Think Like A Freak

by Steven D. Levitt

most people who commit crimes with guns are almost entirely unaffected by current gun laws.

surprisingly weak relationship between economic cycles and violent crime.

many children were being brought up in bad environments that led them to crime. As

It appears that Jörg Spenkuch found living proof of the Protestant work ethic.

Although ulcer patients didn’t make out so well under the standard treatment, the medical community did just fine. Millions of patients required the constant service of gastroenterologists and surgeons, while pharmaceutical companies got rich: the antacids Tagamet and Zantac were the first true blockbuster drugs, taking in more than $1 billion a year.

There wasn’t much of an incentive to find a cure—not, at least, by the people whose careers depended on the prevailing ulcer treatment.

Fortunately the world is more diverse than that.

The ulcer discovery, stunning as it was, constitutes just one small step in a revolution that is only beginning to unfold, a revolution aimed toward finding the root cause of illness rather than simply swatting away symptoms.

But kids are also relentlessly curious and relatively unbiased. Because they know so little, they don’t carry around the preconceptions that often stop people from seeing things as they are.

Jesus said we must become like children to grasp and enter the kingdom of heaven. Sounds similar.

Kids are not afraid to share their wildest ideas.

generating a boatload of ideas, even outlandish ones, can only be a good thing. When it comes to generating ideas, the economic concept of “free disposal” is key. Come up with a terrible idea? No problem—just don’t act on it.

“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age,”

Since big problems are usually a dense mass of intertwined small problems, you can make more progress by tackling a small piece of the big problem than by flailing away at grand solutions.

test scores showed they’d learned 25 to 50 percent more than their uncorrected peers. Thanks to a $15 pair of glasses!

don’t be afraid of the obvious.

everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

the people involved seem to be having a good time as they learn. Freaks like to have fun. This is another good reason to think like a child.

Kids aren’t afraid to like the things they like.

Is it possible to endlessly practice something you don’t enjoy?

From what we’ve seen personally, the best predictor of success among young economists and journalists is whether they absolutely love what they do.

Nearly 40 percent of low-income adults consider the lottery their best chance to ever acquire a large sum of money.

Have fun, think small, don’t fear the obvious—these

by seeing things from a literally new angle, you can sometimes gain an edge in solving a problem.

spend more time saying what we mean and asking questions we care about;

Like most economists, he believed he could solve any problem by setting up the right incentives.

people respond to incentives.

Understanding the incentives of all the players in a given scenario is a fundamental step in solving any problem.

we’ll say what we think other people want to hear and then, in private, do what we want. In economics, these are known as declared preferences and revealed preferences, and there is often a hefty gap between the two.

it is crucial to keep your eye on this gap.

“conscience laundering”—doing charity to make themselves feel better rather than fighting to figure out the best ways to alleviate suffering.

manufacturers are creating excess HFC-23 simply to destroy it and earn carbon credits.”

the UN wound up paying polluters millions upon millions of dollars to . . . create additional pollution.

Backfiring bounties

“the cobra e...

he best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in Australia, and snakes in India is to pay a bounty on their scalps.

the people whose behavior you’re trying to change often don’t think like you—and,

Too many incentive schemes are thinly disguised grabs for leverage or money,

the best way to get what you want is to treat other people with decency.

Decency can push almost any interaction into the cooperative frame. It is most powerful when least expected, like when things have gone wrong. Some of the most loyal customers any company has are the ones who had a big problem but got treated incredibly well as it was being resolved.

Figure out what people really care about, not what they say they care about.

that switch the frame from adversarial to cooperative.

A person who is lying or cheating will often respond to an incentive differently than an honest person.

The generic name for this crime is advance-fee fraud, but it is more commonly called the Nigerian letter fraud or 419 fraud, after a section of the Nigerian criminal code.

If you make an argument that promises all benefits and no costs, your opponent will never buy it—nor

So if you want your argument to be truly persuasive, it’s a good idea to acknowledge not only the known flaws but the potential for unintended consequences.

Acknowledge the strengths of your opponent’s argument.

remember: we are blind to our blindness.

traffic accidents.

the leading cause of death for kids from ages five to fourteen,

Keep the insults to yourself.