People are complicated creatures, with a nuanced set of private and public incentives, and that our behavior is enormously influenced by circumstances.
Of all the women in Venkatesh’s study, 83 percent were drug addicts.
It’s easy to envision how you’d change the behavior of people who think just like you do, but the people whose behavior you’re trying to change often don’t think like you—and, therefore, don’t respond...
In the United States especially, politics and economics don’t mix well. Politicians have all sorts of reasons to pass all sorts of laws that, as well-meaning as they may be, fail to account for the wa...
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts.
Recalcitrant
Atrophied
Why has the prostitute’s wage fallen so far? Because
We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.
We are blind to our blindness.
Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.
Every time we pretend to know something, we are doing the same: protecting our own reputation rather than promoting the collective good.
Dead horses were extremely unwieldy
Penultimate
It stank to the heavens; when
Twenty thousand years ago, Caldeira says, carbon-dioxide levels were lower, sea level was lower—and trees were in a near state of asphyxiation for lack of carbon dioxide. There’s nothing special about...
It isn't only that we know less than we pretend about the outside world; we don't even know ourselves all that well.
HOW IS A STREET PROSTITUTE LIKE A DEPARTMENT-STORE SANTA?
For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it.
«disidente en general»,