Koen Smets – Medium

Koen Smets

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Best of Koenfucius 2023

My 10 most read posts of the past year

Jan 4, 2024

Best of Koenfucius 2023

Jan 4, 2024

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We are all economists

Mainstream and behavioural economics are two sides of the same coin

Jun 3, 2016

We are all economists

Jun 3, 2016

The ‘Anything but this’ trap

Whether leaving the EU was a good or a bad decision always was — and remains — a matter of preference. But the decision-making process to…

4d ago

An old EU-style British passport (crossed out)

4d ago

A dramatic wedding — when joy and grief collide

An unexpected tragic event reveals the essence of decision making

Jan 31

The church of St Teilo in Bishopston

Jan 31

The trouble with the truth

Meta’s abandonment of fact-checking for community notes exposes an uncomfortable truth about ourselves

Jan 24

The trouble with the truth

Jan 24

Why the familiar feels safer (even when it isn’t)

The way we resort to double standards when judging the risks of what is novel against what is current can be an obstacle to genuine…

Jan 17

A Waymo self-driving car in traffic

Jan 17

Why making ourselves worse off feels so good — dissecting the boycott paradox

The latest Twexit wave (numerous users leaving the social media platform still known to many as Twitter) is, in essence, a form of…

Jan 10

A demonstration for te boycott of South African oranges in 1970s the Netherlands

Jan 10

The binary trap

One of the toughest obstacles to a good understanding of the world and the people in it is our propensity for to binary thinking. What if…

Jan 3

A yin-yang symbol with, instead of clear black and white areas, intricate patterns of black, white and grey

Jan 3

The moral arithmetic of everyday choices

Trade-offs can be challenging, but when morals get involved, they’re in a different league — yet we make them all the time (and reveal our…

Dec 20, 2024

Jeff Bezos’ superyacht Koru

Dec 20, 2024

Two kinds of beliefs

Beliefs are the scaffolding of understanding, and they inform, at least in part, almost every decision we make. But they come in two very…

Dec 13, 2024

An aerial view of Barcelona, showing the rigid, uncompromising design of the newer parts of the town, alongside the fluid, idiosyncratic nature of the old town

Dec 13, 2024

Koen Smets

Koen Smets

Accidental behavioural economist in search of wisdom using insights from (behavioural) economics in organization development. On Twitter/Bluesky as @koenfucius

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