I’m an adult. Stop nudging me.

Building on yesterday's posting, it appears the same phenomena is occurring in Toronto [one of my favorite cities; you should visit it sometime, just not in the winter].

Nudge theory is the offspring of behavioural economics, which explains why people don’t always act like rational animals, and it’s hot, hot, hot. Governments all over are figuring out how to nudge us into being better people. Prof. Sunstein has advised Barack Obama’s government. Prof. Thaler has advised British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has has set up a behavioural insights team, also known as the Nudge Unit. This team has been busy figuring out how to get people to sign up for organ donation, to pay their taxes on time and to insulate their attics, among other worthy efforts. In a TED talk shortly before he took office, Mr. Cameron explained how knowledge of human behaviour was part of his vision for a “new age of government.”

Maybe you think all this is a great breakthrough in social policy-making. Or maybe you think there’s something faintly creepy about a behavioural insights team. If it’s the latter, I’m with you.