Beating the Crowd

Post by cess11 » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 5:45 AM UTC

I have trouble taking people that consider romance and intimacy a form of market gambling seriously.

Looking at their previous posts they also seem to not cook their own food, at least not a couple of years ago:

https://www.withentropy.com/blog/2023-10-24-its_impossible_t...

They also believed nature was "a well-defined system" that provided "rewards":

https://www.withentropy.com/blog/2025-04-13-a_banal_paradise...

But it seems that they have now started to open up to the idea that, at least, social realities might not be well-defined, which they approach through a series of contrived thought experiments.

While there sometimes might be wisdom to crowds, there commonly isn't. Concepts like 'groupthink', 'cult' and 'mass hysteria' hint at this. If you aren't part of any crowd you'll also be alone and quite vulnerable.

Post by fhd2 » Tue, Apr 29, 2025, 9:20 AM UTC

cess11 wrote: post #11

I have trouble taking people that consider romance and intimacy a form of market gambling seriously. Looking at their previous posts they also seem to not cook their own food, at least not a couple of years ago: https://www.withentropy.com/blog/2023-10-24-its_impossible_t... They also believed nature was "a well-defined system" that provided "rewards": https://www.withentropy.com/blog/2025-04-13-a_banal_paradise... B…

It's a weird example. I think a better example might be the trust factor in service relationships.

To my clients, my company is not ...

1. ... the cheapest. I think we're maybe upper middle ground in terms of cost/value, but arguably not the best bang for buck _in the world_.

2. ... the best. We might be _one_ of the best available to them, but most likely we're not. I think we're "pretty good".

But we do have something other companies do not: Their _trust_. Most of our business comes from recommendations, so we start on high trust. Then, as we work together, we build even more trust over time. They could probably find a service provider that's both cheaper and better if they looked hard enough, but they wouldn't be able to trust them as much. They could of course take that gamble, but the existing trust arguably gives us an edge.

Doesn't change the point of the article, which I think makes sense. Just a pretty odd example, as you pointed out.

Re: Beating the Crowd

Re: Beating the Crowd