Can Government Solve the Paradox of Choice?

[@kev3d]

I don't think most social psychologists really look at things with a sense of history. I think it is in our nature to be stressed to some degree, it used to be stress over hungry lions in Africa, freezing to death on the Steppes of Asia and North America, and now it is over the dozens of kinds of toothbrushes. Even if the government stepped in and collapsed all choices into the fewest possible, the stress would shift from temporary anxiety to permanent numbing boredom.

[@goPistons06]

more mark pennington please! this man is intereting and brilliant!

[@RustyIronloins]

absolutely great work... keep it up and bring us more!!!

[@ec0n1n0thuman]

"It would be to place an intolerable burden on regulators ... so great would be this burden there is no reason to believe they would make wise choices on our behalf". I am sympathetic to this argument, but you are making an empirical claim. I have no idea how to measure it either, but none the less arm chair theorizing won't work here. As for the, knowledge problem, I totally agree. Your argument relies on the knowledge problem, but the previous point is not self evident and requires data

[@Mas0o0n]

Jefferson once said: "I would rather suffer the inconveniences of too much freedom, than suffer those of having too little."

[@stevemcgee99]

@TheMidwestAtheist He specifically acknowledges that beaureacrats cannot have the sufficient knowledge. The argument is that IF choice causes stress, then the choices that regulators would need to make to reduce our choices (to lower our stress) would cause excessive stress. It's a case of using the justification to regulate and reduce our stress against the justification itself.

[@AlecTaylor6]

Only we can make decisions regarding ourselves. Central planners cannot know what's "best for us", since "best" is an individually subjective term.

[@libertariancfo]

Stress is caused by concern for the consequences of the choice being made. Will choosing "A" give me a better result than choosing "B"? It's much easier to make choices for others, especially people I'm not likely to meet, since I'm unlikely to suffer any consequences, good or bad. In fact, I probably won't even KNOW the consequences. I don't want some bureaucrat making any choices for me, thank you.

[@LibertyPanacea]

@stevemcgee99 That's not a rebuttal to Slipknot's comment unless I misunderstand your disagreement. He is saying that the lack of marketing and R&D costs mean that the average cost/unit is lower, thus allowing for a lower consumer price and higher demand. If you are not borrowing so what if rates rise However, I agree that interest rates are far too low right now due to govt intervention. Now when rates do rise, Americans will be consuming a lot less so the cereal firm may not do well then haha

[@stevemcgee99]

The abundance of choice - especially meaningless choice like in breakfast cereal and other exact same product with a different box, like life insurance, cars, consumer electronics, etc. - is actually caused by government intervention. With natural interest rates, businesses would not be able to profit from flooding the market with so many similar products. They'd lose money, because it is 'not worth it' to produce items of such low value to consumers. How can we profit as an 8th place cereal?

[@stevemcgee99]

By the way, he is using the nanny government argument that choice causes excessive stress against the nanny government.

[@GregoryTheGr8ster]

If regulators and bureaucrats have an intolerable burden when making choices for us, then they deserve high compensation and generous retirements benefits (including to be able to retire at 45).

[@bsabruzzo]

@siftyfour "the stressed involved with making choices is a result of a lack of information to make comparisons" Now imagine if a banker, a lawyer, a doctor and a poet made the choice for you and it was a single company for that mother board and picked a "no-name" CPU that burns out all the time but costs 5 times as much. And you had to fill out the proper paper work just to get it. And another person had to install it for you, though you are the expert. That's gov't for you.

[@freesk8]

@TheMidwestAtheist I'm a libertarian. Choice is not a magical fix all. But it is better than the alternative, which is force, or threat of violence. I'll take the stress of choice over the stress of the threat of violence against me and my family any day. Wouldn't you?

[@SillyGoose2024]

I'd like someone to show how smoking in the U.S. Has been affected since its tax has been raised

[@Drontik]

In defense of behecons: Its important to ask yourself, whether the stress of choice is more harmful to our psyche than the decision of some bureaucrat who doesnt give a **** about our own preferences. For the sake of our happiness its crucial to compare the loss of free choice with the loss of not having too much choices. We dont need bureaucarts to make optimal decision. But we could be happier with some kind of suboptimal decision. SFME.

[@gnomechomskylives]

@sidspop I know what corporatism is. Capitalism between individuals - what I call "small town" or local capitalism is a beautiful thing. But history shows again and again that the profit motive compels industry and its captains to seek out the number one customer of all: the state. We need to get back to the original function of the corporate charter as it was in the early 19th century; it was temporary and used only for a public service.

[@mattlm64]

I love choice!

[@stevemcgee99]

@Slipknotyk06 The example might not be ideal, especially without adding hypothetical financial date to go with it. But let's say the cereal is 4% profitable. And what do you expect interest rates would be without government intervention in the credit market? Surely not less than 4%. Would investors throw away money in the cereal brand? A lot of resources are wasted, causing economic loss, in the pursuit of monetary gain. My point is tangental to this video, though. Off-topic.

[@bupkus123]

@xchris109x I choose to not trust the argument of someone who can't even handle the stress of shopping in a supermarket... although I really hate the choices of manufactured food in most supermarkets.

[@Slipknotyk06]

... I don't believe the garbage that (for most) choice creates stress. I enjoy choice because it allows individuals to be different. Choice allows me to wear New Rock boots, 5 Finger Death Punch hoodies and tripp pants. I don't want to be a clone. I don't compare my choices negatively against those of others. If they have something better, I have the choice to go out and save up to buy what they have - or better. This whole paradox of choice idea only applies to the very immature and materialist

[@TheMidwestAtheist]

Pennington makes an error: he assumes bureaucrats will have the same stress-causing factors. I think this is an incorrect assumption, as he doesn't address the cause of stress in having a choice. While I don't know any studies off the top of my head to cite, I think lack of knowledge is one of the factors. If (and I realize that can seem like a big "if" as suggested by Pennington) the bureaucrats are knowlegeable on whatever decision they are making, then they should not have as much stress.

[@xchris109x]

The choice is up to you.

[@Ravengaurd6]

@HumbleWillis And that's why I pack heat! :)

[@rapzeh4]

lets not forget when people make bad choices in bad faith, so they can turn public spending in personal gain.

[@HumbleWillis]

@Ravengaurd6 NICE!

[@sanitydotorg]

dear daddy, please protect me from responsibility.

[@atelier1975]

It's not clear to me what kind of application Mark wants this broad general free-floating argument to have. So I can only assume that he intends it as a reduction of all market-regulating acts to choice-reducing acts. Given virtually anything anyone does in a public role has an impact on a market - and a concompitant impact on choice - it's really not clear where choice and regulation here are intended to begin and end. Historically pro-choice knowledge-problem-inspired arguments such as Mark's, have been marshalled against any kind of public role whatever beyond protecting transactions (the nightwatchman state). If the value of freedom (choice) is in its ability to enable people to make the good life for themselves, then I'm not sure that the kinds of social order which Mark's argument leads to, really do promote or honour that valuable end - whether they maximise preference-satisfaction, life-project-achievement, or indeed minimise stress. Some people desire to regulate and would actually be deeply stressed if they couldn't fulfil such a role!

[@atelier1975]

atelier1975 I 'desire to regulate' in the sense of regulator being a valuable role which engages some persons' talents and dispositions.

[@atelier1975]

atelier1975 I meant "I meant desire" rather than "I desire". Although Freudian slip possibly.

[@masluxx]

can this guy postulate a flase paradox?

[@Profound33]

This is just the result of our bs economy. Consider toothpaste. You probably have like 30 choices in a single store, but really there are 3 different types: no fluoride, fluoride and fluoride with whitening. All the other variations amount to how shiny the box is.

[@gnomechomskylives]

@N7a7v7i There will always be a "market" for the state; therefore anarchism is self-defeating.

[@Slipknotyk06]

@stevemcgee99 - I honestly don't think this is true. Producing similar items to name brands is profitable. An eighth place cereal can capitalize on trends explored successfully by other brands, while not putting out the capital on research and development. This means that since less money has gone into the development of the product, it can be marketed far cheaper. The same idea works for any industry with trends over time.

[@blackbette07]

These academics need to choose another job. Common sense tells that making choices is inevitable

[@Ravengaurd6]

"Oppress to relieve stress"? what a joke.

[@stevemcgee99]

@bsabruzzo This is not spam.

[@masluxx]

can this speaker use the logical fallacy of a false dilemma , Yes he can !

[@ShamanMcLamie]

@bupkus123 Then you have the freedom to make the "choice" to buy food somewhere else.

[@joeblowunlimited]

Can I get an amen?

[@N7a7v7i]

@gnomechomskylives ...or simply remove that demonic consumer, the State.

[@vintageozarks]

No everyone feels stress over choice; I want no elected person to make my choice for me, not ever.

[@TheMidwestAtheist]

...But to his credit, at least he doesn't treat choice like some magical fix-all solution like some libertarians I know!

[@ParagonFury]

These "Learn Liberty" videos range from hilarious propaganda to bewildering mutilations of ideas to get people to buy their idea. This is one of those videos that seems legitimate on the surface. but when you go down a few levels the idea unravels. Lacking room, condensed version; people in government are supposed to be better than the people they lead - government was not to be making choices FOR us (on most things), but to provide us with another, but was twisted over time.

[@sidspop]

@gnomechomskylives You're so confused. Google corporatism.

[@megatherium100]

@gnomechomskylives Ad hominems but not any real answers or counter-arguments.

[@mikeoli]

@gnomechomskylives Explain to me what Marxism is

[@hotfudgemoney]

At what "level" does the idea unravel? I don't think the Prof. in this case thinks the government should be making choices for anyone, period. Never does the Prof. make the argument the government's objective was to provide us with ANOTHER choice, but rather indirectly choose for us. He also never made the argument that their ability to make such choices was "twisted" over time, but rather that they're not capable of making choices for their constituents from the beginning. Go play video games.

[@hotfudgemoney]

Why don't you go ahead and demonstrate the fallibility of the theories presented in this video and in others... I'll be anxiously awaiting your enlightening rebuttal. "Hilarious propaganda"... that's quite a typical way of galvanizing ignorant people who lack the ability to understand concepts and primarily function on perceptive knowledge and view arguments and ideas as irreducible primaries in and of themselves rather than multifaceted groups of ideas made up of concretes.

[@hotfudgemoney]

You misconstrued his argument entirely... Congrats. Hey, are you by any chance a Liberal, Progressive, Leftie, Socialist... etc...? When did he exclaim government was supposed to provide us with a choice? Do you care to make a legitimate argument, because that was a pathetic distorted criticism. Aww, do too many choices make you stressed out? :((( boo hoo...