Reforming 401(k) plans is an example of “asymmetric paternalism,” a new political philosophy based on the idea of saving people from the vagaries of their limbic regions. Warning labels on tobacco and potentially harmful foods are similarly intended to keep subcortical structures in check. Neuroeconomists have suggested additional policies, including warning buyers of lottery tickets that their chances of winning are practically nonexistent and imposing mandatory “cooling off” periods before people make big-ticket purchases, such as cars and boats. “Asymmetric paternalism helps those whose rationality is bounded from making a costly mistake and harms more rational folks very little[b]...

Reforming 401(k) plans is an example of “asymmetric paternalism,” a new political philosophy based on the idea of saving people from the vagaries of their limbic regions. Warning labels on tobacco and potentially harmful foods are similarly intended to keep subcortical structures in check. Neuroeconomists have suggested additional policies, including warning buyers of lottery tickets that their chances of winning are practically nonexistent and imposing mandatory “cooling off” periods before people make big-ticket purchases, such as cars and boats. “Asymmetric paternalism helps those whose rationality is bounded from making a costly mistake and harms more rational folks very little,” Camerer, Loewenstein, and three colleagues wrote in a 2003 issue of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. “Such policies should appeal to everyone across the political spectrum.”

Another interesting example of bounded-rationality in everyday life.

An interesting article, although the bottom line, after making a bunch of statements that are just plain not so, especially if one's to witness Las Vegas action, is that they still don't have a clue how the brain works. Just tiny pieces here and there, with the fact that they work differently in different people.

The warning labels aren't the solution to the problem, teaching kids common sense in school is.

When I worked on an old Datapoint system, the great minds that developed this revolutionary (at the time) technology, people who invented distributed computing, decided that giving users a way to delete files using wildcards was too dangerous, so the OS they had only allowed you to del...

An interesting article, although the bottom line, after making a bunch of statements that are just plain not so, especially if one's to witness Las Vegas action, is that they still don't have a clue how the brain works. Just tiny pieces here and there, with the fact that they work differently in different people.

The warning labels aren't the solution to the problem, teaching kids common sense in school is.

When I worked on an old Datapoint system, the great minds that developed this revolutionary (at the time) technology, people who invented distributed computing, decided that giving users a way to delete files using wildcards was too dangerous, so the OS they had only allowed you to delete one file at a time. So, I wrote a script that generated a batch file that would contain a bunch of these delete commands for individual files and thus still delete a bunch of files in one swoop. These 'asymmetric paternalism' approaches may be helpful to some, but terribly limiting to others, even though both parties have brains. Certain labels, like Nutrition Info, do have their uses for the masses, but writing on a cup of coffee that the "beverage you're about to drink is very hot" is both useless and (to some) insulting their intelligence.