Lucille
08-30-2013, 01:11 PM
Meet the Person Who Wants to Run Your Life -- And Obama Wants to Help Her
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2013/08/meet-the-person-who-wants-to-run-your-life-and-obama-wants-to-help-her.html
I am a bit late on this, but like most libertarians I was horrified by this article in the Mail Online about Obama Administration efforts to nudge us all into "good" behavior. This is the person, Maya Shankar, who wants to substitute her decision-making priorities for your own
http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/article-2381478-1B11DB61000005DC-332_308x425.jpg
If the notion -- that a 20-something person who has apparently never held a job in the productive economy is telling you she knows better what is good for you -- is not absurd on its face, here are a few other reasons to distrust this plan.
Proponents first, second, and third argument for doing this kind of thing is that it is all based on "science". But a lot of the so-called science is total crap. Medical literature is filled with false panics that are eventually retracted. And most social science findings are frankly garbage. If you have some behavior you want to nudge, and you give a university a nice grant, I can guarantee you that you can get a study supporting whatever behavior you want to foster or curtail. Just look at the number of public universities in corn-growing states that manage to find justifications for ethanol subsidies. Recycling is a great example, mentioned several times in the article. Research supports the sensibility of recycling aluminum and steel, but says that recycling glass and plastic and paper are either worthless or cost more in resources than they save. But nudgers never-the-less push for recycling of all this stuff. Nudging quickly starts looking more like religion than science.
The 300 million people in this country have 300 million different sets of priorities and personal circumstances. It is the worst hubris to think that one can make one decision that is correct for everyone. Name any supposedly short-sighted behavior -- say, not getting health insurance when one is young -- and I can name numerous circumstances where this is a perfectly valid choice and risk to take.
The justification for this effort is social science research about how people manage decisions that involve short-term and long-term consequences
Some behavioral scientists believe they can improve people's self-control by understanding the relationship between short term memory, intelligence and delay discounting.
This has mostly been used to counter compulsive gambling and substance abuse, but Shankar's entry into government science circles may indicate that health insurance objectors and lapsed recyclers could soon fall into a similar category
I am sure there is a grain of truth in this -- all of us likely have examples of where we made a decision to avoid short term pain that we regretted. But it is hilarious to think that government officials will somehow do better. As I have written before, the discount rate on pain applied by most legislators is infinite. They will do any crazy ridiculous thing that has horrible implications five or ten years from now if they can just get through today. Why else do government bodies run massive sustained deficits and give away unsustainable pension and retirement packages except that they take no consideration of future consequences. And it is these people Maya wants to put in charge of teaching me about delay discounting?
It probably goes without saying, but nudging quickly becomes politicized. Is nudging 20-something health men to buy health insurance really in their best interests, or does it help keep an important Obama program from failing?
More at the link.
Federal 'nudge squad' led by 20-something wunderkind gears up to change Americans' behaviors – for our own good
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2381478/Federal-nudge-squad-led-20-wunderkind-gears-change-Americans-behaviors--good.html#ixzz2dTtR8nQY
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2013/08/meet-the-person-who-wants-to-run-your-life-and-obama-wants-to-help-her.html
I am a bit late on this, but like most libertarians I was horrified by this article in the Mail Online about Obama Administration efforts to nudge us all into "good" behavior. This is the person, Maya Shankar, who wants to substitute her decision-making priorities for your own
http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/article-2381478-1B11DB61000005DC-332_308x425.jpg
If the notion -- that a 20-something person who has apparently never held a job in the productive economy is telling you she knows better what is good for you -- is not absurd on its face, here are a few other reasons to distrust this plan.
Proponents first, second, and third argument for doing this kind of thing is that it is all based on "science". But a lot of the so-called science is total crap. Medical literature is filled with false panics that are eventually retracted. And most social science findings are frankly garbage. If you have some behavior you want to nudge, and you give a university a nice grant, I can guarantee you that you can get a study supporting whatever behavior you want to foster or curtail. Just look at the number of public universities in corn-growing states that manage to find justifications for ethanol subsidies. Recycling is a great example, mentioned several times in the article. Research supports the sensibility of recycling aluminum and steel, but says that recycling glass and plastic and paper are either worthless or cost more in resources than they save. But nudgers never-the-less push for recycling of all this stuff. Nudging quickly starts looking more like religion than science.
The 300 million people in this country have 300 million different sets of priorities and personal circumstances. It is the worst hubris to think that one can make one decision that is correct for everyone. Name any supposedly short-sighted behavior -- say, not getting health insurance when one is young -- and I can name numerous circumstances where this is a perfectly valid choice and risk to take.
The justification for this effort is social science research about how people manage decisions that involve short-term and long-term consequences
Some behavioral scientists believe they can improve people's self-control by understanding the relationship between short term memory, intelligence and delay discounting.
This has mostly been used to counter compulsive gambling and substance abuse, but Shankar's entry into government science circles may indicate that health insurance objectors and lapsed recyclers could soon fall into a similar category
I am sure there is a grain of truth in this -- all of us likely have examples of where we made a decision to avoid short term pain that we regretted. But it is hilarious to think that government officials will somehow do better. As I have written before, the discount rate on pain applied by most legislators is infinite. They will do any crazy ridiculous thing that has horrible implications five or ten years from now if they can just get through today. Why else do government bodies run massive sustained deficits and give away unsustainable pension and retirement packages except that they take no consideration of future consequences. And it is these people Maya wants to put in charge of teaching me about delay discounting?
It probably goes without saying, but nudging quickly becomes politicized. Is nudging 20-something health men to buy health insurance really in their best interests, or does it help keep an important Obama program from failing?
More at the link.
Federal 'nudge squad' led by 20-something wunderkind gears up to change Americans' behaviors – for our own good
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2381478/Federal-nudge-squad-led-20-wunderkind-gears-change-Americans-behaviors--good.html#ixzz2dTtR8nQY