So i've had a few things whirling in my head recently, and I really wish it would stop. It's making me dizzy. I'll try to set one of these things down as a short (hopefully) essay I will entitle for now:
"On the Spectrum of Wants"
After my recent and fairly annoying incident of wallet losing, I've begun the process of replacing my cards. One of the cards I replaced was my 'Access' card, the commie one that lets you do commie things. It's great, I recommend you get one. Now, with this little card came a bag of goodies, mostly in the form of vouchers. The big voucher book (like the one we got last year with the krispy kreme vouchers, which are back this year; hurrah for diabetes!) had a voucher for Liberty City Stories [the PS2 version: as a change of style, brackets] for 10 dollars in it. Which brings me to my point.
I went and purchased this game from the Broadway store that had this promotion, with Ed who came along as he seemingly had nothing better to do. As he generally does, he asked a simple enough question: did I actually wanted the game or not? Good question. Demand, generally speaking, isn't supposed to be a function of price, as it is a function of utility. Now, obviously, you have to look at tradeoffs between utility and the money exercised to obtain this utility, but did I buy the game because it was cheap or because I actually wanted it? My response was/is this: I did buy the game because I did really want the game. It had existed in my spectrum of wants, albeit at the fringes. It was pushed further towards the middle by a combination of a lower of price[effort], and the new information provided to me in voucher form.
Atleast for me, the spectrum of wants is extremely wide. I generally satisfy the spectrum of wants through a value system: how much effort do I have put into this to satisfy a particular want? Which is why consistently, my wants tend to be things that are possible already to me: reading, gaming, music, learning and so on. However, it should be noted that I internally individuate those wants quite specifically; that is, there is a different want when I want Baldurs Gate as opposed to Majesty, there is a different want when I read Steinbeck rather than Slashdot, and so on. Those wants are not monolithic blocks of things.
Occasionally, such events (mostly concerts) have enough utility attached to them such that even though more effort would be required of them than simpler wants, I am willing to expend the effort required to satisfy them. To be accurate, it's not neccessarily more utility that i'm gaining, as it is a different type of utility not available to me from other wants.
I went and purchased this game from the Broadway store that had this promotion, with Ed who came along as he seemingly had nothing better to do. As he generally does, he asked a simple enough question: did I actually wanted the game or not? Good question. Demand, generally speaking, isn't supposed to be a function of price, as it is a function of utility. Now, obviously, you have to look at tradeoffs between utility and the money exercised to obtain this utility, but did I buy the game because it was cheap or because I actually wanted it? My response was/is this: I did buy the game because I did really want the game. It had existed in my spectrum of wants, albeit at the fringes. It was pushed further towards the middle by a combination of a lower of price[effort], and the new information provided to me in voucher form.
Atleast for me, the spectrum of wants is extremely wide. I generally satisfy the spectrum of wants through a value system: how much effort do I have put into this to satisfy a particular want? Which is why consistently, my wants tend to be things that are possible already to me: reading, gaming, music, learning and so on. However, it should be noted that I internally individuate those wants quite specifically; that is, there is a different want when I want Baldurs Gate as opposed to Majesty, there is a different want when I read Steinbeck rather than Slashdot, and so on. Those wants are not monolithic blocks of things.
Occasionally, such events (mostly concerts) have enough utility attached to them such that even though more effort would be required of them than simpler wants, I am willing to expend the effort required to satisfy them. To be accurate, it's not neccessarily more utility that i'm gaining, as it is a different type of utility not available to me from other wants.
6 comments:
I identify and find this valid.
The problem is that people are naturally risk averse, and thus we always arrive at a point of utility that is sub-optimal. Not only that, we are not wise enough, nor rational enough to live anywhere near the lives that we have within grasp.
Now in analysing tasks from a simple marginal benefit/cost analysis, you risk falling into a pattern in which the tendency to be risk-averse moves you closer and closer to adapting demand to supply, rather than supply to demand. To some extent, this has to happen, but in satisficing, rather than maximising, this can have the effect of higher qualities being run out of business and thus resulting in a continual narrowing of boundaries for all.
Game Theory + Informational Assymetery. Rational individual agents, acting on imperfect information leading to a clearly sub-optimal outcome.
That's why I object to the logic of obeying price signals. To some extent it's unavoidable, but the extent to which you conform creates a greater alienation from self that degrades the lives we lead.
access is great.
i still can't get over the fact that you find sam to be your personal acquaintance with the typical australian male. oh the lulz.
is it bad that he's mine too?
err...he's also mine. :s
you all need to get out more.
(sam is my main white aussie male, though i do know a few ockers)
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