So, I made it one month without abandoning this blog! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! And, I got plenty of great comments from people -- including from one of my favorite bloggers, Robin Hanson -- and lots of participants on my poll. All in all, a GREAT first month for my third attempt at blogging. Readers, give yourselves a pat on the back for all your love and support you've given me!
As a celebration of this success, I'm hosting a pizza party at the Dave & Buster's in Austin, Texas on Saturday, August 16th, starting at 8pm, and ending whenever you leave or get kicked out. (It's at 9333 Research Blvd, or, for normal people, the northeast corner of the 183/Mopac intersection.) That's next week, on Saturday. "Wait wait wait, do you mean THIS COMING Saturday, or NEXT WEEK, on Saturday?" Next week, on Saturday. "Oh, okay, thanks, you were unclear before." [1]
So, if you've read this, and plan to be in Austin, Texas that day, you're legally obligated to stop by. Please RSVP by email or in the comments. But if you forget to, don't be afraid to come anyway. There will be non-pizza options if you, like me, don't eat pizza.
[1] Sadly, this is isomorphic to a conversation I've actually had.
A blog by Silas Barta
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Monday, August 4, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Question: why can't "Addictive"(tm) stuff addict me?
This has been a real confounder for me. You all know about how society regards certain products as dangerous, and gets them banned, in large part because they are addictive. You use them, you get hooked, you can't stop, they're destructive to your body, and then you have to go on public assistance. Woe is thee.
Yet I have never been able to get addicted (or near addicted -- I'm not going by the rigorous psychological definition here) to such products. For example, I have never once actually enjoyed the process of drinking an alcoholic beverage. That is, there has never been an instance where I drank beer/wine/liquor/whatever and actually got a positive response signal from my brain telling me to do it again because it's cool.
So I don't like any alcoholic beverage (the feeling of intoxication is another story) and can't even distinguish them much. They all taste like like sour/bitter stuff that stings/hurts as they go down. Yuck! I mean, I get that it's an "acquired" (i.e., imagined) taste, but I've been socially drinking for a while (i.e. in the presence of legal guardians and after turning 21), and ... nada. To drink anything alcoholic feels like a chore, not something I'd do for enjoyment. (In fairness, soda stings too as it goes down but is otherwise tasty.) When I pick a beer, I go for "least painful", not "tastes good".
I'm even at the point where I believe it's all faked. You're all familiar with the phenomenon of how double-blind tasting destroys the standard quality ranking for wines (link forthcoming). And then, for example, when I asked my female friend "K" what she likes about beer, I got answers like, "well, um, it tastes good when you're really thirsty and tired ..." (in contrast, of course, to all those drinks that taste BAD when you're desperate for one...).
My female (and Italian) friend "A", an avid wine lover, claims that my brain or genome must be so fundamentally different that I should submit myself for medical study so as to gain insight into curing alcoholics (a condition that completely perplexes me). Yet my female friend (wine lover but not Italian) "C" insists that not liking wine is common among her friends. Like with wanting to tank oil's price, I'd be very interested in contributing to the well-being of society by helping out with curing alcoholism ... if in fact I can. (I'm glad their names all begin with different letters!)
(Yes, I know there are some good points about how "alcoholism" is just a case of "I really like alcohol and will ditch my family to enjoy it" [link forthcoming] but the existence of a desire to drink so much is believable and worth understanding better.)
The same phenomenon repeats itself for smoking. While I have tried cigarettes before, and did smoke socially a couple times, and certainly beyond the threshold that makes people yearn for a cigarette, I feel no desire whatsoever to smoke. (Hi health insurer! I haven't ever smoked nearly enough to count as a "smoker".) Sure, the buzz is great, but I have never thought to myself "Hey, I want to do something enjoyable ... oh! Right! Lighting up!"
I can hear you guys yawning. Now, here's the kicker: I do get powerful, near-addiction urges to e.g. post on internet forums, eat ice cream/milkshakes (YUM!), play certain video games, and other things I can remember. But EVERY one of those things for which I *do* get urges ... is completely legal! (Go me!) That is, there has never been any kind of succesful mass movement to ban those things! Those closest we've see is "fat taxes" which are very unsuccessful.
For discussion: am I different enough to be useful to medicine? Is this condition a special case of my bad luck, as society will protect me from access to non-addictive stuff, and let me use addictive stuff to my own detriment? Is it just a matter of time before I start "getting a taste" for these things? Do people merely pretend to like certain beers and wines e.g. as a form of social signaling?
Yet I have never been able to get addicted (or near addicted -- I'm not going by the rigorous psychological definition here) to such products. For example, I have never once actually enjoyed the process of drinking an alcoholic beverage. That is, there has never been an instance where I drank beer/wine/liquor/whatever and actually got a positive response signal from my brain telling me to do it again because it's cool.
So I don't like any alcoholic beverage (the feeling of intoxication is another story) and can't even distinguish them much. They all taste like like sour/bitter stuff that stings/hurts as they go down. Yuck! I mean, I get that it's an "acquired" (i.e., imagined) taste, but I've been socially drinking for a while (i.e. in the presence of legal guardians and after turning 21), and ... nada. To drink anything alcoholic feels like a chore, not something I'd do for enjoyment. (In fairness, soda stings too as it goes down but is otherwise tasty.) When I pick a beer, I go for "least painful", not "tastes good".
I'm even at the point where I believe it's all faked. You're all familiar with the phenomenon of how double-blind tasting destroys the standard quality ranking for wines (link forthcoming). And then, for example, when I asked my female friend "K" what she likes about beer, I got answers like, "well, um, it tastes good when you're really thirsty and tired ..." (in contrast, of course, to all those drinks that taste BAD when you're desperate for one...).
My female (and Italian) friend "A", an avid wine lover, claims that my brain or genome must be so fundamentally different that I should submit myself for medical study so as to gain insight into curing alcoholics (a condition that completely perplexes me). Yet my female friend (wine lover but not Italian) "C" insists that not liking wine is common among her friends. Like with wanting to tank oil's price, I'd be very interested in contributing to the well-being of society by helping out with curing alcoholism ... if in fact I can. (I'm glad their names all begin with different letters!)
(Yes, I know there are some good points about how "alcoholism" is just a case of "I really like alcohol and will ditch my family to enjoy it" [link forthcoming] but the existence of a desire to drink so much is believable and worth understanding better.)
The same phenomenon repeats itself for smoking. While I have tried cigarettes before, and did smoke socially a couple times, and certainly beyond the threshold that makes people yearn for a cigarette, I feel no desire whatsoever to smoke. (Hi health insurer! I haven't ever smoked nearly enough to count as a "smoker".) Sure, the buzz is great, but I have never thought to myself "Hey, I want to do something enjoyable ... oh! Right! Lighting up!"
I can hear you guys yawning. Now, here's the kicker: I do get powerful, near-addiction urges to e.g. post on internet forums, eat ice cream/milkshakes (YUM!), play certain video games, and other things I can remember. But EVERY one of those things for which I *do* get urges ... is completely legal! (Go me!) That is, there has never been any kind of succesful mass movement to ban those things! Those closest we've see is "fat taxes" which are very unsuccessful.
For discussion: am I different enough to be useful to medicine? Is this condition a special case of my bad luck, as society will protect me from access to non-addictive stuff, and let me use addictive stuff to my own detriment? Is it just a matter of time before I start "getting a taste" for these things? Do people merely pretend to like certain beers and wines e.g. as a form of social signaling?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Should Silas hammer down oil prices?
If you haven't been living in a cave for the last six months, you've heard the big debate about whether we're in a speculative oil bubble. Whether the claims linked (which should guide you to a good discussion of the issue if you follow the links contained therein) are true, I will not comment on.
However, I do have good reason to believe that I have natural "bad luck". I won't get into any specifics, but I have been in the following scenario too many times to have kept count:
Helpful person: Oh, you want to accomplish X? Oh, just do Y, no problem.
Me: I did Y, and Z happened.
Helpful person: WTF????? That's supposed to be like a one in a million event!! That's just not supposed to happen, no no no, I refuse to believe that. That sure must have sucked if it did, but you must be making that up.
So, I was thinking ... should I channel this bad luck for the good of humanity? For example, all I'd have to do is take a good chunk of my portfolio, and use it to go long on oil (i.e. invest in such a way so that it increases in value if oil's price goes up and vice versa). Then, my bad luck attractor would cause oil's price to collapse.
Pros: End pain on the billions of people who buy oil-related products, including the people in countries suffering food riots.
Cons: Would cost me a few thou.
So far, not doing it looks like the more attractive option.
Now, there's a clear potential for pareto improvement here (I take paypal, thanks), but then, maybe creating an explicit contract with me to make up my investment losses would "tip off fate" and make the trick not work. So perhaps I need only vague, unofficial promises to treat me like a king for killing the oil monster? Share your thoughts.
However, I do have good reason to believe that I have natural "bad luck". I won't get into any specifics, but I have been in the following scenario too many times to have kept count:
Helpful person: Oh, you want to accomplish X? Oh, just do Y, no problem.
Me: I did Y, and Z happened.
Helpful person: WTF????? That's supposed to be like a one in a million event!! That's just not supposed to happen, no no no, I refuse to believe that. That sure must have sucked if it did, but you must be making that up.
So, I was thinking ... should I channel this bad luck for the good of humanity? For example, all I'd have to do is take a good chunk of my portfolio, and use it to go long on oil (i.e. invest in such a way so that it increases in value if oil's price goes up and vice versa). Then, my bad luck attractor would cause oil's price to collapse.
Pros: End pain on the billions of people who buy oil-related products, including the people in countries suffering food riots.
Cons: Would cost me a few thou.
So far, not doing it looks like the more attractive option.
Now, there's a clear potential for pareto improvement here (I take paypal, thanks), but then, maybe creating an explicit contract with me to make up my investment losses would "tip off fate" and make the trick not work. So perhaps I need only vague, unofficial promises to treat me like a king for killing the oil monster? Share your thoughts.
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