Scientific Definition
Politicians optimize for the next election, not the next generation.
Plain-English Definition
Politicians optimize for the next election, not the next generation.
Feynman Explanation
Time horizons compress to whatever fits on a campaign bumper sticker.
Core Principle
Politicians optimize for the next election, not the next generation.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Politicians optimize for the next election, not the next generation.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Public capital allocation shaped by 2-, 4-, and 6-year cycles.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Time horizons compress to whatever fits on a campaign bumper sticker.
Examples
- Infrastructure under-invested for tax cuts that poll well in October.
- Public capital allocation shaped by 2-, 4-, and 6-year cycles.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Independent long-term planning bodies. Multi-cycle binding commitments.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Independent long-term planning bodies. Multi-cycle binding commitments.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Per-bushel subsidies reward overproduction of specific crops regardless of soil, market, or nutritional need.
Federal oversight intended to protect tribal assets creates friction that devalues the land.
Candidates dependent on large donors become structurally responsive to donor priorities over voter priorities.
High-velocity quotas for enumerators turn data collection into fiction-writing.
Forcing exhaustion of annual research budgets pushes agencies to fund speculative work for baseline protection.
Generous post-disaster aid lowers the political cost of skipping preventive infrastructure investment.
Aggressive enforcement and complex eligibility turn a safety net into a liability trap.
Subsidized rural flight frequency forces fuel-burning empty flights to secure annual payouts.
Subsidizing coastal living and freezing flood maps treats catastrophic risk as a public liability.
Federal funds subsidize new lanes while states absorb perpetual maintenance.
Federal policy forces homeowners to rebuild doomed structures while waiting on mitigation buyouts.
Tying utility profit to capital spent penalizes cheaper non-wire efficiency solutions.