I recently read an interesting paper on behavior economics by Gerd Gigerenzer named "The Bias Bias in Behavioral Economics" (2018). Gigerenzer discusses how behavior economists have essentially manufactured the belief that people suffer from persistent cognitive blind spots that need to be corrected through the use of benevolent "nudges" by central planners. The ending in this passage may be particularity amusing to bitcoiners:

"The argument that biases are costly is essential for justifying governmental paternalism. The irrationality argument provides a convenient rhetoric to attribute problems caused by flawed incentives and system failures to flaws inside people’s minds, detracting from political and industrial causes (e.g., Conley, 2013; Thaler, 2015; Thaler and Sunstein, 2008). Nicotine addiction and obesity have been attributed to people’s myopia and probability-blindness, not to the actions of the food and tobacco industry. Similarly, an article by the Deutsche Bank Research “Homo economicus – or more like Homer Simpson?” attributed the financial crisis to a list of 17 cognitive biases rather than the reckless practices and excessive fragility of banks and the financial system (Schneider, 2010)."

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