Perspective is everything
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Not SyncedWhat you have here
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Not Syncedis an electronic cigarette.
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Not SyncedIt's something that's, since it was invented a year or two ago,
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Not Syncedhas given me untold happiness.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedA little bit of it, I think, is the nicotine,
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Not Syncedbut there's something much bigger than that.
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Not SyncedWhich is ever since, in the U.K., they banned smoking in public places,
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Not SyncedI've never enjoyed a drinks party ever again.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedAnd the reason, I only worked out just the other day,
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Not Syncedwhich is when you go to a drinks party
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Not Syncedand you stand up and you hold a glass of red wine
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Not Syncedand you talk endlessly to people,
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Not Syncedyou don't actually want to spend all the time talking.
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Not SyncedIt's really, really tiring.
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Not SyncedSometimes you just want to stand there silently, alone with your thoughts.
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Not Syncedsometimes you just want to stand in the corner and stare out of the window.
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Not SyncedNow the problem is, when you can't smoke,
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Not Syncedif you stand and stare out the window on your own,
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Not Syncedyou're an antisocial, friendless idiot.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedIf you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette,
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Not Syncedyou're a fucking philosopher.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not Synced(Applause)
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Not SyncedSo the power of reframing things
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Not Syncedcannot be overstated.
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Not SyncedWhat we have is exactly the same thing, the same activity,
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Not Syncedbut one of them makes you feel great
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Not Syncedand the other one, with just a small change of posture,
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Not Syncedmakes you feel terrible.
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Not SyncedAnd I think one of the problems with classical economics
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Not Syncedis it's absolutely preoccupied with reality.
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Not SyncedAnd reality isn't a particularly good guide to human happiness.
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Not SyncedWhy, for example,
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Not Syncedare pensioners much happier
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Not Syncedthan the young unemployed?
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Not SyncedBoth of them, after all, are in exactly the same stage of life.
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Not SyncedYou both have too much time on your hands and not much money.
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Not SyncedBut pensioners are reportedly very, very happy,
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Not Syncedwhereas the unemployed are extraordinarily unhappy and depressed.
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Not SyncedThe reason, I think, is that pensioners believe they've chosen to be pensioners,
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Not Syncedwhereas the young unemployed
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Not Syncedfeel it's been thrust upon them.
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Not SyncedIn England the upper-middle-classes have actually solved this problem perfectly,
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Not Syncedbecause they've rebranded unemployment.
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Not SyncedIf you're an upper-middle-class English person,
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Not Syncedyou call unemployment "a year off."
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedAnd that's because having a son who's unemployed in Manchester
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Not Syncedis really quite embarrassing,
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Not Syncedbut having a son who's unemployed in Thailand
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Not Syncedis really viewed as quite an accomplishment.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedBut actually the power to rebrand things,
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Not Syncedto understand that actually our experiences, costs, things
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Not Synceddon't actually much depend on what they really are,
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Not Syncedbut on how we view them,
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Not SyncedI genuinely think can't be overstated.
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Not SyncedThere's an experiment I think Daniel Pink refers to
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Not Syncedwhere you put two dogs in a box
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Not Syncedand the box has an electric floor.
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Not SyncedEvery now and then an electric shock is applied to the floor,
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Not Syncedwhich pains the dogs.
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Not SyncedThe only difference is one of the dogs has a small button in its half of the box.
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Not SyncedAnd when it nuzzles the button, the electric shock stops.
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Not SyncedThe other dog doesn't have the button.
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Not SyncedIt's exposed to exactly the same level of pain as the dog in the first box,
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Not Syncedbut it has no control over the circumstances.
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Not SyncedGenerally the first dog can be relatively content.
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Not SyncedThe second dog lapses into complete depression.
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Not SyncedThe circumstances in our lives may actually matter less to our happiness.
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Not Syncedthan the sense of control we feel over our lives.
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Not SyncedIt's an interesting question.
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Not SyncedWe ask the question -- the whole debate in the Western world
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Not Syncedis about the level of taxation.
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Not SyncedBut I think there's another debate to be asked,
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Not Syncedwhich is the level of control we have over our tax money.
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Not SyncedThat what costs us 10 pounds in one context can be a curse.
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Not SyncedWhat costs us 10 pounds in a different context we may actually welcome.
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Not SyncedAnd pay 20,000 pounds in tax toward health
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Not Syncedand you're merely filling a mug.
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Not SyncedPay 20,000 pounds to endow a hospital ward
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Not Syncedand you're called a philanthropist.
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Not SyncedI'm probably in the wrong country to talk about willingness to pay tax.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedSo I'll give you one in return. How you frame things really matters.
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Not SyncedDo you call it the bailout of Greece
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Not Syncedor the bailout of a load of stupid banks which lent to Greece?
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Not SyncedBecause they are actually the same thing.
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Not SyncedWhat you call them actually affects
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Not Syncedhow you react to them, viscerally and morally.
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Not SyncedI think psychological value is great to be absolutely honest.
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Not SyncedOne of my great friends, a professor called Nick Chater,
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Not Syncedwho's the Professor of Decision Sciences in London,
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Not Syncedbelieves that we should spend far less time
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Not Syncedlooking into humanity's hidden depths
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Not Syncedand spend much more time exploring the hidden shallows.
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Not SyncedI think that's true actually.
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Not SyncedI think impressions have an insane effect
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Not Syncedon what we think and what we do.
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Not SyncedBut what we don't have is a really good model of human psychology.
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Not SyncedAt least pre-[unclear] perhaps,
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Not Syncedwe didn't have a really good model of human psychology
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Not Syncedto put alongside models of engineering, of neoclassical economics.
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Not SyncedSo people who believed in psychological solutions didn't have a model.
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Not SyncedWe didn't have a framework.
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Not SyncedThis is what Warren Buffett's business partner Charlie Munger calls
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Not Synced"A latticework on which to hang your ideas."
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Not SyncedEngineers, economists, classical economists
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Not Syncedall had a very, very robust existing latticework
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Not Syncedon which practically every idea could be hung.
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Not SyncedWe merely have a collection of random individual insights
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Not Syncedwithout no real model.
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Not SyncedAnd what that means is that in looking at solutions,
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Not Syncedwe've probably given too much priority
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Not Syncedto what I call technical engineering solutions, Newtonian solutions,
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Not Syncedand not nearly enough to the psychological ones.
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Not SyncedYou know my example of the Eurostar.
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Not SyncedSix million pounds spent to reduce the journey time
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Not Syncedbetween Paris and London by about 40 minutes.
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Not SyncedFor 0.01 percent of this money you could put WiFi on the trains,
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Not Syncedwhich wouldn't have reduced the duration of the journey,
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Not Syncedbut would have improved its enjoyment and its usefullness far more.
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Not SyncedFor maybe 10 percent of the money,
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Not Syncedyou could have paid all of the world's top male and female supermodels
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Not Syncedto walk up and down the train handing out free Chateau Petrus to all the passengers.
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Not SyncedYou'd still have five billion pounds in change,
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Not Syncedand people would ask for the trains to be slowed down.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedWhy were we not given the chance
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Not Syncedto solve that problem psychologically?
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Not SyncedI think It's because there's an imbalance, an asymmetry,
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Not Syncedin the way we treat creative, emotionally-driven psychological ideas
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Not Syncedversus the way we treat rational numerical spreadsheet-driven ideas.
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Not SyncedIf you're a crazy person, I think quite rightly,
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Not Syncedyou have to share all your ideas for approval
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Not Syncedwith people much more rational than you.
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Not SyncedYou have to go in and you have to have a cost-benefit analysis,
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Not Synceda feasibility study, an ROI study and so forth.
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Not SyncedAnd I think that's probably right.
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Not SyncedBut this does not apply the other way around.
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Not SyncedPeople who have an existing framework,
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Not Syncedan economic framework, an engineering framework,
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Not Syncedfeel that actually logic is its own answer.
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Not SyncedWhat they don't say is "Well the numbers all seem to add up,
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Not Syncedbut before I present this idea, I'll go and show it to some really crazy people
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Not Syncedto see if they can come up with something better."
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Not SyncedAnd so we, artificially I think, prioritize
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Not Syncedwhat I'd call mechanistic ideas over psychological ideas.
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Not SyncedAn example of a great psychological idea:
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Not SyncedThe single best improvement on customer satisfaction on the London Underground per pounds spent
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Not Syncedcame when they did add any extra trains or change the frequency of the trains,
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Not Syncedthey put dot matrix display board on the platforms.
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Not SyncedBecause the nature of the wait
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Not Syncedis not just dependent on its numerical quality, its duration,
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Not Syncedbut on the level of uncertainty you experience during that wait.
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Not SyncedWaiting seven minutes for a train with a countdown clock
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Not Syncedis less frustrating and irritating
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Not Syncedthan waiting four minutes, knuckle-biting
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Not Syncedgoing, "When's this train going to damn well arrive?"
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Not SyncedHere's a beautiful example of a psychological solution deployed in Korea.
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Not SyncedRed traffic lights have a countdown delay.
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Not SyncedIt's proven to reduce the accident rate in experiments.
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Not SyncedWhy? Because road rage, impatience and general irritation
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Not Syncedare massively reduced when you can actually see the time you have to wait.
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Not SyncedIn China, not really understanding the principle behind this,
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Not Syncedthey applied the principle to green traffic lights.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedWhich isn't a great idea.
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Not SyncedYou're 200 yards away, you realize you've got five seconds to go, you floor it.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedThe Koreans, very assiduously, did test both.
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Not SyncedThe accident rate goes down when you apply this to red traffic lights;
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Not Syncedit goes up when you apply it to green traffic lights.
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Not SyncedThis is all I'm asking for really in human decision making,
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Not Syncedis the consideration of these three things.
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Not SyncedI'm not asking for the complete primacy of one over the other.
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Not SyncedI'm merely saying that when you solve problems,
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Not Syncedyou should look at all three of these equally
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Not Syncedand you should seek as far as possible
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Not Syncedto find solutions which sit in the sweet spot in the middle.
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Not SyncedIf you actually look at a great business,
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Not Syncedyou'll nearly always see all of these three things coming into play.
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Not SyncedReally, really successful businesses --
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Not SyncedGoogle is great, great technological success,
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Not Syncedbut it's also based on a very good psychological insight:
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Not SyncedPeople believe something that only does one thing
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Not Syncedis better at that thing than something that does that thing and something else.
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Not SyncedIt's an innate thing called goal dilution.
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Not SyncedAyelet Fishbach has written a paper about this.
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Not SyncedEverybody else besides Google, more or less,
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Not Syncedwas trying to be a portal.
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Not SyncedYes, there's a search function,
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Not Syncedbut you also have weather, sports scores, bits of news.
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Not SyncedGoogle understood that if you're just a search engine,
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Not Syncedpeople assume you're a very, very good search engine.
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Not SyncedAll of you know this actually
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Not Syncedfrom when you go in to buy a television.
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Not SyncedAnd in the shabbier end of the row of flatscreen TV's
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Not Syncedyou can see are these rather despised things combined TV and DVD players.
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Not SyncedAnd we have know knowledge whatsoever of the quality of those things,
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Not Syncedbut we look at a combined TV and DVD player and we go "Uck.
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Not SyncedIt's probably a bit of a crap telly and a bit rubbish as a DVD player."
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Not SyncedSo we walk out of the shops with one of each.
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Not SyncedGoogle is as much a psychological success as it is a technological one.
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Not SyncedI propose that we can use psychology to solve problems
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Not Syncedthat we didn't even realize were problems at all.
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Not SyncedThis is my suggestion for getting people to finish their course of antibiotics.
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Not SyncedDon't give them 24 white pills.
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Not SyncedGive them 18 white pills and six blue ones
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Not Syncedand tell them to take the white pills first and then take the blue ones.
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Not SyncedIt's called chunking.
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Not SyncedThe likelihood that people will get to the end is much greater
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Not Syncedwhen there is a milestone somewhere in the middle.
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Not SyncedOne of the great mistakes, I think, of economics
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Not Syncedis it fails to understand that what something is,
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Not Syncedwhether it's retirement, unemployment, cost,
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Not Syncedis a function, not only of its amount, but also its meaning.
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Not SyncedThis is a toll crossing in Britain.
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Not SyncedQuite often queues happen at the tolls.
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Not SyncedSometimes you get very, very severe queues.
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Not SyncedYou could apply the same principle actually, if you like,
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Not Syncedto the security lanes in airports.
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Not SyncedWhat would happen if you could actually pay twice as much money to cross the bridge,
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Not Syncedbut go through a lane that's an express lane.
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Not SyncedIt's not an unreasonable thing to do. It's an economically efficient thing to do.
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Not SyncedTime means more to some people than others.
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Not SyncedIf you're waiting trying to get to a job interview,
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Not Syncedyou'd pay a couple of pounds more to go through the fast lane.
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Not SyncedIf you're on the way to visit your mother in-law,
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Not Syncedyou'd probably prefer to stay on the left.
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Not SyncedThe only problem is if you introduce this economically efficient solution,
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Not Syncedpeople hate it.
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Not SyncedBecause they think you're deliberately creating delays at the bridge
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Not Syncedin order to maximize your revenue,
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Not Syncedand "Why on earth should I pay to subsidize your imcompetence?"
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Not SyncedOn the other hand, change the frame slightly
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Not Syncedand create charitable yield management,
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Not Syncedso the extra money give goes not to the bridge company, it goes to charity,
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Not Syncedand the mental willingness to pay completely changes.
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Not SyncedYou have a relatively economic solution,
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Not Syncedbut one that actually meets with public approval
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Not Syncedand even a small degree of affection,
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Not Syncedrather than being seen as bastardy.
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Not SyncedSo where economists make the fundamental mistake
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Not Syncedis they think that money is money.
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Not SyncedActually my pain experienced in paying five pounds
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Not Syncedis not just proportionate to the amount,
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Not Syncedbut where I think that money is going.
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Not SyncedAnd I think understanding that could revolutionize tax policy.
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Not SyncedIt could revolutionize the public services.
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Not SyncedIt could really change things quite significantly.
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Not SyncedHere's a guy you all need to study.
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Not SyncedHe's an Austrian school economist
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Not Syncedwho was first active in the first half of the 20th century in Vienna.
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Not SyncedWhat was interesting about the Austrian school
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Not Syncedis they actually grew up alongside Freud.
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Not SyncedAnd so they're predominantly interested in psychology.
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Not SyncedThey believed that there was a discipline called praxeology,
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Not Syncedwhich is a prior discipline to the study of economics.
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Not SyncedPraxeology is the study of human choice, action and decision making.
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Not SyncedI think they're right.
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Not SyncedI think the danger we have in today's world
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Not Syncedis we have the study of economics
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Not Syncedconsiders itself to be a prior discipline to the study of human psychology.
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Not SyncedBut as Charlie Munger says, "If economics isn't behavioral,
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Not SyncedI don't know what the hell is."
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Not SyncedVon Mises interestingly believes economics is just a subset of psychology.
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Not SyncedI think he just refers to economics as
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Not Synced"The study of human praxeology under conditions of scarcity."
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Not SyncedBut von Mises, among many other things,
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Not SyncedI think uses an analogy which is probably the best justification and explanation
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Not Syncedfor the value of marketing, the value of perceived value
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Not Syncedand the fact that we should treat it as being absolutely equivalent
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Not Syncedto any other kind of value.
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Not SyncedWe tend to, all of us -- even those of us who work in marketing --
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Not Syncedto think of value in two ways.
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Not SyncedThere's the real value,
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Not Syncedwhich is when you make something in a factory and provide a service,
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Not Syncedand then there's a kind of dubious value,
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Not Syncedwhich you create by changing the way people look at things.
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Not SyncedVon Mises completely rejected this distinction.
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Not SyncedAnd he used this following analogy.
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Not SyncedHe referred actually to strange economists called the French Physiocrats
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Not Syncedwho believed that the only true value was what you extracted from the land.
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Not SyncedSo if you're a shepherd or a quarryman or a farmer,
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Not Syncedyou created true value.
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Not SyncedIf however, you bought some wool from the shepherd
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Not Syncedand charged a premium for converting it into a hat,
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Not Syncedyou weren't actually creating value,
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Not Syncedyou were exploiting the shepherd.
- Title:
- Perspective is everything
- Speaker:
- Rory Sutherland
- Description:
-
The circumstances of our lives may matter less than how we see them, says Rory Sutherland. At TEDxAthens, he makes a compelling case for how reframing is the key to happiness.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 18:24
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Camille Martínez commented on English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Jenny Zurawell commented on English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Perspective is everything | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Perspective is everything |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 4/20/2017. On-screen text ("[Ludwig Von Mises is my hero.]") was added at 12:56.