A pattern this consistent is not a character flaw. It is a design feature, and design features can be worked with. None of this is new. Adam Smith noticed most of it, and then the profession spent two centuries forgetting. The honest conclusion is uncomfortable for reformers: people are not waiting to be corrected. The usual story is that we are careless calculators. The better story is that we are careful about the wrong things.
What the evidence shows
We describe the departure from the model as an error. We might equally describe the model as a hopeful guess about us. Nobody sets out to be governed by the long game, yet it shapes an astonishing share of the ordinary day. The lesson is modest. Build for the person who exists, not the one in the model. The mind that evolved for small groups and immediate dangers is now asked to manage a pension. It does its best.
