Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most

251 Pages·2018·2.19 MB·English

by  Steven Johnson

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RIVERHEAD BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2018 by Steven Johnson
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Johnson, Steven, author.
Title: Farsighted : how we make the decisions that matter the most / Steven Johnson.
Description: New York : Riverhead Books, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060305| ISBN 9781594488214 (hardcover) | ISBN
9780525534709 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Decision making.
Classification: LCC BF448 .J64 2018 | DDC 153.8/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060305
p. cm.
Version_1
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For Dad
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What theory or science is possible where the conditions
and circumstances are unknown . . . and the active forces
cannot be ascertained? . . . What science can there be in a
matter in which, as in every practical matter, nothing can
be determined and everything depends on innumerable
conditions, the significance of which becomes manifest at
a particular moment, and no one can tell when that
moment will come?
• LEO TOLSTOY, War and Peace
It is now clear that the elaborate organizations that human
beings have constructed in the modern world to carry out
the work of production and government can only be
understood as machinery for coping with the limits of
man’s abilities to comprehend and compute in the face of
complexity and uncertainty.
• HERBERT SIMON
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CONTENTS
Also by Steven Johnson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
INTRODUCTION:
MORAL ALGEBRA
1. MAPPING
2. PREDICTING
3. DECIDING
4. THE GLOBAL CHOICE
5. THE PERSONAL CHOICE
EPILOGUE:
WE MIGHT AS WELL GET GOOD AT IT
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
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INTRODUCTION
MORAL ALGEBRA
R
oughly ten thousand years ago, at the very end of
the last Ice Age, a surge of glacial melt broke
through a thin barrier of land that connected
modern-day Brooklyn and Staten Island, creating the
tidal strait now known as the Narrows—the entrance to
what would subsequently become one of the world’s great
urban harbors, New York Bay. This geological event
would prove to be both a curse and a blessing to the
human beings who would subsequently live along the
nearby shores. The opening to the sea was a great boon
for maritime navigation, but it also allowed salt water to
pour into the bay with each rising tide. Though
Manhattan Island is famously bordered by two rivers, in
reality, the names are misleading, since both the East
River and the lower section of the Hudson are tidal
estuaries, with extremely low concentrations of fresh
water. The opening up of the Narrows made Manhattan
Island a spectacular place to settle if you were looking for
a safe harbor for your ships. But the fact that it was an
island surrounded by salt water posed some real
challenges if you were interested in staying hydrated, as
humans are wont to do.
In the centuries before the completion of the epic
aqueduct projects of the 1800s, which brought fresh
drinking water to the city from rivers and reservoirs
upstate, the residents of Manhattan Island—originally the
Lenape tribes, then the early Dutch settlers—survived
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