[6502nerdface]

I used to work at Two Sigma Investments, and back in 2012-2014 or so, after the publication of his "irrationality" books (before the ones about dishonesty), Dan Ariely gave a well-attended talk at the company headquarters (I wonder what his speaking fee was!).

I remember thinking even then that there was something off about his arguments, and I'm not surprised that he has since been exposed as a likely fraud. For example, throughout his talk, he kept making the point that when someone made a self-serving claim or argument, he would "hold on to his wallet," making an analogy to pickpockets. He then concluded his talk with a transparently self-serving argument that the importance of studying irrationality was growing over time because (as just one example, I suppose), the share of deaths attributed to preventable causes (self-inflicted, etc.) was increasing over the decades, making it sound like society is becoming more irrational. This seemed very weak to me, because that's exactly what you would expect if civilization is making progress over time... if science and technology keep eliminating the exogenous causes of death, over time we should be left with just the endogenous ones. Anyway, I thought of raising my hand to ask if I should reach for my own wallet, but was too young and nervous.

[tycho-newman]

I, too, saw through Dan Ariely's dog and pony show. I just didn't want to bring it up because people would think I was just showing off my clearly superior intellect.