You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
Politically I'm leaning to the left, and especially the social democracy of the Nordic kind with the welfare state and such, and my view of libertarian politics hasn't been too favorable. For me laissez-faire libertarianism is "communism for the tech/economy students", ie. a theory that's beautiful on the paper provided you ignore four fifths of the human nature and most of the realities regarding how people actually think and make choices.
Nudge presents the first case of some sort of libertarian approach sounding not only like it could work, but which is somewhat appealing to me. My view is that people should have the liberty to do risky things and fuck up if they want to, to a degree of course, but generally people do not know what's best for them especially with complex issues where the feedback may be vague or far away in the future, or with things that are one-off instances where you really can't learn from your mistakes. This is exactly where Nudge comes in.
The philosophy and practice here is to give people latitude to choose for themselves, but to nudge and encourage them to choose a course that is deemed the most suitable in a given situation. The book basically goes through several domains from pension savings to nature conservation, with plenty of examples especially from US, but also from aboard about how these nudges have been implemented, or how they would've made some initiative work better than it did.
(As a side note, I really hate the term, though: "paternal libertarianism". There isn't a button that combination of words don't push for me.)
Although I don't agree with the ideas wholesale, this is definitely good food for thought for both left and right leaning people who are interested in trying to incorporate personal freedom on one hand and protecting people from bad or harmful choices on the other.
Nudge presents the first case of some sort of libertarian approach sounding not only like it could work, but which is somewhat appealing to me. My view is that people should have the liberty to do risky things and fuck up if they want to, to a degree of course, but generally people do not know what's best for them especially with complex issues where the feedback may be vague or far away in the future, or with things that are one-off instances where you really can't learn from your mistakes. This is exactly where Nudge comes in.
The philosophy and practice here is to give people latitude to choose for themselves, but to nudge and encourage them to choose a course that is deemed the most suitable in a given situation. The book basically goes through several domains from pension savings to nature conservation, with plenty of examples especially from US, but also from aboard about how these nudges have been implemented, or how they would've made some initiative work better than it did.
(As a side note, I really hate the term, though: "paternal libertarianism". There isn't a button that combination of words don't push for me.)
Although I don't agree with the ideas wholesale, this is definitely good food for thought for both left and right leaning people who are interested in trying to incorporate personal freedom on one hand and protecting people from bad or harmful choices on the other.
Let's keep this short: save your time and money and instead listen to episode #474 of the Freakonomics Podcast titled "All you need is nudge". It's the same content minus all the fluff. You're welcome...
The book's kernel is the following: if you want people to change or adopt a particular stance then (1) make it easy for them to do it, and (2) make it worth their while.
Great book if it's the first time you hear about "choice architecture" or "paternalistic libertarianism". It's too light on substance to be a reference of any kind (though it doesn't pretend to be), but a decent introduction nonetheless.
The book's kernel is the following: if you want people to change or adopt a particular stance then (1) make it easy for them to do it, and (2) make it worth their while.
Great book if it's the first time you hear about "choice architecture" or "paternalistic libertarianism". It's too light on substance to be a reference of any kind (though it doesn't pretend to be), but a decent introduction nonetheless.
The general idea is neat, and there are a lot of good solid examples of how to put "nudges" into practice. Once the idea is explained, it really comes across as common sense and the ins and outs of design choices (for products, services, society) are interesting.
I had a couple of small issues with it. Firstly, although the book isn't long, I found the detailed examples really hammered the idea home more than I needed. I personally probably could have settled for a long magazine article on their ideas. Secondly, I'm not a libertarian and I found the scope of what they're trying to do to be rather limited. I know that's the point of libertarianism, but it's just not for me.
I had a couple of small issues with it. Firstly, although the book isn't long, I found the detailed examples really hammered the idea home more than I needed. I personally probably could have settled for a long magazine article on their ideas. Secondly, I'm not a libertarian and I found the scope of what they're trying to do to be rather limited. I know that's the point of libertarianism, but it's just not for me.
The most surprising thing about 'Nudge' is how boring it is. It's an odd bestseller, reading like a cross between a pitch for consulting work and an attempt to make behavioural economics research readable by shoe-horning in some 'jokes' and relatable anecdotes. I had high hopes, but would have got more out of rereading 'Thinking Fast and Slow'.
There's a lot of good stuff here, but much of it will be familiar if you've been at least a little tuned in to social psychology and personal finance for the past few years. Some memorable bits for me:
- George Loewenstein's term "hot-cold empathy gap": we know many kinds of temptation will make it difficult to do what we think is really best, but when we're not in the midst of the temptation we fail to recognize just how compelling the temptation will be.
- Studies showing that just asking people to make a quick concrete plan for how to do something - e.g., draw out the route they need to take on a map - makes them substantially more likely to actually do the thing. This is presented as an example of a "channel factor", a term from Kurt Lewin.
- A study showed that when people in a repeated game had the option to pay to punish noncooperating players, they used it, and cooperation increased in future rounds. The book suggests this could be exploitable for addressing climate change, via the system of nations joining "climate clubs".
- George Loewenstein's term "hot-cold empathy gap": we know many kinds of temptation will make it difficult to do what we think is really best, but when we're not in the midst of the temptation we fail to recognize just how compelling the temptation will be.
- Studies showing that just asking people to make a quick concrete plan for how to do something - e.g., draw out the route they need to take on a map - makes them substantially more likely to actually do the thing. This is presented as an example of a "channel factor", a term from Kurt Lewin.
- A study showed that when people in a repeated game had the option to pay to punish noncooperating players, they used it, and cooperation increased in future rounds. The book suggests this could be exploitable for addressing climate change, via the system of nations joining "climate clubs".
Pretty solid, definitely the kind of pop behavioral economics book with tons of examples that I usually like to read. Only difference this time was that the entire middle was basically just financial advice and that shit was boring as hell
4.5?
This covered some of the same ground as Misbehaving (which makes sense, as it has one of the same authors), but goes much deeper into the concept of 'nudges'. I thought it laid out its recommendations, and the positives/negatives/limits/uses of nudging very well, and was very readable.
This covered some of the same ground as Misbehaving (which makes sense, as it has one of the same authors), but goes much deeper into the concept of 'nudges'. I thought it laid out its recommendations, and the positives/negatives/limits/uses of nudging very well, and was very readable.
While it gets a little verbose in areas I don't care as much about, the essential idea is an important one. For that, it is an important book.
Very United states centric with regards to finances (many chapters) and health care. Choice architecture was an interesting discussion. Now to apply it to my four-year-old.