Thaler & Imas Confirm Behavioral Economists Are Not Men In Black

It appears the world can now collectively exhale. Esteemed Nobel Laureate Professor Richard Thaler and his colleague have, with groundbreaking candor, confirmed what many of us apparently suspected but dared not articulate: they are, in fact, not secret government agents tasked with policing extraterrestrial life. This earth-shattering revelation, emanating from the hallowed halls of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, puts to rest the pervasive whisper that the architects of Nudge Theory were merely using their insights into human irrationality to better track rogue aliens.

The disappointment among those who truly believed this may be palpable, yet the relief for the rest of us is immense. One can only imagine the sheer administrative nightmare of balancing professorial duties with covert operations. Furthermore, the notion that agents capable of wiping memories with a Neuralyzer would instead choose to subtly influence our purchasing habits via default options is, frankly, an inefficient use of alien technology. Perhaps the true horror, for adherents of Behavioral Economics, is that their preferred outcomes are achieved not with a flashy device, but by exploiting the very quirks of human psychology, without any need for intergalactic diplomacy.