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akaakp.bsky.social · @akaakp.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan 8/10

This book offers a thorough examination of a scarcity of resources--of time, of money, of workers, of hospital beds--leads to bad, often terrible outcomes. Offering insights from psychology and economics, the authors build an "empathy bridge" that connects the time-strapped lives of the wealthy to the cash-strapped lives of the poor. Anyone who has felt that they don't have enough time, enough money, enough space, enough staff at one time or another will recognize some of the key concepts that they explore.<br/><br/>The "bandwidth tax" is the cognitive price you pay when you're truying to make too many decisions in the face of scarce resources. The authors talk about time, and money. Personally, I couldn't help but thinko of when I became a new mother, with a new and demanding task (keeping a whole other human alive overwhelming me, and finding my attention and mental capacity suddenly unable to handle things I had done before with ease (like finishing a book or even a long news article).<br/><br/> "Tunneling" occurs when scarcity causes us to focus in a single-minded way on the most immediate need, pushing other decisions and tasks further down the road. It explains how people who are stressed for resources can so easily sink further into debt (financial debt and time debt). <br/><br/>Finally, "Slack" relates to how failing to have a little extra--extra space, extra mental bandwidth, extra staff, extra time in a schedule--is a recipe for disaster. Reading this in April 2020, this last factor was particularly jarring: The consequences of "just-in-time" supply chains and "lean" management techniques (both of which are essentially planned scarcity) have led to shortages of everything from toilet paper to hospital beds. And it made me look at my own career differently: As a freelancer, I am the "slack," a resource tapped to provide the "extra" help needed when schedules are tight (or blown), but also the first person cut when things are too loose. That is a role that I generally relish, even if it is somewhat volatile.

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Published 2026-01-07 12:22 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere