Edit: I mis-remembered something, so I won’t leave false info up. Comment re-written.
I think there’s a related way jargon can get confused, which is where the central example used to convey it is selected for controversy, not accuracy. I have an example, but I’m not sure of it.
Claim: ‘Nudge’ is a fairly general idea, but the most common example used is one that has been selected for controversy rather than centrality to the concept.
I remember once seeing a talk by Cass Sunstein where he expressed irritation with the fact that everyone thinks of ‘nudge’ as the thing where you change organ donation from opt-in to opt-out. I recall him being quite irritated that it is the central example used, and wishing he’d never used it, though I don’t remember precisely what reason he gave at the time.
I looked around, and there’s a post by him here expressing that he prefers ‘mandated choice’ for organ donation, where you don’t opt-in or opt-out, you’re just forced to explicitly make the decision (i.e. it’s a required question when you renew your drivers license).
Another example Sunstein uses is ‘putting fruit at eye level’ in a store, or adding the image of a housefly to men’s urinals to ‘improve aim’. I think the issue with the opt-in / opt-out example is that it’s strongly trying to route around your agency to get you to make a choice that isn’t obviously what you want. And the opt-in/opt-out example has been fairly controversial (Muslim groups opposed it in the UK) which I can image contributing to it being the most widespread example.
Regarding routing around agency: I know that every time I get an ‘opt-out of this newsletter’ box when signing up on a website, I feel like they’re acting adversarially, in a way I wouldn’t if they’d said “choose from the drop-down whether you’d like our newsletter”.
Can anyone whose looked into this with depth confirm the above account of ‘nudge’ and whether opt-in / opt-out is non-central and has been selected for non-epistemic reasons?
Edit: I mis-remembered something, so I won’t leave false info up. Comment re-written.
I think there’s a related way jargon can get confused, which is where the central example used to convey it is selected for controversy, not accuracy. I have an example, but I’m not sure of it.
Claim: ‘Nudge’ is a fairly general idea, but the most common example used is one that has been selected for controversy rather than centrality to the concept.
I remember once seeing a talk by Cass Sunstein where he expressed irritation with the fact that everyone thinks of ‘nudge’ as the thing where you change organ donation from opt-in to opt-out. I recall him being quite irritated that it is the central example used, and wishing he’d never used it, though I don’t remember precisely what reason he gave at the time.
I looked around, and there’s a post by him here expressing that he prefers ‘mandated choice’ for organ donation, where you don’t opt-in or opt-out, you’re just forced to explicitly make the decision (i.e. it’s a required question when you renew your drivers license).
Another example Sunstein uses is ‘putting fruit at eye level’ in a store, or adding the image of a housefly to men’s urinals to ‘improve aim’. I think the issue with the opt-in / opt-out example is that it’s strongly trying to route around your agency to get you to make a choice that isn’t obviously what you want. And the opt-in/opt-out example has been fairly controversial (Muslim groups opposed it in the UK) which I can image contributing to it being the most widespread example.
Regarding routing around agency: I know that every time I get an ‘opt-out of this newsletter’ box when signing up on a website, I feel like they’re acting adversarially, in a way I wouldn’t if they’d said “choose from the drop-down whether you’d like our newsletter”.
Can anyone whose looked into this with depth confirm the above account of ‘nudge’ and whether opt-in / opt-out is non-central and has been selected for non-epistemic reasons?
Huh? I am sufficiently surprised/confused by this example to want a citation.
Edit: The surprise/confusion was in reference to the pre-edit version of the above comment, and does not apply to the current edition.
Sure, I’ll try to find one later today.
Edit: Added some more detail.