Knowing and Making

This New Yorker article about why so many Americans are single reminded me of the debate about unemployment prompted by Casey Mulligan . Here’s why: From the New Yorker: "...do people live alone because they want to or because they have to?" Paraphrasing Mulligan and his critics: “Are workers choosing to be unemployed or are they forced to be?” [actual quotes from Mulligan: " there are sensible people ...who will recognize that 2009 is not the time for them to...commute a long distance to work...[unemployment insurance has] dramatically reduced the costs to them of making this the year they coach junior's baseball team, or do some work on their house, or spend time with an ailing parent" " the market tends to create and allocate jobs for those people who are most interested in working " and " my research has been to examine...changes in the willingness and availability of people to work " versus Dean Baker's " this does not m...

Tony Perrottet in the NY Times suggests that writers can be more productive inside prison than out. Completely counter to rational choice theory, of course, but surprisingly plausible. I have several writing jobs to do myself, and though I haven't missed my deadlines yet, I absolutely recognise the seductive danger of twitter ( follow me !). Jonathan Franzen apparently superglued  the ethernet port on his computer to stop himself from going online. Extreme, but effective. Rationality suggests that we can never suffer from the availability of more options - because we will always choose the one that is most beneficial to us. If choice A (e.g. using the Internet) is a worse outcome than choice B (e.g. writing another 100 words) we will pick B. If we pick A, then it means that using the Internet was better for us at that moment than writing. So why did these writers deliberately stop themselves from being able to make choice A? Why can't we apply effective self-control by s...