I've been reading Priceless recently, by William Poundstone (or something) and jeez is that book bad at things. As a psychologist i have to say that i know pretty much everything it mentions, as a normal person i have to say the book is balls hard to understand and terrible at conveying concepts to laypeople when the concepts are hard and spend too much time on it when the concepts are easy. Well, i'm still reading it, so if you're going to get it for free you might as well give it a flip through - it's told in many many short chapters so you won't get bored.
One of the concepts in Priceless is Price Anchoring, which can be thought of as a fun thing stores do when they put up an expensive item in the window and then relative inexpensive items next to it. Think of a luxury store, with a $8000 handbag on display and some $2000 handbags nearby. The $2000 handbags are only a little lower quality than the $8000 one. Well, they don't expect to sell the $8000 one, maybe ever, but they're putting it there so you think the $2000 one is a bargain.
Okay, maybe you'll never buy a $2000 handbag, but what about this? A gift store is selling things in the $40-$60 range. .. a bit too much for you. But all of a sudden that $7 keychain is looking pretty good.
You've been sent out to buy milk, but you have no idea what milk is supposed to cost anymore. There's a sketchy store brand for $2.39 and a popular brand out for $2.69 and a possibly organic one for sale at $2.99. Well, better go for one in the middle! Stores know you think like this. When they make cheap store brand milk, they don't expect you to buy it, they just want to drive up sales for the other two. Also, you just paid $7 for a keychain and felt like it was a bargain, didn't you?
What i thought was really interesting was that someone in the book called the handbag example "anger-happy reaction" or something. People are angry they can't afford the $8000 celebrity handbag, so they try to make themselves happy by buying the $2000 one. Hey, it's still brand name isn't it? And i saved $6000 here!
"look this one is only $160! Isn't that amazing?"
"Hey Lily what's Breloom's base attack?"
".. uhm, 130 or 135 or something?"
"Isn't that really good?"
"Yeah it's awesome"
"What pokemon has 160 attack?"
".... Slaking and Regigigas?"
"Pretty awesome huh?"
"But they're too slow"
"...You still going to get that handbag?"
"Guess not."
POKEFANS HAVE RESISTANCE TO PRICE ANCHORING - get around it by re-anchoring. DO YOUR BEST, FRIENDS!
--
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The Atlantic magazine explains the end of men and the rise of women
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/
the tl;dr - we're going to need some menimists soon, once they realize they're being screwed over by gender norms too.
"The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true. Women in poor parts of India are learning English faster than men to meet the demands of new global call centers. Women own more than 40 percent of private businesses in China, where a red Ferrari is the new status symbol for female entrepreneurs. Last year, Iceland elected Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of state, who campaigned explicitly against the male elite she claimed had destroyed the nation’s banking system, and who vowed to end the “age of testosterone.”
Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination. Yes, women still do most of the child care. And yes, the upper reaches of society are still dominated by men. But given the power of the forces pushing at the economy, this setup feels like the last gasp of a dying age rather than the permanent establishment."
Somewhere along the line, someone screwed up. Guys, the point of being in charge is keeping yourself in charge. ..lol.
Though, the way I see it, women have been in charge the whole time (not that i've seen anything before the 1990s). Even if they didn't have the physical strength to get themselves bear meat for dinner, making someone else do it seems even more skillful. Yeah, sounds like something John Adams would say, huh? From the era of women-are-too-good-for-power-games-and-the-real-world...
If you're an honorable woman though, you know that the only way to make someone get a bear for you is to know how to get a bear yourself. Making someone do something for you because you can't is weak - making someone do something for you because you don't want to do it yourself is being in control. Thanks to the feminist movement in the 70s, women learned how to take down bears by themselves! .. or something.
yes, bears is a metaphor.
"Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer"
well... fuck. women will never dominate computer engineering, unfortunately, even if they are the ones buying the computers. I guess Geek Squad is about to be the new plumber-role. On janitors... i'm not sure it's male dominated, with cleaning conglomerates like One Source around, just hiring mostly young Mexican ladies to do everything.
One ironic thing about this article: It starts by saying apocalyptic predictions from the past are never true (now that couples can pick the gender of their baby, there will no longer be female babies..) but ends by making one of its own (now that the economy is better suited for women, men are going to be a thing of the past)
--
the tl;dr - we're going to need some menimists soon, once they realize they're being screwed over by gender norms too.
"The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true. Women in poor parts of India are learning English faster than men to meet the demands of new global call centers. Women own more than 40 percent of private businesses in China, where a red Ferrari is the new status symbol for female entrepreneurs. Last year, Iceland elected Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of state, who campaigned explicitly against the male elite she claimed had destroyed the nation’s banking system, and who vowed to end the “age of testosterone.”
Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination. Yes, women still do most of the child care. And yes, the upper reaches of society are still dominated by men. But given the power of the forces pushing at the economy, this setup feels like the last gasp of a dying age rather than the permanent establishment."
Somewhere along the line, someone screwed up. Guys, the point of being in charge is keeping yourself in charge. ..lol.
Though, the way I see it, women have been in charge the whole time (not that i've seen anything before the 1990s). Even if they didn't have the physical strength to get themselves bear meat for dinner, making someone else do it seems even more skillful. Yeah, sounds like something John Adams would say, huh? From the era of women-are-too-good-for-power-games-and-the-real-world...
If you're an honorable woman though, you know that the only way to make someone get a bear for you is to know how to get a bear yourself. Making someone do something for you because you can't is weak - making someone do something for you because you don't want to do it yourself is being in control. Thanks to the feminist movement in the 70s, women learned how to take down bears by themselves! .. or something.
yes, bears is a metaphor.
"Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer"
well... fuck. women will never dominate computer engineering, unfortunately, even if they are the ones buying the computers. I guess Geek Squad is about to be the new plumber-role. On janitors... i'm not sure it's male dominated, with cleaning conglomerates like One Source around, just hiring mostly young Mexican ladies to do everything.
One ironic thing about this article: It starts by saying apocalyptic predictions from the past are never true (now that couples can pick the gender of their baby, there will no longer be female babies..) but ends by making one of its own (now that the economy is better suited for women, men are going to be a thing of the past)
--
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
