Principle #1: People face tradeoffs 原理1：人们面临权衡取舍
Translation: Choices are bad 解释： 选择是错误的
The reasoning behind this translation is obvious. For example, imagine that somebody comes up to you and offers you a choice between a Snickers bar and some M&Ms. You now have a tradeoff, meaning that you have to choose one or the other. And having to trade one thing off against another is bad; President Truman supposedly asked for a one-armed economics advisor because his two-armed economics advisors were always saying, “On the one hand...but on the other hand...”
这种解释的原因其实是显而易见的。例如，想象一下，某个人让你在士力架巧克力棒与M&Ms的巧克力产品之间做个选择。现在你面临着权衡取舍，意味着你只能选择其中一个。这种须放弃其一的不得已选择是痛苦的; 想必杜鲁门总统很需要一位独臂的经济学顾问因为他的双臂经济学顾问经常是“一方面……但另一方面……”
People who have not received any economics education might be tempted to think that choices are good. They aren't. The (mistaken) idea that choices are good perhaps stems from the (equally mistaken) idea that lack of choices is bad. This is simply not true, as Mancur Olson points out in his book, The Logic of Collective Action: “To say situation is ‘lost’ or hopeless is in one sense equivalent to saying it is perfect, for in both cases efforts at improvement can bring no positive results.”
没有学过经济学知识的人可能会认为选择是快乐的。实则不然，之所以有认为选择是快乐的(误解的)想法，也许是因为他们误认为缺乏选择才是痛苦的。这种绝对是正确的，如曼瑟尔
