Analogy for eating for health

There are a lot of people in the world who eat with the primary goal of providing themselves with optimal health and nutrition. I'm not into this. One of my greatest sources of happiness in life is eating exactly what I want exactly when I want, and I find that focusing on health and nutrition unduly detracts from this simple pleasure. Health and nutrition people can't understand this. "But what could possibly be more important than your health?" they say. "It will make you live way longer."

Here's an analogy:

Imagine a sex act that doesn't give you an orgasm and (either on its on merits or by virtue of the partner you're doing it with) isn't particularly fun for you. The kind of sex act where you wouldn't feel at all deprived if you never engaged in it again. Now imagine the combination of sex act and partner are such that it takes a long time. It takes far longer than it would take you to have an orgasm with your favourite sex act. It takes long enough that you're starting to wonder why people consider premature ejaculation a problem. And imagine doing this sex act in a position where you have to do all the work. You can't just lie down and relax, you have to do it all yourself - and it takes way more work than your favourite sex act does.

Now suppose you have to do this sex act somewhere between three and six times a day, every single day, for the rest of your life. Even if you're away from home or out with friends, when it's sex time you have to drop everything and find a suitable place for the sex act (which is often away from all the fun everyone else is having), and you have to either carry around all the equipment necessary or make sure it's available wherever you'll be going, all of which is rather conspicuous and is detrimental to general social spontaneity.

Even if your favourite sex act isn't contraindicated, it's difficult to fit it into your schedule since so much of your time and energy (and physical tolerance for friction) are consumed by the non-fun sex act.

And if you complain about any of this, people reply with "But it's SEX! What could possibly be more important?" and cite research studies that show that if you have sex this particular way, you'll be able to continue to do so for decades longer than most people can maintain an active sex life.

Doesn't that sound like a special kind of purgatory?

What if the library gave patrons credit for early returns?

One thing that surprised me in discussions of the library charging for holds that aren't picked up is the number of people who are annoyed not just by people who don't pick up their holds, but by people who pick up their holds on the last day before they expire, or keep library materials check out right up until the due date.

I don't consider this a problem myself and I don't know if the library considers it a problem, but nevertheless my shower gave me an idea to address it:

What if libraries gave patrons credit for holds picked up early or books returned early? For example, using amounts that make the math easy and might not necessarily be the optimal ratio, suppose they credit one cent to your account for every day before the deadline that you either pick up a hold or return an item. Late fines are currently 10 cents a day, so this would mean that if you're a cumulative total of 10 days early in circulating your material, that will cancel out one day's late fine.

The big question here is whether circulating material faster is more important to the libraries than the revenue generated by fines. I don't know the answer to that question.

The other question is whether this would motivate people to game the system by taking out material they don't want and returning it right away. This incentive could be partially mitigated by allowing the credits to only offset future fines and you still have to pay fines already incurred. People could still game the system, but how many people are organized enough to game the system in anticipation of future late fines but not organized enough to get their books back in time? I don't know the answer to that question.

But if it turns out it actually is important for the library to encourage faster circulation of materials, this could be a starting point for brainstorming.

Analogy for banning niqabs (or any other clothing, for that matter) at citizenship ceremonies

I was so outraged that this is being done in my name that I couldn't blog about it for days. But my shower gave me an analogy:

Suppose there's an elite search and rescue team. Throughout its history, the vast majority of the team members have been male, although there's never been any rule or practice preventing women from joining.

The first step to joining the team is a physical fitness test. Everyone takes their test at the same time, and, because it's such an elite search and rescue team, these tests sometimes attract VIP visits and media attention, and applicants' families and friends often come along to watch. There has never been any dress code for the tests, but it's ended up that the vast majority of the candidates don't wear a shirt when taking the test. So, even though there are no gender or clothing rules, it's not at all uncommon to see an entire test group full of shirtless men. Some of the women who take the test also do it shirtless (Maybe they like the tradition? Maybe they're more comfortable that way? No one has ever thought to ask.) and some wear shirts. We don't have any data on how many do or don't wear shirts. (For that matter, we don't have any data on how many men, if any, wear shirts.) We actually don't even have any data on how many applicants are women. The statement that's it's dominated by shirtless males is based solely on visual observation.

Then, suddenly, the head of the search and rescue team announces that all fitness tests must be taken shirtless. In support of his statement, he cites a story told by one of his colleagues about how he was observing a fitness test and saw a group of women wearing shirts. The colleague told this story in a tone of voice that suggested he thought it was a problem, but the best reason given is that wearing a shirt is not what most people do. There's no logistical reason why a shirt would get in the way (they do need to briefly listen to applicants' lungs with a stethoscope before the test - although some question whether that's even medically necessary - but that could easily be done around a shirt or behind a screen away from the crowds and cameras), and there's no other dress code for the tests.

On top of all this, they announced the no-shirt rule at the last minute. There are thousands of applicants already in the system, who have spent years getting in shape and training their dogs and learning how to climb mountains and fly helicopters and scuba dive so they can fulfill their lifetime goal of being a part of this team, all without any idea that they might suddenly have to perform in front of a crowd and cameras in less clothing than they feel comfortable wearing.

Isn't that just assholic??? It's disproportionately cruel and humiliating to the people affected, and for no good reason. It's not going to give people a sense of belonging, it's going to give them an urge to flee.

The new recruits will grow comfortable as members of the search and rescue team on their own, as time passes and they collect empirical evidence that they are welcome and valued members. As we all know from our private lives, if you want to make someone feel comfortable about wearing less clothing, you don't start by removing their clothing; you start by making them comfortable. There's no reason to force people to do something they're uncomfortable with in front of a large audience on their very first day just for superficial visual consistency.

Why the idea of nominal fees for library materials grates

Recently, my city councillor asked for feedback on the idea of the library charging $2 to borrow DVDs. My visceral reaction was negative - a far stronger negative reaction than could be explained by the basic fact that libraries are meant to be free. At first I thought that this was because people who are least able to afford $2 for a DVD (like my grandmothers, for example) are also less likely to have the resources and the know-how to acquire movies for free through unofficial channels. But another aspect that grated was this treatment of certain library materials as Less Than other materials.

I've finally figured out why this is bothering me so much. It all goes back to my letter to my 18-year-old self. One of the things I wrote was:

Read Harry Potter. Read the complete works of Miss Manners. Read the In Death series. Read Introvert Advantage. Read Malcolm Gladwell. Watch Eddie Izzard's comedy and every interview he's ever done. These will all not only entertain you, but help you navigate the world better.

All of these things were transformative. From Harry Potter, I learned how to do literary analysis (yes, this is AFTER an academic career that involved lit courses in four languages) and how to use the happy place fandom gives me to chase away my dark moods. From Introvert Advantage I learned how my brain and energy work. Miss Manners gave me much-needed perspective on real-world social expectations to counteract the skewed context I grew up in. Eddie and In Death made me brave (insofar as I am brave, which is still exponentially braver than I was before I met them). Malcolm Gladwell taught me about Entitlement, which also coalesced all the other stuff I'd learned.

All of these materials are rather lowbrow. Anyone could make a convincing argument that any of this stuff is Less Than and Unworthy. Despite the fact that I've been exposed to more than my fair share of Serious Art and academic writing, it was a children's book series, a newspaper advice columnist, a couple of pieces of mass-market pop psychology/sociology, a transvestite comedian, and a series of formulaic mystery novels that ended up being what made me.

(At this point, some of you are thinking "What kind of pathetic person gets life-changing inspiration from such banal material?" The answer to that question is, obviously, "Someone who very much needs it.")

So, you're now asking, what does this have to do with the library?

Like most people, I don't like to pay for something when I don't know if it's going to work. This means that I don't buy books, movies, or other art/entertainment/information media if I don't know if I'm going to like it or if it's going to teach me what I need to learn from it. I borrow it from the library instead.

I didn't know going in that any of this stuff would be transformative. I didn't even know if I would like it. I added it to my library list because it seemed like it had the potential to be mildly interesting, but I never would have bought it - not even for a nominal price. There's enough pop cultural comfort food to keep me reliably entertained that I don't ever need to try anything new. The fact that I could try them all risk-free is what made it possible for me to discover all these things.

On top of that, there's also the fact that these transformative works are far from the only things I borrowed from the library during that time period (the past 8 years of my life). Most of the stuff I borrowed wasn't nearly as transformative - I'm sure I don't even remember 80% of it! But, because I can borrow as much as I want, I get to separate the wheat from the chaff and become a better person in the process. Even a nominal fee would be enough make me think twice before putting a hold on something I'm unsure about, which would have been enough of a barrier to prevent me from discovering my true inspirations.

I'm sure no one else has my exact combination of inspirations, and many people have a similarly unpredictable combination of inspirations out there waiting for them. (And I sincerely hope there are even more out there waiting for me!) The world will become a better and better place as everyone expands their horizons and finds their way to their own inspiration, so we must not introduce any cause for hesitation.

A mission for Toronto Public Library patrons

They've recently announced a new list of possible savings for the library to meet its reduced budget. I have a number of discrete thoughts on these, which I'm going to spread out over probably three blog posts. But we'll start with a simple mission for all library patrons.

One of the proposed savings is to charge people who don't pick up holds. This grabbed my attention because I recently had a hold that didn't turn up on the hold shelf. I looked through all the books on the shelf and it wasn't there even though the computer said it was. I was up to talking to people that day, so I went to the librarian. She looked through the hold shelves with me and couldn't find it either, so she placed another hold on the item for me and it came in a few days later. However, it still shows up on my account as a hold that I didn't pick up.

While we were looking through all the hold shelves, the librarian mentioned they'd had a few similar problems recently - apparently some glitch in the computer system. And it occurs to me that this is the kind of problem that would likely be underreported - it's very easy to just shrug your shoulders and renew the hold once its hold shelf time has expired rather than tearing a busy librarian away from their job.

So, in light of this potential new policy, here's a mission for all Toronto Public Library patrons: if your hold isn't on the hold shelf but the computer says it is, tell a librarian. If the problem I encountered is systemic or recurring, it needs to be reported to its full extent before the new policy comes into effect. And if it turns out it was completely temporary and has been fully resolved, then everything is fine and no one will have to go to any trouble.

Things They Should Invent: administer medication through breastmilk

A friend of mine has to give medicine to her month-old baby. The medicine is liquid, and apparently tastes disgusting. The poor baby HATES it and tries not to swallow it, making the whole thing an ordeal.

What if the mother could take the medicine instead? Then she could nurse the baby as usual and the baby would get her medication without having to deal with the yucky taste.

We know that bad drugs can make their way into breastmilk, so why not good drugs? Obviously this wouldn't be appropriate for every medication or every situation, but wouldn't it be nice to have the option? I'm sure there are quite a few cases where the mother would rather take a bit of unnecessary medication herself than have to make her poor baby miserable several times a day.

Update: The mother of the baby in question informs me that it would change the taste of the milk, which slightly blows my mind. I do think the taste wouldn't be as strong as the taste of the medication itself, and still think science should figure out how to do this on principle.

Assholic behaviour I have encountered recently

1. A two-lane side street. I'm waiting patiently to jaywalk mid-block. The car coming from my left stops and waves me past. I look right, and there aren't any cars coming from my right. So I start across. Then the car BEHIND the one that stopped to wave me by decides to pass the stopped car by driving on the wrong side of the road, nearly hitting me in the process. The weird thing is he wasn't even stopped that long - definitely under 10 seconds, maybe even as little as 5 - before the guy behind him decides to come roaring past on the other side of the road.

2. A rainy day. The lady walking in front of me down the street is carrying a golf umbrella. I always think this is inconsiderate because it makes it impossible for someone else to pass you on a narrow or crowded sidewalk while also carrying an umbrella, but she's walking fast enough that I don't need to pass her so she isn't my problem. Turns out she lives in my building. She walks up to the front door of the building, gets under the overhang, then starts to shake her umbrella out by opening and closing it repeatedly, taking twice as long as people normally take to do this. The problem with this is, between the diameter of the umbrella and the range of the water being shaken off it, there's no room for anyone else to get into the front doors or even under the overhang. Anyone else who might want to get in (i.e. me) is stuck outside in the rain until she finishes shaking out her umbrella.

And one I might have done myself...

3. There's a guy on the subway who looks rather like my cousin's husband. But it can't possibly be him - what on earth would he be doing in Toronto? Besides, I know my cousin's husband broke his leg recently, and this guy isn't on crutches or anything. Then he gets off the train...and he's wearing a walking cast! Ooops...

A little less conversation: building better consensus-building

One thing I find absolutely tedious about watching youtubes of Occupy is the people's mike. It takes such a long time to say anything! This also echoes something I find tedious about municipal politics: live, in-person consultations where anyone gets to get up and talk. Again, it takes such a long time! Surely it would be faster, easier, and more convenient to have everyone submit their ideas in writing - reading is faster than talking, and the writing process tends to result a more organized deputation than extemporizing does.

But, at the same time, there's a certain democracy to everyone getting up and having their say in full that we don't necessarily want to lose. So how can we make the general process of public consultation faster and easier and less tedious without making it less democratic?

Here's what I've got so far:

We start with a whiteboard, which can be either literal, virtual, or metaphorical depending on what's needed. For a set and reasonable period of time, everyone writes on the whiteboard every factor they can think of that needs to be taken into consideration for the issue in question. Each factor only needs to appear on the whiteboard once, no matter how many people think it's important (we'll address the number of people who think it's important in a minute.) So even if every single person in the room thinks it's important for the new widgets to be backwards-compatible with existing widgets, only one person needs to stand up and say so or send in an email saying so for it to get written on the whiteboard.

This is also a question and answer time. Anyone can post or ask a question, and anyone can answer or expand on anyone else's answers. All questions asked and all answers given are recorded on another whiteboard for everyone's review.

After the period of time for contributing to the whiteboard is over, there's a voting period. During the voting period, everyone votes on each factor on two axes: Agree/Disagree and Important/Unimportant. You can cast a neutral vote by abstaining. Once all the votes have been tallied, you can see what the collective's priorities are. Then they can take action to implement everything that gets a high number of Agree and Important votes and avoid everything that gets a high number of Disagree and Important votes. Things voted Unimportant but with a clear Agree or Disagree consensus will be addressed if doing so doesn't interfere with the things voted Important. Things voted Important but without a clear consensus could be subject to further discussion/dissection, or looked at in terms of how they related to other Important factors with clearer consensus.

Whiteboard and voting will be made as accessible as possible. The whole thing could be online if everyone involved has internet access, but if that's difficult for anyone then in-person, telephone, write-in, and any other kind of input method people might require should be allowed.

The enormous advantage of this method would be that it eliminates duplication. Instead of having to hear (or even read) dozens of impassioned pleas on the importance of backwards-compatibility, only one person has to bring it up and the importance will be made clear in the voting phase. At the same time, if one lone maverick is insistent that the widgets should glow in the dark, it's right up there with all the other idea and will stand and fall on its own merits. If other people think it's a good idea, it could go through even though that one guy doesn't have very much reach.

This method of consensus-building is far from perfect, but I'm putting it out there as a starting point. Improvements welcome.

You can't just replace screen time with exercise

I was annoyed to wake up yesterday morning to my radio telling me that the Heart and Stroke Foundation thinks we should be exercising when we would normally be watching TV or looking at the internet. As though those two things are anywhere near interchangeable.

Screen time is pleasurable and relaxing; exercise is a chore.

Screen time is multitaskable, conducive to cooking or eating or housework or light reading or more than one kind of screen time at once; exercise requires the full attention of your whole body and entirely too much of your mind.

Screen time is logistically simple - just turn it on and plop down; exercise requires different clothes and a shower afterwards and, depending on your health situation, planning what you do or don't eat before and/or after.

Analogy: suppose I decide that people aren't intaking enough current events and should read more newspapers. When they protest they don't have the time, I say "How much time do you spend driving around in car every day? Why don't you spend that time reading a newspaper instead?"

Not that simple, is it?

This irritated me so much that I skipped exercising yesterday just because I didn't want them to win.

Things They Should Invent: robocalls that disconnect automatically when they hear a voicemail beep

I hate it when spam robocalls leave me a message on my voicemail, because then I have to log into my voicemail and delete the message so my phone won't keep telling me I have a message waiting. This most often happens with those "To lower your rates, press 1" robocalls, so leaving a message doesn't even help them with their marketing because they need a real person to press 1 in real time. And, because they annoy me so much, these are the calls that I'm most motivated to report do the Do Not Call List people.

Solution: technology that would allow robocallers to recognize the voicemail "leave a message" beep and hang up when they hear it. That way the spammers aren't wasting their time and resources, people aren't getting pissed off, and people are less likely to report them for DNC list violations. Win-win!

Comedy guilt

This takes a lot of talent:



He's doing silent physical comedy all alone, without anyone to play off or react to. He's doing it in front of a live studio audience without corpsing. There's fire involved, and a live animal on stage with him.

But it doesn't make me laugh. Physical comedy very rarely does it for me, even though it takes a lot of skill, athleticism, choreography, timing, and rehearsal. In this particular case, rehearsing probably meant they had to light the set on fire spray foam about, and clean up multiple times. To say nothing of the work involved in writing the whole thing.

But it still doesn't make me laugh, and I feel really guilty about that.

My dreams are back!

For my whole life, I've gotten particularly vivid, interesting, and emotionally satisfying dreams right before I wake up naturally. That's why it's so important to me to sleep to completion at least once a week. My typical pattern is I sleep until early morning, wake up to pee, and, if I don't have to get up early that day, go back to bed for dream time. The dreams come at their best around 8-10 a.m., regardless of what time I went to bed.

But this pattern got disrupted when my GERD asserted itself this past summer. During the initial phase when I couldn't eat, I was going to bed early from fatigue and weakness and waking up early from hunger. After I was diagnosed, my diagnosis kept haunting my dreams (a recurring character was a demon with my face and a gremlin's body who had been sentenced to a hell where she was forced to eat the exact same quantity of the exact same dry, tasteless food every day, regardless of how hungry she was). The changes to my bedtime routine I made to trick myself into drinking less made me go to bed early, which made me wake up early, which made me miss peak dreaming time.

But the past few nights, I've naturally stayed up late, and naturally slept later, and finally started having dreams like I'm used to. Vivid, interesting, plot-filled, satisfying dreams that I'm physically capable of returning to after waking up if I roll back over and close my eyes again.

Some might say that this isn't a good thing, that it was better when I was naturally waking up earlier without any particular incentive to go back to sleep. But my dream time is an important part of myself that I'd thought I'd lost forever, so I'm very glad to have it back!

What if patients were allowed to deprioritize longevity?

They recently changed breast cancer screening guidelines, reducing screening in areas where it hasn't been proven to reduce mortality.

What bugs me about this is they're only looking at mortality. The reason why I'd be particularly concerned about breast cancer as compared with other cancers is I don't want to lose my breasts. I like my breasts and I want to keep them. If I'm going to be moved to take any particular measures to avoid breast cancer, it's going to be because I want to keep my breasts, not to avoid dying. However, we don't have the information to make that decision. They didn't look at whether early detection reduces the need for mastectomies, or, for that matter, chemotherapy. (I'd also very much like to keep my hair and continue my 17-year non-vomiting record.)

This is similar to my attitude towards GERD. I've been thinking about it pretty much non-stop for the past three months, and I've concluded that I'd very much prefer being able to eat exactly what I want for 100% of my life, even if it means my life is much shorter. I'd rather die at 50 having eaten exactly what I want every single day than live to 100 without eating anything that makes me happy. (Unfortunately, this isn't quite an option, because the disease manifests itself as difficulty eating. If I get esophageal erosion or Barrett's esophagus or esophageal cancer, I will be physically incapable of eating pleasurably.) However, the general medical approach assumes that dietary restrictions are a perfectly reasonable first step in preventing what might ultimately develop into esophageal cancer, and I can't find any sign that medical science is even thinking about working to eliminate the need for dietary restrictions.

As a patient, I'd really like to have the option of choosing to have my medical care not focus on keeping me from dying, and instead prioritize getting the most out of whatever time I do have. (And I want to be able to define "getting the most out of" for myself, so that it includes such fripperies as pleasure and vanity.) This would require not only the consent and cooperation of my medical team, but also the consent and cooperation of medical science. My doctor can't change my breast cancer screening protocol to maximize my likelihood of being able to keep my breasts unless medical science does research into whether screening helps avoid mastectomies, not just prevent death.

At this point, some people reading this are probably thinking "But...I want to avoid death!" And I know that with breast cancer awareness specifically, some people are really bothered by campaigns that focus on the fact that breasts are awesome rather than the fact that cancer can be fatal. So I'm not saying that patients shouldn't be able to prioritize survival and longevity. I'm just saying that we should have a choice. If you want to live to 100 no matter what, medicine should help you. If I don't have a problem with dying younger because it will spare me Alzheimer's, medicine should help me get what I want out of life.

From a disgustingly pragmatic point of view, allowing patients to deprioritize longevity might also save the health system money. Why pour resources into extending the lives of people who don't care if their lives are extended? (You might say "To keep them from dying of something complicated and expensive," but who's to say they won't die of something complicated and expensive decades later anyway? (Someone really should do research on that.)) There's the potential to save a few patient-decades of care with the full consent of the patients, and actually make them happier while doing so.

Things They Should Invent: minimum Service Canada staffing levels proportionate to the number of unemployed Canadians

Recently in the news: there are delays in Employment Insurance because the government has cut EI processing jobs.

That seems rather backwards, doesn't it? Demand is up, so you cut back your workforce? I can't imagine that decision being made anywhere in the private sector. (Of course, I also couldn't imagine it being made in the public sector.) If Service Canada increased the number of EI workers during times of high unemployment, they would not only be addressing the increased demand, they'd be marginally reducing demand (and the unemployment rate) by hiring unemployed people. Automatic job creation!

Therefore, I propose they make a policy that the number of EI workers has to be at least X% of the number of people on the unemployment rolls.

At this point, you're wondering why I want them to make a policy rather than just being smart and hiring more people. The reason for making a whole policy is to prevent the same problem from reoccurring in the future. The government could spin it beautifully as a sustainable policy to better serve Canadians and put people back to work - alluding to the fact that private sector totally hires people when demand goes up, to play to certain segments of their base. Once it's all written down and codified, then they'll have to jump through hoops to lay off EI workers during times of high unemployment rather than the current situation of having to jump through hoops to hire more EI workers during times of belt-tightening.

You're probably also wondering why I put the wiggle-words "at least" in there. That's to give Service Canada reasonable leeway in its staffing. If they have some people who are nearing retirement, this will allow them to hire replacements (and get them trained and reasonably experienced) before the retirees leave with all their corporate memory. This also prevents them from necessarily having to lay off workers at the slightest fluctuation of the unemployment rate.

At this point, you're probably wondering "But what if improved technology results in fewer workers needed per unemployed person? Then they'll be stuck with all these extra workers." That could be addressed with a clause requiring an automatic review of the prescribed minimum threshold whenever existing workers find themselves with a certain amount of downtime.

Causes I would like to get involved in

1. Sufficient and reliable funding for all medical research

Many charity fundraisers are raising money for research into various diseases. Our first thought when we hear this is that it's a good cause. But why is such vital medical research dependent on charity? There should be a better way to make sure that all medical research gets the funding it needs without having to resort to begging or be dependent on the kindness of strangers.

2. Replace property tax with income tax

As I've blogged about before, property tax is silly because it does not directly reflect ability to pay. I know that municipalities use it because that's what the law limits them to, but I think it would serve us all far better if property tax were eliminated and replaced with an income tax at the municipal level.

However, I don't know how to make either of these things happen. Does anyone know of any organizations that are already working on these issues?

Garbage chute poll

Please answer in the comments: which side of the building is your garbage chute on? I welcome multiple answers if you can remember from previous buildings you've lived in as well.

This question came up when I was taking out the garbage today and started pondering why the garbage chute is always on the east side. And I came up with a really good explanation too: the prevailing winds are from the west, so having the chute on the east reduces the incidence of that annoying phenomenon where the wind whistles up the garbage chute.

Then I realized that I don't actually know if the chute is always on the east. I've only lived in two buildings with garbage chutes, both of which had a north-south main hallway. In my old building, the service/freight driveway that garbage trucks would have to use was on the east side of the building (and could not have been positioned any other way. In my current building, it's actually on the west side and there's a bit of a convoluted system to get the garbage from the garbage room to the truck area.

So I'm trying to figure out whether I've spotted a pattern or this is just a coincidence. Please contribute your data points.

Is it easier to start a business in a small town?

In one episode of Corner Gas, Brent mentions that he runs the only gas station for 40 km. In another episode, he mentions that he's started renting out movies because no one else in town does. When Lacey is renovating the Ruby, the townsfolk are at loose ends because there's nowhere to get a good cup of coffee. Watching this, it occurred to me that it might be easier to run a business in a very small community, because you'd be the only game in town.

This made me think of a book I'd read a while back, Big Sort. One of the points made in Big Sort was that, as a general demographic trend, people who live in less urban areas tend to prioritize self-sufficiency. The book didn't comment on entrepreneurship, but in life in general I have observed a correlation between valuing self-sufficiency and valuing entrepreneurship. In the more extreme cases, this manifests itself as thinking that applying for jobs and waiting for someone to hire you is insufficiently diligent, and what you should really be doing is starting your own business and creating your own job.

So I wonder if this entrepreneurship-über-alles attitude correlates with more rural environments, and, if so, if entrepreneurship looks more feasible to them just because the small businesses with which they're familiar are the only game in town, rather than one of three on the same block?

Wholesale and retail

Wholesalers sell products at lower prices and in larger quantities to retailers, who sell them at higher prices and in smaller quantities to customers. Customers usually can't buy wholesale - you have to be a business to do so.

I wonder how this system came about? Because if you think about it, it's really weird and arbitrary. If such a system didn't exist, could you imagine being the first person to invent it? "Okay, you can buy my widgets at very low prices, but you have to buy at least a thousand of them, and you can only do so if you have a store set up to sell them to other people." That would never work! But somehow it has worked, and it adds this whole extra layer to the economy.

And why do you have to be a business to buy wholesale anyway? If an individual wants to buy a whole pallet of toilet paper, why on earth would a wholesaler care?

Things They Should Invent: Movember buy-out

Movember is a fundraiser where people spend the month of November growing a mustache, to raise funds for prostate cancer research.

The problem, of course, is that mustaches are yucky. I wouldn't want to grow, kiss, touch, or look at mustaches. And I'm sure I'm on the only person in the world who feels this way.

But it looks really assholic to not participate in a charity fundraiser - or, worse, to try to convince someone else not to participate in a charity fundraiser - on purely aesthetic grounds, no matter how well-founded they are.

Solution: you can contribute money to a Movember participant earmarked as anti-mustache funds. If any participant's anti-mustache funds exceed his pro-mustache funds, he gets to shave.

For example, suppose your husband is participating in Movember and has raised $100 for growing a mustache. You find mustaches repulsive and don't much fancy the idea of going a whole month without enjoying the benefits of his mouth. So if you contribute $101 in anti-mustache money, he'll shave. Of course, if someone else donates more pro-mustache money to him, you'll have to donate even more anti-mustache money.

At first glance, paying to shave mustaches seems contrary to the spirit of Movember, but it would actually bolster its missions of raising money and awareness. Since the anti-mustache money would go to the same charity as the pro-mustache money, this introduces the potential to double the amount of money raised! And giving anyone the ability to eliminate people's ugly facial hair will certainly do way more for awareness than simply having some people walking around with ugly facial hair. (Compare: "Dude, what's with the cheesy mustache?" "I'm raising money for prostate cancer research." vs. "Dude, what's with the cheesy mustache?" "If you donate $X to prostate cancer research, I'll shave it!")