The Study
According to Cynthia E. Cryder et al. sad people are bigger spenders. In a paper they published a few years ago “Misery is not Miserly: Sad and Self-Focused Individuals Spend More”, they found that sad and self-focused individuals spend as much as 300% more for the same type of commodity.
The researchers randomly assigned people to either watch a sad video or an emotionally neutral video, after which they were asked to purchase a commodity (i.e. bottle of water). Participants in the sad group offered about 300% more than the neutral group for the same item.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
knowledge thus far
Firstly there is the axiom. Whether it is from revelation, inductive experimentation or a deducement from other facts, this is the start of other knowledge. Isaac Newton must have thought up his 3 axioms of motion ie 1) an object in motion continues in motion until some force acts on the object, through the observation that things on earth start off in one direction but slow down AND watching planets w/c appear never to slow down. This appears to be a general deduction from observation/maybe even natural revelation in which he posited his first law of motion. Clearly, there is no experimentation here.
2) F=ma can be derived from experimentation. Recall he did know of Galileo's though experiment ie "...Imagine two objects, one light and one heavier than the other one, are connected to each other by a string. Drop this system of objects from the top of a tower. If we assume heavier objects do indeed fall faster than lighter ones (and conversely, lighter objects fall slower), the string will soon pull taut as the lighter object retards the fall of the heavier object. But the system considered as a whole is heavier than the heavy object alone, and therefore should fall faster. This contradiction leads one to conclude the assumption is false." We note here too that it is derived from reason and not experimentation.
3) Lastly, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Again impossible to test b/c there are infinite amts of weights and material in w/c to test this. Is it true for steel on steel? Steel on lead? 10lbs on 50 lbs? From Newton's view, it is an assumption based on a limited amt of observations of his environment.
So here we have axioms entering knowledge from areas other than inductive experimention.
2) F=ma can be derived from experimentation. Recall he did know of Galileo's though experiment ie "...Imagine two objects, one light and one heavier than the other one, are connected to each other by a string. Drop this system of objects from the top of a tower. If we assume heavier objects do indeed fall faster than lighter ones (and conversely, lighter objects fall slower), the string will soon pull taut as the lighter object retards the fall of the heavier object. But the system considered as a whole is heavier than the heavy object alone, and therefore should fall faster. This contradiction leads one to conclude the assumption is false." We note here too that it is derived from reason and not experimentation.
3) Lastly, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Again impossible to test b/c there are infinite amts of weights and material in w/c to test this. Is it true for steel on steel? Steel on lead? 10lbs on 50 lbs? From Newton's view, it is an assumption based on a limited amt of observations of his environment.
So here we have axioms entering knowledge from areas other than inductive experimention.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Why stuff is insatiable
What is stuff? All good and services? Yes, but what else. Stuff is a communication tool. It let's other humans know your rank in the hierarchy of the pack. Humans in the society pack are in constant movement, some moving up , some moving sideways and some moving down. I know this because they show me. Similarly like dogs communicating by pissing on trees. (Money is a derivative of stuff, it is stuff "owed" and work is a transitive trade=> labour for stuff). There are ALWAYS younger, stronger people rising to usurp our position in this pack. It is our instincts to compete with them. It is our instinct to gather more stuff to maintain our position. The downside with this is society uses a disproportionate amount of resources to create stuff w/c has very little use in the big picture of society other than to communicate rank. The upside is that society is motivated to create and this in of itself spurs employment and possibly innovation.
Stuff is all goods and services. Hence the economy is defined as the production and distribution of stuff. Money is then an IOU of stuff owed. If one lends "stuff owed" to someone, since one would have to spend part of ones life without all ones stuff, one generally gets more stuff to compensate with the now less time one has. Or simply less time with stuff-> more stuff with less time. People need a certain amount of stuff to sustain themselves and generally trade labour for stuff. The fair price of a particular item should be the sum of the labour to produce the item plus the material. The material costs should reflect the price of finding the material, maintaining the upkeep of the find, extracting the material and delivering the material. If an entrepreneur is able to produce and distribute an equal amount of stuff at a faster rate with equal labour (more efficient), he will sell more stuff.
Stuff is all goods and services. Hence the economy is defined as the production and distribution of stuff. Money is then an IOU of stuff owed. If one lends "stuff owed" to someone, since one would have to spend part of ones life without all ones stuff, one generally gets more stuff to compensate with the now less time one has. Or simply less time with stuff-> more stuff with less time. People need a certain amount of stuff to sustain themselves and generally trade labour for stuff. The fair price of a particular item should be the sum of the labour to produce the item plus the material. The material costs should reflect the price of finding the material, maintaining the upkeep of the find, extracting the material and delivering the material. If an entrepreneur is able to produce and distribute an equal amount of stuff at a faster rate with equal labour (more efficient), he will sell more stuff.
sum of parts
The present is a thin line between the past and the future hence the only true way to live in the present is to repeat the present. Consider music. Is it not a set of notes strung together. The whole set of notes is the music. To live in the present with the music is to repeat the note. Similarly consider a book. Is it not a set of letters strung together. To live in the present in the book, would we not have to reduce our reading/writing down to one word, word,word,word or maybe even one letter l,l,l. Alas the entire structure tends to become absurd. It may be self confirming but evolutionary nature has not evolved us to operate as such. Perhaps this is what Heidegger meant with dasein. Being in time is to listen to the a preferred set of notes vs a more consciously effort of reducing them.
Capital, labor and stuff
I trade labor for money. I trade money for stuff. Hence I trade labor for stuff by the transitive property. I dislike labor but I need stuff. This is a problem. If I can get enough capital, I could trade capital for money, hence trade capital for stuff. This would solve the problem. ( Recall economics=> the production and distribution of stuff. Econ. policy = what gets produced, how and who gets to consume it.)
verifier method
The verifier method boils down to seven steps: 1) amass knowledge of a discipline through interviews and reading; 2) determine whether critical expertise has yet to be applied in the field; 3) look for bias and mistakenly held assumptions in the research; 4) analyze jargon to uncover differing definitions of key terms; 5) check for classic mistakes using human-error tools; 6) follow the errors as they ripple through underlying assumptions; 7) suggest new avenues for research that emerge from steps one through six.
what motivates one to work
After hitting some "fair" monetary point, 3 things motivate people at work:
1) a sense autonomy and self direction
2) a sense of mastery ie getting better and better at something that matters
3) a sense of purpose ie what your doing matters to more than just myself
For enduring motivation, these 3 criteria supersede the carrot and stick method empirically. However, it is emphasized that the compensation should be at a level that the money doesn't really matter. This is backed by 50 plus years of behaviorial science. If people focus mostly on the reward, the job deteriorates. High stake short term incentives leads to bad work... Daniel Pink author of Drive
To employees, Pink offers advice on how "type X"es — his coinage for people who prefer external rewards — can enroll themselves in the burgeoning ranks of the "type I"s, driven mostly by inner rewards. The difference matters: Type I's have better long-term performance and well-being, he argues.
http://www.danpink.com/
1) a sense autonomy and self direction
2) a sense of mastery ie getting better and better at something that matters
3) a sense of purpose ie what your doing matters to more than just myself
For enduring motivation, these 3 criteria supersede the carrot and stick method empirically. However, it is emphasized that the compensation should be at a level that the money doesn't really matter. This is backed by 50 plus years of behaviorial science. If people focus mostly on the reward, the job deteriorates. High stake short term incentives leads to bad work... Daniel Pink author of Drive
To employees, Pink offers advice on how "type X"es — his coinage for people who prefer external rewards — can enroll themselves in the burgeoning ranks of the "type I"s, driven mostly by inner rewards. The difference matters: Type I's have better long-term performance and well-being, he argues.
http://www.danpink.com/
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