COCK A SNOOT
Finding LiveJournal's generic mood selection to be woefully inadequate, I will let this image of Macaulay Culkin serve as an indicator of what sort of content you can expect out of me this evening.
I was well aware of the fact that tomorrow there is a paper due for my Political Psych class, and I had planned to spend my evening studying and then writing said paper. Despite the open-ended nature of said "response" paper, and my complete lack of ideas, a 5-page bit was nothing to be worried about. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware of the upcoming Social Psych test... I was certainly aware of the fact that I have large things due every Tuesday and Thursday for the next few weeks. But imagine my surprise when I opened my planner and discovered that the Social Psych test is, in fact, tomorrow. A review of the syllabus then alerted me to the fact that the test is actually 30% of my grade in the class. Whoops?
So here's a great quote from the news.
"...[O]fficers were called to a veterans hall Monday morning to find a man dressed as Elvis Presley apparently in convulsions.
When the officers approached, Oyaas said the man suddenly jumped up and yelled, "Viva Las Vegas!" before singing show tunes.
At about the same time, two women said another man at the veterans hall dressed as John Belushi's character in "The Blues Brothers" had stolen their car and driven to a nearby airport."
Now THAT is the sort of news we need to be reading more of. TOO FUCKING FUNNY. I would have died laughing, even if it was my car the guy stole. Props to Dan (z_zeg) and Elise (elizavyeta) for the link. Has anyone seen the video of the library musical, where some kids 'spontaneously' burst into song and dance in a library? Another shining example of what today's youth ought to be spending their creative energies on. If anyone else would be interested in forming some sort of guerilla theatre troupe, let's get that shit going.
So earlier tonight I went to study at McDonalds, lured by its convenient presence across the street, and the essential bottomless supply of caffeine. Much to my chagrin, it closed at 11, a mere hour after I arrived. Damn those money-grubbing corporate bitches.. they stay open until 3 am for the drunks, but they can't stay open so people can study? Oh well.. it was cold in there anyway. And I did manage to consume three medium-sized glasses of Mello Yello, taking a fourth for the road.
I found the greatest phrase ever in one of my social psych books: cock a snoot. Now accepting ideas as to what exactly 'cock a snoot' does (or should) mean. Regardless, I plan to put it on some candy, to confuse some poor raver kids.
I was actually lame enough to pull out a blank sheet of paper at McDonalds and start jotting down ideas for a livejournal entry. But unlike most late-night lj ideas, which are like one-night stands (a good idea at the time, but highly regrettable in the morning), I actually came up with something useful. My political psych paper will be about rational choice theory, and my thoughts on it.. which are mostly that it's completely flawed to begin with.
[Begin theoretical babblings]
Rational choice theory basically states that people will not engage in collective action (ie, voting) unless pB + D > C, where p is the probability that one's action would result in B, the benefit; D is any selective incentives to performing the action; and C is the cost. So basically, the benefit to the person multiplied by the probability of that particular person's action causing the benefit, plus any selective incentives, must outweigh the cost. In the case of voting, the quintessential collective action problem, the probability that one's vote will matter (virtually zero.. even in 2000 it was decided by 500+ votes, so no single vote actually mattered), multiplied by the benefit of getting one's candidate elected, plus selective incentives such as bitching rights, free food coupons (this has been used in CA), or a feeling of moral superiority, must outweigh the cost of voting (registering, educating self about candidates, locating polling place, getting there, actually voting, cost of gas/time, etc). According to this theory, nobody should vote, ever, because the probability is so small and the selective incentives don't outweigh the costs, no matter how small the costs are. Obviously this theory fails miserably, because a lot of people do vote. I intend to point out that, A, it is bullshit to even try to find formulas to predict/quantify human behavior. Humans are non-formulaic by nature. The inherent fallacy lies in the 'rational' part of this Rational Choice Theory, because if there's one thing we should have learned by now, it's that human beings are not rational. Then, B, to deal with the formula itself, I find that, except for the probability of one's vote affecting the outcome, every variable can be, and in fact is viewed quite subjectively by the actors. A benefit does not have to be directly measurable, nor does a selective incentive, or a cost. They can have radically different values for different people. To me, the cost of not voting/the selective incentive to vote (for example, bitching rights) may be very high, while someone less politically oriented may not give a shit about who is president, and so bitching rights means nothing to them. And, C, even if we ignored the subjectivity of all the variables except p, even p is VIEWED subjectively by many people, in that they believe that their vote may matter. Ask them if their individual vote is likely to decide the election and they will almost all answer no, but most people understand how collective action works, and know that their individual action can be part of a greater whole that CAN make a difference.
So basically I think rational choice theory is not very applicable to humans. Humans have the capacity for rational thought, and most of our decisions do fall along lines of rationality, which is why rational choice theory can accurately predict our actions most of the time, but we also have the capacity for irrational thought and behavior, which rational choice theory does not allow for. It can't explain collective action, it can't explain deviance, it can't explain altruism or self-destructive behavior. In short, it can't explain those things which make us all individual beings, instead of robots. There is no formula to predict the workings of the human brain -- we are too complex, and too different for that to ever happen. At the risk of sounding trite (ok, I already am), we are all unique snowflakes.
Now all I have to do is fluff up the language and stretch that into five pages, and I'm set!
I do apologize for the ridiculous length of this entry.. for some reason, lj-cuts aren't working for me tonight. Updating through the website sucks, I want my inter-web back.
And of course it wouldn't be a crazy late-night update without a quiz...
You are The Cheshire Cat
A huge grin constantly plastered upon your face,
you never cease to amuse. You are completely
confusing and contradictory to most everyone.
What Alice in Wonderland Character Are You?
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