seeker comments on Suggested Posts - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 April 2007 02:32AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (16)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: seeker 09 April 2007 04:01:13PM 2 points [-]

I don't know if this has been done before and I apologize if I'm suggesting something that's been covered.

Prospect theory tells us that people are more afraid of losing something they already have (the "endowment effect") than they are excited about the possibility of getting more. People are somewhat risk averse.

It seems to me that this stops many positive policy proposals--organ markets, school choice, etc.

People over-weight the possibility of failure and under-weight the possibility of gain.

"The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don't."

What can be done to Overcome this Bias [sic]?