The Chesterton Fence

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We're evolved to have what you might call emotion or intuition. Emotions are a chesterton fence, and we need to give it credit as being an input to the way that we should decide. An infant can recognize its mother in a immediately, and witht within a few days. It will nurse more energetically when it sees its mother face,. regardless of who it's no seen from. This kind of huristic recognition is a some people do a lot better than most computers, and it is evolved through millennia over ato preserve us.

Waze and Google Maps tell us the best way to get to where we're going. But no app or algorithm can tell us whether we should head there in the first place. To economist Russ Roberts, the reason is simple: Humans are dynamic and aspirational beings. When it comes to making life's big decisions, from what to study to whom to marry or whether to have a child, it's not always us doing the deciding, he argues, but rather the people we want to be. Join the host of EconTalk, the president of Shalem College, and the author of the new book Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions that Define Us, as he speaks with friend and EconTalk favorite Michael Munger about why the traditional economic models for decision making can lead us astray--and why life should be less about solving problems than embracing possibilities.