w00t! much joy! First time I score higher than average in my KI class!

One thing I recently read (ok I read very little so I make a big fuss about anything I read) was that the idea of rational behaviour in economics is a self-fulfiling prophecy. In behaviour tests, subjects who have studied economics are shown to be more self-centred than others who have not. Interesting. Perhaps if they have a before-and-after test it would be more conclusive.

If it is true that economics does make people more self-centred, that would be interesting to look at. Suppose a person who studied economics will become more self-centred, and he is "aware" that by studying economics, he would become more self-centred.

For this person, he may then have reservations about taking economics. The notion of being self-centred can be disturbing. To him, it would not be so much of a "realisation" that he is self-centred, but a transformation to become more self-centred. He might not want that. Hence, he might not take economics.

Yet, he may also be aware that by taking economics, he would become acquianted to the notion of being self-centred. So, whether he takes economics or not, he actually would not become relatively better-off or worse off. That statement was made, however, with the assumption that his becoming more self-centred or less would not make him better-off or worse-off, and that he was not already curious about economics.

It is too late to wonder if I should have learnt economics in the first place. Economics has changed me completely. I can longer think as I used to.