However, that's been fading fast, as Daisy has documented, and as though speech restrictions aren't bad enough, most of us have been lab rats for central planners' behavioral experiments longer than we probably care to realize.  And now there are Nudge Units.

Huge amounts of money have been poured into "nudge research," determining the best ways to get populations to change their behaviors without passing laws or using force.

What are Nudge Units?

Let's look at how these "Nudge Units" got started, what they've been used for most recently, and what they're likely to focus on next.

The concept of "nudging" people into making better choices became popular with the book Nudge—Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, authored by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and published in 2008. Their book defines a nudge as:

. . .any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people's behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.  To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid.  Nudges are not mandates.  Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge.  Banning junk food does not.  (p.6) 

(You may be interested to note that author Sunstein is married to Samantha Power, the administrator of Biden's US Agency for International Development and previously Obama's ambassador to the UN. Forbes listed Ms. Power as the 63rd most powerful woman in the world in 2014. Do you think she's Nudging? ~ Daisy )