Thoughts

Random thoughts I have had. Not a blog, maybe like a one-page Twitter feed?

Incentives

Posted 2026-11-12

I sometimes notice that some people haven’t internalized the idea that incentives affect us constantly, not just in clearly defined economic scenarios. Crime, for example, is rife with incentive structures. Societies don’t just exist in certain ways because their citizens are naturally predisposed to particular behaviors. Incentives reinforce those behaviors so that, while they may also become habitual, they carry forward across distance and through different contexts. If the incentives change, the behaviors will change as well; slowly at first, and then perhaps more quickly.