Cass Sunstein: belief

Transcript context

…Sure. To nudge people and not to take the step we’ve now taken might leave, you know, a lot of tragedy around. Now, it is true that the heroin ban does not eliminate heroin, and it has ancillary consequences that aren’t good. But I would say with respect to some product — let’s say it’s a food where there’s a 1/x chance of death from consuming it, and x is not that high a number — to say to people, you know, “You can have this. Note that your death risk is 1/x.” Why is it so great to shift from banning the thing to allowing people to have it when you’re going to see a lot of bodies on the streets? Say I’m dying of a terminal disease, and there’s a treatment. It probably won’t help me, but there’s a one-tenth of one percent chance that it will. And I want to use it — it’s kind of a self-defense argument. And I say, “Well, self-defense — that’s like a minimal value we all would agree upon.” I love nudge. Let’s take the FDA out of the picture and just put it in the Banned Products Store and have big huge signs, bad music surrounding it — disco, whatever we need to do — telling that it’s not any good, but let me buy it. So, I want more nudge than you do.…

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