I read in the news yesterday that the esteemed psychologist and Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman had died at the age of 90. As longtime readers of this blog know, he was a personal hero of mine and inspiration for Ye Olde Blogge.

Nobelist Daniel Kahneman, a pioneer of behavioral economics, dead at 90

Kahneman and his longtime collaborator Amos Tversky reshaped the field of economics with their insights into how ingrained neurological biases influence decision making.

SAN FRANCISCO — Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in economics for his insights into how ingrained neurological biases influence decision making, died Wednesday at the age of 90.

Nobelist Daniel Kahneman, a pioneer of behavioral economics, dead at 90

The Impact of Daniel Kahneman’s Work on Ye Olde Blogge

If you look at the history of the blog, I first mentioned Kahneman in one of the first posts, Is Orange Trump the New Black? on 24 May 2016. Re-reading that post sends a shiver down my spine, it is so prescient. It is prescient because Kahneman’s work made predicting the behavior of large groups of people relatively easy. Since then his work has been used in 20 more posts ranging in topics from predicting elections to Bernie Sanders primary run in 2016 to healthcare to Trump’s impeachment acquittal.

Applying Prospect Theory and Risk Aversion in Decision Making

Daniel Kahneman and his late partner in psychology, the late Amos Tversky, found a new area of psychological study called behavioral economics. They were interested in how people made decisions when the outcomes were uncertain. They coined the phrase risk aversion to describe the way most people made their choices. It is the foundational idea of Prospect Theory. Their approach is best encapsulated by the statement, People abhor risk, unless it is in the face of a sure loss.

That simple phrase makes it possible to predict behavior across a slew of human endeavors, especially voting and politics. It is the reason I started the blog. I wanted to explain the gun nuts and why we couldn’t elect enough sane rational representatives and senators to pass gun reform legislation. That was the concept behind the blog: psychology can explain why we behave so irrationally.

Once I got started explaining things like psychopathic murderous rage, accepting absurd lies like death panels — remember the death panels of the ACA? Doesn’t that seem like a simpler quainter time? — Trump endorsements by mainstream Republicans, Trump’s lack of executive functioning, and many other inexplicable events in American life.

Explaining Voting, Politics, Life, and Everything Using Behavioral Economics

The blog posts just started snowballing. I felt compelled to explain more and more of the inexplicable. Every time I bumped into an old psychological theory or finding, I could find an application for it, but none of them ever worked as well as Tversky and Kahneman’s behavioral economics. It was pure genius when it came to human decision making, including the reason for Trump’s enduring popularity — at this point it is more status quo bias than anything else.

Over the years, I delved deep into behavioral economics acquiring and reading several of Kahneman’s books, including the seminal Choices, Values, and Frames. I read everything I could in behavior economics and still haven’t scratched the surface. I’ve applied to every modern political situation that I can.

Because of Daniel Kahneman, my world is a richer more nuanced place. I feel forever indebted to the man. His work, literally, changed my life, and has given me thousands of hours of topics and controversies to think and blog about. I hate to think of what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t encountered his work.

Daniel Kahneman will be missed.

Image Attribution

This image was generated using Poe’s StableDiffusionXL bot using the prompt, Daniel Kahneman meeting Amos Tversky in heaven –no library –no office with angels and heavenly clouds