Behavioral-Economics

The Inconvenient Math of Mortality: A Behavioral Bioethics 1 Part 1: The Prisoner of Choice: How the Two Selves Betray Our Living Wills 2 Part 2: When Compassion Clashes with the Oath: Physicians as Arbiters of Static Justice 3 Part 3: Longevity's Hidden Tax: The Dynamic Justice of Intergenerational Caregiving 4 Part 4: The Economic Calculus of Cruelty: Distancing, Blindness, and the Revenges of the CAFO 5 Part 5: The Rainbow Bridge and the Feedback Loop: Climate Risk and the Poverty of Persuasion ← Series Home Key Takeaways Distancing institutions: Physical and psychological separation from animal suffering Willful blindness: Active choice to avoid seeing cruelty Tragedy of the commons: Economic incentives for factory farming Dynamic justice: Long-term feedback loops between humans and animals The Moral Contradiction of Compassion Humans share an innate capacity for compassion, yet we simultaneously inflict vast and pervasive cruelty upon animals. This contradiction is particularly evident in industrial settings, where animals like pigs live and die in “hellish places” known as concentrated-animal-feeding operations (CAFOs). While we recoil at the thought of cruelty, we consume products derived from it without much hesitation—a process enabled by suppressing the negative emotion of compassion. ...

The Inconvenient Math of Mortality: A Behavioral Bioethics 1 Part 1: The Prisoner of Choice: How the Two Selves Betray Our Living Wills 2 Part 2: When Compassion Clashes with the Oath: Physicians as Arbiters of Static Justice 3 Part 3: Longevity's Hidden Tax: The Dynamic Justice of Intergenerational Caregiving 4 Part 4: The Economic Calculus of Cruelty: Distancing, Blindness, and the Revenges of the CAFO 5 Part 5: The Rainbow Bridge and the Feedback Loop: Climate Risk and the Poverty of Persuasion ← Series Home Key Takeaways Longevity’s paradox: Longer lives may not mean healthier lives due to caregiving burdens Nash equilibrium: Fair income distribution between generations Caregiving tax: Hidden costs of elder care on younger generations Dynamic justice: Long-term feedback loops in demographic policy The Cost of a Longer Sunset The increasing human lifespan is celebrated universally as a triumph of public health, yet it masks a complex economic reality. Our collective life expectancies are rising rapidly, but the essential question remains: Are we living healthier as well as longer lives, or are our additional years spent in poor health?. Health expectancy, derived by dividing total lifetime income by life expectancy, suggests that a longer life is not automatically a healthier or happier one; extended longevity can, in fact, lead to a decline in health expectancy if income is static or if the burden of care increases. ...

The Inconvenient Math of Mortality: A Behavioral Bioethics 1 Part 1: The Prisoner of Choice: How the Two Selves Betray Our Living Wills 2 Part 2: When Compassion Clashes with the Oath: Physicians as Arbiters of Static Justice 3 Part 3: Longevity's Hidden Tax: The Dynamic Justice of Intergenerational Caregiving 4 Part 4: The Economic Calculus of Cruelty: Distancing, Blindness, and the Revenges of the CAFO 5 Part 5: The Rainbow Bridge and the Feedback Loop: Climate Risk and the Poverty of Persuasion ← Series Home Key Takeaways Physician as arbiter: Silent bargaining between compassion and the Hippocratic Oath Nash Solution: Mathematical compromise in end-of-life decisions Patient strategies: Enhancing bargaining position through advance directives Static justice: Fair compromise between competing interests The Moral Fork in the Road The moral life of the physician is often defined by the tension between duty and mercy. Consider Dr. Smith, standing at the bedside of a terminally ill patient who desperately asks to be allowed to die. One side of Dr. Smith is governed by compassion, a deep feeling of sharing the patient’s suffering coupled with an active desire to relieve that misery. The other side is governed by the Hippocratic Oath, which has been internalized as an absolute commitment: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect”. This creates an emotional and ethical conflict, forcing Dr. Smith—the “two-headed physician”—to determine not just the manner, but the very timing of the patient’s death. ...

The Inconvenient Math of Mortality: A Behavioral Bioethics 1 Part 1: The Prisoner of Choice: How the Two Selves Betray Our Living Wills 2 Part 2: When Compassion Clashes with the Oath: Physicians as Arbiters of Static Justice 3 Part 3: Longevity's Hidden Tax: The Dynamic Justice of Intergenerational Caregiving 4 Part 4: The Economic Calculus of Cruelty: Distancing, Blindness, and the Revenges of the CAFO 5 Part 5: The Rainbow Bridge and the Feedback Loop: Climate Risk and the Poverty of Persuasion ← Series Home Key Takeaways Time inconsistency: How preferences change over time, splitting the self into young and old versions Living wills dilemma: Which self’s preferences should govern end-of-life decisions? Behavioral bioethics: Integrating psychology into ethical decision-making Justice within individuals: Internal negotiations between competing selves The Internal Contradiction of the Self The experience of addiction, whether to tobacco or gluttony, presents an acute moral paradox that begins not with society, but within the individual. Consider the smoker who “grinds his cigarettes down the disposal swearing that this time he means never again” to smoke, only to be found hours later “looking for a store that’s still open to buy cigarettes”. Similarly, the glutton eats a high-calorie lunch, regrets it instantly, resolves to compensate, yet repeats the high-calorie meal that evening, knowing and accepting the coming regret. These behaviors, often cyclical and autonomous to the habit itself, suggest a fundamental internal division. If an individual seems to act against their own long-term, articulated self-interest, who is truly in command of the person? ...

The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance 1 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 1: The Scarcity Mindset's Paradoxical Power 2 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 2: The Bandwidth Tax: Scarcity Makes You 'Dumber' 3 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 3: The Scarcity Trap: Borrowing from Tomorrow 4 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 4: The Necessity of Waste: Why Slack Saves You 5 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 5: The Attention Famine in the Content Feast ← Series Home 2x More Likely Low-income shoppers think about trade-offs before buying—becoming experts in value ...

The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance 1 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 1: The Scarcity Mindset's Paradoxical Power 2 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 2: The Bandwidth Tax: Scarcity Makes You 'Dumber' 3 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 3: The Scarcity Trap: Borrowing from Tomorrow 4 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 4: The Necessity of Waste: Why Slack Saves You 5 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance - Part 5: The Attention Famine in the Content Feast ← Series Home Focus Dividend Scarcity creates powerful attention and efficiency—tighter deadlines boost productivity ...

The Endowment Effect of Digital Ownership: 5 Surprising Truths About Why We Overvalue What We Own Introduction: The Invisible Force Behind Your Possessions Have you ever tried to sell a used car, a piece of furniture, or even an old smartphone, only to feel that every offer you receive is offensively low? Or maybe you’ve felt an irrational attachment to a digital item in a video game that has no real-world value. This feeling isn’t just about sentimentality; it’s the result of a powerful cognitive bias called the “endowment effect”—an invisible force that convinces us our stuff is special, just because it’s ours. ...

The Secret Language of Luxury: 4 Surprising Truths About the Status Game Have you ever noticed how a certain watch, handbag, or car can change the way a person is perceived? We often think of luxury goods as simple badges of wealth, straightforward ways to say, “I’ve made it.” But what if that’s only the most basic, and often misleading, part of the story? The truth is, displaying luxury is less like putting up a billboard and more like speaking a complex, secret language—a high-stakes game of communication with unspoken rules and hidden meanings. ...

Imagine you’re shopping online and see two offers: a high-quality pen for $1 plus $2.99 shipping, or a slightly lower-quality pen for $3.99 with “free” shipping. Many of us would instinctively choose the “free” shipping option, even though it’s the same price for a worse product. This isn’t just about saving money; it’s a powerful psychological quirk at play. This phenomenon is known as the zero-price effect. It describes our tendency to react with disproportionate excitement to something that costs nothing, often leading us to make choices that aren’t entirely rational. This post will explore the most surprising takeaways about why the word “free” has such a powerful hold on our decision-making. ...

The Unvarnished Ledger: Personal Finance Without the Platitudes ← Series Home Key Takeaways Optimization Anxiety: Turning life into a performance metric creates burnout, not excellence. Diminishing Returns: The final 20% of optimization costs more effort than the first 80%. The 80% Rule: Sustainable, stress-free foundations beat exhausting perfection. Build in Slack: Unallocated time is anti-fragility insurance, not waste. Stop the Scorecard: Remove performance pressure and actual benefits often increase. The Tyranny of the Marginal Gain In business and self-help literature, there is an obsession with optimization—finding the perfect routine, the ideal diet, or the most efficient use of every minute. This relentless pursuit of the marginal gain is often touted as the key to elite performance. ...