When people know that candy bars can be too tempting, they can prefer to work in places without candy bar machines. Similarly, people who find ice cream or cookie stands too tempting can stay away from shopping malls that allow such stands. People who find the sight of naked people too tempting can choose to work and shop in places that do not allow people to walk around naked. Economists have worked out models of many of these situations, and the keep coming back to the conclusion that giving people mechanisms of self-control is good enough, unless people are biased to to underestimate their self-control problems. And so recommendations for more self-control regulation tend to be based on claims that we are biased to underestimate our problem.
that’s why grocery stores design their floor layouts so that you can’t help but notice the delicious rows of candy bars while you’re trapped in the checkout line. no escape!
I could make similar comparisons to when my morally upright conservative parents were genuinely shocked and exasperated at their sex-starved son when he’s constantly surrounded by flirtatious nubile catholic school girls in short skirts all day every day.
“Lord Grant me Temperance and Chastity… but not yet! ” St. Augustine of Hippo
that’s why grocery stores design their floor layouts so that you can’t help but notice the delicious rows of candy bars while you’re trapped in the checkout line. no escape!
In theory your escape would be a competing supermarket that hides their candy bars to attract your business.
And so recommendations for more self-control regulation tend to be based on claims that we are biased to underestimate our problem.
There is something to those claims given that pretty much every addiction therapy (be it alcohol, food, porn or something else) starts from admitting to oneself that one has underestimated the problem.
When people know that candy bars can be too tempting, they can prefer to work in places without candy bar machines. Similarly, people who find ice cream or cookie stands too tempting can stay away from shopping malls that allow such stands. People who find the sight of naked people too tempting can choose to work and shop in places that do not allow people to walk around naked. Economists have worked out models of many of these situations, and the keep coming back to the conclusion that giving people mechanisms of self-control is good enough, unless people are biased to to underestimate their self-control problems. And so recommendations for more self-control regulation tend to be based on claims that we are biased to underestimate our problem.
that’s why grocery stores design their floor layouts so that you can’t help but notice the delicious rows of candy bars while you’re trapped in the checkout line. no escape!
I could make similar comparisons to when my morally upright conservative parents were genuinely shocked and exasperated at their sex-starved son when he’s constantly surrounded by flirtatious nubile catholic school girls in short skirts all day every day.
“Lord Grant me Temperance and Chastity… but not yet! ” St. Augustine of Hippo
In theory your escape would be a competing supermarket that hides their candy bars to attract your business.
There is something to those claims given that pretty much every addiction therapy (be it alcohol, food, porn or something else) starts from admitting to oneself that one has underestimated the problem.