Culture vs Logic in Decision-Making

In today's world, we generally think of ourselves as making decisions based on information. Even if our decisions aren't always rational, they are at least based on some kind of rationale. Decisions such as what to eat and drink, what car to get, what career to pursue, what cleaning products to use, where to live, and what to wear. The information technology boom has made it even easier for people to share product reviews, compare prices, and also see what decisions your friends have made. Even so, it seems like people know less and less about how things are made and how companies are run. Then, many decisions are made based on simply price and personal preferences. In the past, and certainly in older societies such as China and European countries, strong cultural norms drive many decisions. In particular, what to eat and when to eat it are emphasized in every culture.

The vast majority of us are very removed from the agriculture industry. In Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan explains how things are done now compared to how things were done before. He also explains why we need to eat healthy foods and what things are healthy. For example, traditional methods of growing crops and raising animals had very little waste because the outputs of one process are the inputs to the next process. The book is compelling today precisely because it is so rational and driven by information. On the one hand, we must embrace information driven decision-making and work to make even more information readily available to the general public. On the other hand, I feel that a lot wisdom used to exist in the form of "culture" or "conventional wisdom," and culture is still a good venue for guidelines and rules-of-thumb.

What consumer have to work with right now are prices, advertising, and certifications such as USDA Organic. The fact that certifications are so popular is a very positive sign. However, it would be too cumbersome for all the different practices of a farm or other company needed to have certification. Also, binary nature of the certificates give companies an incentive to only meet the minimum standards. One solution is to have ratings based on more categories and have gradations. For example, college rankings are done based on several metrics such as academics, faculty/student ratio, student life, amenities, etc. I think it would be better, though, to crowd-source the rating system, perhaps even with locations and pictures of the actual farms.

The amount of information needed is immense. The main advantage of culture is that information is not needed. You don't know to know exactly why processed foods are unhealthy if your culture simply dictates the need for fresh foods in your diet. This lack of information is also the great weakness of culture, though, and there are many outdated and wrong practices that continue for decades and perhaps centuries. In today's world, things change quickly. New technologies can lead to new practices. Companies change their practices. Ideally, there should be a tool for consumers to rapidly create new cultural practices that are backed with sound reasonings. Something that can influence people's decision-making that does not involve them reading a book could be very useful for everyone.

Happy Chinese New Year's

It is now the year of the metal tiger. I celebrated by going to my mom's house for dinner with a bunch of friends. It was really fun and delicious. This year, Chinese New Year's happened to be on the same day as Valentine's day. We watched the CCTV New Year's Gala.

btw, I think it's really strange that this is a toy tiger. It looks more like a mouse. Actually, it looks kinda like Pokemon.

Pinocchio

For some reason, I thought of Pinocchio today and started reading about the original storyon Wikipedia. I've never read it before. It is strange.

American Denial

This is an interesting article.

In the case of the allegedly lascivious Lolitas, Kefalas sees this flight from reality very clearly: “People don’t want to hear about the economic context, the social context” to young teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy, she told me. “For a 14-year-old to be having sex it’s usually a symptom of a kid who’s really broken and really hurt. Those who are having sex without contraception are a distinct set: they’re poor, from single-parent households, doing poorly in school, have low self-esteem. Teen pregnancy is so high in America compared to other places not just because of access to contraception but because we have a lot of poverty. But Americans don’t want to see themselves as a poor society. They want to make a moral argument: if only teens had better values.”

Chinese New Year's!!!

Next Monday is Chinese New Year's!

This year is gonna be the year of the ox, which is my zodiac sign. Whoooo!!! Apparently Obama is also year of the ox.

People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed. They are most compatible with Snake, Rooster, and Rat people.

Yeah, that's me!

Chinese People Are Funny

"Helpful" sign in China warning against illegal taxis.

Travelers' Complaints:

[Woman]: Damn, I got counterfeit money in change again when I took a car along the roadside. What a pain!
[Man]: Shit, I took an illegal taxi today and was ripped off again. They're so heartless!
[Old man]: It's awful, I took an unlicensed cab today and was cheated out of 500 yuan. Fuck!
[Policeman]: Idiots. Why don't you take a car from a regular station? Then your safety will be guaranteed!

Shangnan Police Station Hotline: 27291110

I think that this crudeness is partly because of the revolution. During that time, you needed to be a peasant to have street cred. I guess it is kind of like when politicians in the US talk with a Southern drawl or like a hick in order to relate with the masses. The thing with China, though, is that since then the "peasants" have indeed moved up and grown more wealthy, and many of the wealthy cultured people went to Taiwan or abroad. It does seem to me that the result is a more crude language in China. My family speaks in a much more crude and blunt way than how most American adults speak. I think it is like how engineers tend to speak, like cut the crap, you are all idiots.

Sunday Night Dinners

cool story on NPR about a guy who hosts Sunday Night Dinners in Paris! we should videoconference with him, hehe.