Continuing from yesterday…
What I find remarkable is that people respond to incentives in a completely non-rational way. There doesn’t seem to be any real evaluation of cost-benefit.
For example, if you invite students to a meeting and you say there will be pizza, they will always show up. The fact that their parents paid many tens of thousands of dollars for their education doesn’t seem to faze them — but missing out on a slice of pizza would feel devastating.
I wonder why this principle is not applied in a more systematic way for the benefit of society. For example, insurance companies pay out billions of dollars every year because people make really unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Suppose the insurance companies were to bribe those people to engage in healthy behaviors? Things like exercising, stretching, eating sensibly, maintaining muscle mass, or using an app to monitor your progress.
For a relatively modest payout, those insurance companies would be rewarded by many millions of dollars each year in savings. The result would be fewer falls, less heart disease, lower rates of cancer, to name just a few benefits. And as an extra special bonus, people would live longer, happier, healthier lives.
Too bad the world doesn’t work that way.