Members Steve Gottschalk

Jan 31 2012: "Sunny, semi-socialist, sentimental Scandinavia" - don't forget "incredibly rich". Money makes a big difference in what you can accomplish.

Jan 23 2012: Very interesting. Mass-customization is a marketing holy grail. This technology could also radically readjust supply chains. How wonderful if inventory carrying cost could be made a thing of the past! And how much more efficiently resources could be used. Which raises the question: what resources do these things use? What's the "toner cartridge"?

Perhaps experts on making 3D printer data could make an interface that allows laymen to design customized products, the way Will Wright's Spore Creature Creator allows gamers to quickly make custom characters that would take trained animators months to render - http://www.ted.com/talks/will_wright_makes_toys_that_make_worlds.html.

I imagine that the interface for making the product data could be integrated with Creative Commons or iTunes-like mechanism to control intellectual property. Users could select to make their product data open source or set a price for access and list a PayPal account. That's exciting for creators and for people looking to study the monetization of ideas.

Jan 22 2012: This Atheism 2.0 sounds a lot like eclecticism, which has been popping up ever since the ancient Greeks put a name on it. The problem with eclecticism is that it is so subjective that in order for eclectics to get along with one another they resort to absolute relativism. The modern atheists - I prefer to call them antitheists - came about in part as a reaction to relativism, insisting that through science a objective reality can be observed, so it doesn't seem like de Botton is moving past them as much as moving back to where they came from.

Jan 22 2012: "It seems that taking that $20 bill our of the ATM is the hard part, but spending it is not."

That's how I feel about it, Curtis. What's more, I use online banking to track my expenses, so I feel accountable for all my debit card transactions ("I spent that much at restaurants last month!"). But cash just vanishes into the void.

Jan 22 2012: The key to Malcolm Gladwell's talk is that a consumer will buy more when they discover an unknown preference that makes them deliriously happy. When producers started adding more options, more consumers discovered unknown preferences and started buying the products that catered to those preferences very loyally.

However, Barry Schwartz's talk tells us that when the marketplace becomes saturated with choices, the consumer gets overwhelmed and makes no choice at all. So the consumer doesn't find the product that makes him or her deliriously happy and does not start a pattern of buying it loyally.

In this talk Sheena Iyengar gives producers methods to prevent consumers from getting overwhelmed by choices so that they actually make a purchase. When producers help consumers make purchases, the consumer is more likely to eventually purchase a product that makes them deliriously happy and buy it loyally.

Jan 22 2012: You're right, and Sheena Iyengar does not say consumers should limit their choices. She tells producers to limit the number of options they each offer in order to maximize sales. More choice for consumers will come about as more producers specialize in narrower categories, like children's toothpaste, mint-flavored toothpaste, fruit-flavored toothpaste, whitening toothpaste, novelty toothpaste, etc.

Jan 22 2012: There are several TED talks on the topic of consumer choice. Here are the differences in a nutshell.

Barry Schwartz's Paradox of Choice: when presented with more than seven options, a consumer becomes paralyzed makes no choice at all.
http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Dan Ariely's Are We In Control Of Our Own Decisions: only one more option than the consumer expected to choose from can cause consumer choice paralysis; often consumers experiencing choice paralysis go with the default.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html

Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing: the consumer's culture affects how the consumer makes choices; American assumptions about choosing may not be the most beneficial for everyone.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html

Sheena Iyengar's How to Make Choosing Easier: businesses can lessen consumer choice paralysis, that is, get the consumer to choose to make a purchase by cutting the number of options available, concretizing the outcome of the choice, categorizing the options available, and conditioning the consumer to make complex decisions.
http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_choosing_what_to_choose.html

Jan 18 2012: Writers and composers were honored because copying was difficult. Most copies were amateur - a local church organist playing the Ode to Joy a hardly substitutes for Beethoven's full orchestral arrangement.

Now that anyone can copy perfectly and manipulate expertly with a computer, creators cannot benefit from their work very long before it is replaced. Either we can accept that faster life cycle as a natural by-product of the technology, or we can fight it with artificial barriers like IP. We can't have it both ways.

Jan 18 2012: The point about burden of proof being reversed from the accuser to the accused is well-taken. For an example of how unjust that situation can be, look up McLibel (when Wikipedia is back up - oh, so topical and timely).

The tricky thing is that SOPA is doing what intellectual property protection (IP) is supposed to do. Uncle Sam uses his muscle to make sure only the creator profits, so creators move to the USA, and Uncle Sam taxes their profits, the payment for his protection.

In an age where computers can empower anyone to copy perfectly and manipulate expertly, our right to each control our own intellectual property and our right to create from our experiences, which inevitably contain others intellectual property, are at odds.

Dec 15 2011: "Blame: a way to discharge pain and discomfort."

That's food for thought.

Nov 15 2011: I don't think Gladwell is questioning war philosophically. I hear him proposing that investing in preventing wars will be more cost-effective than investing in winning wars. Not so much "Why is the moon made of cheese?" as "Does putting a man on the man actually get us what we want?"

Nov 15 2011: Pete, I hear you saying that the bombs ended the war and minimized casualties to a degree. What I hear Gladwell saying is that finding a way to not start war to begin with could minimize casualties to en even greater degree.

Nov 15 2011: I think some people tell themselves the atomic bombs as a coping mechanism for felt guilt. But Gladwell's point is that any way of stopping a war is costly, so why not keep them from starting instead?

Oct 14 2011: Anyone know anything about these sorts of technologies?

http://www.x2impact.com/X2_IMPACT/X2IMPACT.html

Oct 5 2011: It's a little disingenuous not to mention that the Ottoman Empire was one of the colonizers of Arabia. If the Ottomans had sided with the Allies instead of the Central powers in the First World War they may well have maintained that position.

Oct 5 2011: Strange age we live in that good housekeeping is a revolutionary idea. Also, I wonder how much all that stylized, collapsible furniture cost. Hopefully not more than 180 square feet.

Sep 28 2011: "My friends, the doodle has never been the nemesis of intellectual thought. In reality it is one of it's greatest allies."

Correct. And intellectual thought is the nemesis of conformity. That's the real reason teachers and bosses hate it.

Sep 12 2011: So the constant stimulation available thru the internet is giving guys Social Intensity Syndrome. How is it affecting girls? Why isn't it affecting girls the same way? If the affect is the same on girls, why don't their test scores suffer the way boys' do?

May 10 2011: Eli Pariser needs to speak with Ethan Zuckerman (http://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_zuckerman.html) about imaginary cosmopolitanism and homophily vs xenophily.

Apr 23 2011: In middle school, my history teacher read headlines with the locations and political affiliations removed and asked my classmates and myself to guess what they were about. One student would take guess and heated debate would take place about whether the headline was fair, only for the teacher to reveal the headline was about another issue where the situation was the reverse of our assumption. That taught me the lesson of perspective. I find it unfortunate that this lesson should be new and revelatory to full-grown adults.

I say "perspective" and not "empathy" because while I understand the perspective of the the driver going 40 mph in the passing lane, I do not empathize with him. He congests traffic for everyone on the road for his selfish reasons. The perspective does not make me empathize, though it does make me better plan out how I will respond.