4 ms·

> “80% fat-free” and the other one says “20% fat added”, which one will you pick? The 2nd framing is awkward. I am no marketing expert but it seems the non-awk

> “80% fat-free” and the other one says “20% fat added”, which one will you pick? The 2nd framing is awkward. I am no marketing expert but it seems the non-awkward one will be only 20% Fat > Hack #4: Watch out if you are happy about a decision The advice here is - if you are giddy about the idea, google a contrarian view. So, how does someone actually become happy or excited about his/her idea?

paraschopra 9y ago
>The 2nd framing is awkward. I am no marketing expert but it seems the non-awkward one will be only 20% Fat Great point. >The advice here is - if you are giddy about the idea, google a contrarian view. So, how does someone actually become happy or excited about his/her idea? In my personal experience, I haven't found any correlation between giddiness about an idea and it being right or effective. (Especially with startup ideas). So I watch out for excitement about an idea, write out why it would fail, wait for a couple of days and revisit it. If I'm still excited, I pursue it.
- analog31 9y ago
  This is an interesting point. Everything that we read about reason, treats it as a static problem: The analysis either weighs for or against the decision, or is inconclusive, right now. But we actually reason in time. Allowing ourselves to spend more time with a decision shouldn't change the facts or the logic, but it could improve our reasoning anyway. I describe myself as a "slowpoke" when it comes to reasoning my way through certain subject matter, notably politics. I am certainly willing to change my opinions, but I might not change them right away based on a single argument. You might have to wait a year, or a decade, for me to decide.
  - paraschopra 9y ago
    >But we actually reason in time. I love the way you phrase it. It's a wild hypothesis but I suspect that good (Bayesian style of) thinking requires metabolic energy in our brain that's a magnitude of order or more as compared to intuitive A -> B style of thinking. This is why perhaps our brains avoids the former.
    - analog31 9y ago
      What is Bayesian thinking? When I took statistics in college, Bayes' theorem, and conditional probability, were presented in fairly straightforward mathematical terms. There was no special form of thinking associated with it, but maybe Bayes had other things up his sleeve.
MarkMc 9y ago
> I am no marketing expert but it seems the non-awkward one will be only 20% Fat I agree, but that doesn't really alter the author's point: Saying '80% fat free' is likely to sell better than 'only 20% fat'. Daniel Kahneman makes a similar point: When a medical operation was described as having a 90% survival rate two thirds of doctors recommended the procedure. When it was described as having a 10% mortality rate only a third of doctors recommended the procedure.
vorotato 9y ago
Just as an aside, milk in the US is a living example of n% fat.

paraschopra 9y ago

>The 2nd framing is awkward. I am no marketing expert but it seems the non-awkward one will be only 20% Fat Great point. >The advice here is - if you are giddy about the idea, google a contrarian view. So, how does someone actually become happy or excited about his/her idea? In my personal experience, I haven't found any correlation between giddiness about an idea and it being right or effective. (Especially with startup ideas). So I watch out for excitement about an idea, write out why it would fail, wait for a couple of days and revisit it. If I'm still excited, I pursue it.

analog31 9y ago
This is an interesting point. Everything that we read about reason, treats it as a static problem: The analysis either weighs for or against the decision, or is inconclusive, right now. But we actually reason in time. Allowing ourselves to spend more time with a decision shouldn't change the facts or the logic, but it could improve our reasoning anyway. I describe myself as a "slowpoke" when it comes to reasoning my way through certain subject matter, notably politics. I am certainly willing to change my opinions, but I might not change them right away based on a single argument. You might have to wait a year, or a decade, for me to decide.
- paraschopra 9y ago
  >But we actually reason in time. I love the way you phrase it. It's a wild hypothesis but I suspect that good (Bayesian style of) thinking requires metabolic energy in our brain that's a magnitude of order or more as compared to intuitive A -> B style of thinking. This is why perhaps our brains avoids the former.
  - analog31 9y ago
    What is Bayesian thinking? When I took statistics in college, Bayes' theorem, and conditional probability, were presented in fairly straightforward mathematical terms. There was no special form of thinking associated with it, but maybe Bayes had other things up his sleeve.

MarkMc 9y ago

> I am no marketing expert but it seems the non-awkward one will be only 20% Fat I agree, but that doesn't really alter the author's point: Saying '80% fat free' is likely to sell better than 'only 20% fat'. Daniel Kahneman makes a similar point: When a medical operation was described as having a 90% survival rate two thirds of doctors recommended the procedure. When it was described as having a 10% mortality rate only a third of doctors recommended the procedure.

vorotato 9y ago

Just as an aside, milk in the US is a living example of n% fat.