He makes two interesting observations, probably suspected by the casual onlooker, but in its sincerity most fascinating: first of all, an estimated 99% of all athletes are having the time of their life, at least sexually, during the Olympic Games. Secondly, gold medals help the males, don’t necessarily help the female athletes.

The second observation is explained by a reference to the disambigious way society deals with succesful women:

Sport, in this respect, is a reflection of wider society, where male success is a universal desirable whereas female success is sexually ambiguous.

The first observation, however, is explained through a number of theories:

• Is it related to the level of self-discipline which athletes must exhibit before the race, which finds a channel afterwards? No, as Syed observes:
  

  “Most of the athletes I know are as up for it before and during competition as they are in the immediate aftermath.”

• Is it related to the level of testosterone, which increases aggression, competition and virility. Syed says:
  

  “At a population level, higher naturally occurring levels of testosterone in both genders would provide a powerful explanation for the combination of sporting prowess and sexual potency.”

• He also mentions a moral, or rather immoral, argument:
  

  “For most athletes, the village is thousands of miles from home.”

• Or is it simply evoluationary, which helps promiscuity, as Syed says:
  

  “A man’s sperm count doubles when he spends a lot of time on the road.”

Syed concludes that a mixture of causes might be respoinsbile for the outbreak in sexual filibustering (I know, the term does not really apply here, but I like the sound of it). One cause he has overlooked: put together 10.000 athletes who have their mind set on medals – and only about 900 of them receive one. There must be some sort of compensation for the remaining bunch.

This notion of the Homo Economic has been under tremendous criticism, not least by Economists themselves. Humans, how rational are their choices? How do they form their preferences? How do they make decision under uncertainty and risk? How do they minimize the costs of evaluating all possible, even unexpected outcomes? How do market participants decide in imperfect markets where transaction costs and time-lags are prevailing?

This blog is based on the notion that it is possible to save the Homo Economicus, if you put him in a simple invention: a network. Humans do make rational choices, but what is a rational heuristic is a based on what a rational heuristic is in their network. Humans do have ordered preferences which they take from the network which surrounds them. Humans make decisions under uncertainty and risk by copying what their network does. They minimize the costs of evaluating outcomes by checking how their network evaluates an outcome. And, finally, the characteristics of networks have an important impact on the imperfections of markets and the choices of market participants.

The theory that humans are situated in a network of other people, from which they get postive and negative ideas, preferences, feedback, incentives, is nothing really new. But it repudiates the Marxian notion that our economic condition simply dictates our preferences, or the Constructivist notion that we simply reproduce our social roles.

Homo kasinomicus describes human beings which use their knowledge and their social intelligence to make rational choices situated on the grid of life they have developed throughout their life. Kasinomics.com is a blog about the homo kasinomicus.