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Given that it's been somewhat in the spotlight of late, it's maybe not surprising that I tend to ruminate a lot on research on how much of human behavior is shaped by our environment. This is far from a new question, as the nature vs. nurture debate is recorded all the way back to ancient Greece and likely goes back even further than that, but it's particularly interesting in American culture specifically because we have so much investment in the cultural myth of rugged individualism. Like most cultural myths, this has both positive connotations ("You can achieve anything with hard work and persistence!") and negative ones ("...so if you're poor it must be because you're lazy and refuse to work, it can't possibly be because the system's stacked against you in some way"); either way, neither are quite true, and there's an increasing amount of research lately on how human behavior en masse is far more influenced by systematic incentives than we like to admit.
To zoom in from the bigger picture for a moment, this has been playing out in my own life in an interesting way the past few months. Y'all might remember that I was particularly proud last summer of how much I'd been traveling by bicycle, including a ten-plus-mile roundtrip commute a couple of times a week. Not only was it healthier for me than driving as well as cheaper and more convenient than transit, it was also more eco-friendly, all variables that I care about significantly. As winter rolled around, there were definitely times I was more likely to drive (through some trial and error I've discovered that below-freezing temperatures just aren't worth it to bike through, even if the roads are clear), though sometimes I would take transit instead as a convenient middle ground.
Then, a couple of months ago, Brian and I had our bikes stolen. This sucked, especially as the police do very little other than file the report when you call it in; they've got bigger fish to fry. Luckily, we had insurance and documentation; I filed a claim for the bikes and equipment and they paid out with very little trouble. However, since they no longer make the models Brian and I had before, purchasing a new bike involves some effort in terms of traveling to shops and test-riding different models; due to our somewhat crazy schedules and the time of year, it's been difficult to find time where we're not busy and the weather is cycling-friendly.
Unsurprisingly, this has changed my incentive calculus significantly. Technically I still have a bike, but in addition to needing maintenance, my old beater is too small for me and gives me knee pain, making it distinctly unfun to ride long distances. And since we were riding our bikes so much last summer, I canceled Brian's and my monthly transit passes, saving us $200 a month but also creating an additional disincentive to use transit rather than drive—transit is already less convenient due to the time involved and potential delays, and now that it costs $5 extra for each round trip I'm more likely to just use the car I'm already paying for (unless we're going somewhere like downtown where parking is difficult). Needless to say, I've been driving a lot more over the past couple of months...something I'm not terribly pleased about, but given that transit is more expensive, more annoying, and sometimes unavailable for my commutes, it's the least worst answer personally. The most damning part of it all: it's also the worst possible outcome for the greatest number of people (since I'm contributing much more carbon to the atmosphere), but the surrounding culture is structured in such a way that it's easy to rationalize.
It's situations like this that make me wonder if we're even going to be able to tackle systemic issues like overcrowding and climate change in the future—if we're already this invested in infrastructure for one system, how can we transition to a different one? One friend of mine, an anti-car Nazi (his description), proposes radical structural changes like banning cars from city centers or removing their privileged status on roads, thus slowing traffic and incentivizing the construction of transit, but I doubt such top-down measures are likely to find consensus when they'd greatly inconvenience so many people in the interim. How do we get to the point where the incentives change when we can't be bothered to deal with a little personal inconvenience?
To zoom in from the bigger picture for a moment, this has been playing out in my own life in an interesting way the past few months. Y'all might remember that I was particularly proud last summer of how much I'd been traveling by bicycle, including a ten-plus-mile roundtrip commute a couple of times a week. Not only was it healthier for me than driving as well as cheaper and more convenient than transit, it was also more eco-friendly, all variables that I care about significantly. As winter rolled around, there were definitely times I was more likely to drive (through some trial and error I've discovered that below-freezing temperatures just aren't worth it to bike through, even if the roads are clear), though sometimes I would take transit instead as a convenient middle ground.
Then, a couple of months ago, Brian and I had our bikes stolen. This sucked, especially as the police do very little other than file the report when you call it in; they've got bigger fish to fry. Luckily, we had insurance and documentation; I filed a claim for the bikes and equipment and they paid out with very little trouble. However, since they no longer make the models Brian and I had before, purchasing a new bike involves some effort in terms of traveling to shops and test-riding different models; due to our somewhat crazy schedules and the time of year, it's been difficult to find time where we're not busy and the weather is cycling-friendly.
Unsurprisingly, this has changed my incentive calculus significantly. Technically I still have a bike, but in addition to needing maintenance, my old beater is too small for me and gives me knee pain, making it distinctly unfun to ride long distances. And since we were riding our bikes so much last summer, I canceled Brian's and my monthly transit passes, saving us $200 a month but also creating an additional disincentive to use transit rather than drive—transit is already less convenient due to the time involved and potential delays, and now that it costs $5 extra for each round trip I'm more likely to just use the car I'm already paying for (unless we're going somewhere like downtown where parking is difficult). Needless to say, I've been driving a lot more over the past couple of months...something I'm not terribly pleased about, but given that transit is more expensive, more annoying, and sometimes unavailable for my commutes, it's the least worst answer personally. The most damning part of it all: it's also the worst possible outcome for the greatest number of people (since I'm contributing much more carbon to the atmosphere), but the surrounding culture is structured in such a way that it's easy to rationalize.
It's situations like this that make me wonder if we're even going to be able to tackle systemic issues like overcrowding and climate change in the future—if we're already this invested in infrastructure for one system, how can we transition to a different one? One friend of mine, an anti-car Nazi (his description), proposes radical structural changes like banning cars from city centers or removing their privileged status on roads, thus slowing traffic and incentivizing the construction of transit, but I doubt such top-down measures are likely to find consensus when they'd greatly inconvenience so many people in the interim. How do we get to the point where the incentives change when we can't be bothered to deal with a little personal inconvenience?
