Episode Details
Back to Episodes“Chocolate Sloths, Tinder, and Moral Backstops” by J Bostock
Description
My grandma has a poor understanding of moral hazard, when it comes to buying me 155g chocolate sloths.
Moral hazard is a concept in political economy which refers to the dangers of incentivising people to behave badly. Classic examples include opening casinos (which makes people gamble away their money) preventing evictions for non-payment of rent (which makes people not pay their rent, which makes their situation even worse in the long run) and state-sponsored insurance for disasters (which makes people build houses out of plasterboard on land two-inches above the tideline in a hurricane zone)
Florida, from Google Earth. Come on man, you gotta be kidding me.
Another example of moral hazard is buying me a 155g chocolate sloth for easter. Doing so dramatically increases the probability that I'll eat an entire 155g chocolate sloth in one sitting, something I would---on reflection---rather not do.
Now at the end of the day, one 155g chocolate sloth per year isn't too bad. It would be much worse if I set up my Samsung Galaxy 5b Smart Cupboard (paid subscription to go ad-free)[1] to order a new 155g chocolate sloth every single time I finished one (in one sitting). If every time [...]
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Outline:
(01:51) Example: Dating Apps
(03:23) Moral Backstops
The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.
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First published:
April 10th, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/F3n6r5FabA7cf8Sin/chocolate-sloths-tinder-and-moral-backstops
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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