Andy Samberg, economist extraordinaire

In January 2013, a group of performers-turned-economists known as "The Lonely Island" released a hit single called "YOLO", in which they emphasize the importance of living a life that is consistent with minimax regret theory. For this group, the term YOLO is an acronym, which means "you oughta look out". They give sage advice to our nation's youth, warning them that they "should never trust a bank, they've been known to fail / and never travel by car or bus, boat or by rail". This flies in the face of the careless ideology that has penetrated popular culture, which suggests that one should consider probabilities when assessing potential risks. But perhaps their most profound insight is that one should "wear titanium suits in case pianos fall on you". Looking at the table below, we can clearly see that they are correct in this assessment, according to minimax regret. The potential cost of not wearing a titanium suit would be instant death, and the potential cost of wearing one is simply needing to buy the suit (and maybe a little bit of discomfort while wearing it). Clearly, this is an easy calculation: avoid death, and wear a titanium suit at all times. And based on the fact that the music video has nearly 90 million views on YouTube, it appears that their impeccable logic is taking the nation by storm. Thanks to The Lonely Island and their lead singer Andy Samberg, we can expect the rate of piano-related deaths to plummet.

	Piano falls on you	Piano doesn’t fall on you
Wore a titanium suit	0	Cost of the suit
Didn’t wear a titanium suit	Instant death	0