Studio Non Troppo

In Seth Godin’s post today, he uses an example of a fuel conservation problem to illustrate the practical limitations and pitfalls of coming across logic (in this case, arithmetic):

A simple quiz for smart marketers:

Let’s say your goal is to reduce gasoline consumption.

And let’s say there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

• Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
• Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

Trick question aside, the answer is the first one. (In fact, it’s more than twice as good a move).

We’re not wired for arithmetic. It confuses us, stresses us out and more often than not, is used to deceive.

I’ll focus on the “trick question” part and leave the math to the reader (Seth also includes a couple links in his post with demonstrations of the arithmetic.)

In all likelihood, the best answer to the problem would be c) none of the above. Replacing the Suburbans with 50 mpg Priuses – or even with cars that get just 20 miles per gallon – would be far better than either of the alternatives. And that’s obviously only one of many alternatives, including radical ones such as “walk!” These aren’t answers Seth is unaware of; he was just making his point about arithmetic, confusion, and deception.

The point I want to make in this post is this:

Optimizing a bad choice rarely gets you ahead of where you could be if you made a better choice.

Photo: Tambako the Jaguar

Looking across a fence, we perceive ourselves differently than we would without the fence there. “The grass is greener” has always been a story about us, not about them, right?

Enjoying a slow stream…

What’s that feeling called when you’re on vacation, but the people around you aren’t? Or when you take a moment to smell the flowers while simultaneously being aware of others not smelling them?

Wondering about the fast stream…

And how are these things related to the pressure we sometimes feel to be caught up, not left behind, fluent in the newest, latest, fastest happenings?

I don’t know if some people manage to stay in one of these streams, the slower or the faster, long-term, essentially continuously, in a sustainable way.

I know I don’t. I switch from one to the other, sometimes gracefully, feeling good (or relieved, or excited) about the switch. Frequently, though, I feel I’m just reacting to outside or self-imposed pressures.

I think the various feelings we can experience when we’re in one stream and aware of the other are all related to the “grass is greener on the other side” phenomenon. Much of the time, as the saying most commonly suggests, we just think it would be better to have that which we don’t have.

But sometimes, for a little while, we’re able to feel ourselves being out of “this” world and inhabiting the “other (greener)  side.” What I don’t know is whether that’s an error of perception, an error of perception that cancels out a failure to be satisfied (two wrongs making a right), or a gift.

Photo: Redvers

Several years ago, and shortly before reading a Douglas Adams essay in which he mentioned the very same oddity, I saw for the first time the highway sign outside of Albuquerque that warned (or was it philosophizing?), “Gusty Winds May Exist.”

It’s an accidentally beautiful sign that can be found in at least three places in New Mexico. Despite its poetry, I do feel warned to put down my cellphone, soy extra vanilla latte, and electric shaver and put both hands on the wheel.

Recently, I’ve started seeing highway signs that purport to be warning signs but which actually have the effect of sending my mind off in confusing loops and starting my head shaking side to side in an unconscious statement of “no!”

Here’s the text of the diamond-shaped, orange sign:

Guardrail Damage Ahead

OK, so what am I supposed to be warned to do? Not crash into the area where the guardrail is broken? Or “yes, driver, if you’re about to crash, please pick this already damaged spot so we don’t have to make two separate repairs?”

Some things, like road signs and test results and department meetings, should be actionable. If there’s nothing I can really do in response to them, please take them away!