> IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA]
Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, for amassing evidence that upper class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109>
It's not really a surprise that less ethical people on average are richer than ethical people. Sad, but logical: they more often choose selfishly and thus amass more money.
This is the correct direction of causation in this case, imho.
Is it? Wealth is used as a proxy for virtue, and has been for a long time. "Nobility" has two meanings, after all. Why the same word, if not the same root sentiment? Unless one definition was originally meant sarcastically.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. [I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
This guy is pretty influential in at least half the globe.
That's at least one sector of the Christian world that ignores that line. I don't think they're alone. You also have other etymological canaries like "fortune" meaning both "wealth" and "blessing". The thinking is that good things happen to good people, with "good things" including "coming into money". But, as we see, that seems to be erroneous. Just because good things happen to a person doesn't mean that they're good.
You presented it as something we should have known, because it's logical (and it is). But the problem is that we apparently don't know it, and haven't for some time. It appears as if (part of) humanity has gotten it wrong for so long that it's written into our language.
Nonsense. The logic based on etymology doesn't show that at all. Most people alive right have never even used the word "nobility", let alone do they let their worldview be defined by it.
They may have used the word "noble", but very probably did not link that to wealth.
I made and supported my initial claim. The burden of proof here is on the person who claimed that the etymology of "nobility" somehow disproves my initial claim.
Not your initial claim: the claim of the median human not being aware of basic dictionary and ethics.
Of course psychopathy as lack of restraint facilitates amassing riches.
To state the absence of family and schools and contact with books for a majority indicates a weird world view, or an impossibility to put heterogeneous populations in the same basket.
You're making a lot of assumptions, not least of which is that "noble" is the only word linking material wealth and intrinsic goodness. See also "fortune", "blessing", "worth", "value", "credit". Consider also the opposite, like "destitution" (material or moral).
To be clear, I am saying that the link these words connote is wrong, and that it's indeed logical to expect a wealthy person to be selfish. I'm just saying that something drove our culture to forego that logic and make the erroneous link described, and it's written in our language. I can't tell you where that link comes from.
I can go along with us having the tendency to determine the value of things in terms of money, but not with determining how virtuous somebody in terms of wealth. The former is morally neutral (even though it does pull society away from thinking in terms of what actually matters to wellbeing etc.), the latter isn't.
None of the examples you mentioned equate wealth with virtue/ethical behavior. "Nobility" does to an extent.
With regard to modern day connotations of wealth: I'd say that most people associate it with either luck or being savvy in some way; definitely not with ethical behavior.
I knew immediately this was BS, sure enough, someone already beat me to it with the comment explaining why.
Man, I'm so ashamed of my field (experimental psychology). Maybe ~60% of publications are literally worse than useless (that is, they are outright intentional lies).
>The 36th ceremony took place on September 3rd in the Congress Center of Zurich, Switzerland, and was hosted by the University of Zurich and ETH Domain, with Abrahams saying that the United States had become "unsafe" for guests.
They buy our weapons because we make a shit ton of them. We're not great at a lot of things, but manufacturing weapons for mass slaughter is up towards the top of our specialties.
This is likely to change. The US has said that previously agreed arms shipments may be now delayed, because the US is cutting in line to restock their own supplies first.
A paper am a coauthor of uses an Ig Nobel winning article as a reference. Because in fact it was a serious piece of research with practical implications.
IgNobel has evolved. Years ago their tag line was that they were for research "that cannot or should not be reproduced". Now it's to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think".
Over the years they went from being a prize for joke science to a prize for serious science that is funny.
>"But this year’s winning team didn’t go the robot route; instead, they adapted a female mosquito proboscis to work as a nozzle in a super-precise 3D printer. [...] The team called the device a “3D necroprinter.” The necroprinter achieved a resolution ranging from 18 to 22 microns, which was two times smaller than the printers using the smallest commercially available metal dispensing tips."
Strangely, this idea has at least a small amount of merit... The idea that an organic, carbon-based structure (in the above case, a mosquito proboscis -- but it could have been a separate, non-living individually 3D printed from organic materials, organic part) would make a good 3D print head with exceedingly fine resolution, is not a terrible idea!
(Note that for the record, I do not endorse killing mosquitos, or any other insect to make 3D print heads, or really, anything else!)
FWIW IgNoble award winners aren't inherently bad projects. Some are bad research but the winners tend to be projects that just sound weird or stupid but have legitimately research value.
It wasn't clear to me in the article, but the best splash-free urinal ("nautilus"), is the tall skinny one second-from-right in the photo.
In addition to having the correct angle to minimize splash, it also fits a wide range of heights and is easier to clean than some of the other designs they tried.
This article had me at pneumotachometers (emphasis mine):
> Unno used a pair of pneumotachometers (instruments to measure volume flow of respired gases) in parallel for his experiments to determine the velocity, volume, and time scale of blowing through each side of the nose over 60 trials.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 13.3 ms ] thread> IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA] Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, for amassing evidence that upper class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109>
This is the correct direction of causation in this case, imho.
That's at least one sector of the Christian world that ignores that line. I don't think they're alone. You also have other etymological canaries like "fortune" meaning both "wealth" and "blessing". The thinking is that good things happen to good people, with "good things" including "coming into money". But, as we see, that seems to be erroneous. Just because good things happen to a person doesn't mean that they're good.
(And by the way, you are using a severely outdated translation.)
"Noble" means "known". "Aristos" means "best" (best fit). The "noble" (the notables) are empowered ("-cracy") for being the best ("aristos").
Moral qualities, practical abilities, enabling the exercise of a role in society.
How does "ancient people consider the wealthy virtuous" cancel out "selfish people tend to make more money"?
They may have used the word "noble", but very probably did not link that to wealth.
Support your statements, show it. Most people alive would have not been informed on basic ethics, nor basic language?!
Not your initial claim: the claim of the median human not being aware of basic dictionary and ethics.
Of course psychopathy as lack of restraint facilitates amassing riches.
To state the absence of family and schools and contact with books for a majority indicates a weird world view, or an impossibility to put heterogeneous populations in the same basket.
To be clear, I am saying that the link these words connote is wrong, and that it's indeed logical to expect a wealthy person to be selfish. I'm just saying that something drove our culture to forego that logic and make the erroneous link described, and it's written in our language. I can't tell you where that link comes from.
I can go along with us having the tendency to determine the value of things in terms of money, but not with determining how virtuous somebody in terms of wealth. The former is morally neutral (even though it does pull society away from thinking in terms of what actually matters to wellbeing etc.), the latter isn't.
None of the examples you mentioned equate wealth with virtue/ethical behavior. "Nobility" does to an extent.
With regard to modern day connotations of wealth: I'd say that most people associate it with either luck or being savvy in some way; definitely not with ethical behavior.
Man, I'm so ashamed of my field (experimental psychology). Maybe ~60% of publications are literally worse than useless (that is, they are outright intentional lies).
Another loss for the US thanks to Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
Also, every political speach need a "Miss Sweetie Poo".
THAT invention deserves its own ignoble category for contribution to public discord.
This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAnVNXaa5oA
Over the years they went from being a prize for joke science to a prize for serious science that is funny.
Strangely, this idea has at least a small amount of merit... The idea that an organic, carbon-based structure (in the above case, a mosquito proboscis -- but it could have been a separate, non-living individually 3D printed from organic materials, organic part) would make a good 3D print head with exceedingly fine resolution, is not a terrible idea!
(Note that for the record, I do not endorse killing mosquitos, or any other insect to make 3D print heads, or really, anything else!)
In addition to having the correct angle to minimize splash, it also fits a wide range of heights and is easier to clean than some of the other designs they tried.
> Unno used a pair of pneumotachometers (instruments to measure volume flow of respired gases) in parallel for his experiments to determine the velocity, volume, and time scale of blowing through each side of the nose over 60 trials.