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.
Pričaću vam o nekim stvarima koje se nalaze u mojoj knjizi i za koje se nadam da će biti u skladu sa drugim stvarima koje ste već čuli i potrudiću se da povezujem neke detalje, u slučaju da ih ne uhvatite. Želim da počnem sa nečim što ja zovem "zvanična dogma".
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.
Zvanična dogma čega? Zvanična dogma svih zapadnih industrijskih društava. A zvanična dogma glasi ovako: ukoliko smo zainteresovani da radimo na poboljšanju dobrobiti naših građana, način da to postignemo jeste da im povećamo individualnu slobodu. Razlog ovome jeste da je sloboda sama po sebi dobra, vredna i esencijalna za ljudsku prirodu. I upravo zato što su ljudi slobodni, svako od nas može delovati kako hoće i raditi stvari koje će biti za njegovo dobro i niko drugi ne mora odlučivati umesto nas. Način za poboljšvanje slobode jeste povećanje izbora.
The more choice people have, the more freedom they have, and the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have. 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.
Što više izbora ljudi imaju, imaće više slobode, a što više slobode imaju, živeće u većem blagostanju. Ovo je do te mere usađeno u svest ljudi da to više niko i ne preispituje. I to je takođe duboko ukorenjeno u naše živote. Izneću vam neke primere šta je sve moderni progres učinio dostupnim i mogućim.
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.
Ovo je moj supermarket. Nije toliko velik. Reći ću vam nešto o prelivima za salatu. Postoji 175 preliva za salatu u tom supermarketu, ukoliko ne računate 10 različitih vrsta maslinovih ulja i 12 vrsta sirćeta koje je moguće kupiti i kojima možete napraviti ogroman broj sopstvenih preliva za salatu, u slučaju da vam nijedan od ovih 175 postojećih ne odgovara. Eto tako izgleda taj supermarket. I onda ako hoćete da kupite muzički uređaj i odete u radnju za elektroniku -- naći ćete sve od mikrofona, CD plejera, kasetofona, radija, do pojačala. I u samo jednoj prodavnici elektronike, naći ćete toliko mnogo stereo sistema. Možemo sklopiti šest ipo miliona različitih muzičkih uređaja od komponenata koje su u ponudi u jednoj prodavnici.
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 --
Morate priznati da je to stvarno mnogo izbora. U drugim domenima -- u svetu komunikacija. Postojalo je vreme, kad sam bio dečak, kada si mogao dobiti bilo koju telefonsku uslugu koju si želeo jedino od strane Ma Bell-a. Telefon se iznajmljivao. Nije se kupovao. Jedna od posledica toga, uzgred, bila je ta da se telefon nikada nije kvario. I ti dani su prošli. Danas imamo gotovo neograničenu raznolikost telefona, pogotovo u sferi mobilnih telefona. Ovo su mobilni telefoni budućnosti. Moj omiljeni je ovaj u sredini -- sa MP3 plejerom, trimerom za dlake u nosu i plamenikom za krem burlee. I ukoliko ga nekim slučajem još niste videli u svojoj radnji
(Laughter)
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.
možete se opustiti jer ćete ga uskoro videti. I ono što se dešava jeste da to navodi ljude da idu po tim prodavnicama i postavljaju takva pitanja. I znate li kakav odgovor dobijaju? Odgovor je "Ne". Nije moguće kupiti mobilni telefon koji ne radi previše stvari.
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. 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.
U drugim sferama života, bitnijim od kupovine raznih stvari, takođe postoji ista eksplozija mogućih izbora. Medicinska nega -- u Americi više nije slučaj da odete kod lekara i on vam kaže šta da radite. Umesto toga, odete kod lekara, i lekar vam kaže: "Pa možete uraditi nešto ovako ili nešto onako. Ovo prvo ima ove prednosti i ove rizike. Druga opcija ima ove prednosti i ove rizike. Šta želite da uradite?" A vi kažete: "Doktore, šta bi trebalo da uradim?" Doktor kaže, prva opcija ima te i te prednosti i rizike, druga opcija te i te. Šta Vi želite da uradite? A vi kažete: "Da ste na mom mestu doktore, šta bi ste Vi uradili?" Doktor kaže, "Ali ja nisam Vi." I rezultat je... zovemo ga "pacijentova autonomija", što bi trebalo da zvuči kao dobra stvar. A ono što to zapravo jeste je prebacivanje tereta odgovornosti u vezi sa donošenjem odluka sa onoga ko zna nešto -- u ovom slučaju doktora -- na nekoga ko ne zna ništa i ko je zapravo bolestan i kao takav i nije u najboljem stanju da donosi takve odluke -- pacijenta. Neverovatno je koliko se reklamiraju tablete na recept koje su namenjene ljudima kao što smo vi i ja, što, ukoliko malo razmislite, nema nikakvog smisla, s obzirom da ih mi ne možemo kupiti. I zbog čega se onda one nama plasiraju putem marketinga kad ih već ne možemo kupiti? Jer se očekuje od nas da ćemo sledećeg jutra pozvati naše lekare i tražiti da nam se recepti promene.
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.
Čak je nešto toliko značajno kao naš identitet postalo stvar izbora, na šta ovaj slajd i ukazuje. Mi ne nasleđujemo identitet, izmišljamo ga. I možemo ga iznova izmišljati onoliko često koliko nam to odgovara. A to znači da svakog dana kada se probudite, treba da odlučite kakva osoba želite da budete. Što se tiče braka i porodice, nekada je postojala pretpostavka po kojoj je trebalo da svi stupe u brak što su pre mogli i onda da počnu da dobijaju decu takođe što su pre mogli. Jedini pravi izbor koji su pravili je bio sa kim, ne kada i ne šta će raditi posle.
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.
Danas je sve stvar izbora. Predajem izuzetno inteligentnim studentima, i dajem im 20 procenata manje zadataka nego što sam to činio ranije. Razlog tome nije to što su manje pametni ili što su manje savesni. To je iz razloga što su preopterećeni, pitajući se: "Treba li da se ženim ili ne? Treba li to da uradim sada Ili kasnije? Treba li prvo da imam decu ili prvo karijeru?" Sva ova pitanja su izuzetno zahtevna. I oni će tražiti odgovore na njih, bez obzira znači li to da li će ili neće uraditi zadatke koje sam im dao i da li će dobro proći na mom ispitu. A tako i treba. Jer to su zaista važna pitanja koja zahtevaju odgovore.
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.
Posao -- mi smo u situaciji, kao što je Karl naglasio, sa tehnologijom koja nam to omogućava, da radimo svakog trenutka svakog dana sa bilo kog mesta na planeti -- izuzev iz Randolf hotela.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
(Applause)
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.
Postoji jedan ugao, uzgred budi rečeno, koji nikome neću otkriti, gde internet radi. Neću nikom reći jer ja želim da ga nesmetano koristim. Ono što ovo znači, ova neverovatna mogućnost izbora koju imamo u odnosu na posao, jeste da moramo da donosimo odluke, opet i opet i opet, o tome da li bi trebalo da radimo ili ne. Možemo otići da gledamo naše dete kako igra fudbal, i pri tom držati telefon u jednom džepu, Blekberi u drugom i lap top verovatno u krilu. I čak iako su svi oni pogašeni, svakog trenutka tokom kog gledamo naše dete kako igra utakmicu, mi se takođe pitamo: "Da li da odgovorim na ovaj poziv? Da li da odgovorim na ovaj e-maill? Da li da sačuvam ovo pismo?" Čak i kada je odgovor na sva ova pitanja "ne", to će sigurno uticati da imate potpuno drugačiji doživljaj detetove utakmice nego što bi imali inače.
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.
Gde god da se okrenemo, bitne i nebitne stvari, materijalne i nematerijalne stvari, život je stvar izbora. A svet u kome smo nekada živeli izgledao je ovako.
[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.
Postojali su neki izbori, ali nije sve bilo u njima. Svet u kome sada živimo izgleda ovako.
[The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]
Pitanje je da li je to dobro ili loše?
And the question is: Is this good news or bad news? And the answer is "yes."
Odgovor je da.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Svi znamo šta je dobro u vezi sa tim, tako da ću se skoncentrisati na ono što je loše. Svaki od izbora koje napravimo ima dva efekta, dva negativna efekta na ljude. Jedan, paradoksalno, je taj da izbor uzrokuje zakočenost, pre nego slobodu. Sa toliko mnogo opcija koje možemo odabrati, ljudima postaje teško da se uopšte odluče. Izneću vam jedan izuzetno dramatičan primer ovoga, studiju izvedenu na dobrovoljnim penzionim fondovima. Moja koleginica je dobila pristup izveštaju ulaganja Vangarda, jedne gigantske kompanije za penzione fondove koja ima oko milion zaposenih i oko 2000 različitih radnih mesta. I ono što je saznala jeste da na svakih deset fondova koje poslodavac ponudi, stopa učešća pada za dva procenta. Ponudite 50 fondova -- 10 procenata je niže učešće zaposlenih nego da ste ponudili pet. Zašto? Jer od 50 ponuđenih fondova, toliko je prokleto teško da se izabere jedan da će te odluku ostaviti za sutra. I opet onda za sutra i opet sutra, i sutra i sutra, i naravno, to sutra nikada ne dođe. Razumećete da ovo ne samo da znači da će ovi ljudi jesti pseću hranu kada se penzionišu jer neće imati dovoljno ušteđenog novca, to takođe znači da je donošenje odluke toliko teško da oni propuštaju prilke za ulaganja koje su im ponuđene od strane poslodavca. Time što ne učestvuju u ulaganjima, oni gube oko 5000 dolara po godini od strane poslodavca, koji bi im rado uplatio doprinose.
So paralysis is a consequence of having too many choices. And I think it makes the world look like this.
Tako da je blokada posledica postojanja premnogo izbora. Mislim da to čini da svet izgleda evo ovako.
[And lastly, for all eternity, French, bleu cheese or ranch?]
(Smeh)
(Laughter)
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.
Sigurno je da želite da donesete ispravnu odluku ako je ona za čitavu večnost, zar ne? Ne želite da izaberete pogrešan penzioni fond, čak ni pogrešan preliv za salatu. Tako da je to jedan efekat. Drugi je taj da čak i kada uspemo da prevaziđemo blokadu i napravimo izbor, završimo manje zadovoljni rezultatima našeg izbora nego što bismo bili da smo imali manje izbornih opcija. A za to postoji nekoliko razloga. Jedan od njih jeste taj da sa mnogo različitih preliva za salatu koje možete birati, ukoliko kupite jedan i taj nije savršen -- onda se pitate pa koji je? Lako je zamisliti da ste mogli napraviti drugačiji izbor koji bi možda bio bolji. I ono što se dešava je to da vas ova zamišljena alternativa navodi da zažalite zbog donešene odluke, i ovo kajanje vam onemogućava da budete zadovoljni napravljenim izborom, čak i ukoliko je taj izbor bio dobar. Što više opcija imate, lakše je zažaliti zbog bilo čega i svakako je razočaravajuće po opciju koju ste odabrali.
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 drugo, kao što bi ekonomisti rekli - propuštena dobit. Den Gilbert je izneo dobru poentu jutros govoreći o tome koliko vrednovanje stvari zavisi od toga sa čim se ta stvar upoređuje. Tako, postoji mnogo alternativa koje valja razmotriti, lako je zamisliti atraktivna svojstva alternativa koje odbacujete, i to vas čini manje zadovoljnim alternativom koju ste odabrali.
[I can't stop thinking about those other available parking spaces on W 85th Street]
Evo primera. Izvinjavam se onima koji nisu iz Njujorka.
If you're not a New Yorker, I apologize. 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.
(Smeh) Ali evo šta bi trebalo da mislite. Ovo je jedan par u Hemptonu. Tu su jako skupe nekretnine. Fenomenalna plaža. Prelep dan. Imaju sve to za sebe. Ne može biti bolje. "Prokletstvo", pomisli ovaj čovek, "avgust je. Svi iz mog komšiluka na Menhetnu su nekud otputovali. Mogao bih parkirati auto tačno ispred zgrade." I tako provodi dve nedelje mučen idejom da propušta priliku, dan za danom, da ima fenomenalno parking mesto.
(Laughter)
Propuštene prilike umanjuju zadovoljstvo izborom koji napravimo,
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.
čak i kada je ono što smo odabrali sjajno. I što je više opcija za razmatranje, to je više atraktivnih svojstava ovih mogućnosti zbog kojih će nam biti žalije za propuštenom dobiti.
Here's another example.
Evo drugog primera.
(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 less attractive.
Ovaj crtež ima višestruku poentu. On ističe poentu toga da treba živeti u sadašnjosti i datom trenutku, i verovatno i to da stvari treba raditi lagano. Ali poenta koju takođe iznosi jeste da kad god birate jednu stvar, vi takođe i birate da ne radite ostale. I s obzirom da te druge stvari imaju svojih primamljivih prednosti, one čine da ono što ste izabrali deluje manje primamljivo nego što to u suštini jeste. Treće: povećanje očekivanja.
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, "I want the kind that used to be the only kind."
Ovo me je pogodilo kada sam otišao da kupim nove farmerice. Ja nosim farmerice gotovo stalno. I bilo je vreme kada su proizvodili samo jednu vrstu farmerica, i kupiš ih, i one budu užasne, jako neudobne, ali ako ih nosiš dovoljno dugo i dovoljno puta opereš, počneš da se dobro osećaš u njima. I tako sam ja otišao da uzmem nove nakon godina i godina nošenja tih starih, i rekao sam: "Želim par novih farmerica, ovo je moja veličina." A prodavac je rekao, "Želite li opušten, zategnut ili komotan kroj? Želite li varijantu sa dugmetom ili rajsfešlusom? Želite li one isprane kamenom ili kiselinom? Hoćete li da izgledaju isprano? Hoćete li da idu preko čizama ili uz nogu, bla bla bla..." Nije prestajao. Nakon što sam došao sebi od zaprepašćenja, rekao sam: "Želim onu varijantu koja je nekada bila jedina varijanta." (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Nije imao predstavu koji je to model,
He had no idea what that was.
(Laughter)
pa sam proveo sate isprobavajući sve te proklete farmerice,
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.
i na kraju sam izašao iz te radnje -- iskreno -- u najudobnijim farmericama koje sam ikada nosio. Sve te mogućnosti učinile su da napravim jako dobar izbor.
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 --
Ali osećao sam se gore. Zašto? Napisao sam celu knjigu pokušavajući da to sebi objasnim. Razlog zbog kog sam se osećao loše,
(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.
jeste taj da, sa svim ovim mogućnostima, moja očekivanja o tome kako treba da izgleda par farmerica su porasla. Imao sam veoma niska očekivanja. Nisam imao nikakva posebna očekivanja kada su se proizvodile u samo jednom obliku. Ali kada su se pojavile u sto vrsta, do đavola, jedne od njih mora da su bile savršene. I ono što sam uzeo je bilo dobro, ali nije bilo savršeno. I tako sam uporedio ono što sam dobio sa onim što sam očekivao, i to što sam dobio je bilo razočaravajuće u poređenju sa onim što sam očekivao. Dodavanjem opcija dobija se samo to da dolazi do povećavanja očekivanja koja ljudi imaju o tome koliko dobre te opcije treba da budu. I ono što se događa na taj način jeste da će ljudi biti manje zadovoljni rezultatima, čak i ako su oni dobri.
[It all looks so great. I can't wait to be disappointed.]
Niko u svetu marketinga ne zna za ovo.
Nobody in the world of marketing knows this.
Jer da oni znaju, onda vi ne biste.
Because if they did, you wouldn't all know what this was about. The truth is more like this.
Istina je više nalik ovome.
[Everything was better back when everything was worse.]
(Smeh)
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.
Razlog zbog kog je sve bilo bolje kada je sve bilo gore jeste taj da kada je sve bilo gore, bilo je moguće da ljudi dožive neka prijatna iznenađujuća iskustva. Sada, u svetu u kome živimo -- mi imućni, industrijalizovani građani, sa očekivanjima dovedenim do savršenstva -- najbolje čemu se možemo nadati jeste da stvari ispunjavaju naša očekivanja. Nikada nećete biti prijatno iznenađeni jer su vaša očekivanja, moja očekivanja, porasla do vrha. Tajna sreće -- to je ono za šta ste došli -- tajna sreće je u niskim očekivanjima.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
[You'll do]
(Aplauz)
(Applause)
(Laughter)
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.
Želim da kažem -- samo mali autobiografski momenat -- da sam oženjen ženom, koja je zaista predivna. Nisam mogao bolje. Nisam se samo opustio. Ali opuštanje nije uvek tako loša stvar.
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.
Konačno, jedna od posledica kupovine neudobnog para farmerica kada imate samo tu jednu vrstu koju možete kupiti jeste da kada ste nezadovoljni i pitate se zašto, ko je kriv, odgovor je jasan. Svet je odgovoran. Šta se tu može? A kada postoji na stotine dostupnih različitih vrsta farmerica, i vi kupite nezadovoljavajuću, i pitate se zašto, ko je odgovoran? Kristalno je jasno da ste to vi. Mogli ste bolje. Sa stotinu različitih vrsta farmerica u izlogu, nema izgovora za neuspeh. I tako kada ljudi donose odluke, čak i kada su rezultati izbora dobri, osećaju razočarenje zbog njih, krive sebe.
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.
Klinička depresija je eksplodirala industrijskim svetom tokom prethodne generacije. Verujem da je značajan -- ne jedini, ali značajan faktor ovom porastu depresije, takođe i samoubistava, taj da ljudi imaju iskustva koja su razočaravajuća jer su im standardi očekivanja previsoki. I kada onda treba da objasne sebi ova iskustva, misle da su oni krivi za neuspeh. I tako rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da mi objektivno napredujemo, ali se osećamo gore. Dozvolite da vas podsetim. Ovo je zvanična dogma, ona koju svi mi uzimamo kao istinitu, a ona je pogrešna. Ona nije tačna. Ne dovodi se u pitanje to da je neki izbor bolji nego nikakav, ali iz toga ne sledi da je previše izbora bolje nego malo izbora. Postoji neka tajanstvena količina. Ne znam koja je to. Ali sam prilično siguran da smo odavno prešli tu granicu do koje su nam izbori poboljšavali život.
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.
E sada, što se tiče politike stvari na dalje -- skoro sam završio -- stvar o kojoj treba razmisliti je sledeća. Ono što omogućava sve te izbore u industrijskom društvu jeste materijalno bogatstvo. Postoji mnogo mesta na svetu, čuli smo za neka, gde problem nije u prevelikoj količini izbora. Njihov problem je da ih imaju premalo. Tako da ono o čemu ja govorim je problem modernih, imućnih, zapadnih društava. I ono što najviše frustrira je: Stiv Levit vam je juče govorio o tome kako ova skupa i za montiranje komplikovana dečja sedišta ne pomažu. To je bacanje para. Ono što vam govorim jeste da ovi skupi, komplikovani izbori -- ne samo da ne pomažu. Oni bukvalno nanose štetu. Čine da se osećamo grozno.
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.
Kada bi to što ljudima u našem društvu omogućava postojanje svih tih izbora nekako bilo raspoređeno na ona društva koja imaju svega nekoliko opcija, ne samo da bi životi tih ljudi bili poboljšani, već bi i naši bili takođe poboljšani. To je ono što ekonomisti nazivaju Pareto princip. Raspodela bogatstva bi učinila da svima bude bolje -- ne samo siromašnim ljudima - zato što prevelik izbor ima štetan uticaj na nas. Za kraj. Treba da pročitate ovaj crtež,
[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.
i budući da ste inteligentna osoba, reći ćete: "Oh! Šta ova riba zna? Ništa nije moguće u ovom akvarijumu." Siromašna mašta, kakav kratkovid pogled na svet -- to je način na koji sam i ja mislio kada sam prvi put pogledao. Ali što sam više razmišljao o tome, to sam više naginjao ka gledištu da ta riba možda i zna nešto. Jer je istina u tome da ako razbijete ovaj akvarijum i učinite da sve postane moguće, nećete dobiti slobodu. Dobićete blokadu. Ako razbijete akvarijum tako da sve postane moguće, umanjićete zadovoljstvo. Povećaćete zakočenost, a smanjiti zadovoljstvo.
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.
Svima treba jedna kugla za ribe. Ova je doduše previše limitirana -- čak i za ribe, a posebno za nas. Ali nepostojanje nekog metaforičkog akvarijuma je recept za bedu, i pretpostavljam, za katastrofu.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)