Larks comments on Disclosure vs. Bans: Reply to Robin Hanson - Less Wrong

6 Post author: David_J_Balan 04 January 2010 01:09AM

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Comment author: Larks 05 January 2010 10:45:59AM *  1 point [-]

I didn't say it's not bad, but that people don't mind it at the point they take out the cards.

My argument wasn't against your post in general (I'm something of a fan of nudge-style economics, though I worry about regulatory capture) but that the apparent lack of choice is misleading: if people wanted choice, it would provide itself. Rather, the problem is that people don’t really prefer, at moment of choosing, simple terms over tricky ones, and that this is probably due to hyperbolic discounting.

Edit: and because of this, they can't, at time of purchase, want the terms banned. You might seek an ex-post coalition against them, but that's hardly in keeping with impartiality and the rule of law: they already know they're the losers, so their viewpoint will hardly represent the average customer.

In short: I’m not saying that bad equilibrium can’t be stable in a free market, but that unpopular ones aren’t.