Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, in their book on applied manipulation as administered by enlightened technocratic elites–that’s what I heard, in any event, even if perhaps that is not what was said–came up with this idea of small measures that tend to incline people one way, versus another. A nudge. Just a small tap, not even a push, but which in a system, over time, was thought to be likely to achieve large results. Small differences can often do that. Stan Grof used the example of catchment areas, where a given raindrop might wind up many miles one way or the other, depending on which side of a hill it landed.
Thinking about all this, do not lockdowns and fear mongering generally–IT’S DANGEROUS OUT THERE!!!!–amount to nudges to stay home, avoid risks, and make yourself comfortable? Do those in turn not amount to nudges to get fatter, less physically active, less social, and less discriminating in your dietary choices?
Yes, of course. Of course. Obviously. This was all easily predictable.
It’s an endless snow storm out there, that may never end. You don’t know. It shows no signs of it. Why not accustom yourself to a life alternating between your computer and your TV, filled with food that makes you feel good, a daily soak in the bathtub, and a bottle of wine at night? If you gain a few or more pounds, who is going to see you? And you never have to wear anything but sweat pants.
I will continue to insist the rest of my life, I believe–whether it ends today, or 50 years from now in a colony on the moon or the bottom of the ocean–that one of the most useful concepts I have seen in my life is Hayek’s distinction of Action To/Action For.
This is the Nudge concept in a nutshell, isn’t it? An intelligent nudge is an Action To. Almost imperceptibly, or perhaps fully imperceptibly, as something fully subliminal (sub-: below; limen: the threshold), it Acts To generate some desirable outcome, or in any event some outcome desired by the Manipulator or Operator.
But these lockdowns and fear mongering, as I just argued, amount to Action For, don’t they? No no no no no the Branch Covidians say. That’s NOT WHAT WE INTENDED.
Oh, I say. That may be. But that’s what you got. And you could and should have predicted it, so I feel on decent ground wondering if even the most naive and deluded among you might on some level have WANTED this outcome. You can usually avoid what you REALLY want to avoid, particularly when given the time and warning to avoid it. But you didn’t, did you?
I remember writing in the middle of 2020, probably during the actual lockdowns, that there would come a time when the people who led us into this clusterfuck would throw up their hands and say “How could we have known?” I said, in approximately April of 2020, that the answer would be YOU COULD HAVE FUCKING LOOKED.
I still think that will turn out to be prescient. The advice I give people is often, perhaps even routinely, ignored by most people. Nobody wants to admit that anyone could be that much smarter than them, or than the people on TV. I’m used to this.
And I will add that I really think there is a curve, where with an increasing level of intelligence there is a tendency to get more and more arrogant, but that there is a point where it tips, and you start getting humble again, because there is a point where you start to suss out just how much true ambiguity there is in the world, and how easy it is to be wrong.
Now, I don’t owe it to anyone to discount myself, or play small. On the contrary, in my view (and I say this knowing full well it is possible no one will read this, although my long term conceit is that I have readers, and perhaps quite a few, although I don’t know), I think I need to speak what I think I know as loudly as I can.
At the same time, I can and often do have open conversations with people with IQ’s half of mine on equal footing. I have absolutely ZERO need to prove I am smart to anyone. In fact, I play dumb the overwhelming majority of the time, with nearly everyone. I prefer it. It is a camouflage of sorts, and I like camouflage. There are people I have known for a long time who have no idea that I have degrees from Berkeley and the University of Chicago, or that I am even remotely smart enough to have gotten into, much less done well at those schools.
And I don’t talk about this blog, ever. Emotionally, for me, it is a public diary I don’t discuss, even if these thoughts are in principle open to the world. I know two people who live in my city who know about it, although I don’t know who they told. And one of them I know does not read it. One used to, on occasion, but she has likely forgotten about it too.