The idea of a 'suboptimal' decision is a core tenet that keeps capitalism's wheels spinning. If you are poor, you must have just bought too many gifts, or refu

The idea of a 'suboptimal' decision is a core tenet that keeps capitalism's wheels spinning. If you are poor, you must have just bought too many gifts, or refused to live in a house share with 5 other people, or took the bus instead of cycling to work, and so on. You didn't act entirely rationally, and so you 'deserve' to be poor. It seems hilarious when phrased in those terms but this sort of thing happens _all the time_. Especially because some people are capable, either by repression of emotion (stoicism) or by deference to authority (it's always been this way...) of jumping through these hoops. If we modeled the world in a reasonable way we'd discover how horrible it really is. The fact we don't is part of the cognitive dissonance that surrounds us. (Nudging has been mentioned lower down here - yet another example of a statistical calculation that completely overlooks individual plight, one that treats the populace as a flock to be herded...)