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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
61596a8	conventional wisdom dies hard.			Steven D. Levitt
564a270	Most of us have a lot more experience being consumers than producers, so we tend to view things through the lens of demand rather than supply.			Steven D. Levitt
98400b8	When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue--whether it's fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food--it's easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they're not); that there is a bright line between right and wrong (when often there isn't); and, worst, that you are certain you already know everything you need to know a..			Steven D. Levitt
30f2f9a	Consider the Iraq War. It was executed primarily on U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with al Qaeda. To be sure, there was more to it than that--politics, oil, and perhaps revenge--but it was the al Qaeda and weapons claims that sealed the deal. Eight years, $800 billion, and nearly 4,500 American deaths later--along with at least 100,000 Iraqi fatalities--it was tempting to consider what migh..			Steven D. Levitt
adcad62	Running with the herd means we are quick to embrace the status quo, slow to change our minds, and happy to delegate our thinking.			Steven D. Levitt
122b20a	When was the last time you sat for an hour of pure, unadulterated thinking?			Steven D. Levitt
3596f3f	When it comes to solving problems, one of the best ways to start is by putting away your moral compass. Why? When you are consumed with the rightness or wrongness of a given issue--whether it's fracking or gun control or genetically engineered food--it's easy to lose track of what the issue actually is. A moral compass can convince you that all the answers are obvious (even when they're not); that there is a bright line between right and wr..			Steven D. Levitt
84297e3	So there is little doubt that financial incentives work well, even if the outcome is undesirable. Consider a 2011 traffic accident in the Chinese city of Foshan. A two-year-old girl, walking through an outdoor market, was hit by a van. The driver stopped as the girl's body slid beneath the vehicle. But he didn't get out to help. After a pause, he drove away, running over the body again. The girl later died. The driver eventually turned hims..			Steven D. Levitt
e5bec7e	The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think like--ahem--a Freak.			Steven D. Levitt
6c20d85	You may not like this idea; none of us wants to admit that we are pack animals. But in a complicated world, running with the herd can make sense. Who has time to think through every decision and all the facts behind it? If everybody around you thinks that conserving energy is a good idea--well, maybe it is. So if you are the person designing an incentive scheme, you can use this knowledge to herd people into doing the right thing--even if t..			Steven D. Levitt
70557f7	That is a lethal combination--cocky plus wrong--especially when a more prudent option exists: simply admit that the future is far less knowable than you think.			Steven D. Levitt
1d04a94	Stories also appeal to the narcissist in all of us. As a story unspools, with its cast of characters moving through time and making decisions, we inevitably put ourselves in their shoes. Yes, I would have done that too! or No no no, I never would have made that decision! Perhaps the best reason to tell stories is simply that they capture our attention and are therefore good at teaching. Let's say there's a theory or concept or set of rules ..			Steven D. Levitt
70399f3	Correlation does not equal causality. When two things travel together, it is tempting to assume that one causes the other. Married people, for instance, are demonstrably happier than single people; does this mean that marriage causes happiness? Not necessarily. The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place. As one researcher memorably put it, "If you're grumpy, who the hell wants to marry you?"			Steven D. Levitt
9857269	Pay attention to how people respond; if their response surprises or frustrates you, learn from it and try something different.			Steven D. Levitt
5a0c1c5	Human beings aren't the most candid animals on the planet. We'll often say one thing and do another--or, more precisely, we'll say what we think other people want to hear and then, in private, do what we want.			Steven D. Levitt
cc6aacb	People are complicated creatures, with a nuanced set of private and public incentives, and that our behavior is enormously influenced by circumstances.			Steven D. Levitt
61e8d9d	It also means that the pain of negative feedback will for most people trump the pleasure from positive feedback.			Steven D. Levitt
61b5f9f	We'd like to bury the idea that there's a right way and a wrong way, a smart way and a foolish way, a red way and a blue way. The modern world demands that we all think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally; that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations; that we think with neither fear nor favor, with neither blind optimism nor sour skepticism. That we think l..			Steven D. Levitt
dab191e	A story, meanwhile, fills out the picture. It uses data, statistical or otherwise, to portray a sense of magnitude; without data, we have no idea how a story fits into the larger scheme of things. A good story also includes the passage of time, to show the degree of constancy or change; without a time frame, we can't judge whether we're looking at something truly noteworthy or just an anomalous blip. And a story lays out a daisy chain of ev..			Steven D. Levitt
2e0d5e1	A person who is lying or cheating will often respond to an incentive differently than an honest person.			Steven D. Levitt
70429ee	The data suggest that happy people are more likely to get married.			Steven D. Levitt
05b8a26	Could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed?			Steven D. Levitt
f30299a	The market was particularly strong in Chicago, which had more than a thousand known brothels.			Steven D. Levitt
867c3c7	Karen Abbott reports that the Everleigh also offered sexual delicacies that weren't available elsewhere--"French" style, for instance, commonly known today as oral sex."			Steven D. Levitt
5465588	We are blind to our blindness.			Steven D. Levitt
de10ccc	Name-calling will make you an enemy, not an ally, and if that is your objective, then persuasion is probably not what you were after in the first place.			Steven D. Levitt
bab60f2	The same lesson can be learned from one of the most widely read books in history: the Bible. What is the Bible "about"? Different people will of course answer that question differently. But we could all agree the Bible contains perhaps the most influential set of rules in human history: the Ten Commandments. They became the foundation of not only the Judeo-Christian tradition but of many societies at large. So surely most of us can recite t..			Steven D. Levitt
4012625	One more story from the Bible, about King David. He slept with a married woman, Bathsheba, and got her pregnant. In order to cover up his transgression, David arranged for Bathsheba's husband, a soldier, to die in battle. David then took Bathsheba as his own wife. God sent a prophet named Nathan to let David know this behavior was unacceptable. But how does a lowly prophet go about imparting such a message to the king of Israel? Nathan told..			Steven D. Levitt
653260c	Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life. And understanding them - or, often, deciphering them - is the key to understanding a problem, and how it might be solved. Knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, can make a complicated world less so. There is nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away lawyers of confusion and contradiction, especially with emotional, hot-button topics. The conventional wisdom is often wrong. ..			Steven D. Levitt
174b4eb	Correlation does not equal causality.			Steven D. Levitt
7f358b7	A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits.			Steven D. Levitt
e6bbb17	Beliefs," things we hold to be true but which may not be easily verified."			Steven D. Levitt
1949032	When bad predictions are unpunished, what incentive is there to stop making them?			Steven D. Levitt
0c941d2	when there are a lot of people willing and able to do a job, that job generally doesn't pay well. This is one of four meaningful factors that determine a wage. The others are the specialized skills a job requires, the unpleasantness of a job, and the demand for services that the job fulfills.			Steven D. Levitt
7d98ad9	repository			Steven D. Levitt
7547e8c	penultimate			Steven D. Levitt
1f677ad	aficionados			Steven D. Levitt
ef4e60c	bohemian,			Steven D. Levitt
bd7bc68	This is an encouraging finding on two fronts. It means that young black children have continued to make gains relative to their white counterparts. It also means that whatever gap remains can be linked to a handful of readily identifiable factors. The data reveal that black children who perform poorly in school do so not because they are black but because a black child is more likely to come from a low-income, low-education household. A typ..			Steven D. Levitt
476a205	Great news, right? Well, not so fast. First of all, because the average black child is more likely to come from a low-income, low-education household, the gap is very real: on average, black children still are scoring worse. Worse yet, even when the parents' income and education are controlled for, the black-white gap reappears within just two years of a child's entering school. By the end of first grade, a black child is underperforming a ..			Steven D. Levitt
298bca2	offer an environment that is simply not conducive to learning.			Steven D. Levitt
7357c2c	Black students are hardly the only ones who suffer in bad schools. White children in these schools also perform poorly. In fact, there is essentially no black-white test score gap within a bad school in the early years once you control for students' backgrounds. But all students in a bad school, black and white, do lose ground to students in good schools. Perhaps educators and researchers are wrong to be so hung up on the black-white test s..			Steven D. Levitt
37bc2f0	harbinger			Steven D. Levitt
5357a76	tangential			Steven D. Levitt

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