Status Quo Bias

A bias is not a sin. It is a habit of the eye. Status Quo Bias is one such habit, and we all have the prescription.

The bias is not stupidity; it is thrift. The mind evolved to decide quickly with little information, and it still runs that old software on a new machine. Most days the thrift serves us. Some days it quietly picks our pocket.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

At the polling booth, the queue is the one place the CEO and the driver stand at the same height. Whatever else one says about it, that hour is a small miracle of design.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. The idea has done its job if, the next time it happens to you, you smile before you react.