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> If we know that humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market
by olalonde 6y ago
> If we know that humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it's ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there's some kind of free market?
Of course humans aren't perfectly rational but I'd argue it's still a good assumption to make, as a society, because the alternative leads to a very disturbing path. Ultimately, assuming individuals don't really know what's best for themselves can be used to justify all kinds of authoritarian measures from limiting speech to straight up enslavement.
- gibolt 6y agoJumping from ads to enslavement is one of the biggest stretches I've seen on HN...
- olalonde 6y agoIt might seem like a stretch to us, but it was actually used to justify slavery in the past. As early as Aristotle who thought that slaves didn't have the ability to think properly and therefore needed masters to tell them what to do.
- Der_Einzige 6y agoHell, I'd go right before Aristotle. The whole allegory of the cave from Plato/Socrates is most likely the first non-religious justification in western philosophy (which was promulgated) which explains this "the people on the bottom deserve it and are correctly segmented" idea. Idiot farmers, who are not educated and don't see reality for how it is (only shadows on the wall), cannot be trusted to run your state. Only those who see reality for how it is (those who are dialectically educated in a school) should be anywhere near power. I think that even today, this notion of "you are low/stupid therefor we should not listen to you" is almost everywhere in the west.