Adjustment Bureau

Tonight I want to do a short comment on the movie Adjustment Bureau.  The movie was adapted from a Philip K. Dick story called Adjustment Team.  Other movies that have been based on Philip K. Dick books are, Paycheck, Minority Report, Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Next.

Adjustment Bureau is one of the few movies I have seen recently that has a believable love story while relating information on the loss of free will and personal choice.  The movie portrays an adjustment to the way people think when they get off the planned course.  The movie makes you think (read my blog Thou shalt think) and perhaps wonder at the extent and length that the Adjustment Bureau might take to influence behavior to get the results or consequences that it is desired.  The important lesson from this movie (if one is looking) is the way to change the outcome is to change and not conform.  Many people today do not want to stand against the group even if they have to ignore the evidence of their own perceptions.  Not only are people lead to think certain ways by framing and priming but they are afraid to go against the majority thought.  Sunstein and Thaler argue in Nudge that "people will go along with the group even when they think, or know, that everyone else has blundered. Unanimous groups are able to provide the strongest nudges--even when the question is an easy one, and people ought to know that everyone else is wrong."  They further state that "a little nudge, if it is expressed confidently, can have a major consequence for the group's conclusion.  The clear lesson here is that consistent and unwavering people, in the private or public sector, can move groups and practices in their preferred direction."  That sounds like an adjustment bureau to me.