Daniel Connaman was a celebrated and influential scholar, trained in psychology, but with a seemingly

limitless way of thinking about the world. In 2002, he won a Nobel Prize in economics. In 2011, he

published a popular book called Thinking, Fast and Slow. His primary topic was human

decision-making, especially how we make decisions under uncertainty. His work has influenced

people in government and policymaking and medicine and finance, in the military, the criminal

justice system, and more. And why were Connman's insights so valuable?

Maybe because uncertainty is a feature, not a bug, of human existence. Whatever you do in your

professional or personal life, you have to deal with uncertainty. As for certainties, well, there just aren't that many of them.

Perhaps the most reliable certainty in life is death.

A couple of years ago, as Conaman approached his 90th birthday, that certainty must have felt particularly salient.

He was still in relatively good health,

and his mind was sharp, but he decided that his time had come. He traveled to France,

where he'd grown up, barely surviving the Nazis. He gathered with his family in Paris to

celebrate his 90th birthday, meals, museum visits, nice walks.

From there, Connman traveled on to Switzerland, where the laws on assisted suicide are more

permissive than most other places, and he ended his life. In an email to friends, he wrote,

I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last

years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief.

Danny Connman made a very considered decision.

That is Al Roth.

He is an economist at Stanford.

He too has a Nobel Prize.

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