Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

http://www.ted.com Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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• Paradox of Choice
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• choice

[callmeeemc]

hes basically saying that ignorance is bliss..

[FifthDread]

@Rottensteam he said it himself- "The key to happiness is to have low expectations" If wearing clothes for the function instead of the fashion makes him happy, why should you care what he is wearing?

[saubhagyinisingh]

@infrahate In that case, the bare minimum would do for just about everything!

[saubhagyinisingh]

@chattyw87 But not better than minus 99%?

[chattyw87]

@saubhagyinisingh I think you've missed the point or werent paying attention. Basicly he was expecting something much closer to perfection so by only getting 7% he felt depressed knowing (thinking) he could've got closer to perfection but didn't. So event tho the jeans feels better than 1% the bad feeling that runs thru his mind of having made such a terrible choice is like -70% on overall feeling. So his saying 1% is better than minus 64%.

[infrahate]

@saubhagyinisingh Continuing on the jeans metaphor he's trying to say that psychologicly you don't need 100 diffrent pairs of jeans, 5 will doo

[cynicalprophet]

Hes basically saying that the world works differently than it used to. But if that's all you got out of a 20 minute lecture I guess you're happy.

[saubhagyinisingh]

What the hell? So, you'd rather buy a crappy pair of jeans which don't bring you 1% closer to perfection than invest half an hour trying on 5 types of jeans to fit your fat ass really well thus, bringing you 7% closer to perfection? Is that your definition of happiness? Having no expectation and being content in an inert existence.

[yourheadbelongstome]

"nobody in the marketing knows this"

Apple does.

[gannen33]

@SaveTheWheat You think wrong. Inspiration doesn't 'hit', it's not something you just pull out of your ass at a random given time. I don't even know where you got that from. Ask any artist. You get things done when you sit your ass down and just try to get it done. To get inspired you need something to build on. Furthermore, I don't see that anything you said counters my opinion. You just vaguely grazed the subject.

[SaveTheWheat]

*music plays*..."Lowered Expectaaaaay-shunzzzz"

Fuck Barry Schwartz's anti-humanitarian, anti-innovation talks.

[SaveTheWheat]

@gannen33

What happened to you as a kid happened at a time when you had already been "blocked". It is normal for a kid to sit down and create whatever. It is not normal to have a bunch of kids in a classroom, sit them there, and say "create something" when the inspiration just hasn't hit. And has been, for the most part, brainwashed out.

I just don't think the argument works.