How Pascal's Wager Underpins Modern Consumerism

Pascal's Wager, I believe, is based on three principles, which to Pascal seemed logical, but I do not accept. They are

- Black and white choice
- Not possible to know the truth
- Self interest dictates our decision

Pascal's Wager was just possibly a tongue in cheek comment. He was famous for using satire and ridicule in his writing. But on the other hand, he was a convert to Christianity, and was reputed to be quite an angry and morose person, so... probably he meant it.

Pascal used his idea of the wager to convince people that they should believe in God. Ironically, it does not argue that God exists, just that you would be better off acting as though God exists. So he was really telling you to pretend you believe in God, even if you really don't. Or at least start by pretending you believe in God and one day maybe you will genuinely believe in God.

Pascal was interested in gambling, and he invented a primitive roulette wheel. Got into a lot of arguments about whether a vacuum could exist. He opposed the "Rationalism" argued by Rene Descartes. i.e. "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". In politics, this rationalism has led to something between "internationalism" and "realism".

I am beginning to remember why I stayed away from Philosophy courses at University. All these philosophical offshoots seem to be a jumble of ideas that do not follow logically. For example, I might disagree with Pascal's conclusion about the belief in God, and I am more inclined to Rationalism instead. But I don't really see that Rationalism is the opposite of Pascal's Wager, in that Pascal was simply using rational thought about belief in God. In politics, Rationalism apparently leads us to two views, Internationalism, (that I believe in) and Political Realism (which to me seem like just another offshoot of Pascal's Wager).

Internationalism holds that all nations of the Earth are more or less equal and should cooperate rather than try to dominate each other, Political Realism holds that national interest should take precedence over ideology.

Pascal wrote about his wager in the 1600's, and his idea is even more important today as the philosophical underpinning of all spam, lotteries, all propaganda, all consumer marketing, the "invisible hand of the free market" and all of George W. Bush's decisions.

Let's take spam for an example of Pascal's wager, from the point of view of the sucker who falls for it. You receive an email, let's say it is promising you a larger something. First, your mind is focused on a simple choice, which is limited to a binary on/off decision: to have a small one or a large one. Second, you have no way of knowing the truth of any of this: Can this product help you or not? Do you actually have a small one or not? You do not know. And third, your self interest is to be happy, and you are being told that happiness depends on answering this email. Like Pascal's wager about God, you are told you have nothing to lose by answering (money back guarantee), and everything to gain. If everybody was rational, no spam would ever get any replies. But if some people make decisions in the framework of Pascal's Wager, some people will reply.

The converse of Pascal's wager would be something like this.

- There are grey areas in any choice, and other alternatives to the two being presented.
- Ultimate truth may not be possible, but seeking the truth is a moral obligation.
- Self interest should not take precedence over truth.

If everyone made decisions according to the converse of Pascal's Wager, not only would it mean and end to spam, but possibly an end to free enterprise and consumerism as well. But of course, it is one thing to talk about denying self interest, and quite something else to do it.

Picture: That's a modern roulette wheel. Mathematically, you would do better at a roulette wheel than with a lottery ticket. (although in both the odds are that you lose)

Two More Pet Peeves with the Media

Some of my most frequent pet peeves are people in the media "explaining" an issue in a completely ass-backwards way. So part of the fun of writing a blog is to put out my own take on an issue that has been poorly explained to the public by the TV and newspaper media. Two such stories come to mind today.

First is Canada's new rules for mortgages, tightening up the requirements for obtaining and keeping a mortgage. I didn't keep track of which news person said this, but I'll bet she was not alone. She was talking to an expert, and asked "This probably means that the average home buyer will have to be paying more for their house. How much more will we have to pay?". If you spotted the error already, good for you! The error is this: By tightening up the credit rules, home buyers will pay LESS for their homes, not more. You heard that right. Most people buy homes on credit, that's what a mortgage is all about. They usually buy the most expensive house that they can afford. The person who tells them what they can afford is the banker who approves the mortgage, and the bankers do the calculation according to set rules, based on the buyer's financial position. When you tighten up the rules, you are effectively saying "You cannot afford this $500,000 house, therefore we reject your mortgage request. However, we would be able to approve of a mortgage for $350,000". The numbers here are just an example, but it gives you the idea that people will be spending less. Even for people who buy a smaller house than their limit, they will pay less because they will not be extended as much credit, therefore less interest to pay.

My second complaint was stirred up by a comment by one or more meteorologists, that they are better able to predict global warming than climatologists. (March 29, 2010 New York Times). I know this story is almost a month old, but I'm actually focusing on a problem with the entire meteorological business, that has been going on for a while. The weathermen and women on TV keep pounding us with the message that "warm is good" and "sunshine is good". It sounds something like this "We have some good news for the weekend, sunny and warm with no chance of rain." Listen to the weather forecasts yourself, and in about 99% of them, the meteorologist attaches the words "good news" to any report of sunny and warm, and some variation of "bad news" to any rain, snow or cold.

The one exception is when a forest fire is destroying million dollar homes in California. Then they switch around the good to bad.

This attitude is not scientific, which confirms my opinion that most of these weather girls and men are more announcers than scientists. But for heaven's sake, do not make your pretty faces even redder by claiming to have greater scientific knowledge of climate change than climatologists. Meteorologists have a hard time predicting 5 days ahead, and have been totally brainwashed into thinking warmer is better. These are not the people to be deciding if it is good or bad that the climate gets 5 degrees warmer in the next hundred years.

Picture: It looks like a Spanish language station, so just to be clear, I didn't choose the picture because their forecasts are worse, but because their forecasters are better looking.

Why Does Toyota Make Big Honkin SUV's and Pickup Trucks?

For a company that claims to be green, Toyota makes a lot of large SUV's and pickup trucks. What could be more natural than making these honking big luxury all wheel drive vehicles if it makes money? Well, it's not that simple.

The only place in the world where these large gas-wasting vehicles sell well is the USA, and that is because of low gasoline prices, which are kept low by the political danger of imposing taxes on fuel in America. And even in America, as we have seen, the price of gas sometimes rises to the point that vehicle sales decline. (especially the gas-hogs)

Toyota started off in the sixties sending fuel efficient cars to the USA because that's what they made for their home customers, and that's what they understood. Not only that, but since 1963 there has been an import duty on light trucks coming to the USA of 25%. It is called the "Chicken tax" as this import tax is applied to potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks in retaliation for a European import tax on American chickens. OK, sorry that this is getting complicated but really so many things we consider natural came about through unnatural and complicated legislation.

Anyway, Toyota continued to make cars for the US, content to ignore the truck market. Then the US congress began to pass laws requiring increasingly strict standards for fuel economy, crash safety, and clean burning engines. Toyota complied, and set their engineers to work conforming to these regulations. Meanwhile, Detroit began to exploit a loophole they had at their disposal, by getting light trucks exempted from all these laws. Once again, Toyota more or less ignored the unfairness of this, and continued to build fuel efficient cars. The American car makers, on the other hand started pushing the definitions of what exactly was a light truck. Eventually, Detroit managed to include all minivans as light trucks and even started making pickup trucks with no bed at the back, calling them SUV's. Toyota still had no response, but things were getting worse. When gasoline prices declined in the nineties, sales of SUV's, pickup trucks and minivans increased to the point that cars became an endangered species in the USA (literally!). And finally, I guess the thing that pushed Toyota over the edge was the proposed CAFE standards.

Although CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) did not pass, it threatened Toyota's existence in the US market. The law proposed a percentage improvement in fuel economy on each corporation, over time, starting with their existing fuel economy average. The problem was that if Toyota was starting with mostly fuel efficient cars, it would have to compete against American makers who were starting with wasteful vehicles. It is hard to increase the fuel economy of a Corolla, but easy to do if you are starting with fuel wasting American style vehicles.

As a result of (or sometimes anticipating) all these pressures, Toyota decided to enter the truck market in the USA, so that they would be on an equal footing with the Detroit companies in case CAFE ever became law. To do so, they set up truck factories in the USA, because the chicken tax of 25% would have made them uncompetitive to import from Japan. And now we have the Toyota Tundra and the Toyota Sequoia, and several other big honking things you would not expect to find many years ago in a Toyota showroom.

Last year, both GM and Chrysler declared bankruptcy. They were relying too heavily on their big truck sales for profits, and when fuel prices went up along with job losses, many people stopped buying the trucks and SUV's. Toyota fared better and became the world's biggest automaker because of their superior line of cars.

But now Toyota is facing billions of dollars in lawsuits in the USA because of the not yet proven "runaway acceleration" syndrome.

So it's not always as simple as you might think.

Picture: Photoshop was not used in this picture. I did not reduce the size of the person in the drivers seat. The Sequoia is just a very big vehicle, at least for a Toyota.

What Happened to the Sixties?

The movie "Easy Rider" in 1969 featured a couple of guys on motorcycles, heading out to experience America. They had enough money that they did not need to get a job, which was a popular fantasy at the time. But in the end, the Easy Riders are killed by gun-toting, pickup-truck-driving (and presumably ignorant) rednecks. Is this what happened to all the the ideas of the sixties?

During the sixties, some Americans became aware that with their increasing wealth and higher standard of living, that one day "work" may be a thing of the past. The idea was that machines would do the work, and people would have lots of leisure time, and be able to enjoy life in the future rather than spend their lives accumulating goods. The sixties were an idealistic time, where civil rights for black people had been achieved, and where the "war on poverty" was being waged. With the new generation of baby boomers reaching late teen years, new ideas were everywhere. Some of the ideas included sex, drugs and rock and roll. The future looked like peace and love.

Today, forty years later, instead of peace and love, we have some war and plenty of hate. The war on poverty turned into the war on drugs, with a holy war thrown in just for good measure. Leisure time is not valued all that much, and most people prefer just to accumulate material possessions. What became of the dream of leisure time? Now parents need to put their kids in day care so that they can work enough jobs to buy the stuff they "need".

I'm guessing that near the end of the seventies, when it came right down to the decision, most of the flower power generation opted for consumerism.

Another sixties idea was the "Back to the land" movement. This idea was that you did not have to get a job and work for money, you just moved to some land, and built your own house, grew your own food, and became self sufficient. It was an idea doomed to failure from the start. Not only did most people lack the skills, but they did not realize that farming was unpleasant hard work. Then you have babies and suddenly the concept falls flat.

The backlash to the naive "Back to the Land" movement was strong, and possibly persists to this day. As the flower power generation hit their thirties, suddenly jobs were back in style, "dressing for success" was popular, and anyone who was not a consumer with a paying job was to be pitied.

Eventually the trends will swing back again, though probably not to the extreme "back to the land" ideas. We could do with a healthy dose of frugality, eliminating wasteful consumption, learning to repair and recycle things. And we need to learn how to handle leisure time in a sustainable way. For example, people could use some of their leisure time to learn about the world around them instead of grabbing mindless sound bites off Fox News.

The reason the days of wasteful over-the top consumerism are numbered is simple. Consumerism now makes no more sense than the old Back to the Land ideas any more. In spite of the slogan "Drill, baby, drill", oil production has peaked, the climate is changing, jobs are evaporating, and people still with jobs are overworked. Overworked people are not thinking people. It's pretty obvious that extremist doomsday religions are gaining stronger footholds, and ignorant, dissatisfied people tend toward aggressive displays to make up for their lack of understanding of the world around them.

It's too bad we had to go down this road of mindless consumerism for thirty years. It's even more of a dead end than "Back to the Land".