Optimizing

We would all be better off if, at birth, everyone was assigned an explicit utility function. Most would receive simple, mathematically tractable ones, like log or quadratic utility of wealth. Economists' predictions would instantly become precise, and, when faced with difficult choices, people could turn to Excel or a slide rule instead of wasting time with old-fashioned introspection.

For the sake of variety, a small fraction of the population would be assigned unusual, maladaptive, or even socially harmful utility functions. Condemned by the hand of fate to be compulsive gamblers, serial killers, or ascetics, these people could at least enjoy their state-mandated pleasures without guilt, knowing that everything happens for a reason, at least to a first-order Taylor-series approximation.