Howard Kunreuther

I don't think there's a problem there because I don't like your solution.

And one research project that I did with Howard Kunreuther and Dina Gromay at Penn was we showed that when people are given a chance to buy more efficient light bulbs, where we actually set them up in the lab with real money to go shop for light bulbs, they were very happy to buy, at the time, a CFL, which was more efficient than the incandescent bulb.

And they were even interested in paying more for it when it was priced higher.

because it was clear from the labeling that we provided that it had a longer life, it would use only 25% of the energy of the incandescent bulb, all the kinds of nice material features of the fluorescent bulb at that time that made it more energy efficient and financially attractive.

Okay.

So this comes from this book a friend of mine told me about called The Ostrich Paradox: Why We Underprepare for Disasters, and the authors, Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther, tackle the question: Why is it that we humans are so bad at dealing with disastrous risks, and what can we do about it? I love a system.

I love categories.

I love are you a this, are you that? And so they argue that there are six systematic biases that make it hard to assess and prepare for risks.