maybe in other contexts but not with seats I dont think. I do like a good seat and being set in my ways (including other people sitting where they did) so I'm pretty sure I've never switched except for a much better seat.

Its not really my kind of thing but I am thinking about it. Resisting others doing it would be far more my kind of thing.

At the back of the class, right?

Classrooms are a good example, I think, in that the seating plan tends to fix itself from Day One. Lecture halls not so much. It's like they're too big for this phenomenon to occur.

Dead on.

|it just gets disrupted too easily ina big lecture hall, someone takes the seat they couldn't get last time, someone else and their friends gets dispaleced and its gone. Still see the same effect, people gravitatimg to a frw preferred areas but much weaker

As its much more work jostling for position is probably too much effort for most

True about the larger lecture halls; but they tended toward more set seating arrangement by everyone as the year ground on. Examples are best in large first-year chemistry or physic classes that start with a large number of students that get pared down from 200-300 or more through the semesters to the precious few that remain at the end. I usually picked a seat near an aisle at a level with screen for ease of viewing and quick get away. But I would jump about a bit – but towards the end it was as if everyone had their own name on a particular seat and I fell in lock step with the masses.

In much smaller classes I had fun at times with taking other people’s seats. You wait a week when all seating is “set”, then come early and “take” someone else’s seat. It was an interesting phenomenon to watch the victim’s reactions when they first came into the classroom. I did this repeatedly in a very small upper-division Paleontology* class I took; there may have been ten students if that. It was a running joke after awhile.



*As an aside, humans have very simple sex lives compared to many other species that inhabit the animal kingdom. Some of those small creatures can weird it up in grand ways. Some species of snails for example.

Sounds lovely.

It was; I could hear the ocean, smell the fresh air, and feel the breeze on my beautiful cherub-like face.

When I went to the second class as a kid, the teacher said we should change sides so that our backs wouldn't be twisted. That etched itself into my perceptive brains: place matters.

Early on I remember that I preferred to sit far back a bit to the side in the class, for letting the teacher interfere the minimum with my activities. Didn't succeed. Or then I just happened to sit there, don't know how actively I in fact thought about it.

Then I got near-sighted, and before getting glasses I sat in the front. Not a very pleasant experience.

As a teenager I started to think about that by coming in among the earliest the first time to a new classroom, I got to choose the seat for the entire year. Because I'm a man of compromizes, I couldn't find a good reason to sit far to the left or to the right, having to twist that back. So it became the center line. And sitting in the front was of course not appealing, but sitting the farest back would maybe impair my hearing and seeing what's going on. So I started to sit in the center of the class. Make of that what you want

Zeno did chemistry but did not devote his time exclusively to the making of bombs and drugs? WTF?

warning, someones getting on no-fly list

I was more worried that he attended 1st year courses all the way through.

That's another factor, of course.

Why do universities allow their undergraduates to be such lazy slobs? Why don't they be more like schools or the workplace? Or have they become more like that since you or I attended?

hey dont have a go at us lazy slobs.

Though I agree universities should make the courses challanging enough so that achieving lazy slobdem is beyond just about all.

Its coming to an end anyway so not worth worrying about too much.

I'm not, and I count myself in that category anyway, although I try to escape it. Sometimes I've wondered whether education is really about becoming less lazy.

I'm guessing it would be in a university's interests to have hard-working students is all. I'm not saying what anyone should do: I'm talking about the is rather than the ought.

Interesting I wonder if its about the reverse.


Impossible at the moment. If the decent students were challanged then most of the rest would have to leave. This used to make me quite angry

In this SMP thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/47...s-etc-1361391/



I blatherskite on about the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. A worthwhile book but I suspect some of what is given as questionable (as anyone should). One example I found silly was the question, part of a Cognitive Reflection Test, in which 63% of respondents’ would prefer to get $3,400 now instead of $3,800 in one month (assume this means 30 days). The correct answer is to wait for the increased money. This was supposedly to test “impulsive, impatient, and keen to receive immediate gratification” on the part of the subjects*.

Upon reading that question my immediate thought was: How can I turn $3,400 into more than a 12% gain (I calculated the % in my head in a few micro-seconds) in 30 days? Or, I like instant gratification and if I can spend $3,400 on hookers and blow in Las Vegas, why would I wait 30 days for the paltry extra $400 that will not really buy me that much more gratification? Those are the real, and important, implied question(s) with any number of variants on the same theme.

As a practical example, say I take the $3,400 and with some explicit risk have a scheme to turn that into ~$34,000 in about 30 days through investing in heroin trafficking, or say I just double the money through a loan sharking deal, or being an excellent punter taking a flutter on cricket or the horses; or, having some insider information, investing in stocks or other securities, or say, just buy a piece of art that you realize will trump the 12% gain in a short time, etc, etc, etc (and need I say many choices do not have to involve questionable activities?). Really, to say that, waiting for that extra $ 400 is the ONLY right answer is to miss so much and shows very cramped thinking on the part of the researchers.

To some extent the researchers appear to be silly asses and very unimaginative thinkers, and also very low on the rationality scale of exploiting opportunities. Honestly, very poor critical thinking skills displayed and a lackluster and mundane view of life choices. I suspect hooey in most of what I read, but am disappointed that Kahneman and his fellow Psychologists’ fall victim to much bad thinking and research.

* This in relation to testing subjects on system 1 and system 2 thinking. To be fair my objections may not be completely in tune with the research objectives, but that is neither here nor there in reality. Those that display static and uncritical thinking skills should be kicked in the nuts - repeatedly.

So you are saying you wish the researches would have asked the 63% why they would have taken the 3400 now? And then perhaps said which percent of the 63% claimed that the value of 3400 now >= the value of 3800 in 30days? i.e. "Not all of these 63%ers were dumb--just most of them." Fwiw my opinion is that you are being pretty nitty, and that is nice to see xD

Zeno sorry a bit OT but do you know if its possible to recover a post pre-edit and show what edits were made?

did you derive pleasure from this...

I always think ppl have a relative status utility function as a dominant underlying force that they can't help themselves to show superiority if given a chance no matter how educated they are ....

You answered the issue right there.

63% of people discount the future value of money about 12% over a one month period. Only if it is instant $ versus one month in the future money.

No one (or nearly no one) will choose to get $3400 12 months from now instead of $3800 13 months from now even though it is exactly the same math problem. (this is the interesting bit)

They aren't showing what is wrong with people how people work. They are showing what is wrong with economic theory about how people work.

They are also complaining a bit that a 12% discount seems steep enough to seem irrational. System one says "Crap load of money. Now or later?" System two says "Two different amounts of money. Later one is significantly larger and one month isn't very long to wait."

You might be missing System one (or have practiced math enough that your System two doesn't have to be called in to play).

no it's not

both values are discounted from today and their utility is pretty much the same to most ppl (to be precise present value difference in utility gained by getting the money on the 12. vs +400 in that 13. month is below marginal ) - thus might as well go for 3800

we can naturally argue that the discount rate of future income is pretty high for most ppl (but since most ppl live from paycheck to paycheck they are right to discounted that high)

Rikers(t12) is going to be seriously mad at Rikers(t1) for making such a horrific error in what Rikers(t12) wants.

It is the same math problem. The math problem (for a rational agent) is "what will I want 12 months from now."

What you are actually finding is that discounting future utility is hyperbolic. Constant discounting (standard economics) makes sense if you are trying to maximize total utility, but it just isn't how people work.

It is just the hyperbolic discounting. Twelve months and 13 months from now are both "a long time from now" would be my interpretation. It is not the salient feature of the problem to people.

$3400 and $3800 maintain their differences in utility, so it is the salient part of the problem.

I'd tend to agree.

That people naturally have a hyperbolic discount curve is nice because it is exploitable (for total life utility) if you are capable of making your decisions using a constant discount rate (and can afford to) despite your nature.

I don't think this is possible given the software that runs this site, edits are limited in time frame and locked in for all eternity at a given God function within the if/then/else computer language. Even as mod, I have limited powers and capacities. And remember that even Napoleon had to accept this fact as he sat on Elba and brooded on the limits of power.

Just make another post as an addendum and explanation, and refer back to the post number in question so the simpletons do not get tangled up. Or just forget it and have another beer.

As added fodder: complete elimination of time-critical paths for maximizing utility produces a bias. Also, risk/reward is a factor in any analysis. I have no computation about engaging in criminal activities to gain leverage or to maximize utility gain in monetary ways. I would steer clear of unnecessary violence and have my escape plans worked out in advance and they would be above par. Discrete and well-placed bribery and blackmail should not be discounted either; as a ways and means, as added insurance, and, of course, as a compliment to Machiavelli.

Anyway, I was thinking along those lines because I am currently engaged in purchasing stock for an IPO. I need that extra $3,400 now - not in 30 days. The initial offering is, as most IPO's are, limited and very time critical.

Besides, I wanted to kick Kahneman in the nuts whether he really deserved it or not. I consider it for the greater good and because it is so much fun.

In time preference utility curves a slope = 0 is still a slope. As the eminent economist J. Wellington Wimpy once proved in his short treatise "On the Nature of Consumption of Perishable Goods and Payment Scheduling in a Zero Interest Rate Environment," someone with a time preference slope of zero is maximally exploitable given any quantity of counterparty risk.

Also, something or other about J.G. Wentworth.

Stolen from Wiki:

The commercials that run on daytime television in the United States featuring "Mr. Wentworth" are how the company is best known. They have had many series of commercials with Mr. Wentworth, however the most recent series includes a Wagnerian Opera singer, also known as the Viking singer. The tagline featured in the commercials is "It's my money and I need it now!", and "It's your money, use it when you need it!"


Instant gratification is all that it is made out to be. I love those guys.

By the way, are we even auguring about anything? I hope not. I have better things to do.

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a Guacamole Bacon Cheeseburger today (with the caveat that you have to find me).