As if there aren’t already enough control freaks in the Obama administration, now we have a “nudge czar” named Maya Shankar who we’re paying to come up with ways to shape the personal behavior of Americans through her Washington, DC office. Shankar is only in her twenties, but apparently she knows better than the rest of us how we should live our lives, and her job is to nudge us in the right direction.
Maya Shankar is a senior policy advisor at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. Her mandate is to supervise the organization of a federal government ‘nudge squad’ that will subtly change the behaviors of bureaucrats — and the rest of us.
When does a nudge become a shove?
Americans may find out in coming years, as the federal government is setting up a ‘behavioral insights team’ to tinker with the way we accomplish everything from saving money and staying in school to losing weight and becoming more energy-efficient.