8 Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins (or Not)Read more at location 2602
Note: il mercato moltiplica le possibilità e quindi i capricci il peccato nn è sempre un brutto segno... + opportunità => + peccato fidanzata immaginaria il cusino/braccio del ragazzoEdit
Knowledge is only part of the problem—there is also willpower. Not everything we want is good for us. And I’m not just talking about French fries at McDonald’s. I’m talking about sin. Thou shalt not . . .Read more at location 2605
The logic of markets has been with humankind since the dawn of recorded history and probably much further back. In a laboratory setting, even monkeys will engage in reciprocal cooperative behavior, if such conduct brings more food. Monkeys are also willing to trade Jell-O for grapes amongst each other. One Yale researcher is convinced that one of his monkeys traded sex (to another monkey) for a money token, which was then converted into a grape. Some monkeys are willing to give up food, just so they can gaze upon photos of other, high-status monkeys.Read more at location 2610
The proliferation and broader span of markets encourages many kinds of sin, and indeed sin seems to be more popular than ever before.Read more at location 2616
The modern world brings a baroque multiplication of the possible,Read more at location 2619
Of course sin is not always a sign of a bad life. If there is more sin in the world, it is in part because we have more opportunities, more wealth, and also more chances to (sometimes) make the right decisions.Read more at location 2620
Living standards would rise and fall, but Europeans in the early eighteenth century were not much better off than Europeans under the Roman Empire,Read more at location 2623
During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, 50 to 75 percent of the typical European family budget was spent on food. Economist Robert Fogel reports that: ... the energy value of the typical diet in France at the start of the eighteenth century was as low as that of Rwanda in 1965, the most malnourished nation for that year in the tables of the World Bank. . . . As late as 1850, the English availability of calories hardly matched the current Indian level. One implication of these low-level diets needs to be stressed: Even prime-age males had only a meager amount of energy available for work . . . the average efficiency of the human engine in Britain increased by about 53 percent between 1790 and 1980.Read more at location 2626
Instead of courting a real woman, some men prefer “imaginary girlfriends.”Read more at location 2638
Once a week these imaginary girlfriends—played by real women— will send you cards, e-mail, letters, or whatever else is needed to establish proof of a long-distance relationship. The idea started when a twenty-two-year-old named Judy, from Wichita Falls, Texas, posted her “imaginary” services on eBay; since then the idea has spread. At Imaginarygirlfriends.com, after the period of hire has ended, the customer is responsible for splitting up with the imaginary girlfriend. The girlfriend will write a letter expressing her sorrow and begging to be taken back.Read more at location 2641
The very beautiful Erica, from Vancouver, offers: Services: Letters, e-mail, custom photos with letters, custom digital photos with e-mail, video chats via Yahoo webcam if possible. Price $45 per two month period.Read more at location 2649
Some Japanese women are content with less than a full man. Such women can buy a “Boyfriend’s Arm Pillow” to embrace their necks while they sleep at night.Read more at location 2653
Top executives can take a class for $10,000 or more to learn how to cope with life in prison. The class teaches the following: 1. Meditation and physical-exercise routines. 2. Getting used to the fact that nothing changes and everything is outside your control. 3. Discarding addictions and vices. 4. Bringing a cheap watch. 5. Not making eye contact 6. “If you are going to hurt somebody, drag them into your cell, because then you have an excuse that they invaded your privacy.” The entrepreneurs claim they have had twelve clients a year for the last two years.Read more at location 2665
II. Avaritia (luxury/greed)Read more at location 2675
Note: come le assicurazioni hanno trasformato il mercato dei rapimenti cercare aste con errori di ortografia su ebay... ci sono meno concorrenti ragazze ommaginarie x relazioni simulate Edit
Kidnappers in the Philippines demand the names of two other likely victims and an estimate of their net worth, before releasing children kidnapped from wealthy families.Read more at location 2677
Until the recent rise in safety, $1 million worth of Colombian kidnapping insurance cost $20,000 to $25,000 a year. Many people and companies buy much larger policies, for fear that the local kidnappers consider a ransom of less than a million to be a joke.Read more at location 2679
A victim is most likely to win a safe release when kidnapping is done in conjunction with the police. This minimizes the chance of misunderstandings and makes sure that everyone is on the same page.Read more at location 2682
In Mexico the kidnappers and the insurance companies have a close working relationship.Read more at location 2685
kidnappers prefer to grab someone with insurance. That is their incentive, since the transaction runs more smoothly and everyone behaves professionally,Read more at location 2687
The company “regularizes” the kidnapping experience, but at the same time this makes many kidnappings more likely and thus brings more sin.Read more at location 2692
Alert arbitrageurs search eBay for misspelled and thus misplaced items. So if the lister made a mistake in the item description there will be few opposing bidders.Read more at location 2695
One searcher bought Hubbell electrical cords for a tenth of their usual cost by searching for “Hubell” and “Hubbel” electrical cords. That same individual bought Compaq computers by looking for “Compacts” instead. One reporter’s hour-long search turned up dozens of items, including “bycicles,” “telefones,” “mother of perl,” “cuttlery,” “bedroom suits,” and “antiks.”Read more at location 2696
There is now a Web site, eBooboos.com, devoted solely to finding and publicizing spelling mistakes on eBay.Read more at location 2703
In Mexico City there are hundreds of prostitutes in their sixties, seventies, and even eighties; eighty-five is the oldest age cited. One woman claims that: “an antique can be more valuable than something new.” Usually the price is $5 or less.Read more at location 2706
For a $34 minimum a Russian company will provide an alibi for the absence of an adulterer.Read more at location 2709
The service can mimic traffic, construction noises, the circus, or the drill of a dentist.Read more at location 2711
Celebrities, athletes, and others can buy consent forms for their casual sex partners. The form vouches that the other party agreed to the sex, thereby avoiding subsequent charges of rapeRead more at location 2713
lawyer Evan Spencer, who drafted the “pre-sexual agreement” form for Protect Condoms, Inc. According to the president of the company, they rapidly sold more than 4,000 forms at $7.99 per form. Each package comes with two condoms.Read more at location 2715
We have all known people who make phone calls when they shouldn’t, especially when they are drunk. A survey of 409 people by Virgin Mobile found that 95 percent had made drunk calls, mostly to ex-partners (30 percent), 19 percent to current partners, and 36 percent to others, including their bosses.Read more at location 2718
To alleviate the drinking-and-dialing problem, a phone company in Australia started offering customers blocked “blacklist” numbers, which they select before going out to drink. In Japan they sell a mobile phone with a breathalyzer, to see if you are really fit to drive home, or for that matter to make a phone call.Read more at location 2722
Many market purchases—from a Mercedes to a $5,000 purse—are motivated by envy, usually of our immediate peers or neighbors. My professorial colleagues are upset by the raises given to people down the hall, but they don’t much seem to mind the wealth of Bill Gates or the Sultan of Brunei.Read more at location 2727
PartyBuddys, the creation of two New Jersey entrepreneurs, promises to “make normal people feel fabulous for the night.”Read more at location 2730
the one-night package offers a special “party buddy” guide to bring clients past “crowds of jealous bystanders,” limousine transportation, and special treatment at six fashionable Manhattan nightclubs, including free drinks. One night costs $350 a person and up; the maximum package goes for $1,200 per person. A personal bodyguard runs an extra $45 an hour.Read more at location 2732
at least 60 percent of their business comes from middle-aged professionals who are visiting New York but have never been to the city’s nightclubs.Read more at location 2735
imagine themselves as one of “the cool people” they see on TV. New Yorkers, of course, consider this the epitome of uncool.Read more at location 2737
A report from India tells of a firm that rents out wedding guests,Read more at location 2738
They are told to dance and make small talk, and show a knowledge of the marrying couple,Read more at location 2740
“The breaking up of joint families and lack of affection among relatives also creates a demand for paid guests.”Read more at location 2741
there is a restaurant in China that specializes in serving different kinds of animal penises, braised, fried, and steamed.Read more at location 2745
The World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship offers a $3,500 prize to the contestant who can down the greatest number of grilled-cheese sandwiches in ten minutes. The 103-pound Korean-American Sonya (“The Black Widow”) Thomas won with twenty-three.Read more at location 2747
Jason Fagone’s 302-page study of eating competitions, Horsemen of the Esophagus, used the words “violent” and “assault” to describe the contestants’ methods of consumption.Read more at location 2749
She worked at Burger King and would like to own a fast-food restaurant some day.Read more at location 2753
Markets in murder, arms sales, and terrorist killings can be found on the news virtually every day.Read more at location 2756
David Beckham and his wife hired a £1,000-a-day butler to open their Christmas presents.Read more at location 2762
Charles had a full-time valet at the age of two and he still has his butler apply toothpaste to his toothbrush.Read more at location 2763
Some people purchase software to play online computer games for them. Why bother? If “you” have played the game, you can wear certain badges attesting to that fact, which leads to prestige in some on-line communities.Read more at location 2764
Some Ritz-Carltons offer their guests constant e-mail contact with their butlers, who carry around handheld wireless devices.Read more at location 2767
Of course the seven deadly sins are hardly an exclusive list. The modern world comes up with new and more enticing ways to sin,Read more at location 2770
The company BSR offers a two-day antiterrorist driving school, which includes surveillance and 180-degree spins. Gift certificates are available.Read more at location 2772
Sometimes we are too cowardly to face those we have loved and maybe even still love. At www.breakupservice.com, founded in 2002, the writers pen a Dear John or Dear Jane letter designed to end the relationship.Read more at location 2779
But if a letter is too impersonal, better to hire the service for a fifteen-minute breakup phone call, called a “counseling call” by the service.Read more at location 2781
Another of these companies also performs furniture and pet retrieval, for fees ranging up to $400.Read more at location 2789
The now-defunct LadyLoveWriter.com—and its male-oriented counterpart LoveWriter.com—offered to compose “The Gentle Breakup Letter”Read more at location 2790
It also had to be specified whether the style should be “Light and Casual,” “Straightforward but from the Heart,” or “Super-Romantic.” Erica Klein, the founder of the service, noted, “We’re good at caring and compassion.”Read more at location 2795
Taphephobia (or “taphophobia,” depending which spelling convention you follow) is the fear of being buried alive. A Chilean cemetery will build an alarm into a coffin for only $462.Read more at location 2798
we can buy testicular implants for our pets. Apparently some pet owners feel their dogs have lost that manly feeling or that dangerous look. To date at least 50,000 people have purchased this product.Read more at location 2802
For her 17th wedding anniversary Jeanette Yarborough wanted to do something special for her husband. In addition to planning a hotel getaway for the weekend, Ms. Yarborough paid a surgeon $5,000 to reattach her hymen, making her appear to be a virgin again. “It’s the ultimate gift for the man who has everything,” says Ms. Yarborough.Read more at location 2805
For $430 a square foot, a person can buy the air rights for an unfettered view of Central Park. That means no one can build to block the current view. This transaction operates through the standard real estate brokers of Manhattan.Read more at location 2819
men who wish to buy paintings made by women’s breasts (N.B.: not paintings of women’s breasts, these are paintings by the breasts) must transact outside the mainstream. The idea, which started on the Internet, allows a small number of buyers to get in touch with the willing but regionally dispersed artistic suppliers.Read more at location 2821
Some of today’s newest and most innovative markets exist in online computer games. In these “synthetic worlds” it is possible to buy, sell, lend, own property, or for that matter steal. Rewards depend upon performance, and the game prizes are convertible into real-world cash. It has been estimated that all the synthetic economies put together, with about 10 million players, are in value terms about equal to the size of the economies of Bosnia and Herzegovina.Read more at location 2825
Fixed costs are the reason why we don’t see many walk-in, quirky bohemian bookshops in rural Nebraska.Read more at location 2830
Laws curtail voluntary exchange in ecstasy, sexual intercourse, kidneys for transplant, betting on numbers, and many supposed cures for cancer. It is very difficult to find the best unpasteurized French cheeses in the United States; the FDA has decided they are not good for us.Read more at location 2834
(If the customers can find these prostitutes, surely the police can, too.)Read more at location 2838
If you want to move to the front of the queue for a kidney, donate a large sum of money to the hospital.Read more at location 2838
Many markets are designed to help people avoid or circumvent lawful regulations.Read more at location 2843
One British entrepreneur sells squirt bottles of spray-on mud for license plates. It is ostensibly so the buyer’s vehicle can “look rugged,” but more realistically it is used so police cameras cannot record the license plates of speeding vehicles. The mud is from Shropshire, and it contains secret ingredients so that it sticks to the license plate longer.Read more at location 2843
Felix Oberholzer-Gee, a professor at Harvard Business School, conducted some field experiments about whether a market might develop for places in line. Some economists might think that buying a place in line is a natural thing to do.Read more at location 2849
They went to long lines and offered cash payments of up to $10 if they could cut in line, jumping ahead of some of the others.Read more at location 2856
most people would not take the money. They took a high offer as a signal of desperation and thus felt sorry for the interloper and let him cut in for nothing. (Students and women were more likely to take the cash; men were more likely to “act magnanimously.”)Read more at location 2858
people felt it was not right to receive cash for an early spot in line.Read more at location 2860
people in the queue felt only limited generosity. When a second experimenter—this time the professor himself rather than his assistant—tried to buy his way into the line, those in the queue grew upset.Read more at location 2862
Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman—based on intensive time diaries—looked at which activities make us happiest. It turns out that sex and time spent with friends (not spouses, unless perhaps we are having sex) are our favorite and most enjoyable ways of spending time.Read more at location 2867
in the moment, although arguably they bring long-term satisfaction with life.Read more at location 2870
A second study, by economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald, supports the view of a connection between sex and happiness.Read more at location 2870
If sex is so much more fun than the alternatives, why don’t we have more of it?Read more at location 2877
Maybe the potential partner is not interested right now but, hey, is that not what trade is for?Read more at location 2879
1. The long-term lifestyle costs of being “more open to trading sex” involve a loss of integrity and control.Read more at location 2881
4. Sex stops being enjoyable when we do it “to close a gap between marginal utilities.” It requires spontaneityRead more at location 2886
6. People want their sex to consist of peaks, rather than seeking to maximize lifetime pleasure. Thomas Schelling once told me he does not always listen to Bach, even when he feels like doing so. He wants to keep it as a special experience.Read more at location 2891
people feel shame about paying or receiving money in too explicit a fashion (see also #4). We therefore spend our time competing for social status, rather than just trading for more sex.Read more at location 2895
8. During and after marital fights, we often “stick to our guns.” Some of our stubbornness is for purposes of deterrence and precedent-setting. If we give in too easily, we will find it harder to win a good bargain the next time around.Read more at location 2897
I’ve heard of plenty of tricks to encourage self-control. Many of these tricks use markets, typically markets in preventive devices of some kind.Read more at location 2909
One device, called the DDS System, resembles a small retainer that you put into your mouth before mealtime. It fills much of the upper cavity of the mouth and forces the wearer to eat more slowly and take smaller bites. The product is marketed by Scientific Intake of AtlantaRead more at location 2911
The makers claim the effect on speech is “minor”; the effect on your pocketbook is $400 to $500.Read more at location 2913
Other gimmicks come from digital culture. For instance, pornography addicts can download free “accountability software” known as X3. Once installed, X3 sends an e-mail every fourteen days to a chosen recipient or recipients. That e-mail lists every Web site that the person has visited on the computer.Read more at location 2917
The technology or the trick distracts us from strengthening our will.Read more at location 2921
First, cultivate a healthy self-image and a set of narratives about who you are and why it is important to contribute to society, rather than yielding to every temptation.Read more at location 2924
Forget about the imaginary girlfriend, the Russian alibi for adultery, and the Mexican prostitutes. Just go out and look for some sweet, old-fashioned romance. Yes, virtue is its own reward, but virtue also should be fun. Go out and use markets to make virtue fun. Buy a nice home for you and your family.Read more at location 2929
if you make the wrong decisions, well, there is a new market that you might want to turn to.Read more at location 2935
The truly regretful in the Chinese city of Nanjing can visit a “crying bar.” There’s a sofa, some tables, and a great deal of tissue paper. For about $6 an hour, customers can sit and cry. The owner, one Luo Jun, claimed he hit upon the idea from customers of a previous bar. They wanted to cry, but they had no venue for this desire. The crying bar solves their problem by making the show of maudlin emotion socially respectable and indeed socially expected.Read more at location 2935
