The Paradox of Choice

A great lecture from TED that totally echoes my thoughts of late…

11 Responses to “The Paradox of Choice”

  1. Brendon says:

    I loved this talk when I first watched it. Thanks for bringing this back to the forefront for me again.

  2. Saggio l'uno says:

    IdeaCity is cool.

  3. zeek says:

    Ugh, more to think about in my ongoing existential issues. I wish I had some talent to exploit for money like Brooke (sorry I can never resist a jab, you know I love ya B, and I’m finally going to be able to hang my BS posters up in my new room! :D)

    But seriously it just adds to my confusion really, more stuff to ponder.

  4. admin says:

    I’m barely getting by, Zeek ol’ bean…and seriously considering a ‘career re-vectoring’.

    Just be PATIENT with yourself…the longer you take the time to learn who you really ARE, the more satisfied you’ll eventually BE in whatever path you choose!

  5. Nabothi says:

    Wow, that was great to listen to. Thanks for posting. Quite interesting since I spent the entire night writing an essay on decision making. Not that it had to do much with the subject at hand here… so no idea why I said that. xD

    I think I have to agree with him though. Maybe I should pick up his book. 🙂

  6. Rexfelum says:

    But . . . I knew all this. I even tell people this myself with an anecdote from an awesome anthropology teacher:

    This charming Brit studied people in Papua New Guinea for a long time. He lived with them, talked with them, ate with them, et cetera. Eating, though, was an interesting experience. You see, they only grew three foods in that area: yam, taro, and sago. He got very, very tired of those choices after a while, and that’s an interesting story in itself.

    Regardless, it also got interesting when he headed back to America (where he lives these days). He got the idea to go and have some glorious choice-filled food from the supermarket–he wanted to get frozen pizza, I believe. He went into the supermarket, went to the freezer section, and stared at the foods available. Several minutes later, he left the store empty-handed, because he had no idea how to handle the choice anymore.

    . . . The only thing I don’t understand is what “TED” is, though I’ve seen more than one video by now. Oh, well.

    –Rexfelum

  7. Rexfelum says:

    Ha. Of course, after writing those last lines, I actually SEE and FOLLOW the link in the original blog post.

    –Rexfelum

  8. sum_dum_guy says:

    Damnit… I guess I can stop writing my book, “Baskin Robbins: 31 Flavors that are Destroying Western Society”.

  9. zeek says:

    Sorry for teasin ya B, you know I mean well. Blah, sorry, emo night again.

  10. soko says:

    Most of this came off as common sense, as if he was verbalizing a paradox that most people have probably already come across…and parts of the last segment seemed like the guy was trying to slide in some hippie-ish ideas…”redistributing income”…sounds kinda like communism to me.

    But it’s more or less true…kinda sad that people get depressed over their choices…

    One thing I have to disagree with is the portion about doctors. Doctors do indeed present you choices (after a prognosis of sort) in order to relieve themselves of the burden of coming to a decision. However, this is due to the fact that there has been a dramatic increase in lawsuits against hospitals and doctors by patients who complain about the Doctors’ incorrect decision about blah blah blah. Doctors are humans, too. They make mistakes. The choice is not always crystal clear because the human body is extremely complex. People just can’t decide on what they want–do you, or do you not want the doctor to make a decision for you, and if you choose the former, can you really blame the doc if his decision was wrong? The doctor is indeed more qualified, but again, he/she can make mistakes as well. It was also your decision when choosing to have the doctor choose FOR you. It’s all very circular….?

    I don’t know what I’m talking about.

    Good night.

  11. soko says:

    …..maybe one more thing…

    He could have been using this as an example to support his conclusion towards the end–which was keeping expectations low–but if you listen to the way he presents the segment about medicine, he seemed pretty spiteful. I just wished that he would have considered WHY the medical community would come to resort to such measures.

Leave a Reply for Brendon