The conventional wisdom is often wrong.
Steven D. LevittBut in both instances, the dissemination of the information diluted its power. As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once wrote, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.
Steven D. LevittInformation is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.
Steven D. LevittIn a complex world where people can be atypical in an infinite number of ways, there is great value in discovering the baseline. And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality.
Steven D. LevittAfter all, your chances of winning a lottery and of affecting an election are pretty similar. From a financial perspective, playing the lottery is a bad investment. But it's fun and relatively cheap: for the price of a ticket, you buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings - much as you get to fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy.
Steven D. LevittSocial scientists sometimes talk about the concept of "identity". It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision.
Steven D. LevittIf you both own a gun and a swimming pool in your backyard, the swimming pool is about 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.
Steven D. LevittTags: guns firearms constitutional-rights
An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation
Steven D. LevittThe gulf between the information we proclaim
Steven D. LevittA rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything.
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