMES TOP FIVE BESTSELLER 'An unstoppable page-turner. If our leaders were forced to read this book, the world would be a safer place' Richard Dawkins 'A beautifully reasoned book about our own unreasonableness' Robin Ince Why did revolutionary China consider the sparrow an 'animal of capitalism' - and what happened when they tried to wipe them out? With a cast of murderous popes, snake-oil salesmen and superstitious pigeons, find out why flawed logic puts us all at risk, and how critical thinking can save the world. It may seem a big claim, but knowing how to think clearly and critically has literally helped save the world. In September 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's early warning system showed five US missiles heading towards the country. Stanislaw Petrov knew his duty: he was to inform Moscow that nuclear war had begun, so that they could launch an immediate and devastating response. Instead, he made a call to say the system was faulty. He'd assessed the situation and reasoned that an error was more likely than such a limited attack. We may not have to save the planet from nuclear annihilation, of course, but our ability to think critically has never been more important. In a world where fake news, mistrust of experts, prejudice and ignorance all too often hold sway, we can all too easily be misled over issues such as vaccinations, climate change or conspiracy theories. We live in an era where access to all the knowledge in the world is at our fingertips, yet that also means misinformation and falsehoods can spread further and faster than ever before. In The Irrational Ape, David Robert Grimes shows how we can be lured into making critical mistakes or drawing false conclusions, and how to avoid such errors. Given the power of modern science and the way that movements can unite to protest a cause via social media, we are in dangerous times. But fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes, and by critical thinking and scientific method we can discover how to apply these techniques to everything from deciding what insurance to buy to averting global disaster. This book, packed with fascinating case studies and examples, helps ensure we are ready for the modern world.

McGee studies historical representation in commodified, popular cinema as expressions of historical truths that more authentic histories usually miss and argues for the political and social significance of mass culture through the interpretation of four recent big-budget movies: Titanic, Gangs of New York, Australia, and Inglourious Basterds .

Many students ask, 'What is the point of learning formal logic?' This book gives them the answer. Using the methods of deductive logic, Nelson Lande introduces each new element in exquisite detail, as he takes students through example after example, proof after proof, explaining the thinking behind each concept. Shaded areas and appendices throughout the book provide explanations and justifications that go beyond the main text, challenging those students who wish to delve deeper, and giving instructors the option of confining their course to the basics, or expanding it, when they wish, to more rigorous levels. Lande encourages students to think for themselves, while at the same time providing them with the level of explanation they need to succeed. It is a rigorous approach presented in a style that is informal, engaging, and accessible. Students will come away with a solid understanding of formal logic and why it is not only important, but also interesting and sometimes even fun. It is a text that brings the human element back into the teaching of logic. --Hans Halvorson, Princeton University

“My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Praise for The Content Trap “A masterful and thought-provoking book that has reshaped my understanding of content in the digital landscape.”—Ariel Emanuel, co-CEO, WME | IMG “The Content Trap is a book filled with stories of businesses, from music companies to magazine publishers, that missed connections and could never escape the narrow views that had brought them past success. But it is also filled with stories of those who made strategic choices to strengthen the links between content and returns in their new master plans. . . . The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are.”—The Wall Street Journal

The essential history of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) during the Nixon Administration How did Richard Nixon, a president so determined to compete for strategic nuclear advantage over the Soviet Union, become one of the most successful arms controllers of the Cold War? Drawing on newly opened Cold War archives, John D. Maurer argues that a central purpose of arms control talks for American leaders was to channel nuclear competition toward areas of American advantage and not just international cooperation. While previous accounts of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) have emphasized American cooperative motives, Maurer highlights how Nixon, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird shaped negotiations, balancing their own competitive interests with proponents of cooperation while still providing a coherent rationale to Congress. Within the arms control agreements, American leaders intended to continue deploying new weapons, and the arms control restrictions, as negotiated, allowed the United States to sustain its global power, contain communism, and ultimately prevail in the Cold War.

This book presents research in an interdisciplinary field, resulting from the vigorous and fruitful cross-pollination between traditional deontic logic and computer science. AI researchers have used deontic logic as one of the tools in modelling legal reasoning. Computer scientists have discovered that computer systems (including their interaction with other computer systems and with human agents) can often be productively modelled as norm-governed. So, for example, deontic logic has been applied by computer scientists for specifying bureaucratic systems, access and security policies, and soft design or integrity constraints, and for modelling fault tolerance. In turn, computer scientists and AI researchers have also discovered (and made it clear to the rest of us) that various formal tools (e.g. nonmonotonic, temporal and dynamic logics) developed in computer science and artificial intelligence have interesting applications to traditional issues in deontic logic. This volume presents some of the best work done in this area, with the selection at once reflecting the general interdisciplinary (and international) character that this area of research has taken on, as well as reflecting the more specific recent inter-disciplinary developments between traditional deontic logic and computer science.