le to document this. Width makes a difference. When the paper is narrower, you need to pull more squares to get the same effect. Each roll is necessarily used up faster. Double benefit to the seller. Less material per roll, more rolls per month.
On food pleasure, they get the non-linear nature of perception right, but miss on the math needed to sum up the pleasure.
Chandon, who also studies the pleasure of eating, thinks that there's a way to downsize some products, like chocolate, that doesn't irritate so many people but doesn't fool them either. That's because the enjoyment we get from food doesn't grow in lockstep with amount consumed.
“The first bite of a chocolate mousse is usually the most pleasurable,” he says. “After that it decreases. The last bite, honestly, it's the one you regret. We all know that. The thing we fail to realise – and it's super-important – is that the pleasure of this entire chocolate mousse you're eating is not the sum of the pleasure of each bite. It is the average.”
Exactly right on the curve, but the result is NOT the average. Graphically:
Each curve represents the pleasure of eating, with the x-axis representing 20 spoonfuls.
Each bite gives you a delta of pleasure, indicated by the little arrow roughly between Bite 2 and Bite 3. The real pleasure goes up fast at the start, peaks in the middle, and goes down fast. (I've shown it as a sine for easy math, but it's probably more like a rounded trapezoid.)
The lower curve indicates the linear pattern that we assume if we don't understand perception.
Figuring the sum of the deltas on each curve:
# Figure sum of deltas on the top curve:
for spoon in range(total):
rads = float(spoon) * math.pi / float(total)
newY = math.sin(rads)
sum = sum + (newY-oldY)
oldY = newY
# Figure sum of deltas on the bottom curve:
for spoon in range(total):
newY = float(spoon) / float(total-1)
sum = sum + (newY-oldY)
oldY = newY
The results: Total pleasure on the sin version is 0.15, and total on the linear (as you'd expect) is 1.
= = = = =
Later editorial quibble: If I'd been writing the original article and wanted to use a food example just after discussing toilet paper, I probably wouldn't have chosen chocolate mousse for the example.
Time for a reprint on fractional reserve crime
Reprinting this AGAIN. It's an important point because you get what you measure. When your measuring tool claims destruction is growth, you're always going to work toward destruction.
= = = = =
Basic problem: When money creation happens automatically at the moment of making a LOAN, people who are attempting to run their lives and businesses by thrift, without borrowing, are completely ignored. We don't count as part of the economy.
The money supply EXPLICITLY EXCLUDES REAL VALUE.
REAL VALUE comes from REAL LABOR. Turning raw materials and components into a useful product, or cultivating crops and livestock, or arranging and advertising products for easier purchase.
Money creation at the point of lending doesn't even begin to recognize any of these activities.
A business that makes or sells things WITHOUT BORROWING FIRST is not recognized as creating value.
In the Western system, EVERY loan, whether it goes toward real production or gambling or stock manipulation, is recognized as creating value.
The current system treats DESTROYED VALUE as an increase, and completely ignores CREATED VALUE. Perfectly backwards.
Before 1975 the distinction didn't matter quite as much, because many loans went directly toward
creating value. Building new factories, improving productivity, redecorating a store. Now that the vast majority of loans are strictly criminal, serving to MURDER real business and expand the already infinite fake "wealth" of the Tribe, the distinction matters.
The alternatives are Sharia and Soviet.
Sharia, when applied properly, should create money exactly when value increases. Unfortunately there is no proper Sharia in the current Muslim world. According to this article, modern sharia banks don't create money differently, but do try to prohibit loans that serve speculation. Might achi