The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work

I highly recommend this book. I'm still not certain whether the authors were conducting a cynical email exchange that then turned into this book, or whether they genuinely hold the view that functional stupidity is a valid frame of analysis, but I'm certainly of the latter mind. The authors collect discussions of several well-known cognitive biases (Langer, Abelson, Kahneman, Tversky, Abbott etc) and gather them under the umbrella of functional stupidity. Stupidity is used as the non-application of critical thinking, whether purposefully or unconsciously. They explain the exploitation of these biases in the context of human myth-creation and culturally enforced social scripts, that is: structural and normative organizational trends. The 'functional' part has to do with the utility of stupidity in many workplace contexts. They define, analyse and exemplify functional stupidity, its purpose and limits, and end with some prescriptions for dealing with it. Overall, I found the read enjoyable, the insights useful. I come away from the reading experience with a smile on my face and a feeling of having gleaned a new perspective that integrates the lessons from Hararis "Sapiens" with Kahnemans "Thinking fast and slow". It presciently puts the Google memo, Cambridge analytica & facebook, Twitterbanning and the weird discussions around Bitcoin, Tesla and JB Peterson into a framework of functional stupidity that makes these, and more, phenomena easier to understand and discuss. One thing that could enhance a 2nd ed. might be a philosphical foreword by Zizek, or perhaps a more businessminded one by Erixson and Weigel... Worth the price, worth the time.