Check out the big brain on Brad! You’re appeal to authority is coming across as a bit pretentious, and seems rather out of place here. Lay out what you have to say and I’ll listen - you don’t have to sway me with who you know and lists of what you have read. I’d like to point out that no where did I state that more choices leads to better ones, contrary to your naive assumption. Consider your lack of reading comprehension fought. :rolleyes:
Well, I’ve read a lot of books too. And magazines, and comic books.
Here’s what I say, in summary form:
I prefer to have choices. If I make the wrong choice, if I make a mistake, if I royally screw up, that is far far far preferable to having someone “protect me from myself”. In short, I reserve the right to make mistakes and just maybe learn from them.
I’m pretty liberal, and the idea that someone - anyone - would presume to limit my choices “for my own good” is ridiculous.
More choices may not lead to better choices. True. But I don’t want or need some “uber nanny” up my butt controlling me or protecting me from my “bad” choices.
Here is a review from the New Yorker of a book on this very subject.
Here is an abstract of a paper on the subject.
Here is the original paper on the jam experiment.
One explanation is that people hate to make the wrong decision, so giving them lots and lots of choices increases the probability that they will - and thus they take the default choice, or make no choice at all. We only have so much time and energy with which to make a decision, after all.
I encourage you to actually read this stuff, and not to make assumptions based on the title of a book.
Okay - would you like to have the choice among all medicines that anyone comes up with? They will all make claims about efficacy and safety, and no one will check them or ban ones that will kill you or not do anything to cure you because that would be limiting your precious choice. Is that the world you would like to live in?
I will check out the links, thanks. I don’t disagree with you here, and I get the feeling we’ve been talking past each other. I’ve read some reviews of Nudge myself, and thought you were incorrectly applying the central theme of the book to the argument I was making. I have not argued that more choices leads to better ones, and in fact realize they can lead to worse.
Just because you say it is a black and white issue does not make it so.
I’m sure there are one or two of them out there but GOP Marketing 101 literally says what I said it says. Those guys know their market and according to them their personal donor market is scared, angry people.
Read that same story a few minutes ago. It seems conservatives realize they can be fear-mongering and self-centered too, but they don’t seem to view those as negatives
No, because conservatives are delusional, assuming they believe what they are saying. And hypocritical if they don’t.
Liberals don’t want to increase the power of government any more than conservatives do; less if anything. And helping people who need it isn’t “increasing their dependence on government”. That’s not even really practical to do, anyway; everyone who isn’t living as a hermit in the wilderness is pretty much totally dependent on the government for their lifestyle. Just look what happens in failed states. “Rugged individualism” is a form of self delusion more than anything else.
And just because you declare that something is an issue that reasonable, moral people can disagree on doesn’t make it so. I’m not going to pretend that torture or racism is anything but stupid and barbaric just because saying so condemns the people that support it. Sometimes, one side is right, and the other wrong.
Okay. I was not using the book to speak about force at all, so if I misled you into thinking that was my argument, that could be the source of the problem.
Dan Ariely, in Predictably Irrational doesn’t discuss choice at all, but I think over all it is a better book. Both are better than Freakonomics - I haven’t read the sequel yet, though I have it.
Ha. 
That’s funny, I was just talking with a friend yesterday who was raving about Predictably Irrational. I’ll definitely check it out now.
Why restrict it to medicines, unless you are constructing a strawman? There have been medicines which were on the market, and supposedly safe, that turned out to be a disaster. Look up Thalidomide.
I thought the thread was about liberal vs conservative, their “moral roots”, and choices in general. One of the posts seemed to be talking about “protecting us from ousrselves and our bad choices”, but did not limit it to any one specific area. My reply was the general reply to that seemingly general question. For the most part, having more choices is the preferred option. In light of that, no one needs to make a blanket declaration that I, we, anyone, must be protected from ourselves. But, strictly speaking about medicines (since you brought it up), and pulling numbers out of my ass to make a point, if I can get medicine I absolutely need, in the US for 100 dollars a pill, but can get the same exact medicine from Canada for 50cents a bottle, I want that option. In that case, you are not protecting me one bit, you are hurting me.
OVER ALL more choices = a good thing.
You’re assuming all choices are good. Simple math states that if you can eliminate the bad choices, you have a much greater chance of picking a good choice.
Ah, but what are bad choices, you retort? Not being a doctor, I wouldn’t know which medicines are bad and which arent. I, like most people, have to rely on agencies like the FDA. If they say a specific medicine is bad and ban it from sale, then maybe it is. Though, if you can go to Canada (not Mexico) to get the same thing for pennies, then you have to look at what agency you trust more, or take your chances.
More choices is only good if there is a constellation of decent to good choices available. If you’re sifting through the muck looking for one good choice among many bad ones, then less choices is better.
And I never said all choices are good, but I reserve the right to HAVE choices. Which should dovetail nicely with your statement below, about when we only have bad “choices” to select from.
Missing the point - I used an example of getting expensive meds here, or going accross the border to get the SAME medicine, only cheaper.
If there are only bad things to select from, then I definitely do NOT want the people who set it up that way, telling me they get to decide what I will be allowed to decide. If ALL the choices are bad, then I still want to be able to choose (for myself) the lesser of evils. So, no, saying the “constellation of choices” is already bad, does not count for me. That just says someone else already made BAD choices “for me” without cosulting me and with my knowledge or consent. And who would that bad decider be? Maybe the “nanny state” that I didn’t want in my personal business to begin with.
Conservative talk a lot about freedom. It seems to be, they want to have their brand of freedom, but they want to control and limit “those other guys”.
Liberals a lot about freedom. It seems to be, they want to have their brand of freedom, but they want to control and limit “those other guys”.
Let’s drop the pretenses. They ALL want to be the ones calling the shots for everyone else, but their own “version of freedom” is somehow sacred.
It’s all the same.
That “both sides are just as bad” bit is an idea the Right has been pushing for a long time, but it’s a false equivalence. Preventing people from harming others just isn’t the same as persecuting people for harmless beliefs or practices. Consensual sex or going to the “wrong” ( or no ) church just isn’t the same as selling poison.
I’m more on the left, you probably know my posting history and general opinions. . My point was, I am past the point of being sick of all the different people, waving different banners, claiming that they all are doing shit for MY own good. I’m pretty liberal, and I don’t WANT people deciding my decisions and making my choices, and cutting down on my ability/freedom making of my own choices, for my own good - especialy when too often, it’s really not going to do me any good. It’s bullshit, it’s insulting, and there’s been enough.
In short, “those who know best for me” need to stop “helping” me all the time.
But it is an idea I hear more from the Right, and I believe originates from them. Part of their whole strategy of “since we have nothing good to promote, let’s tell everyone the other side is just as bad as us!”
Judging from history, that would mean you’d have an excellent chance of ending up sick or dead or otherwise suffering at the hands of those who would take advantage of you. You aren’t more free by being made available as a victim.
Right. I know you think that. I’m just telling you that thinking that is an extremely ignorant thing to do. People have different opinions on the outcome of a policy. Just because you think a policy will have a certain outcome does not mean that proponents of that policy specifically intend that outcome or even think that that outcome will occur. To think otherwise (as you do) is simply ignorant.
Nonsense. When a policy has an easily predictable outcome, and people ignore that outcome even when it is pointed out to them they are either stupid, engaging in willful self delusion, or are lying when they talk about their goals.
Or they disagree with you that the outcome will occur. Yeesh, this isn’t rocket science here, bub.