I just realized that Paul Graham’s “Make something people want” can be flipped into “Make people want something”, which is a better description of many businesses that make money despite creating zero or negative value to society. For example, you can sell something for $1 that gives people $2 in immediate value but also sneakily gives them $3 worth of desire to buy otherwise useless stuff from you. Or you can advertise to create desire where it didn’t exist, leading to negative value for everyone who saw your ad but didn’t buy your product. Or you can give away your product for free and then charge for the antidote.
This seems like a big loophole in markets which has no market-based solution. It also helps explain why rich people and countries aren’t proportionally happier than poor ones, if they are mostly paying to make manufactured pains go away. People’s criteria for happiness are too easily raised by what they buy, see or think, but hardly anyone pushes back against that.
My previous thoughts on this topic: 1, 2, 3, 4. I feel like the ideas are coming together into something bigger, but can’t put a finger on it yet.
I feel like it’s more general than that. For example, dreaming that an iPhone will make you happy is bad for you, but so is dreaming that becoming a great artist (or even joining an anti-consumerist revolution) will make you happy.
What exactly do you mean that people dream of an iPhone making them happy? What do you think people expect an iPhone to do, that it doesn’t?
In general, products that don’t deliver on expectations lead to customers complaining that the expectations aren’t meet. How often do you see such complaints from people who have brought an iPhone?
Romance seems like an example of a “natural” Marlboro country ad, implanted by nature in people with the intention of making more people, but falsely telling them this is happiness.
Yeah. Though as dreams go, romance isn’t the worst. Many of its followers do end up happy, and many of the unhappy ones get over it. Compare with the dream of being a rockstar, where only a handful can ever succeed, and many of the failed ones never let go.
If you generally believe that the dream of being a ranger is bad for people, do you also judge Winnetou for giving people dreams they use to evade their daily lives but they can’t achieve?
Yeah, I think a lot of entertainment leads to escapism which is partly a downside to me. When Roger Ebert said that video games can’t be art, and someone told him that they provide much needed escapism, this was his reply:
I do not have a need “all the time” to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to go somewhere where I have control. I need to stay here and take control.
I keep hoping that voice activation features will be helpful. Up to now, they haven’t been, at least for me. They just do not work consistently enough. Apparently they do for some people, and I expect that at some future time they will for me, but up to now they have consistently failed that expectation, even though I keep hoping it will work.
Yeah, but there is that very important part of dreams/hopes/expectations providing the much-needed motivatation for doing the work. Without them you are just stuck in the near mode and are slowly crawling towards the nearest local maxium (e.g. turnips—warning, the link is NSFW).
Most people never achieve their dreams. Would you rather be happy or motivated, if you could only choose one? What would you wish for everyone else? I know my answer.
I just realized that Paul Graham’s “Make something people want” can be flipped into “Make people want something”, which is a better description of many businesses that make money despite creating zero or negative value to society. For example, you can sell something for $1 that gives people $2 in immediate value but also sneakily gives them $3 worth of desire to buy otherwise useless stuff from you. Or you can advertise to create desire where it didn’t exist, leading to negative value for everyone who saw your ad but didn’t buy your product. Or you can give away your product for free and then charge for the antidote.
This seems like a big loophole in markets which has no market-based solution. It also helps explain why rich people and countries aren’t proportionally happier than poor ones, if they are mostly paying to make manufactured pains go away. People’s criteria for happiness are too easily raised by what they buy, see or think, but hardly anyone pushes back against that.
My previous thoughts on this topic: 1, 2, 3, 4. I feel like the ideas are coming together into something bigger, but can’t put a finger on it yet.
It’s a wheel.
I feel like it’s more general than that. For example, dreaming that an iPhone will make you happy is bad for you, but so is dreaming that becoming a great artist (or even joining an anti-consumerist revolution) will make you happy.
What exactly do you mean that people dream of an iPhone making them happy? What do you think people expect an iPhone to do, that it doesn’t?
In general, products that don’t deliver on expectations lead to customers complaining that the expectations aren’t meet. How often do you see such complaints from people who have brought an iPhone?
That’s why I chose the word “dreams” instead of product expectations amenable to customer complaints and such. Watch this ad to see what I mean.
Romance seems like an example of a “natural” Marlboro country ad, implanted by nature in people with the intention of making more people, but falsely telling them this is happiness.
Yeah. Though as dreams go, romance isn’t the worst. Many of its followers do end up happy, and many of the unhappy ones get over it. Compare with the dream of being a rockstar, where only a handful can ever succeed, and many of the failed ones never let go.
I don’t see any iPhone in that ad.
If you generally believe that the dream of being a ranger is bad for people, do you also judge Winnetou for giving people dreams they use to evade their daily lives but they can’t achieve?
Yeah, I think a lot of entertainment leads to escapism which is partly a downside to me. When Roger Ebert said that video games can’t be art, and someone told him that they provide much needed escapism, this was his reply:
I keep hoping that voice activation features will be helpful. Up to now, they haven’t been, at least for me. They just do not work consistently enough. Apparently they do for some people, and I expect that at some future time they will for me, but up to now they have consistently failed that expectation, even though I keep hoping it will work.
Dreaming is a fuzzy word—are you saying that desires are bad for you? Or hopes? Or maybe expectations of good things?
I take it as “far-mode, unspecific dreams/hopes/expectations are problematic if the agent doesn’t do the work to tie it to near-mode specifics”.
Yeah, but there is that very important part of dreams/hopes/expectations providing the much-needed motivatation for doing the work. Without them you are just stuck in the near mode and are slowly crawling towards the nearest local maxium (e.g. turnips—warning, the link is NSFW).
Most people never achieve their dreams. Would you rather be happy or motivated, if you could only choose one? What would you wish for everyone else? I know my answer.
Inflated desires/hopes/expectations, I guess.
That sounds… bleak.
Who determines what’s “inflated”?