Almost two years ago, I blogged about Dan Gilbert’s TED talk about The Secret Of Happiness. Spoiler: the secret to happiness is not having choices. If you read my last post, you’ll know that I have been unable to avoid stressing over important decisions. But I do my best.
The folks over at ted.com have just posted a new Dan Gilbert talk, that is actually 3.5 years old now. Again, he’s discussing the science of happiness. This time, it’s about the human inability to properly perform benefit/risk analysis. He spends some time talking about playing the lottery and how idiotic that is. (And he gets a very intelligent counter-argument from the audience at the end.) The ludicrousness of lottery playing is of particular importance on this blog this year. He also talks about how silly it is to be afraid of plane crashes or terrorism. Excellent stuff!
Not at all subtle, maybe not too late for Christmas, gift idea for Erik: Stumbling on Happiness, by Dan Gilbert.
To my future therapist reading this, January 2008 was when my gambling problem started. I must be stupid, too rich, or bored or something because I’ve decided to do something very inadvisable. As a personal project, I’m going to play the lottery every week this calendar year. It truly astounds me the number of people [...]
Here’s a little song I wrote for my Grandmother’s birthday tomorrow. The volume is low on the recording, so turn it up. If you hear anyone repeating the melody to this song, tell them to stop or pay me royalties. Happy birthday, Grandma! May you have many more.
We’ve had 40 Fridays so far in 2008. I’ve been playing the ONCE lottery every week so far this year. In my complex simulation that gave predictions of the outcome, I predicted that at the end of the third quarter, I would have either 85€ or 90€. Well, guess what? My balance after 9 months [...]
The audience member’s intelligent counter-argument (that people who denigrate lottery players aren’t sufficiently valuing the good feelings the players experience as they hopefully wait for the lottery results) seems to rely at least somewhat on the lottery player’s obliviousness to the true odds. I wonder if the amount of seratonin released by one’s brain when one is carrying a possibly winning lottery ticket is inversely related to one’s ability to understand large numbers. I suspect it is.
I’m dreading holding my daughter’s hand while she gets a dental filling tomorrow. She, in her blissful naivety, is actually looking forward to going to the dentist.