Cass Sunstein Famous Quotes & Sayings
100 Cass Sunstein Famous Sayings, Quotes and Quotation.
Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtesy in the world, which is best handled through social norms, which are indispensable. But you wouldn't want the government to be mandating courtesy.— Cass Sunstein
When I was an academic, I'd sometimes get a little feeling of excitement when I had an idea that was, I hoped, fresh. And whether anyone should act on that idea is a very different question.— Cass Sunstein
How about 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7? Think about it for a minute. That approach has the advantage of giving you "I am your father," and of starting with the mysteries of the two best, while treating the prequels as kind of a flashback (as you're also focused on the cliffhanger ending of 5). Then you get to wrap everything up with the real finale, and the best, before the third trilogy starts. Not a bad idea at all. A— Cass R. Sunstein
Game Of Thrones is arguably the hottest thing on television.— Cass Sunstein
The middle class is not doing well, and trade policy might have something to do with that, and so someone who is going to be fixated on those things, who has a business background, has some appeal.— Cass Sunstein
It might also count as an insult to dignity, and a form of infantilization, if the government constantly reminds people of things that they already know.— Cass R. Sunstein
In 1960, just 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said that they would feel "displeased" if their child married outside their political party.5 By 2010, those numbers had reached 49 and 33 percent, respectively - far higher than the percentage of people who would be "displeased" if their child married someone with a different skin color.— Cass R. Sunstein
Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law.— Cass Sunstein
I'm interested in how the Internet spreads information.— Cass Sunstein
And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it.— Cass Sunstein
I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.— Cass Sunstein
So, I subscribe to the following reading: Star Wars is an essentially Christian tale.— Cass Sunstein
If I may discuss the idea of explosion. The number of regulations issued in the last two years is approximately the same as the number issued in the last two years of the Bush administration.— Cass Sunstein
There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft.— Cass Sunstein
The 'cash for clunkers' program was a big success in part because it gave people the sense that the economy was moving.— Cass Sunstein
Great works - and I think Star Wars is a great work - are easily susceptible to multiple plausible interpretations. Some of them are pretty nutty, but the idea that we should see it as profoundly feminist, or as a deeply Christian tale, or as a Freudian exercise ... I think all of those have some truth.— Cass Sunstein
If there's a regulation that's saving 10,000 lives and costing one job, it's worth it.— Cass Sunstein
Those who believe in climate change, as I do, I think it's also fair to say that they are more receptive to confirming evidence than disconfirming evidence. They happen to be right, but their motivations are in play also.— Cass Sunstein
Democrats want to use government power to make people's lives go better; Republicans respond that people know more than politicians do. We think that both might be able to agree that nudging can maintain free markets, and liberty, while also inclining people in good directions.— Cass Sunstein
Somewhat more broadly, I will suggest that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law.— Cass Sunstein
My own view is that institutions are a glory, and for all their imperfections, something really to be proud of. It is true that things can be a lot better than they are. It's okay to emphasize that.— Cass Sunstein
Faust seems to have exerted a big influence on Star Wars. You know, the "give up your soul for immortality" or something.— Cass Sunstein
A lot of people are focused on climate change as a defining challenge of our time. A lot of people think it is a non-problem, at least in the United States.— Cass Sunstein
Some of the Hulk movies have been merely okay. I think the thing to do ... there has to be some stab that makes it something we haven't seen before.— Cass Sunstein
Today, we are announcing that agencies are releasing their final regulatory reform plans, including hundreds of initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency.— Cass Sunstein
The fear of loss is an engine of horrors, but also a source of the greatest forms of heroism. There's not a lot of art that puts that in bold letters. It's psychologically very interesting and acute, I think. That's not the central reading, I think, of the New Testament.— Cass Sunstein
They suggest that with respect to facts, partisan differences are much less sharp than they seem - and that political polarization is often an artifact of the survey setting.— Cass R. Sunstein
Do people know which risks lead to many deaths and which risks lead to few?" the legal scholar Cass Sunstein asks. "They do not. In fact, they make huge blunders." Sunstein draws this observation from the work of Paul Slovic, author of The Perception of Risk.— Eula Biss
How do things, whether they are movies, or plays, Hamilton, or people, ideas - how do they become transformative or iconic? That is in some ways what the actual Star Wars saga gets at, with the tale of the rise and the fall of the empire and the rise and the fall of Republics.— Cass Sunstein
I think that every state in the union should recognize same-sex marriage.— Cass Sunstein
Without shared experiences, a heterogeneous society will have a much more difficult time addressing social problems. People may even find it hard to understand one another. Common experiences, emphatically including the common experiences made possible by social media, provide a form of social glue. A national holiday is a shared experience. So is a major sports event (the Olympics or the World Cup), or a movie that transcends individual and group differences (Star Wars is a candidate). So— Cass R. Sunstein
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with.— Cass R. Sunstein
The U.S. is blessed with tremendously creative and imaginative law students at places like Chicago, Harvard, Columbia and Yale.— Cass Sunstein
Well, I've liked Star Wars since the late '70s. I liked it a lot.— Cass Sunstein
The sky is always falling or the sky is always bright. In some ways, this is really morning in America and we don't see it. People are living longer, the economy is doing pretty well. On the other hand, there are some ways of thinking in the current situation that make it look not so good, including our Star Wars prequels - like legislature, meaning they're talking a lot, not doing a lot.— Cass Sunstein
If you have a regulation that's going to save hundreds of thousands of lives annually and not cost very much, that sounds like a very good idea.— Cass Sunstein
The idea that Taylor Swift would become the giant pop icon of 2015, 2016 - she's really good, but I don't think it's written in the stars.— Cass Sunstein
Star Wars and Star Trek are good in different ways, and in fairness, you can't really rank them. But Star Wars is better. "YOUR— Cass R. Sunstein
We might have new issues involving information technology for example, or new questions arising out of the war on terror, or new issues arising from natural disasters that can't be anticipated.— Cass Sunstein
We often see a temper of the times connection, and it's just like a fairy tale. It's not true.— Cass Sunstein
AWAY OF EASING THE BURDEN THAT FREEDOM OF CHOICE IMPOSES IS to make decisions about when to make decisions. These are what Cass Sunstein and Edna Ullmann-Margalit call second-order decisions. One kind of second-order decision is the decision to follow a rule.— Barry Schwartz
The multiple failures of top-down design, and the omnipresence of unintended consequences, can be attributed in large part, to the absence of relevant information.— Cass R. Sunstein
There are bursts of things like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or same-sex marriage that change very much what we thought we were all about.— Cass Sunstein
Multiple international bodies have specified that the absence of scientific evidence of potential damage is not sufficient justification for taking risks. As the jurist Cass Sunstein points out, the precautionary principle is costly, and when interpreted strictly it can be paralyzing.— Daniel Kahneman
Partyism certainly isn't as horrible as racism; no one is enslaved or turned into a lower caste. But according to some measures, partyism now exceeds racism. In— Cass R. Sunstein
Do not be misled by expert bravado or by an expert's own sense of how he or she is doing. Evidence is a much better guide than an impressive self-presentation.— Cass R. Sunstein
If we understand "rights" to be legal protection against harm, then many animals already do have rights, and the idea of animal rights is not terribly controversial.— Cass R. Sunstein
Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them.— Cass Sunstein
We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn't a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It's time now.— Cass Sunstein
I dealt with people with diverse political views. If you find people who are your political opponents, and talk to them for an hour, chances are you're going to like them, and they're not full of hate.— Cass Sunstein
There's a big difference between the role of an academic and the role of someone in government. That's a cliche, but in academic life if you say things that are common sense and people nod their heads, it's not very useful. You're not adding anything.— Cass Sunstein
People are more likely to object to nudges that appeal to unconscious or subconscious processes.— Cass R. Sunstein
The opening scene in A New Hope, when you see the huge ship, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on ... that is like a joke of awesomeness.— Cass Sunstein
Do musical preferences predict political inclinations? Not long ago, an official with Pandora said that its predictions about those inclinations, based on zip code as well as musical choices, are between 75 and 80 percent accurate. And with that level of accuracy, it developed an advertising service "that would enable candidates and political organizations to target the majority of its 73 million active monthly Pandora listeners based on its sense of their political leanings.— Cass R. Sunstein
A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.— Cass Sunstein
It seems reasonable to say that people make good choices in contexts in which they have experience, god information, and prompt feedback - say, choosing among ice cream flavors. People know whether they like chocolate, vanilla, coffee, licorice, or something else. They do less well in contexts in which they are inexperienced and poorly informed, and in which feedback is slow or infrequent - say, in choosing between fruit and ice cream (where the long-term effects are slow and feedback is poor) or in choosing among medical treatments or investment options. If you are given fifty prescription drug plans, with multiple and varying features, you might benefit from a little help. So long as people are not choosing perfectly, some changes in the choice architecture could make their lives go better (as judged by their own preferences, not those of some bureaucrat).— Cass R. Sunstein
I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.— Cass Sunstein
If you go to Cass Sunstein, what net neutrality means is now if you go to FoxNews, you will have Arianna Huffington, a little box pop up with her showing that "Bill O'Reilly is wrong on this" or "here's an opposing view of Bill O'Reilly".— Glenn Beck
It's hard to get me out of the office.— Cass Sunstein
By itself, partyism is not the most serious threat to democratic self-government. But if it decreases government's ability to solve serious problems, then it has concrete and potentially catastrophic consequences for people's lives. I— Cass R. Sunstein
Social scientists emphasize that people use the "availability heuristic," which means that we assess risks by asking whether a bad (or good) event is cognitively "available." It— Cass R. Sunstein
We can believe in hierarchy. We can believe the universe was made just for us. Hierarchy and a major sense of entitlement are not insurmountable problems. The problem occurs when we treat those whom we believe lie beneath us as slaves. Religion once sustained human slavery. It was wrong then. When it blindly sanctions the slavery of every nonhuman animal, it is wrong now.— Cass R. Sunstein
I think it may be that the fans of your least-favorite political candidate, whoever it is, are much more likable and light-side types than you might think going in. One way to reach them is to talk about Star Wars.— Cass Sunstein
Covertly influencing decision processes such as that the resulting decision is aligned with higher-order desires may actually enhance autonomy.— Cass R. Sunstein
Those subject to capital punishment are real human beings, with their own backgrounds and narratives. By contrast, those whose lives are or might be saved by virtue of capital punishment are mere 'statistical people.' They are both nameless and faceless, and their deaths are far less likely to be considered in moral deliberations.— Cass Sunstein
Groups become more extreme and entrenched in their beliefs and polarized from others when members only exchange information that reinforces their views and filter out all else or never learn of alternatives. Thus they narrow their options, and magnify each other's prejudices and misconceptions. This trend leads to blind spots in decision making and to extreme behavior, even terrorism.— Cass Sunstein
A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.— Cass Sunstein
Economists suggest that we should assess the value of decisions in terms of two considerations: the costs of decisions and the costs of errors.— Cass R. Sunstein
Probably, if we looked at Da Vinci or Michelangelo with care, we'd see a historical particularity that the work is not treated as having. It's certainly true of Shakespeare.— Cass Sunstein
Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.— Cass Sunstein
There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day.— Cass Sunstein
I'm also a big Bob Dylan fan. The songs on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - which is one of his best early albums - they grow out of some of his difficulties with Suze Rotolo, and "Hard Rain," people say it had to do with the Cuban missile crisis - probably not. He denied it. I believe him, but it certainly had to do with the time.— Cass Sunstein
If Star Wars had been released in the late '60s, or late '80s, or late '90s, adjusting for technology, it fits spectacularly well.— Cass Sunstein
I am proud to say that the Federalist Society was founded in part at the University of Chicago, and one of its best characteristics has been an attack on liberal shibboleths by looking at real consequences and specific problems and by asking what law actually does.— Cass Sunstein
There is widespread support for nudges that are taken to have legitimate ends and to be consistent with the interests and the values of most choosers.— Cass R. Sunstein
I love The Matrix, especially the first one.— Cass Sunstein
I got into the genesis of Star Wars, and the tale seemed to me endlessly fascinating.— Cass Sunstein
Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument.— Cass Sunstein
Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.— Cass Sunstein
There is a new wave of interest in exploring how to frame choices so that people make better decisions. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, professors of economics and law, respectively, teamed up to write Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, which advocates using defaults to nudge us to make better choices.9 Even when we are choosing in our own interests, we often choose unwisely. When employees have the option of participating in a retirement-savings scheme, many do not, despite the financial advantages of doing so. If their employer instead automatically enrolls them, giving them the choice of opting out, participation jumps dramatically— Peter Singer
This part of the 21st century is preoccupied with risk, and there's a lot that law can do to make lives longer and healthier.— Cass Sunstein
There is another problem. Echo chambers can lead people to believe in falsehoods, and it may be difficult or impossible to correct them. Falsehoods take a toll. One illustration is the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. As falsehoods go, this one is not the most damaging, but it both reflected and contributed to a politics of suspicion, distrust, and sometimes hatred. A— Cass R. Sunstein
It's very common to say that Star Wars in the late '70s, that was kind of perfect for Cold War culture and the aftermath of Vietnam in the '60s to have an upbeat, hopeful, cartoonish tale of a hero's journey. I think those explanations are easy to offer and almost always wrong.— Cass Sunstein
I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense.— Cass Sunstein
I would reject the distinction between a Keynesian moment and a behavioral moment.— Cass Sunstein
It's deeply human to do both the worst things and the best things because of your fear of loss.— Cass Sunstein
We are blind to the fact that what we do to them deprives them of their rights; we do not want to see this because we profit from it, and so we make use of what are really morally irrelevant differences between them and ourselves to justify the difference in treatment.— Cass R. Sunstein
People are moderately more likely to favor approaches that involve reflection and deliberation.— Cass R. Sunstein
I am a huge Red Sox fan.— Cass Sunstein
If government is to respect people's autonomy, or to treat them with dignity, it should not deprive them of freedom. It should treat them as adults, rather than children or infants.— Cass R. Sunstein
Janis believed that groups are especially likely to suffer from groupthink if they are cohesive, have highly directive leadership, and are insulated from experts.— Cass R. Sunstein
On reflection, some things do super well because they hit with the time. Some things do super well because they are able to activate a kind of echo chamber or bandwagon or cascade - they didn't particularly hit with the time. Some things are just too astonishingly good to not hit the top. Those three explanations, with respect to the Star Wars phenomenon, seem to me all to pass the plausibility test, and to explore them, with respect to Star Wars, I think casts light not just on the saga of our time, but also on everything about our culture.— Cass Sunstein
Emotions can get in the way of truth-seeking. People do not process information in a neutral way.— Cass R. Sunstein
Thinking, Fast and Slow, mentioned above, and Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. One of the handful of books that provides advice on making decisions better is Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which was written for "choice architects" in business and government who construct decision systems such as retirement plans or organ-donation policies. It has been used to improve government policies in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries.— Chip Heath
So, you could often say things are terrible and that accounts for what happened, or things are really bright, and that accounts for what happened. Often, the real explanation for what happened is much more subtle and interesting and involves maybe small shocks or what a couple people did on a Wednesday morning that changed the arc of history.— Cass Sunstein
I started to read as obsessively about Star Wars as I once did about Kant - and still do about behavioral economics and behavioral psychology.— Cass Sunstein
My role in the government was not to think about narratives and consistency with narratives, but think of the human consequences of rules.— Cass Sunstein
I'll tell you an explanation that I find commonly overrated and speculative in the extreme: the idea that things that succeed in popular culture do that because they hit the temper of the times.— Cass Sunstein
If manipulation really does increase welfare, then it would seem to be justified and even mandatory on ethical grounds.— Cass R. Sunstein
There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause.— Cass Sunstein
