December 29, 2016

Cass Sunstein picks "The Best Films of 2016 (for Behavioral Economists)."

Sunstein likes "The Jungle Book" because it shows the concept of fairness...
"For the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.")
"Weiner" because you can think about the 2 kinds of thinking which are System 1 ("automatic and impulsive") and System 2 ("deliberative and calculative")....
Behavioral economists like to distinguish between two families of cognitive operations in the human mind: System 1, which is automatic and impulsive, and System 2, which is deliberative and calculative.... Beset by a sexting scandal, former congressman Anthony Weiner resigned and then decided to run for mayor -- only to be laid low by another sexting scandal (or two). Does he even have a System 2?
Ryan Gosling because of "norm theory"...
"La La Land" is full of... counterfactual thinking: dreams abandoned, dreams deferred and connections lost....
Isabelle Huppert because of the "control premium" ("many people will pay an extra amount to retain control over a situation... others actually want to give up control")....
Isabelle Huppert [in "Elle"] understands what it means to take control and to lose it.
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” because "as an empirical matter, most people display unrealistic optimism"....
Is our band of rebels unrealistically optimistic?... [W]hen all seems lost, they give themselves the greatest gift, which is the feeling of hope.

10 comments:

rehajm said...

One of the documentary’s great achievements is that it depicts Weiner not as a demon but as an immensely talented politician, and in many ways a resourceful, resilient, and even likeable person...

Of course the whole raison d'etre for Weiner was to nudge voters into redeeming Anthony and the lefties surrounding him and the Clintons. This was before lefties realized voters weren't as susceptible to being nudged as prevously believed. That won't stop them from nudging us again.

I expect Corzine to sweep the awards in 2017.

Quayle said...

If you've ever seen the mess that is Sunstein's office, or the amount and broad range of stuff he has in the trunk of his car, as I have, you'll conclude fairly quickly that Cass has a big System Number 1 going in terms of environmental organization.

Also in his partnering relations, from what I am led to believe.

Birkel said...

So Cass Sunstein believes that behavioral economics -- a study of people -- is explored well in a movie written by humans about the way it is imagined wolves act in a pack?

Think how much we can learn from Aquaman when it is released in 2018. That will tell us about fish, which swim in schools. Schools, people. Schools.

khesanh0802 said...

Cass Sunstein is forever tainted with Obamacare. He was in the birth, though he escaped fairly quickly. He is married to Susan Powers so may he be doubly damned.

Gahrie said...

Just to highlight how much has changed and how quickly...could you imagine Austin Powers being made today?

Bilwick said...

Statist Sunstein probably likes "Behavioral Economics" because it doesn't bother him with all those silly laws (like Supply and Demand) that get in the way of the Agenda.

Yancey Ward said...

rehajm said...

"Of course the whole raison d'etre for Weiner was to nudge voters into redeeming Anthony and the lefties surrounding him and the Clintons"

This. The documentary never gets made without the presence of Huma Abedin in Clinton's coterie. It is ironic that Hillary! probably could have been elected if she had divorced Bill Clinton, and if Abedin had publicly repudiated Anthony Weiner years ago. In the case of the first marriage, Hillary! wanted the money her husband was being paid to give speeches while she was in the Senate and the State Department, and in the second marriage I suspect that Weiner had some leverage to prevented Abedin from dumping him publicly.

Joe said...

"Jungle Book" was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Not that my opinion matters; it made over $800 million worldwide.

mikee said...

The feeling of hope is quite a different thing from actual hope. It is in fact useless to feel hopeful, compared to having actual hope.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld Tyrant, Lord Havelock Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, offered condemned prisoners the illusion of hope by telling them they did not need to stay around to do what he wanted, they could leave at any time through that door right over there.

Beyond that door was a long drop and a sudden stop. But the door offered the illusion of hope. The smarter prisoners did what the Patrician asked rather than accept an illusion of hope by leaving via that door.

richard mcenroe said...

Of course, the highest grossing film of the year was a red white and blue Captain America telling the UN to go climb a tree.