Saturday, September 15, 2012

Little cheaters...  

Dan Ariely, whom I have quoted often, offers some wonderful insight into dishonesty.



(I have been mildly opposed on constitutional grounds to the display of the Ten Commandments in schools, but perhaps should rethink it.  At the same time, I would also support other moral statements from other religious, philosophical, etc. sources.)

I also can't help but wonder what in our agricultural system is inadvertently influencing people to cheat. What could we change to raise our moral performance?

Certainly, technological advances like ACR (automatic crop reporting) would reduce the opportunities to defraud, I would think. Of course, grain sales 1099's would do likewise.


3 comments:

Shane Coley said...

This is a good talk and an excellent animation, but it is old news. With regard to economics, the concept has long been recognized and is properly termed "Moral Hazard". To put the ideas in their proper context and to understand what is broken and how to fix the problems, read The Law by Bastiat, or if one is more ambitious, read Human Action by Mises.

John Phipps said...

Shane:

True, other thinkers have reasoned or intuited many of these phenomena of human behavior. But only now are behavioral economists like Ariely researching and quantifying this logic.

When you can point to proof that a 200 msec. image can distort choices for dessert you provide tools to deal with St Paul's generalizations.

Chuck said...

It boggles my mind that we don't get 1099's. I've been farming nearly 40 years now and I still can't get my mind around that one.

And ACR? Anyone who has reported yield results using yield monitor data knows it has just gotten so easier to commit fraud.