Updates: Daniel Kahneman, decision-making expert, chose assisted dying

Updates: Daniel Kahneman, Europe banknotes, Rust shooting

Daniel Kahneman and assisted dying

We’ll start with a story that stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it. You might remember episode 677, when we talked about Daniel Kahneman. He was the psychologist who wrote the book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and he made fascinating discoveries about how our brains work when we make decisions.

Daniel Kahneman died in March 2024. What I did not know at the time—and what didn’t come to light until much later—was that Kahneman died by assisted suicide. He spent his final days with his partner, Barbara Tversky, walking around Paris, visiting museums, and eating delicious food. Then, he went to Switzerland for a medically assisted suicide.

Daniel Kahneman was the world’s foremost expert on human decision making. So how did he make this ultimate decision?

He sent a short email to a small number of friends and colleagues. In it, he said: “the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief. I am still active, enjoying many things in life (except the daily news) and will die a happy man. But my kidneys are on their last legs, the frequency of mental lapses is increasing, and I am 90 years old. It is time to go.”

We talked in episode 745 about a proposal in Britain that would allow assisted suicide for patients with terminal illnesses. Most places that allow medically assisted dying require that patients have an incurable condition or suffer unbearably. But Switzerland is one of the very few places that allow people to end their lives simply because they think their lives are complete.

And that is what Daniel Kahneman did. He didn’t write a final essay or paper on his decision, so we can only speculate on what he was thinking. But it seems likely that he wanted to avoid that long physical and mental decline that often comes at the end of life. He cared for his late wife, as she suffered from dementia for many years before her death. And he, Daniel, may have worried that he would lose the mental capacity to make this final decision if he waited too long.

Europe inches closer to new banknotes

Episode 611 was about the new euro banknotes. If you’ve been to Europe, you may have looked at the currency and wondered about the drawings on the paper bills. But you know what? They are all composites: the drawings on the paper money don’t represent real things or real places.

But now, the European Central Bank, the ECB, is in the middle of a long public consultation to design a new set of banknotes. A preliminary study group produced six possible themes for the new designs. You might remember I didn’t like any of the proposals. At the last minute, the ECB added a seventh, called European culture, which I liked better.

Here’s the update: The ECB has narrowed down the field to just two possible themes: one is rivers and birds, the other (thankfully!) is European culture. Under the new design, there are six paper bills, representing €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, and €200. And each theme has a proposed topic for each bill, called a motif.

For example, in the European culture theme, the scientist Marie Curie would be on the front of the €20 note, and a school or a university would be on the back; Miguel Cervantes would be on the front of the €50 with a library on the back; Beethoven on the front of the €10, and a choir on the back. You get the idea.

That’s one direction they may go. The other theme is weird—it’s called “rivers and birds.” Here, for example, is the description of what might be on the €50 bill: “White stork flying over a meandering river in an unconfined river valley.” I couldn’t picture this, so I had ChatGPT create an image—that’s the image that accompanies this episode. All I can say is, I hope they go with the European culture theme.

The ECB will empanel a jury and launch a design contest in 2025. They’ll narrow the designs down to a shortlist, which the public will vote on in 2026.

Rust trailer released

You might remember this from episode 544, about four years ago. A woman was shot and killed during the filming of a movie, Rust. The person who fired the gun was the actor Alec Baldwin. But the gun was a prop; it was part of the movie. It wasn’t supposed to have a real bullet. But it did. And when the gun went off, the bullet hit a 42-year-old cinematographer named Haylna Hutchins. She died.

Actors use real guns on movie sets, but not real ammunition. Every set that uses guns has an armorer—a person whose whole job is to make sure that any weapons are handled safely. The armorer on Rust was a twenty-five-year-old named Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. She had very little experience in her job—and the experience she did have was dreadful.

Prosecutors charged both Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed with involuntary manslaughter, a charge that means killing someone without meaning to do so. The case against Alec Baldwin was dismissed on procedural grounds. But Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison. She is still behind bars.

There are two other developments. First, there’s a new documentary about what happened. It’s called “Last Take” and it’s available now on Disney+. Second, the movie Rust is finally done. Filming resumed in January 2023, after a delay of almost two years. Hayla Hutchins’s husband joined the crew and was an executive producer. The movie premiered at a film festival in Poland last year and will be released in theaters in May.

Death of standardized tests greatly exaggerated

In episode 444, we talked about standardized tests, specifically the ones that universities use in their admissions decisions. The story was about how elite universities were moving away from these tests. At the time, universities said they were unreliable predictors of success, especially in the pandemic, when education was disrupted. And people started to wonder if these tests would survive—if universities would eventually stop requiring standardized tests for applicants.

Now that the pandemic has passed, many universities are starting to require test scores again. Just a few examples include Harvard, Yale, MIT, the University of Texas, and the University of Michigan. The tests in the U.S. are the SAT and the ACT; students usually take one or the other, depending on where they live and where they want to go to school.

Universities say they are a valuable predictor of academic success—not the only predictor, of course, but a valuable one. They also say the tests can help them find strong candidates from all backgrounds—especially those who might be overlooked if they didn’t attend a top high school.

Jeff’s take

Just a few weeks ago, in episode 748, I told you about Saturday Night Live!, the comedy show that was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. I watched the three-hour anniversary special. It was good; it had its moments. But I’m like so many people who watch the show: I think it was funniest when I was a kid.