For some weird reason, I think I was dreaming about lab rats pressing on levers to electrically stimulate their brains' pleasure centres, so while lazily rolling in bed before I got up today, I was thinking that's how humans are basically behaving as our world gets more and more technologically complex.
With insights from science allowing us to reduce huge, complicated and dynamic systems into their simple causes and effects, we're able to know what causes what to a very accurate degree. We know what drives us at the deepest level. We're not that different from animals. From the studies of laboratory animals with electric nodes wired up to the pleasure centres in their brains, it was found that the electrical stimulus was reinforcing and can override behaviour. Laboratory animals will press a lever at high rates (> 6,000 times per hour) to deliver brief stimulation pulses to brain regions. The reinforcement from direct electrical activation of this reward substrate is more potent than other rewards, such as food or water. The potency of this electrical stimulation was most dramatically shown in a classic experiment where the animal subjects suffered self-imposed starvation when forced to make a choice between obtaining food and water or electrical brain stimulation (Routtenberg & Lindy, 1965). The second distinct feature of reward from electrical brain stimulation is the lack of satiation; animals generally press to stimulate continuously, taking only brief breaks. These two features - super-potent reward and lack of satiation - are important characteristics of direct activation of brain reward mechanisms.
Unfortunately in this sense, I suppose, science and technology co-exist and advance each other accordingly. Every new item on the market is sold to reproduce that kick from activating our brain reward mechanisms and promises, in fancy marketing language, to give us enhanced kicks. These include nifty new gadgets and websites promising entertainment that suck us into hours of unproductive, addictive fun. But this is not limited to technological products - the market reflects peoples' demand for novel and better ways to activate their brain reward mechanisms (obviously), and with that we see flashier cars, harder drinks, trendier clothes, swankier clubs, bigger brands, super-sweet foods, etc. These things do not satiate us, and they replace our otherwise normal behaviours.
Whatever is "better", on average, ultimately boils down to what activates those brain reward mechanisms more and faster, and people are willing to pay good money for it. An immediate distinction between now and the past is that, with our advances in ideas and technology, we're getting more and more capable of delivering those quick-reward ends compared to other periods in our history. We've become laboratory rats who are capable of creating our own fancy brain stimulation levers, and we're psychotically pressing them. In contrast, a caveman was capable of only activating his pleasure centres by doing the menial but traditionally sound things that led to good feelings - seeking friendships, taking care of relatives, falling in love, communicating with others, finding food to eat, etc. These days, who needs such longwinded activities? They take too long before they lead us to the promised land.
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Whoever Insists His Business Has Nothing To Do With Politics Is Obviously Lying
I was just musing to myself (yet again) how offering a product or service on the basis of an idealistic notion of serving your patrons (and society at large) is just not enough in our modern day and age. In every practical market/industry, there are companies that have firmly established themselves as benchmarks for the quality of the services or products offered, and many of these companies are big-ass corporations.
In other words, it is insufficient to go into business without a workable business model that will cover all kinds of things ranging from finances to logistics to human resources. Going in with a product, even if it's a great one that will benefit mankind greatly, and hoping its weight will carry itself is naive and unrealistic.
With this notion in mind, 'bigness' can be a great advantage to gain for any corporation that wants to firmly root itself in the market and lock out competition. It is terribly difficult for new firms to enter certain markets because it is too difficult to offer products and services on the level that the existing giants already provide for.
Anyone who is decently versed in the supposed virtue of the free market will know that it is an established fact that the more firms in a market there are, the more efficient the market becomes - competition is good for the consumer and society on the whole.
The fact that bigness shuts out competition is a profoundly bad thing. Market moralists will argue all sorts of things to defend the market intellectually, but the truth is that any corporation that becomes big enough tends to become a monopolist.
But while I argue that it is a bad thing that new firms face difficulty in entering markets locked out by big corporations, it does not follow that big corporations should therefore lower their standards or provide handicaps so as to give weaker entrants a chance.
The issue really is in the immense amount of power that resides in the hands of big corporations who now can redefine the rules as consumers become dependent on them, a power that is unchecked because there are few entrants and firms that can provide alternatives for consumers. With bigness comes great power and with great power comes the potential for great sin.
Also, there are tons of reasons why the pursuit of profit at all cost is bad, or why the Milton Friedman argument that the 'only thing businesses should care about is profit' is a dodgy mantra to follow. But here's an important one. Without virtues or ethical principles guiding a company's direction for profits, especially when the company is a monopolist, the company can be easily bought over by politicians.
Should there be any social elite with the capital who decides to further any self-serving agenda, any spineless powerful corporation can hop on the bandwagon to further the interests of that social elite, providing all sorts of support ranging from commodities to marketing to manipulation of consumers, as long as the social elite has sufficient money.
When political power and corporations come together, giving rise to the agenda-setting problems that the United States particularly faces, society can be quite doomed.
In other words, it is insufficient to go into business without a workable business model that will cover all kinds of things ranging from finances to logistics to human resources. Going in with a product, even if it's a great one that will benefit mankind greatly, and hoping its weight will carry itself is naive and unrealistic.
With this notion in mind, 'bigness' can be a great advantage to gain for any corporation that wants to firmly root itself in the market and lock out competition. It is terribly difficult for new firms to enter certain markets because it is too difficult to offer products and services on the level that the existing giants already provide for.
Anyone who is decently versed in the supposed virtue of the free market will know that it is an established fact that the more firms in a market there are, the more efficient the market becomes - competition is good for the consumer and society on the whole.
The fact that bigness shuts out competition is a profoundly bad thing. Market moralists will argue all sorts of things to defend the market intellectually, but the truth is that any corporation that becomes big enough tends to become a monopolist.
But while I argue that it is a bad thing that new firms face difficulty in entering markets locked out by big corporations, it does not follow that big corporations should therefore lower their standards or provide handicaps so as to give weaker entrants a chance.
The issue really is in the immense amount of power that resides in the hands of big corporations who now can redefine the rules as consumers become dependent on them, a power that is unchecked because there are few entrants and firms that can provide alternatives for consumers. With bigness comes great power and with great power comes the potential for great sin.
Also, there are tons of reasons why the pursuit of profit at all cost is bad, or why the Milton Friedman argument that the 'only thing businesses should care about is profit' is a dodgy mantra to follow. But here's an important one. Without virtues or ethical principles guiding a company's direction for profits, especially when the company is a monopolist, the company can be easily bought over by politicians.
Should there be any social elite with the capital who decides to further any self-serving agenda, any spineless powerful corporation can hop on the bandwagon to further the interests of that social elite, providing all sorts of support ranging from commodities to marketing to manipulation of consumers, as long as the social elite has sufficient money.
When political power and corporations come together, giving rise to the agenda-setting problems that the United States particularly faces, society can be quite doomed.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
The Market Is My Matrix Brain Vat
The inner geek can sometimes screw reality up by looking at things in a not so normal way. But I like.
Take Ekman's work for example. He's spent years mapping out the facial muscles on the human face to create a specific coding system for emotion so that we know exactly what is going on when someone smiles - it's not just a smile; it can be a sly smile, a meek smile, a genuine smile, and so on. This means that, if we are trained enough, we can actually look past a person's overt facial display and pick out the nuances that really tell us what he or she really feels. And once we're adept at it, we can be better judges whether we want to or not. But I guess sometimes we're better off not knowing exactly how people feel, especially when people want to conceal their feelings so that life would move along more easily. It's just not cool when you're trying, and always able, to decipher the underlying emotion behind every smile, frown or laugh. Everyone's just going to become a lying bugger to you after that.
That aside, I spent Sunday morning grocery shopping with my family and I noticed quite a number of things beyond the ordinary. For one, studying the sociology of food this term has kept me on cynical toes about the credibility and health claims of the food products sold at supermarkets. Information on the packaging, at the end of the day, still has to serve a commercial interest, and that is to get people to buy the product even if it means tweaking the truth to consumer fancy.
On sale are all these supposedly top-notch eggs, sugar-free fruit juices, low fat milk and meat that looks so innocuous now but could've come to you via a slaughterhouse that treats the animals there like dirt, driving them batshit crazy and rendering them lame before they are put to death in the most pathetic manner possible. Sigh, it's a good enlightenment nonetheless, but my lenses have altered and in the end, this is the modern day reality - if not these foods, then no foods at all. Wet markets are dying out as convenience becomes valued more and more.
Then, I passed by a shop lady who was serving samples of a drink, which I later learnt to be an orange juice-like health drink that can aid in sore throats and ulcers. I accepted her offer, sampled it and listened to her explanation of the benefits of drinking it, before kindly declining to purchase it. I know from research that the mere act of sampling a product raises one's likelihood of purchasing it, so I decided to linger around and observe her attempts at selling the drink. A mother and her two children passed by. The mother rejected the shop lady's sample offer and continued walking on, but one of her kids trailing behind tried the drink. The mother, who had no interest initially whatsoever in the product and upon seeing her child try a sample, stopped to entertain the shop lady's explanation of the product. A while later, she bought one box.
That was a more complex case, but in general, almost everyone who tried a sample and had a chance to listen to the shop lady's description of the product bought it in the end. Did these people even need a sore throat/fever/ulcer treatment drink in the first place? No. But the wonders of marketing once again makes us aware of our 'unarticulated' needs and buy things.
On top of that, I have no idea if the product really is all that brilliant. It is really just a bunch of chemicals put together which supposedly have medicinal properties coupled with other stuff to make it taste like orange juice, in the pretext of creating a formula that will aid ailments of heatiness.
Later on, my folks went ahead to complete the grocery purchases. The bill came up to $72.50 - voila, it was $2.50 short of rebates! That 'purchase $75 and get points' deal resulted in a moment of excited frenzy as my parents instinctively turned around from the counter to scurry for something convenient to fill up the price deficit. And scurry they did, because it's always not nice to keep other people in the queue behind you waiting, hoho. I turned around too, and realised that I was immediately confronted with the supermarket's brand products, most of which wouldn't have been considered by shoppers in their right minds to purchase. Stuff on the convenient shelves can get as ridiculous as party toys. There were also less popular cup noodles, which is very sly because there really is a permanent section for cup noodles somewhere else in the shop - the supermarket just wanted to try and take advantage of this moment of frenzied, 'just grab anything' buying behaviour to sell off certain products. Shoppers wouldn't have, endowed with the luxury of reason, considered buying these products, but because of the need to get a rebate one ends up buying unnecessarily and, I guess sometimes even worse, rationalises the purchases. I'd love to see someone rationalise the party toys.
Aside from the supermarket, it's amazing what can get on sale in malls all over the world, ranging from products to services to entertainment. I don't really have a term to combine the ideas of consumerism, capitalism and evil marketing together, but this whole thing to me often seems to be the root of people's general unhappiness and discontent. We see all kinds of funny goods, all of which are designed to make us want them, and when we don't buy all these things it makes us unhappier, when in the first place in the absence of these unnecessary things we were really doing just fine. Oh well, the lines drawn on the ethics of selling aren't clear, and for the benefit of capitalism we really do have a much wider variety of ways to spend our cash now. Whee for that.
Take Ekman's work for example. He's spent years mapping out the facial muscles on the human face to create a specific coding system for emotion so that we know exactly what is going on when someone smiles - it's not just a smile; it can be a sly smile, a meek smile, a genuine smile, and so on. This means that, if we are trained enough, we can actually look past a person's overt facial display and pick out the nuances that really tell us what he or she really feels. And once we're adept at it, we can be better judges whether we want to or not. But I guess sometimes we're better off not knowing exactly how people feel, especially when people want to conceal their feelings so that life would move along more easily. It's just not cool when you're trying, and always able, to decipher the underlying emotion behind every smile, frown or laugh. Everyone's just going to become a lying bugger to you after that.
That aside, I spent Sunday morning grocery shopping with my family and I noticed quite a number of things beyond the ordinary. For one, studying the sociology of food this term has kept me on cynical toes about the credibility and health claims of the food products sold at supermarkets. Information on the packaging, at the end of the day, still has to serve a commercial interest, and that is to get people to buy the product even if it means tweaking the truth to consumer fancy.
On sale are all these supposedly top-notch eggs, sugar-free fruit juices, low fat milk and meat that looks so innocuous now but could've come to you via a slaughterhouse that treats the animals there like dirt, driving them batshit crazy and rendering them lame before they are put to death in the most pathetic manner possible. Sigh, it's a good enlightenment nonetheless, but my lenses have altered and in the end, this is the modern day reality - if not these foods, then no foods at all. Wet markets are dying out as convenience becomes valued more and more.
Then, I passed by a shop lady who was serving samples of a drink, which I later learnt to be an orange juice-like health drink that can aid in sore throats and ulcers. I accepted her offer, sampled it and listened to her explanation of the benefits of drinking it, before kindly declining to purchase it. I know from research that the mere act of sampling a product raises one's likelihood of purchasing it, so I decided to linger around and observe her attempts at selling the drink. A mother and her two children passed by. The mother rejected the shop lady's sample offer and continued walking on, but one of her kids trailing behind tried the drink. The mother, who had no interest initially whatsoever in the product and upon seeing her child try a sample, stopped to entertain the shop lady's explanation of the product. A while later, she bought one box.
That was a more complex case, but in general, almost everyone who tried a sample and had a chance to listen to the shop lady's description of the product bought it in the end. Did these people even need a sore throat/fever/ulcer treatment drink in the first place? No. But the wonders of marketing once again makes us aware of our 'unarticulated' needs and buy things.
On top of that, I have no idea if the product really is all that brilliant. It is really just a bunch of chemicals put together which supposedly have medicinal properties coupled with other stuff to make it taste like orange juice, in the pretext of creating a formula that will aid ailments of heatiness.
Later on, my folks went ahead to complete the grocery purchases. The bill came up to $72.50 - voila, it was $2.50 short of rebates! That 'purchase $75 and get points' deal resulted in a moment of excited frenzy as my parents instinctively turned around from the counter to scurry for something convenient to fill up the price deficit. And scurry they did, because it's always not nice to keep other people in the queue behind you waiting, hoho. I turned around too, and realised that I was immediately confronted with the supermarket's brand products, most of which wouldn't have been considered by shoppers in their right minds to purchase. Stuff on the convenient shelves can get as ridiculous as party toys. There were also less popular cup noodles, which is very sly because there really is a permanent section for cup noodles somewhere else in the shop - the supermarket just wanted to try and take advantage of this moment of frenzied, 'just grab anything' buying behaviour to sell off certain products. Shoppers wouldn't have, endowed with the luxury of reason, considered buying these products, but because of the need to get a rebate one ends up buying unnecessarily and, I guess sometimes even worse, rationalises the purchases. I'd love to see someone rationalise the party toys.
Aside from the supermarket, it's amazing what can get on sale in malls all over the world, ranging from products to services to entertainment. I don't really have a term to combine the ideas of consumerism, capitalism and evil marketing together, but this whole thing to me often seems to be the root of people's general unhappiness and discontent. We see all kinds of funny goods, all of which are designed to make us want them, and when we don't buy all these things it makes us unhappier, when in the first place in the absence of these unnecessary things we were really doing just fine. Oh well, the lines drawn on the ethics of selling aren't clear, and for the benefit of capitalism we really do have a much wider variety of ways to spend our cash now. Whee for that.
Saturday, 12 July 2008
And There Is Discord In The Garden, Tonight
I job-searched and did some random calling earlier on wednesday and some company called me back yesterday while I was still at camp. Eunos, 1845h today, I was told, so I headed down for the supposed interview.
As it turned out, it was some MLM business slyly disguised as "various positions available, earn up to $800 in 2 weeks" in the Classifieds, which I suppose I really should've guessed. But it didn't turn out so bad because this is, afterall, not the first time I've been 'tricked' (of sorts) into ending up sitting at some seemingly casual round table in a lobby-like office with posters of products and good performance workers on the walls.
In fact, I ended up talking to one of the high-flyers in the company one-on-one for my interview, and she turned out to be my NYJC and SMU senior who was from SIS and had graduated already. So while she gave me her usual rundown of the MLM-skeptics' review, I guess I stunned her by throwing in some of my personal principles and philosophies and why I wouldn't wanna join or be the right person for MLM even though I don't frown upon it and am hence not a skeptic, validating my point by referencing stuff I've been reading. And then I said that it's not the first time I've been approached by MLM people and that I could probably recite to her the pyramidal staff hierarchy and tell her what products her company sells.
When I was done with what I had to say, there was a brief semi-awkward silence but I knew it was because she knew she had absolutely nothing to say that could convince me to be a part of it. So we ended up chit-chatting about school and life and all kinds of random shit, and I started dictating the conversation somewhat. I really struck a perfect chord when I pointed out that it's important that we do what we believe in and not listen to other people and end up in a "dead-end 8-5 job" and she fervently agreed. MLM people seriously like to hear stuff like that hahar. It's quite amusing when the supposed manipulator gets manipulated.
For a moment the conversation revolved around me for a bit and when somehow she asked me what I was reading, I could almost feel the thud of her jaw hitting the table when I brandished my "Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies" and "The Beauty Myth" books and I think I was smirking at the typicality when she took out her book titled along the lines of "How to Seal the Deal" or "How to Stay in Charge" or something like that.
We exchanged numbers and she said that while she's disappointed that I can't be a part of her team, she's happy that she has made a new friend. It's been a mildly fascinating evening where I felt like I simply wasted her time in the bigger scheme of things.
It's been awhile since I last took a long walk through town plugged into my MP3 player, so I zen-ed out and strolled from City Hall through to Orchard. I've always found escape in the surreality of being completely alone in a crowded place, and with the music volume up and people walking almost shoulder to shoulder at some parts along the streets highlighted by fancy lights, it recreates a sensation of being underwater, almost drowning, knowing that it's turbulent as hell around you but you can't hear a thing, like you aren't a part of it or anything at all.
I'm one-third through Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies and I'm done with Morality of Markets. It was interesting reading about how economists argue for the free market and some of their premises are actually quite ingenious. But because it is difficult to set in stone a schema of sorts for the concepts of ethics and morality, many arguments get pushed to their limits and end up being philosophical debates by virtue of their largely normative values. The gist is that any form of coercion against personal freedoms and rights, which are supposedly divinely endowed, is considered immoral and hence government intervention, which is basically seen as the right to use force, is also considered immoral. The idea is that the free market, with perfect competition and all that jazz, will provide the best form of wealth creation and ensure that people abide by a code of moral ethics in the long run because in order to survive you have to be cooperative, trustworthy, benevolent etc with the aim of serving your fellow man and ensuring that you get what you need in return.
However, I just find it hard to completely buy this argument because the reality is that there are way too many hopeful assumptions here. People are not angels afterall. I have a hunch that these arguments were formulated only because a response was needed primarily against state intervention and the generally romanticised and strict adherence to religion, which is largely perceived to be against the idea of material gain, private enterprise and capitalism.
We can point to the workings of the free market that result in shit happening like sustained poverty in third world countries and even the Darfur conflict, with the Sudanese government benefitting from China, India and Japan's trade patronage. A fatalistic balance can result if everybody's utility is met, even if these incur devastating externalities.
So far, Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies has made the very cogent point that economists equate happiness with utility, but happiness is hardly a utility because while our needs are met, we may not be any happier (would it be death by lethal injection or hanging, sir?).
A personal favourite from FailBlog.org:
Don't anthropomorphize computers - they hate it.
Audio Candy:
Gina René - U Must Be
As it turned out, it was some MLM business slyly disguised as "various positions available, earn up to $800 in 2 weeks" in the Classifieds, which I suppose I really should've guessed. But it didn't turn out so bad because this is, afterall, not the first time I've been 'tricked' (of sorts) into ending up sitting at some seemingly casual round table in a lobby-like office with posters of products and good performance workers on the walls.
In fact, I ended up talking to one of the high-flyers in the company one-on-one for my interview, and she turned out to be my NYJC and SMU senior who was from SIS and had graduated already. So while she gave me her usual rundown of the MLM-skeptics' review, I guess I stunned her by throwing in some of my personal principles and philosophies and why I wouldn't wanna join or be the right person for MLM even though I don't frown upon it and am hence not a skeptic, validating my point by referencing stuff I've been reading. And then I said that it's not the first time I've been approached by MLM people and that I could probably recite to her the pyramidal staff hierarchy and tell her what products her company sells.
When I was done with what I had to say, there was a brief semi-awkward silence but I knew it was because she knew she had absolutely nothing to say that could convince me to be a part of it. So we ended up chit-chatting about school and life and all kinds of random shit, and I started dictating the conversation somewhat. I really struck a perfect chord when I pointed out that it's important that we do what we believe in and not listen to other people and end up in a "dead-end 8-5 job" and she fervently agreed. MLM people seriously like to hear stuff like that hahar. It's quite amusing when the supposed manipulator gets manipulated.
For a moment the conversation revolved around me for a bit and when somehow she asked me what I was reading, I could almost feel the thud of her jaw hitting the table when I brandished my "Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies" and "The Beauty Myth" books and I think I was smirking at the typicality when she took out her book titled along the lines of "How to Seal the Deal" or "How to Stay in Charge" or something like that.
We exchanged numbers and she said that while she's disappointed that I can't be a part of her team, she's happy that she has made a new friend. It's been a mildly fascinating evening where I felt like I simply wasted her time in the bigger scheme of things.
It's been awhile since I last took a long walk through town plugged into my MP3 player, so I zen-ed out and strolled from City Hall through to Orchard. I've always found escape in the surreality of being completely alone in a crowded place, and with the music volume up and people walking almost shoulder to shoulder at some parts along the streets highlighted by fancy lights, it recreates a sensation of being underwater, almost drowning, knowing that it's turbulent as hell around you but you can't hear a thing, like you aren't a part of it or anything at all.
I'm one-third through Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies and I'm done with Morality of Markets. It was interesting reading about how economists argue for the free market and some of their premises are actually quite ingenious. But because it is difficult to set in stone a schema of sorts for the concepts of ethics and morality, many arguments get pushed to their limits and end up being philosophical debates by virtue of their largely normative values. The gist is that any form of coercion against personal freedoms and rights, which are supposedly divinely endowed, is considered immoral and hence government intervention, which is basically seen as the right to use force, is also considered immoral. The idea is that the free market, with perfect competition and all that jazz, will provide the best form of wealth creation and ensure that people abide by a code of moral ethics in the long run because in order to survive you have to be cooperative, trustworthy, benevolent etc with the aim of serving your fellow man and ensuring that you get what you need in return.
However, I just find it hard to completely buy this argument because the reality is that there are way too many hopeful assumptions here. People are not angels afterall. I have a hunch that these arguments were formulated only because a response was needed primarily against state intervention and the generally romanticised and strict adherence to religion, which is largely perceived to be against the idea of material gain, private enterprise and capitalism.
We can point to the workings of the free market that result in shit happening like sustained poverty in third world countries and even the Darfur conflict, with the Sudanese government benefitting from China, India and Japan's trade patronage. A fatalistic balance can result if everybody's utility is met, even if these incur devastating externalities.
So far, Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies has made the very cogent point that economists equate happiness with utility, but happiness is hardly a utility because while our needs are met, we may not be any happier (would it be death by lethal injection or hanging, sir?).
A personal favourite from FailBlog.org:
Don't anthropomorphize computers - they hate it.
Audio Candy:
Gina René - U Must Be
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
