Brain Regions, Errors of Logic, and Willie Horton

Though the past few decades have yielded a wealth of information about how the brain works, there is much that remains mysterious. It therefore came as a surprise to many a neuroscientist when the hallowed New York Times published an editorial by "marketing expert" Martin Lindstrom claiming that we loved our iPhones in much the same way we love our families and our dogs.

People Are Ignorant. Big Deal...Right?

In my previous three posts, I wrote about the fact that people generally don't know much about politics, though there is variance, and I wrote about why people know what they know. Basically, learning about politics takes effort, so people only know the things that are the easiest to learn about, which isn't much.

Okay, so people don't know much about politics, and we have some idea why. Today and next time, I'll look at whether it actually matters. In particular, I'll look at whether individuals and societies can make good decisions in spite of their ignorance. Roughly, there are three arguments: