Common sense

[Tero]

Highly overrated. Can't even solve the Monty Hall 3 door game.

I found an article addressing common sense, now "arkijarki", in
Finnish. It did not give a good list of books in English on that specifically. The easiest to read may be the somewhat different
subject of
http://www.amazon.com/SuperSense-Why-We ... B002VPE7GK

Other book is closer
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/030012216 ... mdp_mobile

See the nonmobile page in Amazon for reviews.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If sense were common we wouldn't need traffic laws. People would realize that if they didn't cooperate with each other death, pain and suffering, and/or property damage would result.

[Jason]

My father's favourite quote from my grandmother is "common sense isn't so common." - he uses it to bemoan the general, and increasing, stupidity of all generations following his.

I take it the phrase 'common sense' used to mean something more like 'shared knowledge' in a community of like-minded people. For instance every woman knew to put lard in her pie crust - it was just 'common sense' - and every man knew how to keep his wife at home - pregnant in the summer, shoeless in the winter. Common sense.

[JimC]

Sometimes, it can be an antidote against excessively abstract thinking, divorced from everyday reality...

[Hermit]

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. - René Descartes

[Tero]

Lots of people incorporate folk wisdom into their common sense. A lady tried to tell me that 50g of lard has more calories, lumberjack food, than 50g of corn oil.

[mistermack]

Yeh, sometimes people get so focussed in on the minutiae of a problem, that they miss the bleedin obvious.

So I see common sense as the ability to stand back, and not miss the obvious.

There was a program on the bbc the other day about airline pilot checklists, and how they are being adopted by surgeons, and are improving the figures of medical mistakes dramatically.

In the case they headlined, a patient's airway got obstructed under anaesthetic, and the surgeons were struggling to get a tube past the obstruction, and lost all track of time.
A nurse offered a tracheotemy kit, but was ignored, and he didn't have the nerve to speak up and push it, because of the seniority of the surgeons. The patient died.

In day to day life, they would all have had common sense, but under pressure, as a group, with the social interaction, they lost it.

[MrJonno]

Common sense is a just a way people with power control those who don't have any.
We don't have common sense as we don't have common experiences

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Common sense is a just a way people with power control those who don't have any.

[MiM]

If sense were common we wouldn't need traffic laws. People would realize that if they didn't cooperate with each other death, pain and suffering, and/or property damage would result.

Actually, there are some studies saying that traffic works at its best when traffic planning forces drivers to negotiate amongst each other and make decisions. Maybe the common sense isn't really that much lacking among the drivers, as among the planners?

[Azathoth]

Can't even solve the Monty Hall 3 door game.

Always swap. Basic probability not common sense

[cronus]

Common sense tells you to cling to the crashing motorcycle. As countless headstones in graveyards across the world testify....common sense is sometimes very, very wrong.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Lack of good sense tells you to cling to the crashing motorcycle. As countless headstones in graveyards across the world testify....lack of good sense is sometimes very, very wrong.

[cronus]

Lack of good sense tells you to cling to the crashing motorcycle. As countless headstones in graveyards across the world testify....lack of good sense is sometimes very, very wrong.

They all do it, except a very few. It is very common...as a way to die.

[Tero]

Can't even solve the Monty Hall 3 door game.

Always swap. Basic probability not common sense

But common sense is not built that way. It is designed to stick to a decision. Because you picked a car and switched and now you are pissed off because you gave the car away.
Just losing a car is not as embarrassing. Somehow. Cause you stuck to your decision.