Eliminating Choice

In helping people to simplify life the choice architects want to make it easier for you by eliminating choice.  The easiest way to eliminate choice is to place the option they want you to chose as the default option.  Sunstein and Thaler in Nudge report that due to inertia (inactivity, sluggishness) in humans (Homers) it is important to set an easy button.  The way to accomplish this is through the default option of a given choice that "there is a default option, an option that will be obtained if the chooser does nothing, then we can expect a large number of people to end up with that option, whether or not it is good for them" (2008).  They continue to argue that it is noted through behaviorist that the tendency to do nothing can be enhanced if the default option is stated as representing the "normal or recommended course of action."

Public and private organizations know and use the powerful default option.  Sunstein and Thaler say it is like a "dead man switch" on lawn mowers.  (I believe we are the dead man in this scenario, if we continue to do nothing)  Sunstein and Thaler believe that "required choice is favored by many who like freedom, as the best way to go."  Thus, humans (also known as Homers) "prefer to have a good default...when choice is complicated and difficult."  This is a built-in Homer proof choice that isn't really a choice as it has been chosen for you.  But it does require that you do nothing.  That is your freedom of choice.  Because if you choose the default option the decision is already made for you by the choice architects.  Thus, by eliminating choice and by doing nothing you are chosing, by default.