Jeg vil tale om nogle ting der er i en bog jeg har skrevet som jeg håber vil give genlyd med andre ting I allerede har hørt, og jeg vil prøve på at lave nogle forbindelser selv, i det tilfælde I skulle misse dem. Jeg vil starte med det jeg kalder det "officielle dogme". Det officielle dogme af hvad? Det officielle dogme som alle samfund i vesten har. Og det officielle dogme lyder sådan her: Hvis vi er interesserede i at maksimere vores borgeres velfærd, er måden at gøre det på, ved at maksimere individets frihed. Grunden til det er, at frihed i sig selv er godt, værdifuldt, umagen værd, essentielt til det at være et menneske. Og fordi mennesker har frihed, så kan vi hver især handle for sig selv til at gøre ting der maksimerer vores velfærd, og der er ingen der skal bestemme noget for os. Måden til at maksimere frihed er at maksimere valg.
I'm going to talk to you about some stuff that's in this book of mine that I hope will resonate with other things you've already heard, and I'll try to make some connections myself, in case you miss them. But I want to start with what I call the "official dogma." The official dogma of what? The official dogma of all Western industrial societies. And the official dogma runs like this: if we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, the way to do that is to maximize individual freedom. The reason for this is both that freedom is, in and of itself, good, valuable, worthwhile, essential to being human, and because if people have freedom, then each of us can act on our own to do the things that will maximize our welfare, and no one has to decide on our behalf. The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice.
Jo flere valg mennesker har, jo mere frihed har de, og jo mere frihed de har, jo mere velfærd har de.
The more choice people have, the more freedom they have, and the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have.
Det, mener jeg, er så grundliggende i modermælken at det ikke ville strejfe nogen at sætte spørgsmålstegn ved det. Og det er også grundliggende i vores liv. Jeg vil give jer nogle eksempler på hvad moderne fremskridt har gjort for os. Dette er mit supermarked. Ikke så stort. Jeg vil bare sige et par ord om salat dressing. 175 forskellige slags salat dressing i mit supermarked. Hvis man ikke tæller de 10 ekstra jomfru oliven olier med og de 12 balsamiske eddiker man kan købe til at lave en meget stor del af ens egen salat dressinger, for det usandsynlige tilfælde, at ingen af de 175 som supermarked kan tilbyde tilfredsstiller en. Så det er sådan supermarkedet er. Og så går man til forbrugerelektronik forretningen, for at købe et stereoanlæg -- højtalere, cd afspillere, båndoptagere, radioer, forstærkere -- og i denne ene forbrugerelektronikkæde, er der så mange stereoanlæg. Vi kan sammensætte seks og en halv million forskellige stereoanlæg fra de komponenter som denne forretning tilbyder.
This, I think, is so deeply embedded in the water supply that it wouldn't occur to anyone to question it. And it's also deeply embedded in our lives. I'll give you some examples of what modern progress has made possible for us. This is my supermarket. Not such a big one. I want to say just a word about salad dressing. A hundred seventy-five salad dressings in my supermarket, if you don't count the 10 extra-virgin olive oils and 12 balsamic vinegars you could buy to make a very large number of your own salad dressings, in the off-chance that none of the 175 the store has on offer suit you. So this is what the supermarket is like. And then you go to the consumer electronics store to set up a stereo system -- speakers, CD player, tape player, tuner, amplifier -- and in this one single consumer electronics store, there are that many stereo systems. We can construct six and a half million different stereo systems out of the components that are on offer in one store.
Det må siges at være mange valgmuligheder. På andre områder -- kommunikationsverden. Der var en gang, da jeg var dreng, at man kunne få et hvilket som helst telefonabonnement man ville have, bare det kom fra Ma Bell. Man lejede sin telefon. Man købte den ikke. En af konsekvenserne ved det var, forresten, er at telefonen aldrig gik i stykker. Og den tid er forbi. Nu har vi et nærmest ubegrænset udvalg af telefoner, specielt i mobiltelefon verden. Dette er fremtidens mobiltelefoner. Min favorit er den i midten -- MP3 afspilleren, næsehårstrimmer, og creme brulee brænder. Og hvis I tilfældigvis ikke skulle have set den i jeres forretning endnu,
You've got to admit that's a lot of choice. In other domains -- the world of communications. There was a time, when I was a boy, when you could get any kind of telephone service you wanted, as long as it came from Ma Bell. You rented your phone, you didn't buy it. One consequence of that, by the way, is that the phone never broke. And those days are gone. We now have an almost unlimited variety of phones, especially in the world of cell phones. These are cell phones of the future. My favorite is the middle one -- the MP3 player, nose hair trimmer, and crème brûlée torch. And if --
(Laughter)
kan I være sikre på at den nok skal komme snart. Og hvad det gør er, at det får folk til at gå ind til deres forretning og stille dette spørgsmål, Og ved I allerede hvad svaret på dette spørgsmål er? Svaret er, "Nej". Det er ikke muligt at købe en mobiltelefon, der kan for meget.
if by some chance you haven't seen that in your store yet, you can rest assured that one day soon, you will. And what this does is it leads people to walk into their stores, asking this question. And do you know what the answer to this question now is? The answer is "no." It is not possible to buy a cell phone that doesn't do too much.
Så, i livets andre aspekter der er meget vigtigere end at købe ting, er der kommet den samme eksplosion af valgmuligheder. Sundshedsvæsnet -- det er ikke længere sådan i USA, at man tager til lægen, og lægen siger hvad man skal gøre. I stedet for, tager man til lægen, og lægen siger, "Jamen, vi kan gøre A, vi kan gøre B. A har disse fordele, og disse risici. B har disse fordele, og disse risici. Hvad synes du vi skal gøre?" Og man siger, "Doktor, hvad skal jeg gøre?" Og lægen siger, "A har disse fordele og risici, B har disse fordele og risici. Hvad synes du vi skal gøre?" Og man siger, "Hvis du var mig Doktor, hvad ville du så gøre?" Og lægen siger, "Jamen jeg er ikke dig". Og resultatet er -- vi kalder det "patient selvstændighed". hvilket får det til at lyde som en god ting, men hvad det virkelig betyder er, at byrden og ansvaret for beslutningen skifter fra en person der ved noget -- nemlig lægen -- til en person der ingenting ved og næsten med sikkerhed er syg og derfor ikke i den bedste tilstand til at tage nogen beslutninger -- nemlig patienten.
So, in other aspects of life that are much more significant than buying things, the same explosion of choice is true. Health care. It is no longer the case in the United States that you go to the doctor, and the doctor tells you what to do. Instead, you go to the doctor, and the doctor tells you, "Well, we could do A, or we could do B. A has these benefits and these risks. B has these benefits and these risks. What do you want to do?" And you say, "Doc, what should I do?" And the doc says, "A has these benefits and risks, and B has these benefits and risks. What do you want to do?" And you say, "If you were me, Doc, what would you do?" And the doc says, "But I'm not you." And the result is -- we call it "patient autonomy," which makes it sound like a good thing, but what it really is is a shifting of the burden and the responsibility for decision-making from somebody who knows something -- namely, the doctor -- to somebody who knows nothing and is almost certainly sick and thus, not in the best shape to be making decisions -- namely, the patient.
Der er et enormt marked for receptpligtig medicin og mennesker som dig om mig, som, hvis man tænker over det, overhovedet ikke giver nogen mening, siden vi ikke kan købe dem. Hvorfor markedsfører de dem til os, hvis vi ikke kan købe dem? Svaret er, at de forventer at vi ringer til lægen dagen efter og spørger om vi kan få ændret vores recept. Noget så vigtigt som vores identitet er nu blevet et spørgsmål om valg, som denne slide viser. Vi arver ikke en identitet; vi får lov til at opfinde den. Og vi får lov til at genopfinde os selv, så tit som vi har lyst til. Og det betyder, at hver dag når man vågner om morgenen, kan man vælge hvilken person man har lyst til at være. Al respekt for ægteskabet og familien, der var en gang hvor den normale holdning som alle havde var, at man blev gift så snart man kunne, og så begyndte man at få børn så snart man kunne. Det eneste rigtige valg var hvem, ikke hvornår, og ikke hvad man gjorde bagefter.
There's enormous marketing of prescription drugs to people like you and me, which, if you think about it, makes no sense at all, since we can't buy them. Why do they market to us if we can't buy them? The answer is that they expect us to call our doctors the next morning and ask for our prescriptions to be changed. Something as dramatic as our identity has now become a matter of choice, as this slide is meant to indicate. We don't inherit an identity; we get to invent it. And we get to reinvent ourselves as often as we like. And that means that every day, when you wake up in the morning, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. With respect to marriage and family: there was a time when the default assumption that almost everyone had is that you got married as soon as you could, and then you started having kids as soon as you could. The only real choice was who, not when, and not what you did after.
Nu til dags, er alting til utrolig meget op til en selv. Jeg underviser utrolig intelligente studerende, og jeg uddeler 20 procent mindre arbejde end jeg plejede. Og det er ikke fordi de er mindre kloge, og det er ikke fordi de ikke er lige så flittige. Det er fordi de har travlt med at spørge sig selv, "Skulle jeg blive gift eller ej? Skulle jeg blive gift nu? Skulle jeg blive gift senere? Skulle jeg have børn først, eller en karriere først?" Alle den slags opslugende spørgsmål. Og de kommer til at svare på disse spørgsmål, uanset om det betyder at de ikke kommer til at lave alt det arbejde jeg har delt ud eller ej, og derfor ikke få en god karakter i mine fag. Og det burde de også. Det er vigtige spørgsmål at svare på. Arbejde -- vi er velsignede, som Carl sagde, med den teknologi der gør os i stand til at arbejde hvert minut af hver dag, fra hvilket som helst sted i verden -- bortset fra Randolph Hotel.
Nowadays, everything is very much up for grabs. I teach wonderfully intelligent students, and I assign 20 percent less work than I used to. And it's not because they're less smart, and it's not because they're less diligent. It's because they are preoccupied, asking themselves, "Should I get married or not? Should I get married now? Should I get married later? Should I have kids first or a career first?" All of these are consuming questions. And they're going to answer these questions, whether or not it means not doing all the work I assign and not getting a good grade in my courses. And indeed they should. These are important questions to answer. Work. We are blessed, as Carl was pointing out, with the technology that enables us to work every minute of every day from any place on the planet -- except the Randolph Hotel.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Der er et hjørne, forresten, som jeg ikke fortæller nogen om, hvor WiFi virker. Jeg vil ikke fortælle jeg hvor, for jeg vil selv bruge det. Så hvad det her betyder, denne enorme valgfrihed vi har med henblik på arbejde, er at vi skal træffe et valg, igen og igen og igen, om hvorvidt vi skulle arbejde eller ikke skulle arbejde. Vi kan se vores barn spille fodbold, og vi kan have vores mobiltelefon på den ene hofte, og vores Blackberry på den anden hofte, og vores bærbare, formodentlig, på vores lår. Og selvom de alle er slukket, hvert eneste minut vi ser vores barn skamfere fodboldsporten, spørger vi også os selv, "Skulle jeg besvare dette opkald? Skulle jeg svare på denne mail? Skulle jeg lave et udkast til dette brev?" Og selvom svaret på spørgsmålet er "nej", vil det helt sikkert ændre oplevelsen af vores barns fodboldkamp til noget helt andet end det ellers ville have været. Så uanset hvor vi ser hen, store ting og små ting, materielle ting og livstilsting, livet handler om valg. Og verden vi plejede at leve i, så sådan her ud. Det vil sige, at der var nogle valg der skulle træffes, men ikke alt handlede om valg. Og den verden vi lever i nu, ser sådan her ud. Og spørgsmålet er, er det godt nyt, eller dårligt nyt?
There is one corner, by the way, that I'm not going to tell anybody about, where the WiFi actually works. I'm not telling you about it, because I want to use it. So what this means, this incredible freedom of choice we have with respect to work, is that we have to make a decision, again and again and again, about whether we should or shouldn't be working. We can go to watch our kid play soccer, and we have our cell phone on one hip and our Blackberry on our other hip, and our laptop, presumably, on our laps. And even if they're all shut off, every minute that we're watching our kid mutilate a soccer game, we are also asking ourselves, "Should I answer this cell phone call? Should I respond to this email? Should I draft this letter?" And even if the answer to the question is "no," it's certainly going to make the experience of your kid's soccer game very different than it would've been. So everywhere we look, big things and small things, material things and lifestyle things, life is a matter of choice. And the world we used to live in looked like this. [Well, actually, they are written in stone.] That is to say, there were some choices, but not everything was a matter of choice. The world we now live in looks like this. [The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]
Og svaret er ja.
And the question is: Is this good news or bad news? And the answer is "yes."
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Vi ved alle hvad der er godt ved den, så jeg vil tale om, hvad der er dårligt ved den. Alle disse valg har to sideeffekter, to negative sideeffekter på mennesker. En siddeeffekt, paradoksalt nok, er at det forårsager handlingslammelse, frem for frihed. Når der er så mange valgmuligheder at vælge i mellem, synes mennesker det er meget svært at vælge noget i det hele taget. Jeg vil give jer nogle meget dramatiske eksempler på dette: der er lavet et studie over investeringer i frivillige pensionsordninger. En af mine kolleger fik adgang til investeringsoversigter fra Vanguard, det gigantiske investeringsselskab med cirka en million ansatte og cirka 2.000 forskellige arbejdspladser. Og det hun fandt ud af var, at for hver 10 investeringsselskab som arbejdsgiveren tilbød, faldt deltagelsen med to procent. Så man tilbyder 50 fonde -- 10 procent færre ansatte deltager end hvis man kun tilbyder fem. Hvorfor? Fordi med 50 fonde at vælge i mellem, er det så forbandet svært at vælge hvilken fond man skal tage at man bare udskyder det til i morgen. Og så i morgen, og så i morgen, og i morgen, og i morgen, og selvfølgelig kommer i morgen aldrig. Og dette betyder ikke kun at mennesker kommer til at spise hundemad når de går på pension fordi de ikke har sparet nok penge sammen, det betyder også at beslutningen er så svær, at de siger nej tak til en anseelig pengesum fra arbejdsgiveren. Ved ikke at deltage, siger de nej tak til op til 5.000 dollars om året, fra deres arbejdsgiver, der gladeligt vil matche deres bidrag. Så handlingslammelse er en af konsekvenserne ved at have for mange valgmuligheder. Og jeg mener det får verden til at se sådan ud.
We all know what's good about it, so I'm going to talk about what's bad about it. All of this choice has two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, paradoxically, is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all. I'll give you one very dramatic example of this, a study that was done of investments in voluntary retirement plans. A colleague of mine got access to investment records from Vanguard, the gigantic mutual fund company, of about a million employees and about 2,000 different workplaces. What she found is that for every 10 mutual funds the employer offered, rate of participation went down two percent. You offer 50 funds -- 10 percent fewer employees participate than if you only offer five. Why? Because with 50 funds to choose from, it's so damn hard to decide which fund to choose, that you'll just put it off till tomorrow, and then tomorrow and then tomorrow and tomorrow, and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Understand that not only does this mean that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire because they don't have enough money put away, it also means that making the decision is so hard that they pass up significant matching money from the employer. By not participating, they are passing up as much as 5,000 dollars a year from the employer, who would happily match their contribution. So paralysis is a consequence of having too many choices. And I think it makes the world look like this.
(Latter)
[And lastly, for all eternity, French, bleu cheese or ranch?]
(Laughter)
Man vil virkelig gerne sørge for at træffe den rigtige beslutning, hvis den gælder i al evighed, ikke? Man vil ikke vælge den forkerte fond, eller selv den forkerte salat dressing. Så det er en effekt. Den anden effekt er, at selv hvis vi kan overkomme handlingslammelsen og træffe et valg, ender vi med at være mindre tilfredse med valget end vi ville have været, hvis der havde været færre valgmuligheder at vælge i mellem. Og det er der adskillige grunde til. En af dem er, at med alle de salatdressinger at vælge i mellem, hvis man køber en, og den ikke er perfekt -- og, I ved, hvilken salat dressing er det? -- er det nemt at forestille sig at man kunne have træffet et andet valg der ville have været bedre. Og det der sker er, at dette forestillede alternativ får en til at fortryde den beslutning man har truffet, og denne fortrydelse fjerner glæden man får ud af det valg man har truffet, selv om det var et godt valg. Jo flere valgmuligheder der er, jo nemmere er det at fortryde noget som helst der er skuffende ved den valgmulighed man valgte.
You really want to get the decision right if it's for all eternity, right? You don't want to pick the wrong mutual fund or wrong salad dressing. So that's one effect. The second effect is that, even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from. And there are several reasons for this. One of them is, with a lot of different salad dressings to choose from, if you buy one and it's not perfect -- and what salad dressing is? -- it's easy to imagine that you could've made a different choice that would've been better. And what happens is, this imagined alternative induces you to regret the decision you made, and this regret subtracts from the satisfaction you get out of the decision you made, even if it was a good decision. The more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything at all that is disappointing about the option that you chose.
For det andet, det økonomer kalder "alternativ omkostninger". Dan Gilbert fremhævede en stor pointe denne morgen ved at tale meget om den måde hvorpå vi værdisætter ting afhænger af hvad vi sammenligner dem med. Jamen, når der er mange alternativer at tage i betragtning, er det nemt at forestille sig attraktive sider af de alternativer man afviser, der gør at man er mindre glad for det alternativ man har valgt. Her er et eksempel. Jeg undskylder overfor jer der ikke er New Yorkere.
Second, what economists call "opportunity costs." Dan Gilbert made a big point this morning of talking about how much the way in which we value things depends on what we compare them to. Well, when there are lots of alternatives to consider, it's easy to imagine the attractive features of alternatives that you reject that make you less satisfied with the alternative that you've chosen. Here's an example. [I can't stop thinking about those other available parking spaces on W 85th Street]
(Latter)
If you're not a New Yorker, I apologize.
Men her er det I skal forestille Jer. Her er et par fra Hamptons. Meget dyr ejendom. Dejlig strand. Smuk dag. De har det hele for sig selv. Hvad kunne være bedre? "Jamen, for fanden," tænker denne fyr, "Det er august. Alle i mit nabolag i Manhattan er væk. Jeg kunne parkere lige foran min hoveddør lige nu". Og han bruger to uger på at være naget af ideen om, at han går glip af muligheden for, dag efter dag, at have en fed parkeringsplads. Alternativ omkostninger fjerner noget af glæden vi får ud af det vi vælger,
Here's what you're supposed to be thinking. Here's this couple on the Hamptons. Very expensive real estate. Gorgeous beach. Beautiful day. They have it all to themselves. What could be better? "Damn it," this guy is thinking, "It's August. Everybody in my Manhattan neighborhood is away. I could be parking right in front of my building." And he spends two weeks nagged by the idea that he is missing the opportunity, day after day, to have a great parking space. (Laughter)
selv når det vi vælger er fantastisk. Og jo flere valgmuligheder der er at tage i betragtning, jo mere attraktive egenskaberne af disse valgmuligheder er vil blive afspejlet af os som alternativ omkostninger. Her er et andet eksempel.
Opportunity costs subtract from the satisfaction that we get out of what we choose, even when what we choose is terrific. And the more options there are to consider, the more attractive features of these options are going to be reflected by us as opportunity costs. Here's another example.
Denne vittighedstegning understreger nogle gode pointer. Den viser points om at leve i nuet, og sikkert om at gøre tingene langsomt. Men en pointe den fremsætter er, at hver gang man vælger en ting, vælger man ikke at gøre andre ting. Og de andre ting har måske mange attraktive egenskaber og det kommer til at gøre det man vælger mindre attraktivt.
(Laughter) Now, this cartoon makes a lot of points. It makes points about living in the moment as well, and probably about doing things slowly. But one point it makes is that whenever you're choosing one thing, you're choosing not to do other things, and those other things may have lots of attractive features, and it's going to make what you're doing
For det tredje: optrapning af forventninger. Det slog mig da jeg ville erstatte mine cowboybukser. Jeg har næsten altid cowboybukser på. Og der var engang, hvor cowboybukser så ud på en bestemt måde, og man købte dem, og de passede af helvede til, og de var utrolig ubehagelige, og hvis man gik med dem i lang nok tid og vaskede dem nok gange, begyndte de at sidde ok. Så jeg ville erstatte mine cowboybukser efter i årevis at have gået med de samme, og jeg sagde, I ved, "Jeg vil have et par cowboybukser. Det her er min størrelse". Og butiksindehaveren sagde, "Vil du have slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit? Vil du have gylp eller lynlås? Vil du have stenvaskede eller syrevaskede? Vil du have dem nervøse? Vil du have dem ned til skoen, vil du have dem tilspidset, bla bla bla .." Han blev ved og ved. Jeg tabte kæben og efter jeg kom mig sagde jeg, "Jeg vil have den slags, der plejede at være den eneste slags".
less attractive. Third: escalation of expectations. This hit me when I went to replace my jeans. I wear jeans almost all the time. There was a time when jeans came in one flavor, and you bought them, and they fit like crap. They were incredibly uncomfortable, and if you wore them long enough and washed them enough times, they started to feel OK. I went to replace my jeans after years of wearing these old ones. I said, "I want a pair of jeans. Here's my size." And the shopkeeper said, "Do you want slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit? You want button fly or zipper fly? You want stonewashed or acid-washed? Do you want them distressed? Do you want boot cut, tapered?" Blah, blah, blah on and on he went. My jaw dropped. And after I recovered, I said,
(Latter)
"I want the kind that used to be the only kind."
Han havde ingen anelse om hvad det var,
(Laughter)
så jeg brugte en time på at prøve alle disse forbandende cowboybukser, og jeg gik ud af butikken -- sandt! -- med de bedst siddende cowboybukser jeg nogensinde har haft. Jeg fik noget bedre. Alle disse valgmuligheder gjorde det muligt for mig at få noget bedre. Men jeg havde det dårligere. Hvorfor? Jeg skrev en hel bog for at prøve at forklare det for mig selv. (Latter) Grunden til at jeg havde det dårligere var, at
He had no idea what that was. (Laughter) So I spent an hour trying on all these damn jeans, and I walked out of the store -- truth -- with the best-fitting jeans I had ever had. I did better. All this choice made it possible for me to do better. But -- I felt worse. Why? I wrote a whole book to try to explain this to myself. The reason is --
med alle disse valgmuligheder, var mine forventninger om hvad et par gode cowboybukser var, gik op. Jeg havde meget lave -- jeg havde ikke nogen specielle forventninger da de kun kom i en variant. Da de udkom i 100 varianter, for dælen, en af dem burde være perfekt. Og det jeg fik var godt, men det var ikke perfekt. Så jeg sammenlignede det jeg fik, med det jeg forventede, og hvad jeg fik var skuffende, i forhold til hvad jeg havde forventet. At tilføje valgmuligheder til menneskers liv kan kun forøge de forventninger mennesker har om hvor gode disse valgmuligheder er. Og hvad det kommer til at betyde, er mindre tilfredshed med resultaterne, selv når det er gode resultater. Ingen i marketingsverden ved dette, fordi hvis de gjorde, ville I ikke allesammen vide hvad det handler om.
(Laughter) The reason I felt worse is that with all of these options available, my expectations about how good a pair of jeans should be went up. I had very low, no particular expectations when they only came in one flavor. When they came in 100 flavors, damn it, one of them should've been perfect. And what I got was good, but it wasn't perfect. And so I compared what I got to what I expected, and what I got was disappointing in comparison to what I expected. Adding options to people's lives can't help but increase the expectations people have about how good those options will be. And what that's going to produce is less satisfaction with results, even when they're good results. [It all looks so great. I can't wait to be disappointed.] Nobody in the world of marketing knows this.
Sandheden er, det ligner det her mere.
Because if they did, you wouldn't all know what this was about. The truth is more like this.
(Latter)
[Everything was better back when everything was worse.]
Grunden til at alt var bedre dengang alt var værre er at dengang alt var værre, var det faktisk muligt for mennesker at have oplevelser, der var en behagelig overraskelse. Nu til dags, den verden vi lever i -- vi velstående, industrialiserede borgere, hvor perfektion er forventningen -- det bedste man kan håbe på, er at ting er lige så gode som man forventer de er. Man vil aldrig få en behagelig overraskelse fordi ens forventninger, mine forventninger, er røget i vejret. Hemmeligheden bag lykke -- det her er hvad I alle kom efter -- hemmeligheden bag lykke er lave forventninger.
The reason that everything was better back when everything was worse is that when everything was worse, it was actually possible for people to have experiences that were a pleasant surprise. Nowadays, the world we live in -- we affluent, industrialized citizens, with perfection the expectation -- the best you can ever hope for is that stuff is as good as you expect it to be. You will never be pleasantly surprised, because your expectations, my expectations, have gone through the roof. The secret to happiness -- this is what you all came for -- the secret to happiness is: low expectations.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
(Bifald)
[You'll do]
(Applause)
(Laughter)
Jeg vil sige -- bare et lille selvbiografisk øjeblik -- at jeg faktisk er gift med en kone, og hun er faktisk ret vidunderlig. Jeg kunne ikke have gjort det bedre. Jeg nøjedes ikke. Men at nøjedes er ikke altid så dårligt. Til sidst, en af konsekvenserne af at købe et dårligt par passende cowboybukser når der kun findes en variant man kan at købe er, at når man er utilfreds, og man spørger hvorfor, hvem er ansvarlig, er svaret tydeligt: verden er ansvarlig. Hvad kan man gøre? Når der er hundredvis af forskellige stile af cowboybukser at vælge mellem, og man køber et par der er utilfredsstillende, og man spørger hvorfor, hvem er ansvarlig? Det er lige så tydeligt at svaret på spørgsmålet er en selv. Man kunne selv have gjort det bedre. Men hundredvis af forskellige cowboybukser i udstilling, er der ikke nogen undskyldning for fiasko. Så når mennesker tager beslutninger, og selvom resultatet af beslutningen er godt, føler dig sig skuffede over dem; de bebrejder sig selv.
I want to say -- just a little autobiographical moment -- that I actually am married to a wife, and she's really quite wonderful. I couldn't have done better. I didn't settle. But settling isn't always such a bad thing. Finally, one consequence of buying a bad-fitting pair of jeans when there is only one kind to buy is that when you are dissatisfied and you ask why, who's responsible, the answer is clear: the world is responsible. What could you do? When there are hundreds of different styles of jeans available and you buy one that is disappointing and you ask why, who's responsible, it is equally clear that the answer to the question is "you." You could have done better. With a hundred different kinds of jeans on display, there is no excuse for failure. And so when people make decisions, and even though the results of the decisions are good, they feel disappointed about them; they blame themselves.
Kliniske depressioner er eksploderede i den industrialiserede verden blandt den seneste generation. Jeg mener en betydningsfuld -- ikke den eneste, men en betydningsfuld -- medvirkende årsag til denne eksplosion af depression, og også selvmord, er at mennesker har oplevelser der er skuffende fordi deres standard er så høj, at når de skal forklare disse oplevelser overfor sig selv, så tror de at det er deres skyld. Så nettoresultatet er, at vi generelt gør det bedre, objektivt set, og vi har det dårligere. Så lad mig påminde jer. Dette er det officielle dogme, det som vi alle ser som værende sandt, og det er alt sammen forkert. Det er ikke sandt. Der er ikke nogen tvivl om, at nogen valgmulighed er bedre end ingen, men det betyder ikke at flere valgmuligheder er bedre end nogen valgmulighed. Der er et magisk antal. Jeg ved ikke hvad det er. Jeg er ret sikker på, at vi for længst er nået forbi det punkt hvor valgmuligheder forbedrer vores velfærd.
Clinical depression has exploded in the industrial world in the last generation. I believe a significant -- not the only, but a significant -- contributor to this explosion of depression and also suicide, is that people have experiences that are disappointing because their standards are so high, and then when they have to explain these experiences to themselves, they think they're at fault. So the net result is that we do better in general, objectively, and we feel worse. So let me remind you: this is the official dogma, the one that we all take to be true, and it's all false. It is not true. There's no question that some choice is better than none. But it doesn't follow from that that more choice is better than some choice. There's some magical amount. I don't know what it is. I'm pretty confident that we have long since passed the point where options improve our welfare.
Så, som målsætning -- jeg er næsten færdig -- som målsætning, handler det om at tænke på dette: det der muliggør alle disse valgmuligheder i industrielle samfund er velstand. Der er masser af steder i verden, og vi har hørt om flere af dem, hvor problemet ikke er at de har for mange valgmuligheder. Deres problemer er at de har for få. Så de ting jeg snakker om er det besynderlige problem i moderne, velstående vestlige samfund. Og det der er så frustrerende og ophidsende er dette: Steve Levitt talte til jer i går om hvordan disse dyre og svært installerbare børnesæder ikke hjælper. Det er spild af penge. Det jeg fortæller Jer er at disse dyre, komplicerede valg -- det er ikke at de simpelthen ikke hjælper. De skader faktisk. De sætter os i en dårligere position.
Now, as a policy matter -- I'm almost done -- as a policy matter, the thing to think about is this: what enables all of this choice in industrial societies is material affluence. There are lots of places in the world, and we have heard about several of them, where their problem is not that they have too much choice. Their problem is they have too little. So the stuff I'm talking about is the peculiar problem of modern, affluent, Western societies. And what is so frustrating and infuriating is this: Steve Levitt talked to you yesterday about how these expensive and difficult-to-install child seats don't help. It's a waste of money. What I'm telling you is that these expensive, complicated choices -- it's not simply that they don't help. They actually hurt. They actually make us worse off.
Hvis noget af det der sætter mennesker i vores samfund i stand til at træffe alle de valg vi træffer, blev flyttet til samfund hvor mennesker har for få valgmuligheder, ville disse menneskers liv ikke kun blev forbedret, men vores ville også blive forbedret. Dette er hvad økonomer kalder "Pareto-forbedrende træk". Indkomst omfordeling vil sørge for at alle får det bedre -- ikke kun de fattige mennesker -- på grund af måden hvorpå denne overflod af valgmuligheder plager os. Så for at konkludere. Det er meningen I læser denne vittighedstegning,
If some of what enables people in our societies to make all of the choices we make were shifted to societies in which people have too few options, not only would those people's lives be improved, but ours would be improved also. This is what economists call a "Pareto-improving move." Income redistribution will make everyone better off, not just poor people, because of how all this excess choice plagues us. So to conclude.
og, værende et sofistikeret menneske, sige, "Ah! Hvad ved denne fisk? Du ved, ingenting er muligt i denne kumme." En forarmet fantasi, et snæversynet syn på verden -- og det er måden hvorpå jeg først læste den. Jo mere jeg dog tænkte på den, jo mere fik jeg opfattelsen at denne fisk ved noget. Fordi sandheden er at hvis man smadrer kummen så alt er muligt, har man ikke frihed. Man er handlingslammet. Hvis man smadrer denne kumme så alt er muligt, formindsker man tilfredshed. Man forøger handlingslammelse, og man formindsker tilfredshed. Alle har brug for en kumme. Denne er næsten med sikkerhed for begrænset -- måske endda for fiskene, bestemt for os. Men fraværet af en metaforisk kumme er en opskrift på elendighed, og, formoder jeg, katastrofe. Mange tak.
[You can be anything you want to be -- no limits.] You're supposed to read this cartoon and, being a sophisticated person, say, "Ah! What does this fish know? Nothing is possible in this fishbowl." Impoverished imagination, a myopic view of the world -- that's the way I read it at first. The more I thought about it, however, the more I came to the view that this fish knows something. Because the truth of the matter is, if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible, you don't have freedom. You have paralysis. If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible, you decrease satisfaction. You increase paralysis, and you decrease satisfaction. Everybody needs a fishbowl. This one is almost certainly too limited -- perhaps even for the fish, certainly for us. But the absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery and, I suspect, disaster. Thank you very much.
(Bifald)
(Applause)