Connectionists: Ranking: The Unwritten Rules of The Social Game We All Play

[Érdi Péter]

This mail is to announce a new "general interest" book:

Ranking: The Unwritten Rules of The Social Game We All Play
(Oxford University Press)
Author: Péter Érdi (Henry Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies, 
Kalamazoo College and Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest)


We like to see who is stronger, richer, better, more clever. Since we 
humans (1) love lists; (2), are  competitive and (3),  are  jealous of 
other people, we like ranking. Students ranked in ascending order based on 
their heights in a gym reflects objectivity. However, many Top Ten (twenty 
one, thirty three etc) lists based on subjective  categorization and give 
the illusion of objectivity only. We don't want to be seen always 
objective, since we don't mind to have a better image and rank as we 
deserved. The book applies scientific theories to everyday experience by 
raising and answering such questions as: Are college ranking lists 
objective? How do we rank and rate countries based on their fragility, 
level of corruption, or even happiness? How do we find the most relevant 
web pages? How employees are ranked ?

The book is offered to people whose neighbor has a fancier car; employees, 
who are being ranked by their supervisors; managers, who are involved in 
ranking but may have qualms about the process; businessmen interested in 
creating better visibility for their companies; scientists, writers, 
artists, and other competitors who would like to see themselves at the top 
of a success list; college students who are just preparing to enter the 
new phase of social competition. The Reader will enjoy the intellectual 
adventure to understand our difficulties to navigate between  objective 
and subjective and gets help to identify and modify her place in real and 
virtual communities by combining human and computational intelligence.


Google Preview: 
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ranking-9780190935467?cc=us&lang=en&#

OUP website of the book: 
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ranking-9780190935467?cc=us&lang=en&#
!discount code inside 
https://aboutranking.com/2019/05/15/flyer-at-this-time-for-friends-only/ !


Kind regards,
the author