slowly

3 comments ↓

#1 JJ Ross on 11.22.09 at 22:42

There’s a cure for that kind of deep intense focus on one interest, you know. Satisfaction!

#2 JJ Ross on 11.22.09 at 22:47

Have you read Pam Sorooshian’s explanation of the economics of scarity yet?

The “extra” utility you get from having “one more” of something, is called “marginal utility.”
And – marginal utility goes DOWN as you have more and more of the same thing.

Even if you chose different flavors for each of your ice cream cones, you’d have chosen the highest-utility flavor first and so subsequent cones would provide lower and lower marginal utility.

This way of looking at choices is applicable to almost everything we do.

What’s your favorite thing to do? Watch movies? Read a book? Garden? Go to Disneyland? Why don’t you just do that all the time and nothing else? I mean — if it is your favorite, then doesn’t it give you higher utility than anything else? Why do you ever stop doing it?

The answer is that as you do more and more of something, the marginal utility of doing even more of it, goes down. As its marginal utility goes down, other things start to look better and better.

#3 Beta on 11.23.09 at 12:19

ahhh, I’d never read that essay, although I am familiar with the idea. And much as it is giving me a twitch in my right eye, I’m trying to appreciate his fascination and let it run its course. But it’s not easy!

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