Chocolate Sloths, Tinder, and Moral Backstops

J Bostock
Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:18:54 GMT

My grandma has a poor understanding of moral hazard, when it comes to buying me 155g chocolate sloths.

Moral hazard is a concept in political economy which refers to the dangers of incentivising people to behave badly. Classic examples include opening casinos (which makes people gamble away their money) preventing evictions for non-payment of rent (which makes people not pay their rent, which makes their situation even worse in the long run) and state-sponsored insurance for disasters (which makes people build houses out of plasterboard on land two-inches above the tideline in a hurricane zone)

Florida, from Google Earth. Come on man, you gotta be kidding me.

Another example of moral hazard is buying me a 155g chocolate sloth for easter. Doing so dramatically increases the probability that I'll eat an entire 155g chocolate sloth in one sitting, something I would---on reflection---rather not do.

Now at the end of the day, one 155g chocolate sloth per year isn't too bad. It would be much worse if I set up my Samsung Galaxy 5b Smart Cupboard (paid subscription to go ad-free)[1] to order a new 155g chocolate sloth every single time I finished one (in one sitting). If every time I felt a bit hungry, the 155g chocolate sloth was right there, I'd definitely eat a lot of 155g chocolate sloths.

I'd be smart to not buy a 155g chocolate sloth, and I'd be even smarter to tell my partner (who I live with) that I'm trying to avoid 155g chocolate sloths. Why?

Example: Dating Apps

Why do so many of your friends have stories of being treated awfully on dating apps? I mean stories like "They spent half the date talking about other places they wanted to take me, but after we slept together they kicked me out then ghosted me" or "They didn't show up, without giving any warning, then two days later messaged me apologising, then blocked me".

Maybe your friends (who are otherwise perfectly nice) tell stories of treating their dates poorly as well. In fact, there's a good chance, if you've been on the apps, that you have treated your dates less well than you should have!

I think there's a clear answer: because there are no consequences! If you ghost a stranger on a dating app, you just never see them again. If you date a friend, or a friend-of-a-friend, or even just someone who goes to the same social group as you, there are consequences for treating them badly. People will talk. You'll certainly find it hard to get another date. If you're really awful, they might kick you out.

Those consequences are the difference between 'Had a lovely evening but this isn't going to work out, sorry.' and 'You can no longer send messages to this person. Tap to learn more.'

One of my partners said that the worst thing about dating apps, for them, wasn't people treating them badly (they could deal with that) it was that they treated their own matches worse than they'd like to. The dating app itself is something of a moral hazard. If you feel a bit of ick, the block button is right there.

Moral Backstops

The opposite of a moral hazard is a moral backstop. Any moral instinct might be backstopped by another. A typical chain is:

I've put intrinsic motivation in brackets because it's not the main focus of this, and many people never get to that. Another diagram might be an inverted pyramid:

The higher up elements (motivation, guilt) are supported by lower elements (shame, fear), but they also extend in scope beyond them. It's good to be working at the highest level you can, but you also need the lower levels to support the higher ones.

Going back to the chocolate sloth:

Intrinsic motivation: I want to be healthy

Guilt: I will feel bad if I eat this 155g chocolate sloth

Shame: my partner will judge me if I don't take care of myself

Fear: if I'm a completely useless and incompetent person, my partner might leave me

Obviously, my partner won't leave me if I eat a 155g chocolate sloth. That's silly. But there is some threshold of badness where it will happen. There are a much broader range of environments where my partner will judge me for being bad, and then an even broader set of situations where I'll feel guilty if I do something. For the dating case:

Intrinsic motivation: I want to treat people well

Guilt: I'll feel bad if I ghost someone

Shame: my friends will judge me if I ghost someone they know

Fear: if I get a bad reputation, I'll be unable to find dates or get invited to parties.

Same structure: you're unlikely to get disinvited to parties forever if you stand one person up for a date, but there is some threshold of bad behaviour where it will happen. It's a bit like how moral standards in a society are kept up: first you feel guilty, if you don't you get a stern warning from the neighbours, and if that doesn't work then the police come and lock you up.

It's not fun to be in the fear regime. The intrinsic motivation regime is much nicer to be in. This goes for the enforcers and the enforcees. Feeling scared around dating is bad. This is part of why dating apps are so popular in the age of dating anxiety. There's no fear, or shame involved! Unfortunately, the fear and shame are an active ingredient.

You can have a system where everyone is just using intrinsic motivation, but it's unstable. Motivations are vulnerable to drift over time, or being defeated by other intrinsic motivations ("Sure, I want to be a nice person, but I also don't want to have this awkward conversation). The threat---and the occasional reinforcement signal---of the lower levels keeps the higher levels in line.

The good thing is that you only need a little fear in the system to prop up the shame, and only a little shame to prop up the guilt, and only a little guilt to prop up the intrinsic motivation. But you do need some.

My advice is this: put yourself in places with strong moral backstops, both to get to be around good people and to keep yourself good. This often means communities who threaten, and actually carry out, expulsion (which has a secondary function other than deterrence and reinforcement, it also means they're not around anymore). A tiny pinch of fear, and a spoonful of shame are important active ingredients in keeping yourself in line.

1. ^

Hypothetical product

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