And who wouldn’t like to think about Nasim Taleb on such a day, as one devours a relative of the black swan, a blackened or we hope brownened turkey.
He told his parable of the Turkey and Confirmation Bias about Christmas, but being fattened for the slaughter, either intentionally or by accident, is equally appropriate for Thanksgiving:
The turkey
It quite literally has no fucking idea what is about to happen. [They wrote that, not me, but I sort of wish I had!]
One of Taleb’s fables regarding Black Swan type events is that of the turkeys that are raised for Christmas dinner — although think of any other suitable farm animal, or even users of popular websites.[4] [They mention Facebook, but one can’t help but think of other websites that fleece their members, to add another suitable farm animal, and isn’t the irony so thick you could slice it like bacon!] Judging from past events, the turkey can consider itself lucky. It is fed and watered every day and generally kept happy. No indication from these past events suggests that one day it might be slaughtered for food. However, after this event (assuming the turkey lives at least to the point where it finally figures it out) it becomes “obvious” that it was being raised for slaughter; the protection and vaccinations are to keep it healthy, the excess food is to fatten it up. In short, after the event, the narrative becomes clear.
Until that point, however, the turkey would have no idea and it would be unfair to say that the turkey would have been able to predict its own demise from its 100 day eating binge during that time itself. But even more important to how psychology prevents us from recognising “the black swan problem” is that the turkey’s belief that every day would be fantastic would be reinforced by the fact that every day was fantastic. The accumulation of supporting information doesn’t just reassure the turkey, but also actively destroys its ability to think about what it doesn’t know. As a result the turkey undergoes a terminal revision of belief on the very day it has received the maximum validation of the belief that its life will continue getting better. Taleb generally is referring to this phenomenon when he says apparently silly things like “newspapers make you less knowledgeable about the world”.
The moral of the story; do not be a turkey. Alternatively don’t trust burgeoning stock markets or constantly rising house prices. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Black_swan
But to pick up on the last point and disagree, you do not want to miss out on fantastic fattening days, just want to make sure you keep an ear out [not like Van Gogh!] to hear when the farmer is sharpening his blade. So tuck in today, but don’t over do it, in case you have to make a dash for it tomorrow, metaphorically or phorically speaking.
Spike Milligan also comes to mind this day, and I will let him say grace:
A thousand hairy savages
Sitting down to lunch
Gobble gobble gulp gulp
Munch munch munch.
Bon appétit, and thanks.
For us gas is way cheaper than electricity for heating, of which we do a lot … for one thing our electric bill has all sorts of interesting fields, like “debt recovery charge”, and the electricity is “smart” metered so you pay more at certain times whereas the gas just flows. I remember the government doing a huge push towards electric heating in the seventies … and then they floundered in debt trying to provide that electricity, in Ontario through a crown corporation that had more levels of hierarchy than the Catholic church, really, and people, many of them elderly, paid a big price for converting their homes to electric heat. So here it would be a no brainer – but I liked your final thought best, that the water was hot anyway.
Oh, and Good warmer Morning
And yes, I am a cheap date, but an expensive life-long habit.
It’s not that often that a question comes along that I have no clue about. But that was one. We use gas as well. With the occasional oil filled electric heater in a spot or two, mostly because we like the ambiance of being able to put your hand on something warm. Bucker likes them too. He sleeps by the heater, even when it’s not on, out of hope.
This sort of bad boy here. I pick one up for cheap once in a while off of Craigslist, just for a spare. And it’s not all a completely deranged waste either, as the Kid is taking one back up with him today to the frozen wastes of Eau Claire to try to heat their crappy little love nest.
The Kid is so cute. He got one of those little meters, and can calculate the cost of plugging in most anything. He tested out one of those heaters here over the weekend, came up with something like 67 cents a night and decided yes, he’ll take one with him.
I never calculated it out like that. I simply bought a spare, probably 5-10 years ago, just because I had a hunch someone might want one someday.
And like everything else, the new ones are Chinese crap. A leg will break off it you look at it wrong. If you want a good one, you have to haunt Craigslist and garage sales. Find an old DeLonghi made in Italy, and you are home free.
I finally stuffed up another chapter … and yes a good old heater for local heat, and aren’t kids interesting these days – that is clever.