Things I Ask

These are the books I read in my free time during military service. I thought of rating the books, but then remembered that there was an unavoidable problem with measuring opinion . So I constructed a utility graph, with engagement level on the y-axis and the enlightenment level on the x-axis. Because the best books are immensely superior to the good and the worst, and the worst books are vastly inferior to the good and the best, it would be most accurate to express my opinion by dividing the axes into thirds: the first third would be logarithmic in magnitude, the middle third linear, and the final third again logarithmic. Though this chart includes a fair number of books, the scope of the topics is severely limited to my fields of interest: Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Religion, Policymaking, Psychology and Fiction. One reason for this is that these are the topics that I am naturally interested in. But another reason is that the Amazon fed my interests and book browsing

Mainstream economists have argued that because people know their own preferences, gift giving is irrational. Behavioral economists have countered by claiming that gift exchanges can strengthen social bonds as well as make both members of the exchange feel better than they would have, had they purchased items on their own. Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler added to this argument stating that because people mentally divide their budget up into categories, such as 10% for clothing, a nice shirt that exceeds that mental budget is of immense utility. Behavioral economists give quite convincing arguments. But would there be reasons for exchanging gifts even if everyone was perfectly rational? There would be if information was incomplete. Specialization makes gift giving rational. Because it is impossible to know about every market in expert detail, people often make choices that are suboptimal. When a sommelier gives a bottle of wine, the receiver is not only given a gift; he is given pr

Whether they show it or not, most passengers are suspicious of taxis. This is because there is a conflict of interest: needlessly roundabout routes drive up the taxi's profits, while they cost passengers time and money. Is there a way to line up the incentives of drivers and passengers? The solution is to pay taxis before the ride, not after. The cost would be based on the distance and the traffic situation. This pre-paid method would be better than the current after-pay method for three reasons. First, it would be in the best interest of drivers to take the passenger to his or her destination as soon as possible so that they can quickly find a new customer. Second, because the passenger knows this fact, there would be fewer arguments about the route the drivers take. A driver's mistake in taking a slower path could be mildly annoying for the passenger, but not irritating enough to incite major arguments. Passengers would also trust the drivers more when they claim t