Policy makers, like most people, normally feel that they already know all the psychology and all the sociology they are likely to need for their decisions. I don't think they are right, but that's the way it is.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the overconfidence of policy makers in their understanding of psychology and sociology.
In this quote, Daniel Kahneman suggests that policy makers, similar to many individuals, often believe they possess sufficient knowledge of psychological and sociological concepts to inform their decisions. He challenges this assumption, implying that such self-assurance may lead to flawed or uninformed decision-making, emphasizing the complexity of human behavior and social dynamics that often require deeper understanding.
In practice
During a panel discussion on governance, a speaker could use this quote to illustrate the risks of overconfidence in decision-making.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in.
Keep in mind, the news media are not independent; they are a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class-the people who run things. Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn't want you to know something, it won't be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up.
For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker.
If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heaven. No more damned magic.
Have you no hope at all? And do you really live with the thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?" "Yes," I said.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.