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Richard Thaler Econs

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The podcast started out with new vocabulary right away, hyper-rational: always doing things to make you better. I took this in a relaxed way to what it actually meant. I know lots of people who seem like they only do things that will make them better; eat healthy, stay active, challenge their mind and other things that make it seem like they are only doing things to make them better. But as I learn later in the talk, they take this term to an entirely different level.
Richard Thaler, one of the founders of behavioral economics, shared information that made me think about economics in an entirely different way. Home economicus (econs) was something that at the beginning I thought was almost a joke, I had never heard of anything like this before. Throughout the talk I realized that being this different type of person seems impossible. The examples to me seemed kind of rude, although done just to see what would happen. Using a fake cane or cast to get a seat on the subway and printing out fake “I Voted” stickers to me seems like more work than what it’s worth, but that was the whole reason for this talk. There was a cost within those examples that made going the extra length to get the subway seat or fit the norm that you voted, worth it.
Econs would live the “perfect” life. They …show more content…

Yes, there would be positives to it. But econs demonstrated habits of free-loading. How would the world be better if everyone always took but never gave? Living as an econ would be difficult, Greg Rosalsky made that very apparent. He had a spreadsheet made to decide if asking a girl to date him was optimal. I don’t know anybody who would go to that extent, but I guess some people do. There is an opportunity cost with everything we do. An econ would really weigh the cost and chose which option would truly be the most optimal, where everyone else just chooses which one they think is better in a quick

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