I don't think it's condescending at all to discuss the natural limitations of the human mind. I posted elsewhere, but to sum up I just don't think we've evolved the necessity of making an awful lot of choices. Speaking in generalizations, people are resistant to change and they have demonstrated a lower degree of happiness when presented with too many choices.

Raw survival in the wild simply didn't require us to be wired up to make lots of choices. Our capability to do so is merely a side-effect of the extreme complexity of the minds we've evolved. We can definitely *learn* to make choices and I'm not advocating despotism or that we're happier like that. I'm saying after a certain level of survival needs are met (including freedom - not even a dog likes being chained up forever) - we just don't have a deep seeded need to make choices. Especially regarding something as unrelated to our survival as our free time.

This definitely is a chicken/egg problem, though, and I don't think it's all that clear.

Did humans evolve in a state that had a lot of choice? Has recent socialization caused our "choice mechanism" to atrophy? Definitely not cut and dry and I think when cast in the light of millions of years of evolution I have to fall on the side that too much choice/freedom for most people can cause unhappiness.

Granted these are all generalizations, but working under the assumption that self-introspection (needed to make choices of convenience) arose as a side-effect of a more complex brain aiding in survival - it's not "natural" to make use of that introspection for survival. For the purposes of survival what kinds of true choices really need to be made by our evolving ancestors on a higher conscious level? No choices your dog can make since that's all about raw survival. Even more complicated things like making tools tie back to raw survival - just at a higher complexity - hence the side effect of self-introspection and the capability of more complex choices like picking one television show over another. As near as I can tell throw a modern human into the wild where life is on the line and no real choices of convenience need to be made at all.

Therefore I'd propose that self-introspection and the ability to chose is much more a learned behavior and our natural state is to make choices only when necessary. Look at all the passivity in the world and how much resistance to change there is as additional proof of this.

It's funny to tie this all back to something as mundane as television watching, but I think that's precisely the point. If people are uncomfortable making choices for important things they'll certainly be more than happy allowing an algorithm to spoon feed them their entertainment.

Isn't the issue with whether acupuncture is legit or not have a lot to do with what you're claiming acupuncture can treat? Same with chiropractic medicine. Some chiropractors claim they can cure asthma while others claim they can help you with some joint and muscle pain after a car accident.

Isn't that the same with acupuncture too?

> Assume that our uber-bloodsucker takes down a few million and buys a yacht.

Yes, let's assume that the very wealthy generally spend their money mainly on exclusive items like high end sports cars and yachts. Is that really stimulating the economy when you buy something that is valued so highly that it is made in limited quantities?

It's not like they're going out and buying 10,000 televisions with that money. Or 5,000 Hondas.

I'm not sure the money they spend in consumption really goes into the economy. In fact, one of the main reasons that the very wealthy *stay* wealthy is because they buy things like expensive art work - things that generally don't lose value as quickly as say a dishwasher or television would.

If the wealthy are stimulating the economy it's via investments and making new companies - it's not from consumption.

This kind of inductive reasoning to reach conclusions probabilistically is probably key to achieving the holy grail of artificial intelligence. Using a metaphor for a minute - turning the active camera to point at the output screen creates some self-awareness issues that I can imagine absolutely require imperfect inductive reasoning for the intelligence to function.

Otherwise it could get stuck in an endless recursive loop in any number of ways - not the least of which could be "Why am I here?"

At least - this is how I justify why so many people insist there must be a God in charge of things.

Could the calories burned by the (assumed) increased brain activity also play a part in this? I know the brain is a big energy user, but to think that it could burn enough calories to make a weight difference does seem improbable.

The snacking explanation is probably the best one, but it is nice to think that you're probably burning more calories too even if it is minor.

Agreed with an important difference. Cars weren't being touted as the guardians of freedoms and expression.

So I guess he's not just dividing 22 by 7?

Too bad this isn't set up as a voting method. I vote for Password Safe as well. Doing a search on here seems to yield a lot of those.

I'm being half-serious because I've always wondered how money is being made selling ads. No one I've asked has ever clicked an ad.