Reddit reviews Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
We found 47 Reddit comments about Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Great product!
Most of my thoughts were already said! I'll post them anyway to add support though.
1) Since your state income tax is a flat tax, it would be entirely realistic to replace it with a Land Value Tax (LVT). It would be a yearly tax on the unimproved value of land. This encourages land use and development, and discourages vacant lots just sitting empty year after year, or, it would encourage the owner of an under-used land parcel to sell it to someone who would make use of it.
Plus, taxing the value of land holdings has better outcomes philosophically/ideologically than an income tax.
2) Get rid of most occupational licensing. The arguable benefits of occupational licensing (for most jobs) do not outweigh the clear negatives. It's a largely needless thing that just creates bureaucratic (not to bash bureaucrats!) and financial roadblocks to those wishing to enter a trade, while benefiting those already in place.
Plus, it's a bipartisan issue! Or it can be! It has been at the national level. You're much more likely to face resistance from interest groups than lawmaker's ideology.
3a) Zoning reform! It can be hard to do at the state level, and I'm not familiar with Colorado's regulations at the state or municipal levels, but zoning reform is beginning to catch fire across America.
The Obama White House put out a zoning reform toolkit in 2016 to
destroy the NIMBYshelp local leaders implement basic, but significant, zoning reforms.3b) A few basics:
-abolish, or aggressively reduce, single-family zoning areas. If someone wants to build a fourplex or apartments, let them!
-abolish, or reduce, parking minimums at least in metro/core areas. Many businesses are forced to build more parking spaces than they want, which takes up valuable land in a city's economic and cultural center. It's a burden on businesses, it makes cities less walkable, it encourages driving, and it just takes up space. You can't build a new shop or apartments or theater or whatever where a required parking lot is.
-general upzoning- loosening height limits, allow denser housing along transit corridors, even provide incentives to build denser housing units
3c) Some plans to look at for inspiration:
-Minneapolis 2040. Minneapolis just undertook the most ambitious zoning reform in the country. It's been diluted somewhat, but is still tenacious. It can be an inspiration to all cities across America
-California's proposed SB 50 (useful illustration). This bill specifically is a state-level attempt at mandating certain zoning freedoms onto counties. It's awkward in that sense- I'm always hesitant for a state to force very local ideas onto its cities, but in this case I do believe it's entirely called for. Again, I don't know about Colorado's housing in general, but bad zoning is a pretty standard thing across the entire country.
-LA Times on SB 50
4) Drug decriminalization. I'm not sure how you would feel about pursuing something so controversial, but you guys were first to legalize pot, and Denver just de-prioritized psilocybin, so I figure this is worth a shot!
There can be two levels to this: recreational/criminal justice, and medical. We've been seeing legitimate medical studies, and FDA trials, lately regarding certain drugs', especially psychedelics', ability to treat mental health disorders. This isn't to say "legalize LSD so my husband can trip balls all day, because he has nightmares sometimes." This is to say... it's hard to do studies on these substances because of their legal status, and 1) They're the only thing so far that's shown promise in treating certain disorders, and 2) They show promise in treating some disorders better than the methods we have now- both in the sense of the treatment being more effective, and in the sense of less severe side effects.
I swear this isn't some "duuuude, pot cures cancer, mannn" bullshit.
-MDMA/ecstasy is being researched for its ability to treat PTSD. There's nothing certain yet, but results seem promising. After 1 year, over 70% of patients no longer met the definition for PTSD. It's moved on to FDA phase 3 trials.
-LSD microdosing is just starting to be studied. Participants take an amount of LSD that will not trigger any noticeable effects. There's much anecdotal reporting on its effects, but no good clinical data... hopefully that can change. In the first study from England, it was found that microdosing doesn't trigger noticeable effects, and that people on LSD could perceive or recall time spans more accurately. Nothing remarkable, but it's where we have to start.
-Psilocybin is being studied for its ability to treat a variety of mental health disorders, and more specifically "existential dread" in terminal cancer patients. Although some people don't agree it should be legalized today, it seems important to study.
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Damn, writing these, I forgot my other two .-. if I remember, I'll edit later!
Lightning round:
-sanctuary state
-edit: mandatory vaccinations, or something comprehensive enough to ensure herd immunity in all groups. It's a public health issue. The only argument against mandatory vaccinations that I'm sympathetic to is religious liberty, especially for non-Western immigrants with deep cultural differences, or a lack of exposure to what Western medicine is... but the health risk is too serious to mess with.
-NUDGES, some people covered this really well already. For organ donation; 401k/pension plans; and virtually anything that someone has to re-sign up for that they'd typically do anyway; or for things that are good for people, but that people generally forget to sign up for. Always allow an opt-out, but when it's something people would generally want, just enroll them!
-edit: and school-to-trades pipelines! This is incredibly dependent on localities and the needs of each state, so again, idk what this looks like in Colorado.
But, getting high-schoolers who are thinking about the trades involved in apprenticeships and similar things in high school. Working with community colleges and local businesses to put systems in place to train local kids and workers. Let them do half a day at school, and half a day at a job site, or local tech college, or whatever.
The German system does this really well, though might go too far.
Get into high schools, and bring the idea of the trades to kids' attention while there's a clear chance to do so. And set up systems to get them trained and in a job. It's amazing what can be done if programs can just match kids with jobs.
Sorry this is so vague, but it's one of those issues that just requires tons of details, and the involvement of local government, local business, and local schools.
Redditors on almost any other topic: "FUCK baby boomers they drained the economy they are taking everything for themselves they own all the houses they leave nothing for the future."
Redditors when I say I'm opposed to raising SS benefits because the majority of the federal budget shouldn't go to Boomer retirees (SS + Medicare): "Fuck you you greedy corporate shill."
The idiocy is astounding. Social Security is an important social safety net, but it crowds out private savings and it therefore diminishes the capital stock for private investment. Medicare and SS are the two biggest chunks of the federal budget, and they crowd out economic growth.
I'd much rather see the 401(k) and IRA tax-free contribution caps doubled, and see some sort of program to Nudge companies into automatically enrolling workers into private savings plans--especially lower-end workers.
Nudge by Thaler (Nobel Prize in Economics) & Sunstein
A book which is unquestionably about Economics and Public Policy
​
I haven't read it yet but it's on my list:
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics also by Thaler
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Thinking Fast & Slow by Kahneman (Nobel Prize in Economics)
Not strictly about economics but Kahneman essentially created the field of "Behavioral Economics" and the implications for his theories about decision making bias are extensive in Economics. In many ways Kahneman and Tverski's work is the foundation of Thaler's in Nudge.
​
Also:
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
If you can't tell I like the Behavioral Econmics books...
maybe you should read the book nudge (https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X)
It's clearly meant to steer people towards 18+ tips.
Personally I am a UX generalist and work as a freelancer for early stage startups. I don't seek work on "game changer" projects like Fitbit, Snapchat and Pokemon Go but instead projects to improve processes that make current businesses more efficient and profitable. There is so much money to be made on these projects.
I design the app from top to bottom.
Here is some of the knowledge one would need to be successful:
App Design Basics
Overall Concepts
Psychology for microcopy (short instructions) and influence in design
Software needs
Places to see samples of work
My general suggestion is to start by designing something to solve a problem you care about for a business/industry you would want to work in. Don't expect perfection but practice constantly. Build your process and constantly improve for 6 months to 1 year. Then you're probably going to confidence, skills, and samples of work that are good enough to get a job.
Edit: formatting always gets me
He's a troll. The actual Men's Rights Movement grew out of 2nd-wave feminism and dissatisfaction with it, concurrently and in a similar fashion to 3rd-wave feminism.
17's legal all over the place. Hell, even 16's legal lots of places, and there's lots of historical precedent for people getting married at 16. This troll presents a straw man argument. The question presented in its strongest configuration, though, is separate from our current topic (people who rape toddlers), and concerns public reactions. Namely, would public reaction to a woman having sex with a 16 year old male would be equivalent to a man having sex with a 16 year old female? Would the jail sentences be the same? The evidence seems to indicate a resounding no. As such, this would be "unequal treatment under the law", and therefore a civil rights issue. Why does such a legal double standard exist? Well, those societal reactions are playing a huge role. Why do THOSE exist? Well, it's not a feminist conspiracy, it's just because for millennia, the risks of sex for females were much higher than for males, so the urge to protect female sexuality is very intuitive.
But wait... the protection of female sexuality was frequently used to justify the control of female sexuality. Didn't feminism want to stop that? Didn't they want to place control of the female sexuality with the women themselves? They did, and they succeeded. However, no similar move was made by feminists to allocate responsibility for this control to young women. The messaging to young women that because they control their sexuality and because they lack life experience, they will necessarily make mistakes with that control as they learn about the world, simply does not exist.
Rather, whenever anything negative occurs, feminist messaging assigns all agency and decision-making power to males, and none to females. The roles are reversed whenever anything positive occurs.
This IS a "feminist conspiracy", if you will. You see, 3rd wave feminism and the MRM have... blogs. The feminist political machinery was constructed by the 2nd wavers and has... lobbyists, and control of funding. If you read anything about behavioral economics or choice architecture, you know that there is no escaping the way in which you present things to the public. USA's organ donation program is opt-in, and we have almost no participation. Switzerland's is opt-out, and it has almost full participation. So the question is not whether NOW or Ms. Magazine or whatever have an influence; the question is what are they doing with it?
Now there's another factor at work here that isn't the fault of feminists. If you read Freakonomics, they talk about the number of kids killed each year by handguns compared to the number of kids each year by swimming pools. Swimming pools outkill handguns by a factor of about a hundred.
Sure, let's say for the sake of argument that everybody who rapes a toddler is male. Let's look at that headline again.
We're talking about a "vast international network" of 43 men. Out of three and a half billion. Even if Interpol is nabbing only one percent of these shitbags, it's still not even a drop in the bucket compared to all men.
And yet, people do act as though all men are pedophiles. Indeed, as somebody who one day wants to have kids, I'm really concerned about being seen with them in public, especially since I've found myself dating a lot of women that aren't the same race as I am lately. Notice that these sources are not MRA sources--this really is the world we're living in. I work in education, but I'm not a teacher for this precise reason. I was jokingly accused this week of being a pedophile, and had to politely explain that the insinuation was sexist.
But what are the swimming pools when it comes to child abuse?
Well, did you know that women are the perpetrators of the majority of human trafficking? Notice that the source is that notorious hotbed of MRA misogyny, the United Nations.
Moreover, women commit the vast majority of child abuse and child murder. Notice that the source on that is government statistics. I only found one mainstream headline for the female traffickers story. I couldn't find ANY for the females are child abusers story.
This headline is about bad shit, and these men do need to fry.
That truth is separate from the way the society will interpret this headline, or anything else I've discussed here.
Honestly, you know what really worried me in this article? The little throwaway clause about the demand for child porn being on the rise.
Why on the rise? Why now?
Well, this might have something to do with it.
Now is this the fault of feminism? Well, not feminism only, no. But I mean, we all know how much feminism speaks positively about natural expression of the male sex drive and high quality parenting.
It's called "framing".
A great discussion about opt-in/opt-out is in this book here Nudge
Também têm um termo chamado "nudge".
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452877205&sr=8-1&keywords=nudge
Este sim corresponde. E se há um estado com capacidade para isso, porque é que não se pode, sem restringir as liberdades individuais (que não é o caso, como seria num nanny-state) procurar outcomes positivos no bem estar da população?
> The normal person on the street doesn't even know what a stock is
So how are they going to decide between an IRA and this Universal Savings Account? Will they realize they can do both?
These programs are supposed to help everyday people save for retirement, not to give savvy people a way to avoid taxes, yet that's what they've become.
Reducing the number of programs and having one program be front and center is more likely to help than having a cornucopia of similar programs with subtle restrictions.
> Eligibility is different depending...
Have you ever stopped to wonder why? Why does someone working at a big company get a different program than someone working for themselves, who gets a different program than a government employee?
These restrictions are artificial and arbitrary so providers can make as much money as possible. I'm getting fleeced at nearly 2% expenses at my employer's 401k, but I can buy very similar funds through my IRA for <0.05%, and I have no say in the matter but to forgo retirement savings or leave the company. And all this because my company isn't big enough to be interesting for the cheaper options (but an individual can get a better deal??).
Consolidating into an IRA will only improve people's understanding of that program, and they get to take it with them, so they won't end up with a half dozen accounts at retirement.
> they have different needs...
No they don't. These needs are met by funds.
Prove this please with an example, because I'm calling BS. Are you by chance a financial advisor who makes commission?
> I want taxes to be lower
Strawman. Where did I say that?
I don't mind if taxes are higher, I want simpler programs so people can plan adequately for retirement without having to hire a professional just to understand the programs. Understanding investing is a different topic entirely.
> You're trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist
It doesn't? I've answered questions from my coworkers countless times describing the differences between IRAs, 401ks, and brokerage accounts from a tax perspective, with their associated limits and pros/cons.
People who are otherwise very intelligent don't understand the programs that are available, mostly because there are so many. None of my coworkers knew that HSA funds can be used in retirement as a regular IRA, so they didn't want to put too much in thinking their money would be lost if they didn't use it. They didn't fund an IRA because they thought it's not allowed to have that and a 401k.
If we consolidated these accounts into IRA and HSA, where the IRA has limited early withdrawal without penalty, I think more people would actually save for retirement.
I recommend you read nudge and The Paradox of Choice. When people are faced with too many choices, many just refuse to choose, which is worse than making a mediocre choice. I think IRAs should default to investing in a 50/50 stock/bond split in a low-cost (<0.25%), broad market index fund, and HSAs should default to investing anything over $10k the same way.
Creating more tax havens will only favor the savvy, which you seem to claim that I am. Selfishly, I'd love this program, but I don't think it's the right way for the general population.
The Scharff and Dusek reader has been mentioned, but I'd like to put a plug in for the Kaplan reader as well.
The following are also worth checking out...
Peter Paul Verbeek's What Things Do (this is my "if you only read one book about Phil Tech, read this book" book)
Michel Callon's "The Sociology of an Actor-Network"
Don Ihde's Technology and the Lifeworld
Andy Feenberg's Questioning Technology
Albert Borgman's Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life
Martin Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology"
Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization
Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society
Langdon Winner's "Do Artifacts Have Politics" and The Whale and the Reactor
Hans Jonas' "Technology and Responsibility"
Sunstein and Thaler's Nudge
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death
Nicholas Carr's The Shallows and The Glass Cage
Those linked articles are tragic, especially the six year old with down syndrome. The third BMJ article was behind a pay wall though. Also, I couldn't find anything more recent on Bramhall either, so it kind of seems he is being let off with the fine.
What is shocking to me is the doctor that sexually battered that 16 year old girl under the disguise of a medical examination didn't face any legal responsability. What he did was clearly a crime, he stuck his hand down her trousers and fondled her breasts and nipples, and talked dirty to her, claiming it was to check if she was pregnant.
These predators, and I think it's fair to say that's what they are, may be struck off but without legal consequences they can just get other jobs in the medical field that don't require a medical license. Worse is the incentives that it creates, according to the latest research by Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler author of Nudge its the incentives that dictate behavior. And if we allow certain behaviors we encourage them to happen.
That guy specifically, who sexually battered that 16 year old patient, in my opinion he should do jail time, and so should the surgeon who branded his patients organs. These actions are crimes after all, as defined by the penal code, and just because they are doctors doesn't make it less of a crime, if anything it should be treated worse because of the additional abuse of power and betrayal of trust elements.
[Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness] (https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X)
Written by Nobel prize winning economist Richard H. Thaler. Also a nice follow-up to some of the ideas of Scarcity but more from a "what can we actually do about it" angle.
If anyone is interested in this topic, I recommend Nudge by Richard Thaler.
Nudge
You’d probably enjoy learning more about behavioral economics!
Classics to start with are the book Nudge and the Freakonomics podcast.
This is an old episode, but it’s one of my favorites — #200 When Willpower Isn’t Enough
How do you propose we "force" people to climb the stairs?
[There's a whole school of thought]
(https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X) that deals with subtly steering people to make better decisions, so if you can come up with an effective and streamlined way to direct the "able-bodied" towards stairs (and more importantly, define exactly what constitutes "able-bodied"), I'm sure city transit administrators would be interested to hear it!
I'm reading a book (https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X) that sort of talks about this. the guy goes over these studies that show how losses are so much more painful than gains are pleasant (not just in trading, but it obviously applies there). I think watching my position lose value makes me want to sell a lot more strongly than watching it go up in value makes me want to take profits. and then this kind of shit happens.
These are not finance books, but popular books on behavioral economics by leading academics
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast And Slow (a classic, I think)
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein - Nudge
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational
http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
I think u/tritisan is talking about the google's selfish ledger. They're looking at ways to incentivize you towards better choices and they get the data for how, when, and where to place incentives through the data they collect about you.
Some people are very against this sort of thing, some people look at it as the way of the future. If you'd like to know more about behavioral economics check out Nudge
The Freakonomics podcast talks about things related to marketing frequently enough for me to suggest it here. Good episodes I can think of that are relevant: Are We in a Mattress-Store Bubble?, The White House Gets Into the Nudge Business (although as someone who has read the book Nudge, I don't think the episode is very good,) and various economics or behavioural science themed episodes.
Maybe your girlfriend's boss recently read Nudge, and actually has his employees best interest at heart?
Although if there's no documentation about the accounts, /u/lukertin's probably right.
Obviously it’s more complex than simply “make more money dummy.” But simply putting a few $ into an S&P index each paycheck would completely change the lifestyle they are destined for once they are too old to work.
I have tried to explain compounding interest to my less affluent family members multiple times to no avail. It’s hard to convince someone to contribute to a Roth IRA when they don’t even want a bank account.
IMO, the biggest hurdle we have in the US is the complexity of the system. It’s one reason I am a huge fan of Nudge [Thaler / Sunstein]. We need a default that is easy for everyone to save money, that people who want to educate themselves can opt out of. That used to be the pension system, but as that disappears, we are headed toward a bleak future for a lot of people.
If you're interested in a counterpart to What Money Can't Buy you can read Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable. It's downloadable for free, which is about what it's worth.
I'm currently reading Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, a book about behavioral economics which examines ways in which people's decisions can be positively influenced without restricting their freedom of choice.
There are a lot of pop psychology books that cover at least the social psychological parts of what I learned:
The Person and Situation by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
What Makes Love Last by John Gottman
Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
(Caveat: I've only read Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge, but the others are from well-respected authors/leaders in their fields.)
If you're interested in similar ideas that improve the world while still maximizing personal choice, I recommend the book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard Thaler.
There's also a chapter on this in The Bible.
http://www.princeton.edu/~kahneman/docs/Publications/prospect_theory.pdf
A little technical, but a good introduction to modern decision making theory.
Light and fluffy, with some significance flaws, but very readable for non technical folks:
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
Not directly related to math side of my research, but an interesting history of the refinement of marketing:
http://www.amazon.com/PR-Social-History-Stuart-Ewen/dp/0465061680/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;sr=&amp;qid=
Another very readable book with the usual "I'm writing a book I only include evidence I like" sort of bias, but still worth it:
http://www.amazon.com/Risk-Things-Shouldnt-Ourselves-Greater/dp/0771032595
Good luck.
> However, one has serious problems with understanding the game, if they need to motivate themselves to use wards.
If you are taking action to make it more likely that you'll play well, you do not have problems with understanding the game. Quite the opposite, in fact. Setting up good decisions for yourself ahead of time is exactly the sort of thing that comes with good understanding of the game (and also good understanding of behavioral economics).
> If one does not use wards, they are either a retard, who knows about them but conciously decides to not use them
Please explain how making poor decisions indicates a developmental disability.
I think this is the most important comment here. Do not confuse macroeconomics with other microeconomics-based fields of economics.
> Economists seem hopelessly rooted in the worship of figures like Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, and Marx, stubbornly committed to reworking their theories into something that sort of fits the economic realities they can't ignore and jives with the political principles they like.
A good and honest microeconomist, whether they be a labor, welfare, education, transportation... economist will not adhere to the beliefs of classic figures. They will use the tools available to better understand how people work and what are the possible reactions to certain events, policies, etc. Nowadays most microeconomists use larger and larger databases and run statistical models to test their theories. I believe that this can be called "hard science" – even if you did not create the data like you would in a medical experiment but rather recorded it from the world
> It continues to be rooted in empirically invalidated and scientifically outdated ideas like humans being fundamentally individualistic and rational simply because that is the way Western society currently likes to understand itself. The fact that this has gone largely unchallenged in the field...
We, economists do understand that the current models may not be the best even in micro. Please look into behavioral economics, for example papers by Matthew Rabin or the "pop-science" book Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein. It is an axiom in modern economics that people are rational. I understand that OP is confused by this because sometimes "irrational" behavior can be observed. My personal view is that it is the other way around: no behavior is irrational, on the contrary: we have to find the way that it is rational. Maybe it is important for you that the other person is not much better off than you are. Maybe it is too costly to obtain information. Maybe your preferences are such that in dire financial situations your immediate gratification becomes so important that you make financially undesirable decisions. These are good points – and, if they prove to be important (through rigorous statistical/econometrical testing supported by a theoretical framework), they should be included in further models.
Here's a good read
I heard good things about Nudge - Thaler and Sunstein
You need to read this book - Nudge
I hope people read this, especially the last section. In the past I used to just pester my bosses until they gave in and tried my ideas. It's much easier to influence them by saying something like: "Hey, a lot of people are starting to do things this way ..." or "This other design company was awarded for using this process to cut their development time in half." Managers have a tough time swallowing advice from inferiors. Convince them the idea isn't yours and their ego doesn't need to take such a big hit. Frame it like everyone else is starting to use that idea and they'll be scared into acting even quicker. BTW: this advice truly isn't my own. Learned most of it by reading Nudge.
EDIT: isn't instead of is
I don't personally like the phrase "mind control" and I have some professional experience there. Margaret Singer did the most definitive research on cult brainwashing and while she gets some things correct, she goes a little too far into vague undefinable concepts like "mind control" and "brainwashing". There is a legitimate basis for this research but its not what early "cult" researchers made it out to be.
Its more accurate to talk about environmental and psychological conditions that affect individual decision making. This can be things like "nudges" from behavioral economics to psychological induced effects such as the reciprocity effect of giving gifts.
This explains Nudges the best:
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
On Gifts and Reciprocity:
https://ideas.repec.org/h/eee/givchp/1-04.html
I think by implementing things from behavioral economics and social psychology we can rehabilitate many prisoners. However I don't feel Breivik or the Colorado movie theatre murderer fall into that category. While it is rare, there are people who are, for lack of a better term, diabolical. Breivik and the Colorado murderer fit that category. I don't think knowledge about behavioral economics and cognitive and social psychology is at a level in human evolution where we can adequately rehabilitate diabolical personalities (Breivik, Manson, Colorado murderer). Those people are too calculating and diabolical to ever let back out into society at this point in time. Maybe in the future technology could provide us with controls on that but at this point I don't see it as feasible to ever let those types back out into society.
As a side note, the most effective prisoner rehabilitation program I am aware of is still Timothy Leary's 1960s Concord Prison Experiment using hallucinogens to induce life changing experiences.
In Richard Thaler's book "Nudge" He suggests using peer pressure as a means to nudge people to do the right thing. One of the suggestions for encouraging people to pay their taxes is to tell people that 9 out of 10 people pay their taxes honestly (assuming they really do). This creates positive peer pressure for them to know that if others are doing the right thing they should be too.
If you agree with that philosophy, you will likely enjoy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
Econometrickk and Integralds' lists are great. A few additions:
Wealth of Nations
Money Mischief
and
Nudge
The top two present a one sided view of economics, but are incredibly useful for providing a framework for thinking about it. Nudge gives some behavioral. You're mostly missing Keynesian which is available on the other lists. These are non-technical books.
>It seems to me that many more people would become donors if it were made easier for them to make the decision.
It doesn't seem to be the case, it is the case. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein expand on this, and make a case that refutes most of the arguments against it in this thread, in their book Nudge.
> I'm calling FUD; I need proof that different types of employees have different retirement account needs
Not employees. People. Your mistake may be framing everything from the lense of a w2 wage earner. The 401 was created for that person. Since some people do not have access to a 401 or are ineligible there is the IRA- generally those people are low income, if you're self employed then you may have decent income but don't want to deal with the administrative and regulatory costs of a 401 so there's the Sep. If you own a 15 person business and want a retirement plan but again don't want to deal with the administration of a 401 there's the simple. Each of these people have different needs. This is why there are different plans.
> you said I just want taxes to be lower; that's not the case, and I'd be okay with higher rates; I want programs to be simpler to improve adoption
No, you said you want HSA limits to be higher and allow for premium payment and you said you want early withdrawal penalties eliminated. Both of those are effectively just asking for a tax cut. The former would make things more complicated so your excuse doesn't work at all.
> 401k and other employer programs lock users in with high expenses for smaller employers; having a program like an IRA travel with you will reduce retirement complexity (who needs 6 401ks?)
This is literally why alternative plans exist. I already explained that above.
> read nudge and The Paradox of Choice; when people are faced with too many choices, many just refuse to choose, which is worse than making a mediocre choice; I have co-workers who leave money on the table because they don't want to do paperwork and choose a fund
I've read lots of thaler. I work in this industry. I'm very familiar with behavioral issues which is why I'm certain your idea is bad for the average person. Company administered 401s with automatic enrollment have significantly higher adoption and savings rates than individually administered plans.
So I usually tell my MBA students to just read books, not textbooks. Here are a few of my general suggestions:
Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein
Misbehaving Thaler
Superforecasting Tetlock and Gardner
Zombie Economics Quiggin
If you need more suggestions or want to discuss any of the ideas in these books, don't hesitate to ask.
While I don't disagree with you, I'm fundamentally not libertarian.
If using drugs had no impact on those around you, then yes, definitally legalize.
If however using drugs does effect those around you (through direct threat to their health and well-being, or indirect societal costs of healthcare etc.), then the use of drugs should be discouraged.
I would argue that legalization is good, as criminilazation has been proven, at least in this case, not to be an effective detriment to drug use. But I would also say that drug use should be treated as a health issue, rather than a criminal issue. If the use of drugs is bad, then we, as a society, should be working to reduce that use. Finding the most effective ways to treat harmful drug use (which, as pointed out elsewhere is not all drug use) seems like a good idea.
Using behavioural economics (i.e. Nudge https://www.amazon.ca/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1498670447&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+nudge) would be my preferred approach to handling drugs.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Paperback – Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein
Bursts, Blink, Nudge
Not necessarily a business book but-
Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein is about how people set up/change systems in order to get people to change behavior. Kinda story heavy, but the underlying economic/psychological theory behind it is fascinating.
https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510909680&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=thaler&amp;dpID=51tFzd5lb8L&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch
> An approach that places high value on personal responsibility is a more hands off approach that leaves people to take responsibility for solving their problems themselves without pushing them towards any particular choice.
Agreed... what's toxic is a policy which interferes with incentives to encourage negative behaviors... a highly likely moral hazard of any welfare program and one Democrats have not been careful to avoid.
> The sugar tax is an example that's been shown to work.
I'm not an advocate of a sugar tax for a lot of the reasons you mentioned above. I was just pointing out that at least it attempts to align incentives with the policy goal. A lot of welfare programs do the opposite.
> I think government changing incentives takes away from the individual responsibility of the person whose incentives are changed.
I basically agree with that. And for that reason I am NOT in favor of a sin tax on sugar. After all this back and forth I think I've figured out our disconnect:
You think government should paternalistically create positive incentives to encourage positive behaviors. The kind of policies advocated by Cass Sunstein n Nudge
I disagree, I think that's a paternalistic view of government's role, even a soft form of authoritarianism which is ultimately harmful to a spirit of self-reliance which I think is both right and just for it's own sake, and which is necessary for social health over the longer haul. Outside of actual criminality people should be free to make their own decisions AND potentially to suffer the consequences of the decisions they make.
Where I'm talking about government policy ignoring incentives it's where government programs, usually those intended to alleviate suffering, create negative incentives which promote negative behaviors.
> A focus on individual responsibility sounds to me like letting people have full agency over their lives and not interfering at all.
For the most part... yes.
> If the incentives are such that they make bad choices then so be it.
I'm ALL for removing externalities which create bad incentives. I'm all for education of the young which seeks to promote and reinforce, and even enforce moral behavior within the schools.
I'm NOT for holding the hand of a grown-ass man and telling him he shouldn't drink so much soda. If you want to create positive incentives to produce positive social outcomes I'd submit that the best social outcomes can ONLY come from people who are self-reliant and do not NEED or WANT a nanny holding their hand to nudge them into making good decisions for them. This kind of paternalistic nannying can only produce a culture of reliance and dependency which in the long run cannot produce positive results.
As I said before... this does NOT preclude any and all policies that provide a helping hand for people in need. What id does say is that such a helping hand is always at risk of creating moral hazards promoting the underlying social pathologies which created the need in the first place by removing the painful consequences of them. There's a balance there and one we've gotten badly wrong in the past with dire consequences we see in the underclass both black and white today.
Your hypothetical poses a number of problems that would require clarification/defense. I don’t want to tear apart an illustrative hypothetical.
Instead, I will suggest you check out Thaler and Sunstein’s book Nudge.
In short, understanding American liberal political culture as it is (e.g., the value of and commitment to freedom and autonomy, capitalism, etc.), but understanding the complexities of choice and behavior in said society, they look at ways decisions are influenced and how we can “nudge” decisions in ways that still value freedom of choice.
From the publisher: “Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.”
A large part of my point is that if you blame the people, who aren't the root of the problem, you won't make any lasting progress in reducing undesireable events. You have to target the system controls or policies that allow, and in many cases incentivise, the behavior. That's why I'm talking about strategically changing the culture by targeting the cultural incentive structures, a strategy outlined well in Richard Thaler's Nobel Laureate work Nudge.
I mean, we can blame the people that participate in these behaviors but we should also keep in mind that they are acting with rational self-interest, and you can't fault someone for acting in their own self-interest, because it's an evolutionary stable strategy that allows people and organisms to survive.
Also, the people that indebt themselves $300k+ entering a system not knowing the behaviors expected of them, and then having their livelihood and the survival of themsleves and their loved ones threated by non-conformity; its not rational to blame them for choosing survival over potential non-survival, this is the concensual conclusion of the Nuremberg trials. We must not put people in these positions.
That's why I prefer not to blame participants in a corrupt social structure because its been shown empirically that given the same choices we all act in predictably uniform ways, excluding outliers. What we should do is optimize incentives to ensure best-outcomes. Right now policies are mainly determined by industry profits, but if we start with patient quality-of-life best-outcomes and work backwards we can fix much of the horror and grotesqueness in modern medicine. Or at least have a chance.
A big problem with this strategy is that the medical industry is a political and financial juggernaut with a market-cap of $3.4 Trillion dollars. And since this industry, and trade organizations, are politically active operating within a current legal political environment that has aboloshed campaign contributions this for-profit industry can buy politicians by buying elections and then write laws that increase profits for doctors, hospitals, and corporate healthcare conglomerates at the expense and harm of the patient.
Edit: I think the solution is strategic management of information. The current healthcare information dark-markets really allow pathological business practices to flourish, in the name of, and as long as profits are maximized.
Edit: This is how I objectively see responsibility in this situation along with a prescription, based on research and analysis, to fix some of these problems. I also think the people who participate in these behaviors bear some responsability, but mainly to tell us the public what is happening. That's why I don't want to condemn this person, since they are helping to expose what is happening by telling us, the public, and thereby allowing us to change it. I'm glad this person is telling us what is happening, and that they know it is wrong but are being forced to participate under threat. That's important information.
Edit: Final edit, I think the supervising physicians that continue these unethical practices by making students participate in them also carry responsability. Also, the management and directors in the hospitals and corporate healthcare conglomerates that commonly force downward, through policies and methods of operation, incentives that create bad and/or profitable behavior at the expense of the patient.