Guide on ANTON

rational

2024-06-30 · 00:00 UTC ·1 min read

Brief

The short essay claims human decision-making is inconsistently rational: people cannot state stable preferences, 'revealed preferences' fail across contexts, and consequential choices between nearly identical options are often effectively random. The author notes people retroactively rationalize decisions and—in a 26 Aug 2024 update—ties this to Pareto’s distinction between motivational 'residues' and justificatory 'derivations'.

Why it matters

Author argues people are largely irrational: beliefs and actions often don't reflect an underlying reality, and individuals frequently hold contradictory preferences that they cannot reliably express.

Key details

  • The piece critiques the economic concept of 'revealed preferences', noting both stated and revealed preferences vary widely with context and that choices among nearly identical options can be essentially random.
  • Updated 26 Aug 2024: author links the view to Vilfredo Pareto’s General Sociology, saying people are driven by 'residues' and only later rationalize via 'derivations'.
Source evidence

title: rational
contenttype: article
publication: Guide on ANTON
published: 2024-06-30T00:00:00+00:00
sourceurl: https://troynikov.io/notes/rational/

word_count: 162

people are on the whole insane, individually and collectively in the sense that the way they act and what they believe is not reflective of an underlying reality people are unable to express their own preferences, and often hold contradictory preferences without noticing in economics there is the idea of ‘revealed preferences’ but seldom is the consitency of preferences examined both stated and revealed preferences vary wildly depending on context because people are insane, the idea that they ‘respond to incentives’ is obviously wrong people will ratioanlize their decisions in terms of what incentives they believe led to their decision, but rarely can people describe which factors will influence their decision in advance often choices must be made among nearly identical options, and under these circumstances the decision however consequential is made essentially at random you have spooks in your brain update (26.Aug.24): seems pareto came to the same conclusion in ‘general sociology’; people are motivated by ‘residues’ but rationalize through ‘derivations’