the Faust attitude

been spending the last few days reading law and economics articles. Judging by the readings, if I'd had a better lecturer, the course would probably be one of my favourites; some of the articles are pretty interesting stuff.

for example, this was one of the footnotes of the last paper I've read (or rather, tried to read):

'a closely related theme is what Calabresi calls the "Faust attitude", that many individuals are myopic when it comes to choices between immediate costs and expected future long-range costs. As he describes it, "In such cases people tend to choose the immediate good life only to regret it later."...'

sounds familar, no?

on another note, there's a job vacancy at google; some special skills required.