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and I believe it did reduce suicide rates. I think if I had to summarize, voters will vote to give themselves choices (however harmful) - whilst patting themse

• nearbuy 5y ago
  I completely agree. There's an additional aspect, though. Voters will vote against new restrictions for themselves, but will vote to keep existing restrictions that have been around a long time. A fun example (quoted from https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/11/self-serving-bias https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/11/self-serving-bias): > Oregon is one of two US states that bans self-service gas stations. Recently, they passed a law relaxing this restriction – self-service is permissible in some rural counties during odd hours of the night. Outraged Oregonians took to social media to protest that self-service was unsafe, that it would destroy jobs, that breathing in gas fumes would kill people, that gas pumping had to be performed by properly credentialed experts – seemingly unaware that most of the rest of the country and the world does it without a second thought. So maybe we like freedoms that we're used to, but also like the benefits (or perceived benefits in the above example) of restrictions that we're used to. (I don't know if disapproval of allowing self-service was widespread or was just a small number of people posting on social media, but it makes a good story.)