2003-10-24 - 11:47 a.m. Turning Back Time Happy Days are here again. You know what I love about the fall. Well I like the weather, (though it�s gotten too cold too quick here), and I like the leaves and I enjoy the cider, and the Oktoberfest, and the reminders of soccer. I really like the sweaters and colors and back to school attitude that�s sweeping the region. We are almost guaranteed to have some sort of Indian Summer Heat wave in the next few months. Like yesterday it snowed. The day before that I didn�t have to wear a jacket. But the thing I really love. I love so much. Can you guess what it is? You got it. Setting the clocks back. God I love setting the clocks back. It�s such a great feeling to know that you just got an hour of your life back. It�s like a mulligan. Oh I stayed up too late?!? It�s okay. You got an hour back. Oh I dressed up like a cheerleader to wash my car? Its okay you ate Subway. What? I still don�t understand those commercials. I mean, I have been lost since the whole Jared thing. Eating Subway will turn you from fat to ugly. Nice. Some things just make you wonder about life. I am strange, no doubt, but when faced with certain decisions I feel that I act rationally and that I come up with reasonable solutions. But sometimes people just do crazy things. In economics, undergrad, we are taught that all people act rationally. This means that every decision a person makes is based on some level of rationality. It�s a fairly defendable point, especially based on the �lack of information� theorem, which states that irrational decisions are made due to lack of information. Jimmy might shoot his friend, which is irrational, but from Jimmy�s perspective he thought his friend was a monster, and thus shot him. Then you could say that believing that there are monsters is irrational, but Jimmy was taught to believe in monsters, and therefore shooting his friend was rational. What we in economics like to do is to pretend everyone has the information. But then we get the Dutch. Yup, the Dutch build a landing pad for UFO�s. Apparently the Dutch have information that I do not, because this just seems crazy. I mean look at that thing!?! Is a UFO actually going to say, hey look, they finally built us a parking place!!! Stupid dutch. Which bring me to my next point, which is economics has also shown two things about rationality. The first is that people, even with all information aren�t rational. (the person who showed this won a Nobel prize The second is that sometimes people will continue doing something, despite the lack of change in the result. That is to say that some people are insane, and will continue to fail the same way because they believe that is the only way things can get done. Take Dingus. He is a very smart, rational person. However, I remember that one of the last times we were together he was drinking coffee, and he hates sweets, and likes black coffee. However, sugarcubes were offered. He began playing with one of them. I told him, in a motherly sort of way, don�t play with it unless you are going to eat it. And we KNOW that you aren�t going to eat it. So then he put it into his coffee. Then he put some more in his coffee. Then he started eating them. This was irrational. He may have wanted to prove me wrong, or spite me in some sort of fashion, but since I was unwaviored, only offering up, �you�re an idiot� to his actions, he continued to add on more and more sugar cubes. I imagine he found the coffee quite disgusting as he did not finish it. I am sure he gained enjoyment out of �shocking� me with his actions, but in the end, was it a rational choice. I don�t know. I don�t want to know. What I want to say is I am happy the clocks are getting turned back and frankly I can�t wait. I mean really now people� does it get any better? Never claimed that I was rational. That�s apparent. Though I would like to make this argument to my workplace sometime very soon. Hehehe. I love it. I love you snow joke. | |||||||||||
