Sneaky Advertisements

Every product on the market has either functional or emotional value. Take for example an Apple laptop computer: you may value its usefulness around $1000, but you’re willing to pay $1,500 for it; this means your emotional value for it is $500. Apple has successfully made you pay $500 more for value that only exists in your mind. Advertisers know that in order to make big profit margins they need to instill lots of emotional value into their ubiquitous product. As frugal shoppers, we can’t afford emotional value. Before we go mindlessly shopping again, we need to realize how advertisers are trying to mark up prices in exchange for some unnecessary emotional value. Below, I have a list of common products we buy and the overlooked emotional value advertisers have implanted in them.

Outdoor Clothing
The outdoorsy industry has the sneakiest marketing schemes. Presumably, these outdoor stores are your only provider of equipment you need when you drive too far from civilization. They say they are selling functionality, but what they’re really selling is an image. The average hiker doesn’t need a jacket with interior mesh pockets, polyester chin guard, and light-weight recyclable nylon shells. Only hard-core hikers benefit from all this junk, the rest of us buy it because we get to pretend we are hard-core too. And why the hell is everything pea green and cement gray?

Workout Supplements

I never thought I would be intimidated by a bottle of nutrients until I came across a bucket of Magnesium Super Charge Xtreme! I once passed by one and I swear I heard it call me a little bitch when it saw me carrying a box of cookies. Companies create these ridiculous packages because the consumer decides which supplement to buy based on whichever label conveys the baddest attitude. They have no idea what 1500mg of Tribulus Terrestris does, but the label has a guy benching a million pounds so it must be good! These nutrients are cheap to make and are present in most foods; these supplements will only sell for $30 with about $25 worth of emotional value.


XXL Condoms

Men are so obsessed with their size that they are willing to spend money pretending to have a foot-long. 90% of men measure between 5 to 7 inches; anything beyond or below that is exceptionally rare. Why do they market Magnum XXL condoms so heavily when a normal one can cover a grapefruit? Why don’t they advertise Pee-wee XXS condoms for the unfortunate bottom tenth percent of men? Condom companies don’t want you to associate their brand with tiny dicks, that’s not going to sell. They know they can mark up their prices a few bucks with a product that associates the buyer with a big one.

Alcohol

Alcohol companies have many advertising tricks up their sleeve, most of which we, smart shoppers, are aware of. There is one trick they have that I think a lot of people don’t notice. Their commercials are starting to emphasis the fact that we should drink responsibly and not drink and drive. They go as far as taking 25% of the commercial time to tell us this. By telling us this, they make us feel better for buying their brand; a socially conscious brand that cares about the lives it kills. It makes us feel better about drinking in general; it reminds us that drinking in moderation is fine and that we shouldn’t feel guilty about it.



Products with breast cancer ribbons on the box

Companies know that buyers like to help a cause as long as they don’t have to go out of their way too much to do it. In theory, putting a bunch of pink ribbons on the corner of a Cheerios box should help with sales. But why are so many food products obsessed with breast cancer all of a sudden? You may find the following saying a little disturbing in this context, but here it is anyway – sex sells. Companies donate to breast cancer research because it is marketable. You don’t want to be thinking of prostate cancer when you're scarfing down cereal. Companies have finally found a disease that isn’t disgusting enough to put on food labels, that’s it. Most companies already give to charity; breast cancer is just a cause they can gloat about. You aren’t buying from an especially virtuous company, just a clever one.

Facebook Defines Your Identity

In today’s web 2.0 generation, it’s not official until it’s on Facebook. That’s right - nothing is really official until you’ve solidified its existence on public display via Facebook. If you just woke up with a giant hang-over because of last night’s Jager Bombing and didn’t mention it in your Facebook status, did it really ever happen? If you change your birthday date a month forward on Facebook, would that be your new birthday? If you don’t even have a Facebook, do you really exist? Just like Big Brother in the book 1984, you control your past (or at least some of it) by controlling the memories people have about your past.

An interesting thing arises from all of this; people are beginning to use Facebook as way to make things official for themselves! Take for example the relationship status feature. There is always that awkward period of time that occurs when you first go out with someone and when you decide to declare each other as “in a relationship.” People sometimes feel that their commitments are not official until they publically announce it. This is because our culture values a person who is consistent with their beliefs. A person who is inconsistent with their beliefs is perceived as indecisive, confused, two-faced, or illogical. On the other hand, consistency is associated with being logical, rational, honest, or stable. When you publically announce a belief you make yourself vulnerable to being labeled inconsistent. This explains the hesitation period; you’re unsure if you want to commit to a certain identity because after it’s on Facebook it’s hard to turn back.

I believe that people implicitly already know this, maybe it’s something subconscious. They think that what you display on Facebook are a bunch of well thought-out commitments. In other words, your Facebook buddies will judge you by what you write. This is why Facebook has the power of defining your identity.

My Theory of Morality

I have always been non-religious, believed that nothing is black or white, and that life is inherently meaningless. A religious fundamentalist would cringe at the thought of having a person with my beliefs to be a part of his society. However, if he were to examine my life’s history he would find me to be a pretty moral, law-abiding person. For as long as I can remember I have been struggling to find a logical justification for being a moral person. No matter how often I thought about the meaninglessness of being moral, I continued striving to do good and straying away from doing evil. Well, the confusion is over; I have finally come up with a rational explanation of why everyone should be moral.

The bad definition of “moral”

Partly why morality is so confusing is because of how the word is conventionally thought of. People think that a moral action (e.g. it is bad to murder) should be applied in any situation and for any thinking agent. This way of using the word makes any moral guide (think Ten Commandments) vulnerable to all sorts of moral dilemmas. For example, should someone kill a person to save 100 others? Should someone die for their country or for anything? I have broadened the definition of “moral” in a way that leads to no moral ambiguity.

My definition of “moral,” which I will refer to as “moralL”

MoralsL: the set of behaviors and actions (that affect others in any way) that one should use in a collaboration or co-existence of two or more people in order to maximize personal utility. Whenever there is a group of two or more people that can benefit from each other, there exists a set of rules-of-interaction which, if followed correctly, will maximize the individual’s utility/happiness. These rules may change depending on the people within the group and the number of people in the group. You want to be moralL because you only benefit yourself from doing so.

Evolutionary explanation for moral misconceptions

It makes sense that natural selection favors the human/human ancestors that interact with others in such a way that increases their fitness. Humans can have non-zero-sum gains that increase their fitness by interacting with other humans in a certain way. I’ll call this set of rules-of-interactions as moralsE. Those genes that made humans predisposed or programmed to interact in a way that maximizes their fitness (i.e. morallyE) would dominate the gene pool. Now we have a population of humans that get positive emotional reinforcements (but not always) from behaving morallyE. The set of moralsE may only be a sub-set of the set of moralL or be completely different! Today’s religions/societies try following a moral code that contains some combination of moralsL and moralsE. Our emotional impulses bound us to moralsE that aren’t contained in the set of moralsL.

Why we should only follow moralsL and not moralsE

First of all, understand that our reproductive fitness can be a function of our happiness and therefore a part of our moralL code. If there are two conflicting actions (that affects others), option one leads to a 10% increase in happiness and option two leads to a 5% increase in happiness with a 2% increase in reproductive success (assuming the happiness associated with a 2% increase in reproductive success is already accounted for in the 5% increase in happiness), I don’t see why we should pick option two over option one. There is no reason to increase our reproductive fitness other than for the fact that it sometimes makes us happy to do so. In a universe empty of absolute right and wrong, why bother following any other moral code that doesn’t have to do with maximizing personal happiness?

Now to answer questions that I know are on your mind

If someone maximizes their happiness by going on murderous rampages, why should that be a moral deed? You would first need to accept the unlikely idea that someone maximizes their happiness by dramatically increasing their probability of dying (capital punishment/avengers/self-defense by victims) and sitting in prison in exchange for killing some people. Some of these people do exist so this isn’t a trivial example. Sure, they are acting morallyL, but expect natural selection to weed these people out quickly. Natural selection has favored those genes that make our happiness a function of other people’s well-being. Of course, not everyone has these genes or has them turned on, but there isn’t much to worry. If natural selection doesn’t weed them out, a benevolent society (that contains a majority of people who care about its members) will weed them out.

How this moral theory explains moral dilemmas

Should someone die for their country or for anything? You should only die for something if not dying for that something leads you to a life of such negative utility that it leads you to commit suicide anyways. If I don’t die for my country, will I live a life with such embarrassment, sadness, guilt, etc. that I would want to commit suicide and die either way? This same reasoning applies to such decisions of whether you should die or kill someone in order to save n number of people. What about going to the army and merely risking your life for your country? In this case you have to ask yourself whether the positive expected utility of risking your life for your country (or any cause) is greater than the negative expected utility of doing so. For example, if you had a 10% increase in probability of dying by going to the army, you might want to consider it, but not if it is a 50% increase. If saving your family from death requires you to increase your probability of dying by 50% you might consider it. I am just demonstrating why risking dying for a cause is all relative to your expected utility. Should we stop the genocide in Darfur? Well, that answer depends on whether net expected utility is positive or not. The surprising conclusion is that it may not even be worth it to stop the genocide (maybe we are better off just deterring it or slowing it down). There is no absolute right or wrong, there just is what there is: a bunch of evolved beings with different yet similar utility functions interacting with other beings in way that they hope leads to maximizing their individual utility.

How this theory affected my moral behavior

It hasn’t. I still do and believe in the same things, my preferences haven’t changed. What has changed is my perspective on moral ambiguity. With my theory, I no longer see moral dilemmas as unanswerable problems. There is always a rational moralL answer that differs from person to person. That moralL answer is the one that leads to maximizing happiness. We shouldn’t let things stray us away from acting morallyL like a religion telling you what they think is best for you.

Why We Like To Be Around People Without Interacting With Them

I have realized that a lot of people lack the introspective prowess to understand why they like something. Especially when asked why they prefer one thing over another that is substitutable or just very similar. Why do you want to go to Wendy’s instead of Burger King? Why did you buy Tylenol instead of Advil? When you ask people these questions it seems as if their choice was made before making a justification for their choice. Their sub-conscious makes the choice before their conscious mind understands why that choice was made.

This is understandable. Sometimes our sub-conscious identifies some sensual input that cues for a certain decision to be made. For example: John is strolling through downtown looking for a place to eat and finds one restaurant to be particularly intriguing. It may not seem apparent to John, at the time, why he made his choice. If I asked him for what reason he made his choice, he might pause and think up a justification on the spot. What he didn’t realize was that his decision had nothing to do with his elaborate justification. He really made his choice because he saw people that looked like him dining at the restaurant. His sub-conscious took this visual cue as validation for his decision.

This automatic decision-making algorithm we possess helped me make sense of the following social paradox: people say they like to go places where there are a lot of other people, however, when they get to those places they rarely interact with people other than their own group.

People say they like to go to the movies and restaurants versus renting a movie or ordering take-in, but why? Why bother going to these places if you expect to never once to interact with others? For the same reason John didn’t know why he chose his restaurant, we don’t know why we want to be surrounded by people. Our mind makes our decision for us, and we naively, and incorrectly, justify the decision after the fact.

What is really going on is social proof: a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior (Wikipedia). Obviously, if you are unsure of which restaurant to choose, you go to the one with more people because that might mean it is better; the social proof that occurs goes beyond this. The surplus of people you never interact with actually improve your movie/restaurant experience.

Watching people have fun, laugh, eat, chat, etc. makes you more confident in doing the same; it makes you feel like you’re doing the right thing for the moment. Watching all these positive behaviors also makes your group feel the same way. This effectively creates the right atmosphere for a good time. If, instead, you see others bonding with their families, you’ll feel it is appropriate to do the same. The list goes on; other people influence your mood no matter what they do. We often mistakenly associate our people-induced mood with the place we are in and not the people we are surrounded by. Hopefully this explains why the Olive Garden still exists.

Should we let ourselves become our jobs?

I recently read about an experiment showing that people are more reactionary towards losing freedoms that were once possessed versus freedoms that were never had. Take for example a kid and his privilege to have a piece of candy every time he finishes dinner. Compare two kids, one has always had this privilege and one has never. You can easily predict which kid will have a more violent uprising when being denied candy after dinner.

I have been the privileged kid for most of my life. I grew up with parents who can support me through my schooling without forcing me to get a job. This time period has given me the opportunity to explore myself and my goals. I had the luxury to do what truly makes me happy; I felt like my actions were consistent with what I believe in. Like the kid privileged with candy after dinner, I am bound to revolt when my freedoms are seized.

My freedoms are under a major threat and rebelling may be my death sentence. Like an ordinary member of society, I will one day have to support myself with a job of some sort. Working for a company may be my best option (in respect to having a low risk to return ratio). Unfortunately, I have learned that working for a company means I would have to suspend my freedoms for far too long.

Working towards accomplishing others' goals gives you a sense of loss in identity. You compromise your own aspirations for someone else's in exchange for money. (Ironically, the money you earn is supposed to grant you the freedom to do what you want). Being yourself becomes dangerous in this environment. Those who become successful here have abandoned their old self and meshed it into a bigger entity, the company itself.

Should we let ourselves become our jobs? I suppose some people don’t mind, I on the other hand, can’t fathom the thought of doing so. How is earning some money going to compensate for more than 1/3 of my waking life being wasted? I am afraid that a traditional job may not be a viable option for me.

A Meaningless Life Can Be A Happy One Too

The religious, deists, agnostics and atheists all have trouble coming to terms with the meaninglessness of life. No matter where you stand on the spectrum, there is a troubling stigma associated with those who admit to having a meaningless life. It is believed that only the suicidal and the wrist slitters ever consider such a thought. After all, how is it possible to be a functioning human being without the silly belief that the meaning of life is to [insert here whatever makes you happy]. Hopefully I can deconstruct this notion once and for all.

But first I must defend the premise on which this column relies on. Humans have evolved categorical memory, i.e. they have the ability to categorize objects in their memory in a hierarchal manner. Your memory of things looks something like this: Stuff I do when Hungry --> Eat Food --> Cheeseburger --> No Onions

This is obviously a very rough outline of how we think, but it illustrates how we perceive objects meaningfully. A Cheeseburger is meaningless without a human to assert meaning onto it. In my example, the meaning of the cheeseburger is a food I want to eat because I am hungry. There is no ONE meaning for an object and those meanings varies between person to person. For example, some people might categorize a cheeseburger as something they like to draw instead. If all of mankind were to vanish into thin air, the cheeseburger would be nothing more than a peculiar collection of atoms.

The key insight from this example is that meaning is a human perception of objects. The meaning of an object doesn’t exist without a human to impose that meaning onto the object. Same is true for us humans; there is no reason to believe, a priori, that we have an inherent meaning assigned to us. The question of whether life has meaning cannot even be answered; it is an illegitimate question to ask. Just like the question: “what does it feel like to be a rock?” The rock doesn’t know what it feels like to be itself, so how can we possibly answer this question! Both these questions should be explained away when we realize the questions are erroneous to begin with.

Back to my main point: admitting that life is meaningless does not imply you are or will be depressed. I believe that those who say they’re depressed because of life’s meaninglessness are more susceptible to depression in the first place. There is nothing inherently depressing about the belief that life is meaningless! There might be a correlation, but then again there is a correlation with depression and believing in God. To blindly associate either of these beliefs with depression would be a mistake.

If you are someone who claims to have a meaning for their life, whatever it may be, ask yourself this: theoretically, if it was proved (by science or by yourself, whichever one is more convincing for you) that your meaning for life was absolutely wrong, would you continue to live the way you are? Would you become more depressed, would things that made you happy before no longer make you happy? I think it is safe to assume you wouldn’t fall into chronic depression. Believing that life is inherently meaningless should not turn someone into a subject of pity.

We don’t need a religion, book, or person telling us what our meaning to life is in order to be happy. For the same reason we don’t need to be told not to kill babies in order for us to not to kill babies. We don’t need an excuse for doing what makes us happy.

Fuck This Post

Most of you have heard the old adage: “Using swear words shows that you have a poor vocabulary.”

This is somewhat true – people with a poor vocabulary have to improvise with the small collection of words they know. When fueled by anger, their mind retrieves the most prominent insults lying dormant in their head. Taking note of their belligerent use of the language, you’ll find the same insulting phrases being parroted over and over again.

Like any word or phrase, use it in too many different contexts and you’ll render it meaningless. With a limited vocabulary your tiny pouch of words are in danger of becoming meaningless. Many people are faced with this dilemma – they don’t want to bother expanding their vocabulary, but face the cost of having their words turn meaningless. Surprisingly, this isn’t the case! If this dilemma were true, there wouldn’t be anyone comfortable with their small collection of phrases; they would be forced to expand if they wished to adequately communicate with others. So what is going on here?

The fact is: people are not monotone. A person can use the word ‘Shit’ to mean dozens or even hundreds of different things simply by changing their tone of voice in different contexts. Unlike those with a bigger vocabulary, these people depend more on their tone of voice to communicate. There is no wonder why so many people manage to express themselves with a handful of phrases. Some of the common phrases you might have heard are: “That was sick” “That’s hella tight” “I love you” “That’s hot” and the list goes on. I am sure you’ve never heard or said these phrases in the same tone.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe these people are less intelligent at all. They have mastered a different aspect of communication. Where they lack in vocabulary they make up with a better understanding of body language, social behavior and human psychology.

Upon hearing, “Using swear words shows that you have a poor vocabulary” you are equally justified in saying “Not using swear words shows you have a poor understanding of human social behavior.” Two sayings that could be true, but are better off not being said.

Do Big Corperations Feel Sorry for Handicaps?

When my friends and I went to the movie theaters the other day one of my friends made a compassionate yet naïve observation. He took particular notice at the ‘movie ticket ripper guy’ and how he was clearly mentally retarded. (We’ve probably all witnessed the disabled movie ticket ripper some time in our lives. I’ve once had my ticket stub sniped by a man so physically deformed he needed scissors to successfully do his job.) He commented on how wonderful and beautiful society is that they find jobs for such people. After all, they could have hired some able-bodied teenager to do the same job for equal pay.

Does corporate America feel bad for cripples? Is this an act of charity?

Unfortunately, this is no evidence for big corporations having a soul, but instead a prime example comparative advantage. Simply put, physically or mentally handicapped people have less opportunity cost, in most cases, ripping ticket stubs for a living. A fully functioning teenager has more opportunity cost i.e. ‘more to lose’ spending his time ripping tickets. A teenager can instead acquire a new skill set or invest in his education. Ripping tickets would rob the teenager of a better use of his time.

Handicapped people, more often than not, have less return investing in their own human capital. Having these people rip our tickets is not an act of kindness, but a rational economic decision that leads to a more efficient allocation of resources.

The Most Dangerous Meme

Daniel Dennett introduced us to the many dangers of certain memes, like terrorism and behaviors justified by faith. The reason as to why these memes are so prominent in the meme pool may still be a mystery, but what is certain is the diabolical consequence these memes have on their hosts, humans. Dennett, however, fails to mention what I believe to be the most dangerous meme of all: racism.

To be clear, by racism I mean - the belief that one race is more superior to another. This dangerous meme, unlike suicide for instance, does not directly lead to the annihilation of the host. Its destruction extends far beyond those who have been hijacked by the meme.

You may believe that some breeds of racism memes are harmless or benign if anything. I would argue that racism allows us to be comfortable ignoring an inconvenient moral obligation we all have – to help another suffering human being. Of course, some people’s suffering may be self-induced or even desired, but otherwise we have the moral duty of helping those whose suffering can be reasonably stopped.

Racist thoughts pardon us from feelings of sympathy for a race we believe to be less superior to our own. These thoughts may not completely destroy our sympathy for others, but it may eliminate enough sympathy to deter us from taking a moral initiative. In a sense, the racism memes can cause more damage than any terrorist meme. Many harmful memes like terrorism and genocide depend on racism in order to survive. Eliminating or reducing racism will reduce the memes that piggy back on it.

We cannot even begin our war on terrorism without a war on racism.

It’s All So Convincing

Growing up, you and everyone you knew made the resolution that one day you would get a paying job. No one questioned the legitimacy of such an endeavor – money was the magical resource that would cater to your every whim. Living without money was seen more as a death sentence than a choice.

Well, here we are… still looking for that one job, that one investment, that one gamble that will make us more money. If money is so important why don’t we just produce a lot of it and give it to everyone? Shouldn’t we start the printing presses and fire our cash cannon in everyone’s face?

There exists an important distinction between legit and non-legit money. Money is supposed to be interchangeable with some unit amount of goods and services. Money is supposed to be meaningful in this respect; as opposed to being a flimsy piece of paper. In other words, money is suppose to represent something.

Money is like a casino chip, it represents something.

One reason casinos use poker chips instead of real money is because gamblers aren’t attached to their chips as they are to their money – too much emotional baggage attached to it. Casinos don’t want their customers to see the chips as grocery bills and mortgage payments; they want them to be lost in the game.

I feel that we often forget what makes most of our thoughts and actions intelligible. The thoughts and actions I am referring to are the ones that revolve around money. We waste are days and our health with our financial pursuits. We literally stress ourselves to sickness - agonizing over our shortcomings. Sometimes we need to step back and make sure we aren’t lost in the game too.

Boycott sweatshop Boycotters!

Let’s be honest, your clothes were probably made by an over-worked mother of six earning a dollar a day in a decrepit sweatshop. Her body suffers from malnutrition and fatigue as she forces herself to get past the 12 hour work day. After she finishes her job as button handler #256 she somehow manages to feed and take care of her six dying children.

We’ve all heard the same sob story so why haven’t we all boycotted sweatshop-using companies? Because that would be stupid.

From the same armchair activists that told you to “Boycott OPEC!” and “Boycott the Olympics!” are telling you to boycott companies who use sweatshop labor. Being a lazy generation of activists, telling us to not do something to help a cause always sounds intriguing. Just search the word boycott in Facebook groups and see how much of nothing people are delighted to take part in. Unfortunately, the sweatshop boycotters don’t realize their inaction will do more harm than good.

Let’s say the boycotters succeed in dismantling Nike’s infamous sweatshops. Great, now they’ve turned a sob story into a tragedy as thousands of workers lose their jobs. There is a good reason why those workers choose to work in sweatshops. The horrible working conditions of sweatshops should demonstrate how much worse any other available alternative would be. Prostitution and digging through landfills don’t look as rewarding when you can work for a multinational firm that can better guarantee a wage at the end of the day.

Sweatshops aren’t a result of heartless profit-driven corporations; they are a symptom of poverty. In poverty stricken towns high paying jobs are a scarcity, probably because the lack of skilled labor. Workers in poor villages don’t have the opportunity, health, or even the incentive to raise their skill level. They seem to be stuck in what they think is the best alternative.

If anything we should encourage more multinational firms to expand to the poor countries. Imagine if Adidas set up shop near by a Nike sweatshop. The two firms would be forced to raise wages or improve working conditions in order to attract a share of the labor force. Additionally, workers would have an incentive to improve their skill level in order to work in the better company. Not only would everyone be better off, there would also be a better efficient use of resources with the rise in skilled labor. Corrupt governments make it financially impossible or implausible for poor people to start their own businesses. Multinational firms may be poor people’s only hope in escaping the poverty trap.

What is it like to be something other than human?

When I was a naïve teen I tried breaking the mental barrier by imagining what it would be like to be dead. I thought I championed this enigma when I concluded it was like being in a deep sleep without ever waking up. At the time, I didn’t realize I was in for a meaningless endeavor. It doesn’t make sense to imagine the state-of-being a non-conscious entity would have. There is no point of trying to figure out what it is like to be a rock because rocks aren’t capable of knowing what it is like to be themselves!

In order to transcend my human state of mind I have to imagine what it would be like to be another conscious entity, like a dog or cat. In my opinion, imagining what it would be like to be a dog is a relatively simple task. As animals ourselves, we know what it is like to have desires, emotions, pleasures, pain, etc. It still is impossible for us to know exactly what it is like to be a dog, but we have a pretty good idea (most dog owners have a good idea of what their dog is feeling without thinking too hard).

I wanted to imagine a state-of-being that is truly mind blowing, some state of mind foreign to any conscious creature we know of. The first thing that came to mind was artificial intelligence; an AI with intelligence that far surpasses that of any human. How the hell can we imagine how a super smart AI would think like? If we knew how this AI would think, wouldn’t we be equally smart as it? I don’t think we can know exactly how it would think, but either way I am going to take a shot at it.

This AI would be able to change its own source code i.e. it can reprogram its brain whichever way it wants. You might be wondering how you can imagine this on an intuitive level. It would be as if you were to fundamentally change the way you think. I know this doesn’t make you any less confused so I will give an example. If you relocate the trash bin in your room there will be many instances where you throw your trash in the old location of the bin. Your mind has been conditioned to expect a bin in a certain location and sometimes you may forget it’s in a new place. Your weak brain has disabled you from efficiently throwing away your trash (without wasting time with a misfire). An AI wouldn’t have a problem here because it can erase any conditioning and reprogram itself to adjust for the different environment. Our minds are constantly fluttered with these impulses that have been conditioned in our mind. For instance, if I tell you to not think of a white elephant, you’ll think of it. An AI could choose whether his mind should be vulnerable to such impulses. You can imagine how this would help with the AI’s problem solving skills. It would have no bias, no obstacles in attaining new skill sets.

The AI would be able to discard bad or faulty ways of thinking and replace them with better ones. The ‘better’ ways of thinking would be the ways that help the AI solve more efficiently a problem or reach a goal. If you were an AI you might be able to solve Fermat’s problem in a matter of minutes. I have made a big assumption here; I assumed that the AI would want to do things. We humans constantly solve problems because we must in order to survive. We are faced with challenges, death threats, scarcity, etc. and that motivates us to problem solve. The AI would have to be programmed with desires similar to humans in order for it to want to solve similar problems we have. It would be in our interest to program an AI with the same desires as us because it would be interested in solving problems that we too care about. Of course the AI doesn’t have to be programmed to share our desires, but it does have to have some desires. Otherwise it wouldn’t be intelligent because it wouldn’t do anything!

In short, being a super smart AI would be much like being an intentional agent that can much more efficiently get what it wants. More efficient because it wouldn’t deal with the same handicaps are weak minds have like poor memory, biases, social conditioning, and any other concept you learned about in psychology.

The Evolution of the Meme

In Richard Dawkins’ book, The Selfish Gene, there is a fascinating yet controversial chapter about memes. A meme, or i.e. a cultural unit of information, has the same interesting property a gene has – the ability to replicate. It might seem peculiar to consider a meme as a thing, much like how a gene is a thing you can observe. A meme is a thing, or specifically, a certain mental state. For example, if you think about the idea of God, a certain mental state is assembled in your mind. This state may not be a localized sector of your brain, but it is nevertheless a specific neural structure that corresponds to your God idea.

These memes replicate in a much different manner than genes do. A meme replicates by any sort of human communication, like any verbal or written language. Clearly not all memes replicate themselves throughout the meme pool. Similarly, all genes do not get passed on to future generations because they are outcompeted by genes that are more fit. But what constitutes a meme that is fit? Fit memes are ones that have a special property about them that leads them to their frequent replication and therefore proliferation in the meme pool. For example, the internet phenomenon of “Rick Rolling” has been a successful meme for its inherent nature of wanting to be replicated. If rick rolling didn’t include another participant, I would question whether it could have the same success.

Dawkins’ meme of memes has had me reflect back at all the cultural ideas lurking in my head. My meme portfolio is a product of a long meme evolution. I would assume that my memes greatly differ from the memes present in a random given individual 500 years ago. However, I don’t think it’s a sufficient answer to simply say that they differ greatly; after all, my memes have the additional 500 years of evolution with different selection pressure. The evolution of memes, as well as genes, is not random – there is a direction in where these replicators evolve to be. So are my memes merely more ‘catchy’ than their 500 year old predecessors? In my opinion, arriving at this false conclusion is the consequence of confusing between the meme and gene selection pressure.

Memes, unlike genes, are not a product of their environment. In the gene world, the environment ultimately decides which genes are selected for; this is not the case for memes. Compare the genes of organisms today versus ones 500 years ago. You would find that the genes code for organisms that are better fit in their respective environments. Do the same comparison between memes and you will not come to the same conclusion. I am sure that our memes of technological ideas and scientific thinking would outcompete the memes in 1508. Their relative usefulness would be no match for existing memes that explain the world. Maybe even today’s interpretations of certain religions would outcompete older interpretations. Could be that intelligent design theory would be much more convincing in 1508.

This is because our memes are selected by intelligent goal-seeking agents. Our intelligence allows us to select memes that work in accord with our goals, namely survival, entertainment, etc. This intelligent selection, as opposed to natural selection, means that our present memes are ‘better’ than the earlier ones. Better in the sense that they are more useful in doing what we want them to do.

Evolution of the Super Model

Experience Matters... In a Bad Way

“Sure, Obama is the superior candidate who has the ability to lead and unite this country, but he just doesn’t have the experience.” –Irrational Hillary supporter

Lately there has been quite the ruckus regarding Obama and his level of experience in Washington. Apparently, Americans consider it “experience” when you happen to sleep under the same roof as the president. Had it not been for Hillary’s eight years as First Lady, Obama would be considered more experienced. She only served seven years as a senator while Obama was a state legislator for seven years and three in the senate. Let’s put this debacle aside for a moment and ask whether experience is necessary to begin with.

In general, someone experienced can be more over-confident and careless than their inexperienced counterpart. Experienced people might only have an advantage over operations they have repeated many times and not necessarily better at their job. These speculations are a few possible arguments for why an experienced person might not have the upper hand in succeeding.

Assuming that none of these are the case, I would still prefer the candidate with less experience in Washington.

Unlike most professions, working in the White House for many years does not imply success or quality work. It is hard for a bad dentist to continue being a dentist for 20 years – he would be sued to bankruptcy before his first year. Government officials have it easy, just don’t get your dick sucked by someone other than your wife and you have a free ride until your term ends. You can even illegally send your country to war killing more than a million innocent people and keep your day job.

Citizens don’t care enough to monitor their politicians’ behaviors and nor do they bother to educate themselves before voting. All the politician needs to do is pummel their face with Botox and make-up every couple years and appeal to people’s primitive emotions. The more experience they have, the better they are at looking pretty.

Where do experienced politicians get their money for campaigning in their 20 year run? Another thing experience in the White House implies is corruption. Big corporations grow fond of power hungry politicians and make sure they stay in the game. The government likes to have and obedient citizenry; the same logic applies to why the rich want an obedient government.

Just take a look at Bush and his whopping 14 years of experience. I’d rather have my dead pet hamster run the country.

What it Means to be More Rational

In my previous post, It’s Not Easy Being Rational, I said that being irrational meant that you behaved contrary to your utility function. Following this line of logic, being rational would mean that you behaved in accordance with your preferences i.e. you did what you wanted to do. This brings up an important question: can one be more rational than another without both being irrational? If both of you did what you wanted to do, how can one be more rational than the other? Yes, allow me to demonstrate.

Being a rational agent requires a purpose or direction. In this case, the purpose is to maximize utility in the most desirable way possible. Once your preferences are determined, there exist a theoretical set of actions that will lead you to maximizing your utility function in the most desirable way. If you currently desire a coke from the fridge, there exists a set of actions that will satisfy this demand in the most desirable way. (It is important to understand that you may not have the prerequisite knowledge to know what these set of actions are).

Assume that the optimal action set includes: getting out of your chair, walk slowly not to wake up the dog, say ‘hi’ to grandma, open the fridge, grab the coke and run back to your room. The closer you in executing this theoretical optimal set of actions, the more rational you are. Unfortunately, when you assess your strategy profiles, you don’t include the action of saying ‘hi’ to grandma. You know that grandma always asks you what you are doing if you don’t say ‘hi’ and you know she doesn’t like you drinking coke. You end up having a quarrel with grandma and fail to execute the optimal set of actions.

Part of being more rational means that you can better predict the consequences of your actions. It is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy (all the time), but the closer to 100% the more rational. After predicting each action’s respective outcome, you must decide which outcomes are most desirable. Of course, the last step would be to follow through with the action set you’ve devised for yourself. Regarding the coke example, if you were more rational, you would have figured out that grandma needed a genuine ‘hi’ from you.

The moral of the story: strive to be more rational, you’ll only be benefiting yourself.

It’s Not Easy Being Rational

If you’ve ever met a disguised anti-rationalist you’ve probably heard the “but it’s rational to be irrational” line. They believe themselves to be clever in finding the rationalist’s loop hole in being irrational. For instance, ‘irrationally’ going on a shopping spree once a month should be deemed a rational act. Clearly, it is easy to point out how such a proposition has no merit. For one, it posits the definition of ‘rational’ to mean the same thing as it’s opposite. These fundamental problems, however, only transpire when you interpret the proposition literally and not for its implicit message.

Saying that a shopping spree is rational and irrational at the same time implies two things about a person 1) their arrogance in throwing around intellectual words they don’t understand 2) the satisfaction and non-regret they get from having a shopping spree once a month. If the former wasn’t the case, the person would understand their once a month shopping spree was never irrational to begin with.

Assigning value to something, and therefore creating a utility function, is not where irrationality is committed. For example, preferring your coffee with two spoons of sugar is just as rational as preferring it with ten. You only act irrationally if behave contrary to your preferences/utility function. A trivial example is if you knowingly added no sugar in your coffee when in the past you’ve always preferred at least one spoonful. For a non-trivial example see Allais Paradox.

You might be thinking to yourself, “If behaving rationally only requires me to do what I want, I must be pretty damn rational.” This reasoning depends on a flawed assumption that you know what you want. If you’ve ever experienced regret or remorse, one of your past actions/choices contradicted your original utility function. These emotions serve as a nice defense mechanism against irrationality because they make us think harder before acting. (Obviously, if you prefer to stray from regret and remorse then you’ll think twice before acting). Unfortunately, not all of us possess such an accurate defense mechanism and therefore must think harder whether or not we believe regret might supervene on our decisions.

America's Economy Thrives on Unhappy People

Americans are obsessed with their mass accumulation of stuff. The bigger the heap of stuff they have, the happier they are. And nothing, not even loved ones, dare get in their way of amassing more stuff. People abandon their families for higher paying jobs and divorce their spouses because of avoidable money issues. Americans have reached a gloomy social frontier as they prioritize over-priced handbags over a genuine relationship.

Of course we could point fingers at the advertisers and marketers for mind-fucking the younger generation. However, a flickering banner ad is not enough to bring a whole country in a delusional mind-set. The real culprit lays in the structure our economy is built on: capitalism. America isn’t completely capitalistic – it does provide some social programs like well-fare and Medicaid, but it mostly relies on private decision-making and economic freedom. The free markets take charge in America and the free markets always know best. The idea that the markets will guide us towards what we collectively desire is not a novel one. This wisdom has been around for centuries, but only recently do we see its negative social repercussions.

The fact is - capitalism thrives on dissatisfaction. It’s true that the free market allows individuals to choose their optimum consumption bundles at a fair price, but what else is going on? Let’s scope in on the consumer’s mind-set when going through the decision process in maximizing utility. Imagine a consumer strolling down the labyrinth of aisles at his local Costco. He gazes at an ocean of stuff as he decides what he should buy. He pictures the stuff he already owns as he passes by newer and more expensive substitutes. He would only have the incentive to purchase a new substitute if he is dissatisfied with the one he already has. As he passes by more stuff he may realize he will be dissatisfied if he doesn’t buy that stuff.

Dissatisfaction is the fuel behind consumer spending and consumer spending is the crux behind GDP. And believe me, America cares about GDP growing every year. A recession is defined as negative economic growth for two or more successive quarters of a year. Just mentioning the word makes the market sentiment haywire (I apologize). With the government’s and the market’s incentive for growing GDP, they make sure Americans spend their achy breaky hearts out.

Pressured to spend, Americans adapted obediently as dissatisfaction became engrained in the culture. American’s discontent now extends beyond their aspiration for consumables. If you are dissatisfied with your family or girlfriend there supposedly exists a ‘free market’ out there for you to choose a better one. Things aren’t working out between you and your wife? Don’t worry, just return your current one and get a new one that fits you better! Commoditizing intimate relationships has never been this easy!

Americans have lost the ability to be ‘happy with what they have’ when it comes to consumables and relationships. By chronically being dissatisfied, they lose their happiness in the free market abyss.

The Bullies You'll Meet Throughout Life

Bullies range in all shapes, sizes, age, motives, testosterone levels, and more. Wielding my power of stereotyping, I will attempt to categorize bullies in some meaningful way. Throughout our lives we encounter different types of bullies. There are about three variables that change as the bullies change throughout time: 1) Source of bully power 2) Prospective victims 3) Means of torment. Lets begin with the earliest known form of a bully usually found on the kindergarten playground.

The Future Rapist - Kindergarten playground

This young fellow is normally found on Kindergarten playground. This bully has enough libido to fuel an army of erectile dysfunctional penises. His sex craving genetic gift mixed in with the stupidity of being a five-year-old gives him his bully potential. His victims are a mix of boys and girls ranging from ages 1 – 6; he takes advantage of the younger ones who don’t yet have the vocabulary or mental capacity to say “No!” First he taunts his victims by yelling obscenities at them like, “Want to taste my poop?” After breaking his victim’s comfort zone he swiftly reaches for their genitals and retreats back to the swing sets. This process occurs anywhere from four to seven times during recess.

The Fatty – Elementary school

This child’s weight is about two standard deviations above the mean. Assuming that a person can lift their own weight, this bully automatically has the ability to choke slam two upper graders simultaneously. His love for Twinkies and French Fries has made his strength unmatched. His victims include anyone who tampers with his fragile emotional state induced by his constant struggle of coping with be so fucking fat... or the guy who took the last Jell-o pudding from the cafeteria. His means of torment include: wedgies, knuckle sandwiches, hurts donut, or basically any acts of violence that have euphemisms which sound like they could be eatable.

The Meathead – High School

Due to either a high consumption of hormone induced chicken or ungodly genes, this bully started puberty at age 8 and by his first year in High School, he has reached his top physical shape. While the other boys are still shorter and scrawnier than most girls, this bully physically dominates his high school peers. His victims include anyone his older brother tells him to beat up. With great power comes great responsibility; unfortunately, The Meathead only has a middle school education with a skull thicker than his femur. This unstable combination of power and stupidity is as dangerous as a ten-year-old with flammable ninja stars. With this imagery in your mind, you can imagine the pain inflicted on his victims.

The Corporate Cunt – Corporation

Back in the schoolyard, power was derived from physical strength; in the corporate world, power comes with the ability to make others work on Saturdays. As a corporate peon who happens to be one rung higher than you, The Corporate Cunt never hesitates to make you work on Saturday. His victims usually consist of employees on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He will torment his victims by assigning mandatory Saturday work on the grounds of “because I said so.” Furthermore, he will remind employees every day of the week that there is a mandatory meeting on Saturday. He flips a coin and says that if it lands on heads there is work on Saturday and if it lands on tails there isn’t work on Saturday. Then he has it land on tails and says “Actually there will be work on Saturday.”

The Old Bastard – Retirement Home

He is the old guy who still maintains his youthful vigor and rubs it in everyone’s face. He usually preys on old people who have lost the will to live and/or vegetables. He torments his victims by showing off his erection through his pants too all the wallflowers at the senior ball. He also lifts weights in front of the guys who can barely lift themselves out of bed. Moreover, he tells the old people with chronic depression that all their pills are placebos and they should do something active instead of sob all day. The Old Bastard always outlives his victims.

I assure you that no nerds were hurt in the making of this post.

Do we Know Anything?

“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.” -Bertrand Russell

I found this quote to be deeply insightful and thought provoking for reasons that may not seem obvious. For one, this quote makes apparent the irony proliferated by theists in their argument for God. As a typical theist would cry, “…but you can’t prove or disprove anything 100% and therefore it is wrong to say that God does not exist!” Considering that theists are willing to die in the name of God, they must believe in his existence to be true and therefore fall into their own trap.

But what struck me by surprise was the fact that Russell has no beliefs in which he finds certainly true. How can the guy who helped lay the groundwork of math be uncertain of every belief he has acquired? Is there really nothing we can be certain about? Instead of giving a cop-out answer like “I think, therefore I am” I sought after a more sufficient answer. From my findings, math and philosophy are inadequate in finding absolute truth and/or falsity.

Aristotle established classical logic in his attempt to use reason in finding true arguments. This logic allowed him to make propositional expressions true for all input values. All you would need to know is whether the value of your proposition is true or false and using a predefined function variable, you would arrive at a valid prepositional expression. These variables would be defined by truth tables like this conjunction for the p and q:

p	q	p ^q
T	T	T
T	F	F
F	T	F
F	F	F

According to this truth table, if your P is true and your Q is true then the expression ‘P and Q’ is true. Here we seem to have arrived at a way to know something for certain. Using ‘and’ as our truth function, shouldn’t we know for certain that (true P) ^ (true Q) must be a true expression? Shouldn’t this statement be has valid as saying 2 + 2 = 4? Sure, but don’t try extracting any real meaning from these equations and expect a true statement.

It turns out that this sort of syntactic manipulation is the closest thing to the truth you will get. Don’t get me wrong, it is quite useful to logically derive true statements via truth functions, but remember that, at most, you’re just throwing around symbols.

Whenever we input a value for P or Q, regardless of what logical variable (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘then’, etc) we choose, we are bound to reach a meaningless conclusion. For example, take P to be “I love cake,” which is true, and Q to be “I live in the US,” which is also true. Therefore the sentence “I love cake and I live in the US,” must be true. All right, am I ready to die for my love of cake yet? Nope

For a logical argument to be true, the premises must also be true. If I have one premise that happens to be meaningless and the other true, my functional argument will also be meaningless. Take my love for cake for example. If the cake has fruits on it I will no longer love the cake. Ah, I see my problem is in my weak definition of the word ‘cake’; I’ll just update my definition and be one my way to the truth. “I love cake that doesn’t have any fruits.” Here too I have encountered vagueness in my word choice. If I cut the fruit in half, is it still a fruit? Maybe, but if I cut it down to one atom, is it still a fruit?

Maybe I just need to find better word choice to escape vagueness. How about, “If I can lift 200 lbs, then I am strong” This sounds like a true statement, but it doesn’t reveal any truth of what it means to be strong. What if you give me 200 – .001 lbs, would I still be strong? How many times can I remove .001 lbs before I am no longer strong? No matter what proposition I fill in for P and Q, there will always be an undefined answer.

Even the mapping of mathematical equations to the natural world proves inadequate in revealing truths. We find the equation 2+2=4 as quite useful, but what does that reveal about truth or certainty in the real world? If I have two pairs of shoes, I'll get four shoes total. But what is a shoe? And what does combining this vague definition of a shoe with our equation even mean? The only thing we can know for certain is the syntactical manipulation in accordance with our predefined connectives.

But lets not forget:

“When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.” - Bertrand Russell

Celebrity Status

As I write this sentence, Bill Clinton is inside my university’s basketball stadium giving a free speech to the public (for once he is the one giving). As you can tell, I decided to stay home and save myself the opportunity of hearing another politician blabber about nothing for an hour. To be fair, I do respect the guy, but he’s just on a campaign trail for his ‘wife,’ Hillary. In my opinion, Bill could have had butt sex with the goatse guy and Hillary would still stay with Bill if she ever wanted a shot at the presidency - but this is aside from my point. What I really think is interesting about this momentous occasion is the anticipation.

The day of Bill’s arrival, everyone in school transformed into pre-teen Hanna Montana fans. Every crowd you passed by had the same topic of discussion, Bill Bill Bill. It’s not as if Bill was about to recite his equivalent of the Gettysburg Address. His speech would be no more profound then one he would give at a banquet fundraiser for blind people. The whole student body was too star-struck to care, but why?

This whole Clinton ordeal has led to an interesting social experiment. This coincidental experiment proves that people just wanted to be in Bill’s physical presence. Unlike most celebrity appearances, something of greater value is given to the audience. By ‘greater value’ I mean greater than the satisfaction of seeing the celebrity. When Hanna Montana fans go to Hanna’s concert they are presented with noise that they consider music. Bill’s event is more analogous to Paris Hilton reciting the alphabets in front of city hall. My fellow schoolmates weren’t looking forward to a speech with substance they are looking for Bill.

Why do we mindlessly flock after celebrities? A sociology major could give a good B+ answer to this question. More importantly, how can we use this human tendency to our own advantage? We learned from Bill’s appearance that people would flock towards a celebrity regardless of whether that celebrity has anything to offer other than his or her human flesh. Using this knowledge, you can easily get a girl at virtually any party.

First, have ten or so of your friends show up at the party before you do. As you enter, fashionably late, have all your friends parade around you as if you’re their best friend they haven’t seen since high school. After about ten minutes of this exercise you’ll turn into a mini celebrity. Girls will be naturally drawn to you for the rest of the night… and after that you’re on your own buddy.

America's Paranoia Strikes Again

Family Watchdog: a solution that barks at the problem without actually helping.

Take a look at this sinful city

Source

If you decide to live here you better make sure your kids are implanted with a state-of-the-art GPS because this town is smothered with perverts. If you haven’t noticed, this city is at the heart of Silicon Valley, a home for plenty of upper and middle class folk. Knowledge of where their local children humpers live has no affect on their lives aside for giving them another reason to be scared to leave the house.

If you had the choice between living next door to a child molester or a computer programmer, whom would you choose? Unless you have an irrational fear of computer programmers, like most girls, you would probably choose to live next to them. Now consider the same question with this added stipulation: the child molester molested his last child at the age of 21 and now he is 30. He has no criminal record aside from the time he played ‘Guess the Animal’ with a blindfolded 9-year-old girl. 9 years after the little girl correctly guessed ‘human,’ the molester has been a law-abiding citizen with his only vice of being too nice.

For the majority of Americans, this stipulation has no affect on their initial answer yet they still live amongst hundreds of sex offenders. Americans voted for the sex offender registry to be open to the public. The problem with sex offenders is that their motives aren’t resultant of their respective economic status. The upper and middle class believe they can avoid robberies and gang violence by moving to a ‘nicer’ neighborhood. These ‘nice’ neighborhoods didn’t get nice on their own. These neighborhoods must be expensive enough in order to reach the golden price that is just high enough to segregate all those who are ‘not nice’. Americans obsessed with safety are willing to dish out a large sum for their bubble not to burst.

Sex offenders, unlike gang members, return to their ‘nice’ suburban homes following their time in prison. People with money and political power suddenly have another incentive for being paranoid about their family’s security. Like most of the governments’ attempts to make us safer, they end up offering an illusion of safety in exchange for our personal freedoms. A national sex offender registry is no different.

Given this futile attempt to actually make our neighborhoods safer, we are left with a bunch of sex offenders suffering severe embarrassment and isolation for a crime they have already paid for. Why don’t the Americans vote for a public registry of all felons? Why do ex sex offenders pose such a bigger threat? Americans love to watch these people be nationally embarrassed as they reinforce their children’s force field. But they don’t realize this punishment is not worth a crime that is already paid for.

The Significance of Dreams

“I have a dream that one day I will stand bare-naked in front of a laughing crowd not able to escape because my legs wouldn’t let me run.” – MLKjr.

Presenting this version of an ‘I have a dream’ speech wouldn’t be nearly as effective in starting a civil rights movement as the original. On the other hand, it's much more likely that MLK literally had this dream. Nakedness in a public place and immobility are two examples of the most common dreams we have. Other common dreams include: the sensation of falling, failing a test in school, being late for something, losing teeth, inability to speak, and flying.

We often think that our dreams are wacky thoughts so obscure they must exist uniquely in our minds. As special as we may think our dreams are, many people experience the same exact dreams. Because these recurring dreams have an intercultural presence, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that evolution is partially responsible.

Most of us forget our dreams or don’t let it affect our waking life. Natural selection has favored some recurring dreams over others so maybe dreams have more significance in our lives than we think. What could be the evolutionary explanation for these dreams? Maybe those hippie dream interpreters are on to something... or maybe not.

In my opinion, the different interpretations of these dreams are useless. Our ancient ancestors didn’t rely on dream interpreters to aid their survival. The only significance that can be extracted from a dream is dependent on the dreamer’s own experience and interpretation of the dream. Different people extract different meanings for the same dream, but in each one of these universal dreams the dreamer is having a similar negative experience.

The Hypotheses:

1) Dreaming up one of these universal dreams can expose you to the emotional consequences of experiencing these things in reality. It is easy to see how an increased fear of falling or losing teeth would increase your survival.

2) Following a frightening dream you may wake up in a panicked/alert state. Back in the hunter-gatherer days, these dreams could serve as the pre-historic coffee in the morning. When danger is more eminent, a natural ‘pick-me-up’ could mean the difference between life and death.

Don’t Pick your Girl like you Pick your Phone!

Ever purchase something you’ve really wanted only to get bored of it in a month or two? For example, you just bought a new iPhone and all its must-have accessories. During first week following your purchase, your iPhone is never idle as you adoringly fidget with its user-addicting interface. A month later all the glamour of having an iPhone deteriorates and all you do is complain about how it’s an inadequate phone. By month two you already have your eye on a newer sexier phone.

Finding out why some of us experience such turmoil can teach us a thing or two about how to choose our future mates. The anecdote above may have a striking resemblance to your last relationship with a person. You just hooked up with a girl or guy and after two months of being together you’re bored and want a new partner. Lets further examine how purchasing an iPhone is analogous to hooking up with a girl.

Lets begin by investigating how the consumer values the iPhone prior to purchasing it. There are two interesting components in the consumer’s valuing function 1) practical value 2) emotional value. The practical value equals the amount of money the consumer is willing to pay for the iPhone’s usefulness. A good way to measure this is by looking at the iPhone’s closest and cheapest substitute.

The emotional value is the difference between the price paid for the iPhone and the practical value i.e. it’s the added value that is not related to the phone’s usefulness. There are several factors that create this value, some of which include: the showing off factor, being the first to have a new technology factor, cool factor, status symbol, and other emotionally induced factors. The problem is that time is an enemy of emotional value. Upon purchasing an iPhone you might be paying $200 beyond the practical value. A month later that $200 could potentially depreciate to $10.

If you prefer not to see you assets or relationships devalue within a month, then you need to look beyond the glamour. Become self-aware of the emotional value you have built yourself and decide if it’s still worth it. Before investing a lot of time and effort on a girl or guy, ask yourself if the initial investment is worth it in the long-run haul. When the excitement wears off, will he or she ‘depreciate’ in value within a month?

The lesson:

If your iPhone will only be worth $200 in the end of the month, don’t pay $400 for it.

If your mate will turn out to be a dud in the end of the month, don’t invest your time and effort in them in the first place.