I always wanted to write a book about “snake oil”. I.E. Profitable practices based on misinformation, or in general profitable practices which only benefit one party without crossing a certain threshold of parasitism through force (i.e slavery)
Although the dangerous thought now occurs to me that perhaps people selling weight loss cures have their own form of enslavement in play...
I cannot post yet, not enough karma. Although I suppose in principle the gist goes that a donkey led by the carrot instead of the stick is still a beast of burden.
A lot of consumer goods, especially the day time TV variety add no significant marginal benefit but still are marketed in a way that is exceptionally compelling—I believe that certain people barely have a rational choice to buy the product, its just that attractive. Especially toys. The systems are so well established to make people want things that it seems as if those systems are sometimes the entire value proposition.
Or in a more abstract sense, the way in which car companies have successfully convinced us that “badges” mean anything. I know people who are making big decisions based on something which seems to occupy the same head space as religion in terms of the way it compels through belief, and reinforces through society.
It sounds a bit too stereotypically anti-corporate, but I’m an enthusiastic business student and these things still seem worrisome. The first case provides no value and is straight up snake oil sometimes, and the second case Is the bad kind of value, the one created by pure inescapable and unspoken agreement.
I’ll admit this is nothing like being compelled by arms into hard labour, and is not an amazingly well thought out opinion. But it’s something.
Waking up: I found brute force works best—Old style alarm clock with clanging bells placed on opposite end of room. This trumped all sorts of complex maneuvers, including training self to have a fixed pattern response to an certain iPhone alarm.
I agree with Morendil’s points. A few bits and pieces I’ve picked up about the purchase price:
Some dealership tactics: find out who advertises the cheapest price on your wanted model, then call up everyone else who has it. Chances are somebody will try and compete on the price, the dealers will shift a fair bit. usually upgrades are a poor investment, and might sometimes be used by dealers to try and cloud comparisons between other dealers. don’t fall for it.
In Australia, I’ve found the “dealership test cars” are usually good value. You get pretty much all the guarantees of a new car but with some of the “shiny and not broken” new car premium taken off. I’ve seen at least one instance of an 11% discount on an otherwise perfect condition car.
As a new car buyer who doesn’t know much about second hand cars, you would do really well to find something with some manufactures warranty left, ensuring most severe problems will not be a hindrance.
REALLY consider depreciation. Whatever your buying, see what an older model costs relative to the one your buying. This is usually a good gauge of future depreciation values (in my opinion, commodores and falcons have pretty good residual value simply because there’s so much information available about past prices ad reliability in oz, being an oldish car)
if going second hand, see the car first inspect everything like hawk ensure you have comparable prices to know your not being shafted.
WARNING ANECDOTAL : I’ve seen a few guys in your situation go for oldish Mercedes and BMW models, it usually ends badly because of the maintenance costs despite whatever joy you get from the badge. You will be several times better off with a spanking near new corrolla.
I’ll admit my method is flawed, but the idea was closer to asking for something beyond what is expected without acting as if it is a huge request, treating it casually.
The “not saying please” thing struck me as a good method for ensuring it stayed casual but I can see that would probably come off as rude—politeness is surely a charachteristic of most productive behaviour.
I’m trying to work up a heuristic for dealing with this. For instance: if 2 minutes after consuming this product there is no benefit ,I mean ZERO benefit, avoid it. Like buying a soft drink over water—second I finish the can, I’ll probably forget I ever had the the thing and my body is worse off. Same for most sitcoms in my opinion.
Probably worth noting it gets messy easily. I know I should avoid video games for long term goals, but frankly I savour some victories for a while If the challenge was decent and it makes me happier for some time. But the problem here is I generally won’t know if the game was worth it until well after i’ve committed time and effort.
Just show up! Only one guy bites, you’ll be warned about him. Strongly suggest you join the FB group in case you get lost though - http://www.facebook.com/groups/219526434802422/
Better. Perhaps as an add on, how to get rid of junk profitably? Heuristics to identify you have something worth selling...
Considering the interest, I’m Pre-committing to showing up at around 3:30 − 4, staying till 6.
I’m going to start using this article as a kicking off point for new people to “get” less wrong...