Convenience vs. Social Desirability Bias

Convenience has a massive effect on your behavior.  You rarely shop in your favorite store, eat in your favorite restaurant, or visit your favorite place.  Why not?  Because doing so is typically inconvenient.  They’re too far away, or not open at the right hours, so you settle for second-best or third-best or tenth-best.  You usually don’t switch your cell phone company, your streaming service, or your credit card just because a better option comes along.  Why not?  Because switching is not convenient.  Students even pass up financial aid because they don’t feel like filling out the paperwork.  Why not?  You guessed it: Because paperwork is inconvenient.

My Hands Are Clean

Suppose someone accuses me of being a pickpocket.  I respond, “I have picked no pockets, therefore I am not a pickpocket.”  My accuser could naturally retort, “Oh yes you are, I have video evidence of you picking pockets on three separate occasions.” What would you think, though, if my accuser instead declared, “There’s a lot of pickpocketing in the world.  You’ve personally done nothing to stop it.  That makes you a pickpocket!”

Shepard Returns, Consequences, Positive and Negative (56m) – Episode 436

Episode 436 welcomes back Shepard the Voluntaryist to chat with Skyler on the following topics: his ongoing radio show and podcast; an exploration of positive and negative consequences; human interference in natural consequences; intended and unintended consequences in politics and economics; what people going along with monopolistic government means for the idea of people going along with competitive government (free society); never letting a crisis go to waste as a voluntaryism popularizer; the consequences of immortality and “The Good Place” television show; the negative consequences of world peace and the positive consequences of world conflict; and more.

Aaron W. Returns, Leaving California for Texas, & Child Protective Services Ordeal (57m) – Episode 435

Episode 435 welcomes back Aaron White to the podcast to chat with Skyler on the following topics: leaving California and the many reasons for doing so such as living expense, new Democrat Party supermajority in local politics, and the charter school crackdown; moving to Texas, specifically the Dallas / Ft. Worth metro area; social justice and woke ideology verse unschooling and free schooling principles; he and his family’s recent experience with California’s Child Protective Services; why every lawyer he talked to advised him to comply with CPS as thoroughly as possible, the opposite advice they give when dealing with police officers (ie. keep your mouth shut); how child protective services may exist in a free society and the question of “skin in the game” for these kinds of allegations; and more.