Tag: 1843

A Movie Review, A Question, and A Definition of Rationality

First, the movie review:

“Yeh buzdilon ki soch hai. Sach bolne waale ko agar dukh sahne ki himmat hai, toh dukh dene ki bhi himmat honi chahiye. Sachaai angaarey ki tarah hai – haath par rakho aur haath na jale, yeh kaise ho sakta hai?” (“Only cowards think like this. If the truth-teller has the courage to suffer pain, he must also have the courage to give pain to others. Truth is like a piece of burning coal on your hand.”)

Mukherjee’s film lets us see – not through didactic monologues but through the natural, graceful unfolding of its narrative – that such thoughts may be very noble in theory, but that they can be damaging and self-defeating in certain situations. This makes Satyakam a difficult film to watch, as it draws the viewer into a quicksand of uncertainty and despair. (I can sympathise with the boy who fell asleep in the hall next to Ranjit Kapoor, especially if he’d already had a long hard day!) Throughout, there are counterpoints to Satyapriya’s unalloyed idealism, as the film repeatedly places him – and us – in morally hazy situations.

https://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2011/04/mat-jaane-bhi-do-yaar-idealism-and-self.html

Second, the question.

The question comes from an excellent article that appeared recently in the 1843 magazine. The article is about RCT’s in general, and their development over time, but it is also about the place where RCT’s started and have continued to mushroom: Kenya. The context that you need to have for the question I am about to ask you is this excerpt:

Their [fieldworkers in RCT’s that is – Ashish] work is gruelling and often emotionally draining. They are paid a salary of $10-20 per day – not a fortune in Kenya. Field workers have been known to give their own money to recipients so that they can afford food, which can distort the outcome of a study. “When they got to the end of the month, they would just fabricate [the] data,” said Kingori, the sociologist. “The fact that these trials are designed in this way is setting them up to fail in real life. They are constantly being subverted by these field workers.” She told me of a case from a medical RCT in which a child died in one recipient family. A field worker agreed to substitute the family’s other child in the study, so that the household could continue to receive the treatment. Field workers told me that they’d heard stories of their peers filling in respondent surveys themselves, in order to hit their daily quotas. Many of these stories date from the early days of RCTs. Recently, IPA and similar organisations have improved their training and fraud detection. GiveDirectly told me that “data fraud and monetary fraud are…punished through contract termination.”

https://www.economist.com/1843/2024/03/01/how-poor-kenyans-became-economists-guinea-pigs

You are a fieldworker hired to do work for an RCT. You are not running the RCT, you are being paid to collect the data and submit it to the researchers. A family that is a part of this study loses a child. They beg you to not report this to the researchers, because then the family would no longer be a part of the RCT, and therefore would no longer be eligible to receive aid (receive treatment, in RCT lingo). Let’s say you choose to agree to their request. The RCT is screwed, but hey, at least the family will continue to receive help during a time of unimaginable distress.

Here’s my question: did you act rationally, or not?

Here’s a follow-up question for those of you who have formally studied microeconomics: according to the fundamental axioms of microeconomic theory, did you act rationally or not?

Third, the definition of rationality, as per microeconomics.

This definition is via Gemini (Google’ current name for it’s AI, although that may change by the time you read this, who knows):

“Here’s a breakdown of rationality as defined within the context of classical microeconomic theory:

Core Axioms of Rationality in Microeconomic Theory

Completeness: Individuals have well-defined preferences. When presented with any two options (bundles of goods, outcomes, etc.), they can express:

Preference for one over the other
Indifference between the two

Transitivity: If a consumer prefers A to B and B to C, then they must prefer A to C. This ensures consistency in preferences.

Utility Maximization: Individuals always strive to choose the option that gives them the highest level of utility (satisfaction, well-being). The concept of utility allows for comparison of different choices.

Self-Interest: Individuals are assumed to prioritize their own utility above that of others. This doesn’t necessarily imply selfishness, but rather that the individual’s well-being is their primary concern.

Implications of these Axioms

Predictability of Behavior: If we know an individual’s preferences and constraints (e.g., budget, availability of goods), and assume rationality, we can predict their choices.


Optimization: Rational individuals will allocate resources efficiently, always aiming to get the most value out of their choices given their constraints.


Responsiveness to Incentives: Changes in prices, income, or other constraints will lead rational individuals to adjust their behavior to maintain maximum utility.

Important Notes:

Narrow Definition: This definition of rationality is specific to microeconomic theory; it simplifies human behavior to make modeling and predictions easier.

Bounded Rationality: Real-life decision-making is impacted by imperfect information, limited cognitive capacity, and time pressure. The concept of bounded rationality acknowledges these limitations.


Ethics vs. Rationality: This rationality definition doesn’t address moral or ethical dimensions of choices. A “rational” choice could still be exploitative or harmful to others.”

Try taking stab at the question yourself. Then read what our new friends have to say about it. Here is Gemini’s considered opinion on the issue. Here is ChatGPT. Now that you’ve read their answers, see if you change yours!

Talk about it with your friends, with your professors, with your families.

And for homework, do watch Satyakaam. It is freely available on YouTube.

Etc: Links for 18th October, 2019

  1. “If I win, I’ll be 18,000 chips to 2,000 chips ahead. If Levitt wins, game over.”
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    Tim Harford plays poker with Steve Levitt. This was a very enjoyable read!
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  2. “And yet there is something about TikTok’s presence in mainstream culture — as a testing ground for “real” stars, as an Emmys joke about what the kids are into — that underestimates the power of the thing itself. It feels as if there are endless TikTok universes unfolding all at once. And so last week, over 48 hours, five critics of The New York Times with different specialties and varying familiarity with the app took a look at what it has to offer.”
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    The NYT profiles tiktok – we are clearly in peak tiktok territory now.
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  3. “During one such inspection in 1731, a British merchant captain named Robert Jenkins protested the intrusion, and in the ensuing scuffle the Spanish captain’s blade somehow separated Captain Jenkins from his left ear. This civilian injury was far from newsworthy back in Britain—after all, smuggling was a rough business. Eight years later, however, when Great Britain sought a pretext for war, it became politically expedient for British politicians to suffer outrage over this unauthorized amputation. Legend has it that Captain Robert Jenkins himself held aloft the very ear in question at a Parliamentary hearing, as evidence for the grave insult to the crown—though there is no historical proof that this exhibition actually occurred. Ear regardless, the outrage was successfully fabricated, and the resulting years of hostilities would come to be known as “The War of Jenkins’ Ear.””
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    11,000 words, but all of them fascinating. This is about a ill fated expedition through the Drake passage. Via The Browser.
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  4. “But the purpose of chronic pain, which scientists define as pain that lasts for more than three months after its initial cause, is more mysterious. The pain’s origin might be muscular-skeletal – the result of a fall, perhaps – or neuropathic, caused by damage to the nervous system. Or it might be a result of a long-term condition, such as fibromyalgia. Whichever way, it is a pain that has gone on beyond its expected life span and does not respond to medication. Often it is a discomfort that has become invisible and shifted shape, growing harder to understand the greater the distance from its original cause. A physiotherapist suggested to me that chronic pain was like a musician being given a piece of sheet music to play. The musician learns the music and when the music is taken away, she continues to play it. The body has learned the pain by heart.”
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    On the tragedy of, and a potential solution to, chronic pain.
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  5. The Madras Courier on a short history of the telephone.