Skip to content

Jag Bhalla

Science Writer, Blogger, and Essayist

Jag Bhalla is a writer and entrepreneur. Current projects include this "Thought Fix" blog series for Big Think. And NanoSalad a zero-prep way to zap veggie gaps (by BodZoo LLC, a future-friendly, basic-by-design business, see www.bodzoo.com for further details). Prior projects include "Errors We Live By," a series of short exoteric essays exposing errors in the big ideas running our lives. And I'm Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears, a surreptitious science gift book from National Geographic Books, which explains his twitter handle @hangingnoodles.


It is in our nature to need rules. By improving social productivity rules beats no rules, and evolution endowed us with rule-following traits accordingly. Comparing languages and tools can help us see our biological rule dependence. As can noticing that we are apt to ape more than apes.
How our own minds work is hard to see. As with almost everything else our views are shaped by the ideas our culture uses. Here are some once-tempting views about why we do what we know we will rue (tales of sin, vice and bad decisions).
Every New Year, old yearnings to live better are reborn. And many who make New Year’s resolutions of the “less vice, more virtue” kind, need a higher-resolution picture of some relevant language and history. The “cardinal virtues” didn’t come from cardinals (and they’re not religious relics). Nor are the deadly vices just irrational restrictions. Ignoring this logic is expensive.
We often can’t rely on ourselves to act rationally (or prudently). We know this, but influential social science models have a bad habit of ignoring it. We evolved to frequently act without “deciding.” We are habit-formers and habit-farmers.
We should know that we can’t know it all. Yet the results of using the opposite idea, of “unbounded rationality,” are widely influential (usually farcically mixed with asymmetrically applied “unintended consequences”). Here’s why neither sports nor markets need “less regulation”:
It is in our nature to need stories. We naturally think in story-logic. They’re a kind of people-physics. They’re biologically active, configuring how we feel in ways essential for our survival. […]
Preferences often differ from prudent interests, and economics, business, and politics address (and regulate) imprudent choices differently: 1. Are American’s prudent? 69% eat imprudently, and 75% don’t save enough.   […]
“If it feels good, do it” is no formula for happiness. Happyologist and free-marketeer Arthur Brooks rightly calls it popular but “life ruining advice.” His essay mixes old wisdom with […]