4 Minute Hoax: Investigating Methods of Emotional Manipulation

First, an apology - It's been 8 months since I last posted, and I've had dozens of ideas but never put pen to paper, so to speak. I'm trying to change that now, and getting myself on a new schedule. I was shocked today to look at the dusty dashboard and saw that I've been getting a steady stream of pageviews even without new contents.
So y'all are awesome.

I'm jumping in to this head first, so to speak, and starting up a new blog with a skeptical eye to weight loss fads. My weight issues are a major part of who I am, and I've always tried to approach the subject with rationality. What's intriguing is just how much effort is invested by the dieting industry to alter human behavior. Today I accidentally stumbled across the 4 Minute Abs Hype video that has started to make its way around the internet.

I'm both an economist and an actor. I've met with many a quizzical eyebrow to that combo so I'll explain that the unifying element is the study of choice. Both economics and character studies are about understanding HOW and WHY people act as they do - getting into their skin, so to speak. As an actor, I invest myself into living through emotions, as an economist, I study how people manipulate them.
From that angle, this video hits all the right notes.

Killing My First Raid Boss: Why Forbes Got Their Analysis of Activision Completely Wrong

I grew up shouting spells in D&D instead of chanting "Defense!," playing multiple CCG's [Decipher, you will be missed] instead of collecting baseball cards, and ogling new computer parts instead of cars or bikini-clad models. The desire to "assimilate" all knowledge, the plumbing of rules for synergies and efficiencies, and the concepts of interactive roleplaying play a major role in my growth and development. In no small way, they are partially to blame for my present occupation as a data analyst/economist and my involvement with the theatre.
While I don't consider myself to be a "hardcore" gamer [cue the debate on that word] I am an avid fan of videogame culture. A large number of the sites and comics I read on a regular basis are invovled with this growing subset of our society in one fashion or another.

When I read about an analysis of Activision stock by Forbes.com, I was immediately hooked into reading it. After the relatively short article, I found myself rather disappointed that the guest-writers seem to be completely clueless on the socio-psychological mechanics of gaming and the industry.

Reimagining Architecture in the Modern Age

As the boys of Monty Python are apt to say: "And Now for Something Completely Different!"
One of the joys of being a cenophile (using the greek root ceno = new, not the latin, though it is applicable for a foodie like me) is encountering new and interesting fields of study and integrating that information into new world constructs.
In college, people often questioned my choice of Economics and Theatre as a dual major. The general response I learned to provide was that between these two fields, you can include practically all genre of  information: Sociology, Antropology, History, Psychology, Art, Physiology, Political Science, Law, Mathematics and Analysis, ... Really, anything outside of the principal "hard sciences" of physics, chemistry, and bio, though recently I've begun to revisit and rethink the fundamental connections between perception and action.

As my wife is an architect and designer, her work affords me a glimpse into the philosophies of an entirely different realm of study - that of the designing and modulation of the very world around us. What follows is some introspection on how we craft our environments based on traditional structures, and a glimpse into a future in which we structure our living spaces more closely alligned with our own needs and behaviors rather than forcing them to conform to a standardized, outdated model.

Neuroeconomics: Introspection on Attention Surplus

Yesterday, I wrote a piece on how modern technology wasn't causing problems by decreasing our attention, but rather with increasing our capacity to handle data in our mundane environment. It occurred to me earlier today that things like meditation aren't about increasing attention, but rather narrowing focus on to a specific set of activities. Actively filtering our experience enables us to push past passive barriers from stimulation that might otherwise overwhelm us - think of tai chi or the intense focus during sports, acting, chess, or really any activity for an example.

This morning I read an excellently written article that provides a sort of counterpoint to my discussion - that the processing of so much data dampens the overall production of independent thought.
It's a worthwhile read, but I disagree with it's speculative conclusions.

An Innovation and an Apology - Feasibly Fixing the Patent System

Sorry I've been out the past couple weeks - real life has been a bit... hectic. I'm working on rebalancing my obligations, so while I might not post quite so frequently anymore (hey, I'm only one person), I should maintain more regular activity here and with my twitter account.

 

This was a comment I wrote on Techdirt on the unidirectional patent system. The idea has been fermenting and fomenting for quite some time, and it may be a feasible method of appealing to the base economic instincts of the organization in order to modernize and fix a number of issues with the patent process.

 

A way to help balance the USPTO while *ahem* preserving it's business model: create an adversarial patent system:
At present, individuals pay to file and refile and, once granted, hold the patent until it is challenged in court. Since, as has been pointed out several times before, their operating budget is predominantly (if not entirely) derived from their filing fees, the economic incentive is to encourage people to FILE AS MANY TIMES AS POSSIBLE - they make it difficult by rejecting patents, but only artificially so, as you can simply refile a modified patent with a new fee for reconsideration. After a rejection or two, they are likely to approve, since they don't want to DISCOURAGE you from filing at all - that would take away a revenue stream!

What if they instituted the ability to file a counter "anti-patent" displaying prior art and obviousness? Such an system would essentially "crowd source" the entire patent approval process and shift the balance of their incentives. By allowing individuals to submit prior art and obviousness research for a small fee, they can streamline and speedup the entire patent review process (for both new and old patents), lower fees for filing while increasing their revenue, decrease their operating costs (thereby maximizing profits), AND present themselves as "open source, modern government" with maximum transparency!
With this new system, to maximize profit, they must ensure as ROBUST AND PUBLIC DEBATE AS POSSIBLE.
If people can present counter evidence to a patent, then the patent will be reject/'on-hold' by the "reviewer" until the patent seeker files their counter argument against said claim. If they can't, they've lost their bogus patent and no one is worse off (though they may be free to refile, and the process begins again, but with precident from the counter-patent filers...)
"But wait!" (I hear you cry) "If they essentially crowdsource patent applications for us to do THEIR work, why do we need USPTO in the first place?!?"

Patience, Grasshoper. For now, they still are needed to be arbiters of the evidence provided. But one day... One day...

Tax Code Revolution!

Taxes are tricky, messy, bastardized things. Their inherently mongreloid nature leaves them more misshapen than a Boris Karloff monster and more random than a platypus. So what happens when you start throwing different ideas around? My uncle pitched me his ideas for tax reform and asked for my opinion. We had the following exchange that I invite everyone to join in on.

(note: since my internet is down at the moment, copy pasta will have to do for now. I'll edit later for clarity, grammar, etc.)

(note the 2nd: though I am an analyst, I don't work with tax policy directly. Feel free to point out any errors, alternative theories, etc.)

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Hi Isaac,
Listening to today's news, I realized that I have long been formulating my own ideas about taxes--so I decided to write them down. You're the economist in the family, so I'm sending you my tax plan. Are the attached ideas crazy?
Uncle Steve

The Economics of Attention

Earlier this morning, I was discussing the tendency of individuals to talk more when they know less. SMBC also brought this point up by planting the flag on the summit of Mt. Stupid. While it may seem like an obvious observation, why is it that the less you know, the more you talk?