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Deep cut for those of us who read way too many substacks and actually read some of these wonky books.

Gotta say, I was at least partially taken in like Obama was. I think I wanted to believe there was “one weird trick” to getting people to wash their hands more or get people to save more for retirement.

The thing is, I still think “people are predictably irrational” is substantially correct (see my comment above about traders/hedge fund managers irrationally believing Trump was bluffing about tariffs). Think behavioral economics has a lot to recommend. So it makes it all the more galling to see Ariely made up his data because (as far as I can tell) he’s just that committed to libertarianism.

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