Don't Expect People to be Rational | Hacker News Reader

Don't Expect People to be Rational

bennesvig.com

18 pointsbennesvig8 comments

The rational thing would be, if they were lazy, to ignore this sign. This sign is almost completely unenforceable. If the chute is clogged with garbage I'll be fined? Do you have a video camera watching me put garbage in the chute? If not it's impossible to determine who left which garbage bag and/or who clogged the chute*1.

Not to mention the problem where in I'm a good resident... I've brought my garbage down, but someone else has clogged the chute and suddenly it becomes my job to either A) unclog the chute [managements job]; B) take my trash back upstairs; c) leave it and suffer a 50$ penalty

Frankly, this is a bad policy and the people writing the sign have shown themselves to not be very rational.

> If not it's impossible to determine who left which garbage bag and/or who clogged the chute*1.

Unless you throw away your mail, and the building's superintendent goes through it.

You probably don't even need mail, come to think of it. People buy similar things over time, and I'd wager that if you had one trash sample from every apartment in the building, you could track down a "mystery" bag with pretty significant confidence.

The guy who put up the sign correctly assumed that the lazy people he targeted would (irrationally) react by paying more attention. Which was the desired effect. Recognizing (and exploiting) irrationality in others may be a bit mean, but its definitely not irrational by itself.

Now, there may be a simpler explanation: people see the angry note, think "Oops, someone cares about this crap", and change their behaviour just to be nice. Or maybe they just didn't really know how they were supposed to handle the trash, and the note made them less ignorant.

Personally, I suspect all three effects played a part.

I don't think 'rational' is the right word. Responding to incentives, in this case a monetary disincentive, is rationality. The tenants are either lazy, care little about the appearance, don't put much thought to the issue, don't know they're doing something wrong, or don't care because there is no disincentive to anonymous trash-leaving (especially because other tenants are doing it).

So maybe a better title would be "don't expect people to think just the same as you."

Rationality can only be meaningfully defined as an optimizing behavior over ones preferences. If these are to not do any extra work unless fined the neighbors were plenty rational before.

The author is yearning for morally decent people. I guess Kant would have called this rational but as an economist I am forever doomed to accept peoples immoral behavior as the expression of their immoral preferences.

I thought the same thing. Perhaps "lazy" or "inconsiderate" are better words to describe people's behavior before the sign went up.

Given the option to do the easiest thing possible, many people will do just that, especially in the absence of punitive measures.

I agree with the title, but not the article. People are irrational. But this is an example of laziness, not irrationality.

If they leave trash on the floor, they'll be charged $50. So they don't leave trash on the floor.

This sounds pretty rational to me.

If you'd like to see actual examples of people being fundamentally irrational, go watch one of Dan Ariely's presentations on the poor choices humans make over at TED.

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