Philosophy
Today is opening day for the Orioles. I'm a lifelong O's fan and my kids have been junior Orioles for the last five years -- I figure, well, you have to learn to cuss sometime. In long discussions about the nature of bring a fan with Playground regular Jeff Maynes, he points out how irrational it is. First, you are putting your hopes in something beyond your control. But further, it is something that is most likely to lead to your ultimate disappointment. The expectation value of being a fan is negative. The likelihood of joy and the degree of happiness you can hope for when compared with the likelihood and depth of disappointment makes the decision to be a fan irrational.
This seems to be true even if there is a higher expectation value for success. If you are a fan of a team in a large market that goes out and buys the best players every year, then you expect to win and thus get less joy from the actual success and deeper disappointment when they don't. Increasing the likelihood of success does not seem to change the irrationality of being a fan.
So, why then do we do it? Why do we willingly tie our happiness to the slim chances of others on the playing field?
- Continuity Of Self
Today is my birthday and it is fun to look at all of the greetings on Facebook from folks I've known over the entire range of my life. Some who know me only as a graying department chair and others who knew me as a member of the red group in...
- Is There Progress In Art? Society?
I'm working through Max Weber's methodological essays and one of the points he argues is that social progress is a myth. Across the ideological spectrum of founding fathers of sociology, from Marx's communist view to Spenser's free...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...
- Little Paternalistic Lies Of Convenience
Driving in this morning, listening to "Marketplace," the announcer recalled the story of a friend whose mother told him when he was a child that when the ice cream truck was playing music, it meant that it was out of ice cream. Parents play on the...
- Grammar Curmudeons
Had a student ask yesterday about grammatical pet peeves. His was "irregardless." My big three are: 1) "Quote" used for "quotation." Quote is a verb. You quote someone. What you write down is not a quote, but a quotation. ...
Philosophy
The Irrationality of Being a Fan
Today is opening day for the Orioles. I'm a lifelong O's fan and my kids have been junior Orioles for the last five years -- I figure, well, you have to learn to cuss sometime. In long discussions about the nature of bring a fan with Playground regular Jeff Maynes, he points out how irrational it is. First, you are putting your hopes in something beyond your control. But further, it is something that is most likely to lead to your ultimate disappointment. The expectation value of being a fan is negative. The likelihood of joy and the degree of happiness you can hope for when compared with the likelihood and depth of disappointment makes the decision to be a fan irrational.
This seems to be true even if there is a higher expectation value for success. If you are a fan of a team in a large market that goes out and buys the best players every year, then you expect to win and thus get less joy from the actual success and deeper disappointment when they don't. Increasing the likelihood of success does not seem to change the irrationality of being a fan.
So, why then do we do it? Why do we willingly tie our happiness to the slim chances of others on the playing field?
- Continuity Of Self
Today is my birthday and it is fun to look at all of the greetings on Facebook from folks I've known over the entire range of my life. Some who know me only as a graying department chair and others who knew me as a member of the red group in...
- Is There Progress In Art? Society?
I'm working through Max Weber's methodological essays and one of the points he argues is that social progress is a myth. Across the ideological spectrum of founding fathers of sociology, from Marx's communist view to Spenser's free...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...
- Little Paternalistic Lies Of Convenience
Driving in this morning, listening to "Marketplace," the announcer recalled the story of a friend whose mother told him when he was a child that when the ice cream truck was playing music, it meant that it was out of ice cream. Parents play on the...
- Grammar Curmudeons
Had a student ask yesterday about grammatical pet peeves. His was "irregardless." My big three are: 1) "Quote" used for "quotation." Quote is a verb. You quote someone. What you write down is not a quote, but a quotation. ...