The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that memory is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else. A better account of memory would begin with the ordinary case rather than the laboratory one. Every one of us runs the same shortcut, and every one of us believes we are the exception. Notice how rarely anyone is argued out of the long game, and how often they are simply moved past it by a change in circumstance.
A better question
None of this is new. Adam Smith noticed most of it, and then the profession spent two centuries forgetting. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. A pattern this consistent is not a character flaw. It is a design feature, and design features can be worked with. The measure that matters is not what people say about memory but what they do when nobody is scoring.
The usual story is that we are careless calculators. The better story is that we are careful about the wrong things. The remedy is rarely exhortation. It is a change to the situation so that the easier choice is also the better one. What looks like memory from the outside is usually something simpler from the inside: tiredness, a deadline, a wish not to look foolish. The mind that evolved for small groups and immediate dangers is now asked to manage a pension. It does its best.
