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Tag Archives: utility theory
Newsflash: You Should Be Happy!!!
Matt Ridley has written an entertaining book: The Rational Optimist, detailing all the ways in which life is great for rich people. (By rich people I mean the fraction of humans who make ≥5 figure salaries in $.) For example Louis … Continue reading
Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged altruism, being a good person, charity, confusion, David Foster Wallace, donation, good, meaning, morals, order of magnitude, order-of-magnitude argument, order-of-magnitude arguments, orders of magnitude, patronising, patronizing, philosophy, psychology, scale, scaling laws, selfishness, utility theory, white saviour industrial complex, wordplay
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What I sensed was that while the laws of supply and demand governed everything on earth, the easy money was in demand—manufacturing it, manipulating it, sending it forth to multiply, etc. As a rule of thumb (and with some notable … Continue reading
The Equation of Life s/rent/mortgage/ or s/rent/landowner’s share of tenant’s crops/ et cetera, et cetera, mutatis mutandi, et ceteraaaa, et ceteraaa
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Tagged consumption, credit, credit scores, debt, economics, lending, life, money, mortgage loans, mortgages, spending, utility theory
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I can afford to consume each of chocolate cheese tea/coffee fruit multiple times per week. I think that qualifies me as Pretty Goddam Lucky.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged chance, cheese, coffee, consumption, economics, food, fortune, gratitude, happiness, history, luck, utility theory, wealth
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Airplane passenger: It was the worst day of my life! First, we had to wait for twenty minutes! before they would let us board. And then, we had to sit on the runway for forty minutes! before they would let us take off! Louis CK: Oh, really? … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged appreciating things, capitalism, Conan O'Brien, economic growth, economics, growth, happiness, hedonic treadmill, iPad, iPhone, Louis CK, productivity, technology, tv, utility theory
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lembarrasduchoix asked: thank you for the introduction to Newcomb’s paradox! Could you do a post on your favorite paradoxes? The decision theory paradoxes I’m familiar with are: Ellsberg Paradox— Theorists encode both situations with unknown probabilities, such as the chance … Continue reading
The Scenic Route
Years ago some friends and I took a roadtrip around the southeastern USA—Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The scenery was beautiful in the Great Smoky Mountains. But for some reason, the friend who had rented the car had … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aesthetics, America, beauty, convolution, geography, Great Smoky Mountains, mathematics, optimisation, path, paths, USA, utility theory
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Bob Kenny says [great wealth] isn’t always worthy of envy, and is certainly not worth sacrificing one’s life to attain. “If … people … know that getting the $20 million or $200 million won’t necessarily bring them all that they’d … Continue reading
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Tagged desire, economics, envy, happiness, Leontes, life, money, rich, self, self versus other, Shakespeare, super-rich, super-wealthy, The Winter's Tale, utility theory, vino, wealth, William Shakespeare, wine
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According to some rough estimates, world living standards grew less than 50 percent … from A.D. 1 until the Industrial Revolution. By contrast, they grew a whopping 1,000 to 2,000 percent in the 19th and 20th centuries. Joel Waldfogel
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Tagged consumption, economics, growth, history, Joel Waldfogel, progress, utility theory, wealth
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Human Mathematics 