In some cultures, individual healthcare decisions are nothing to do with medical data but are instead a cornerstone of people’s social identity.
So depending on your social loyalties to certain groups (cough, political parties, cough) you might be 10x more likely to die of certain cancers.
These places typically hve life expectancies that are 5+ years below international norms, and everyone there just accepts it / or actually thinks they are ahead!?
The homo economictus model for predicting human behavior is a source of endless confusion, by otherwise incredibly intelligent people.
Humans are weird.
Yep. They respond to economic incentives. But they also respond to other incentives, which at times, may supersede economic incentives, up to and including, going completely contrary to economic incentives. This is the fatal flaw at the bottom of belief systems that think market maximalism will heal all that ails us.
I once did a postgrad module, can’t remember which one it was, that covered learned helplessness and there were countless examples of people who died because of learned helplessness.
It was staggering.
eg, oh look, lazy John hasn’t closed the ferry door, he’s such an idiot! Now when the ferry sails from port water will flood in and the boat might sink….
It varies by culture, but often interventions are actually rare and helplessness is the norm, around the world most people just go along with any authority and proceed to their death.
Yep. I would argue that ideology and culture plays an even more outsized role. In particular, because production mode preferences are completely normative.
