I haven't posted to this blog in over a decade, but that is about to change, dear readers. Driving this change is my imminent retirement from my employer of nearly 31 years. I don't know if we, my wife and I, are ready. I think we are, and we have resources to support us. However, the proof is in the pudding. Retirement will be different, and it will be a welcome relief. My intent is to use this blog as a record of our adventures in retirement. So, standby for more updates.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Saturday, August 29, 2015
The Power of Numbers
There is something about data, a certain quality that it has. A list of numbers can and frequently does tell a story about reality, which is not at all apparent from a first look at the numbers. There are numbers that hide in these numbers. These hidden numbers are called statistics, and statistics summarize in some sense the larger set of numbers. Statistics are a very humane subject, as the discipline allows humans to access and utilize the larger sets of data, and avoid having to memorize or otherwise internalize the fuller set of data.
I didn't used to like data. There was a test, a personality/interest test, that was given with the American College Test (ACT) when I took that test long ago. The test placed your interested on a circle, the top of which was labelled "Data", the left-hand side labelled "People", the bottom-side labelled "Ideas", and the right-hand side was labelled "Things". My responses to the questions placed me at the very bottom of the circle, definitely in the "Ideas" area, and about as far away from the "Data" area as you could get. I believe my recommended occupation was graphic designer. I wasn't sure what a graphic designer was back then, but I did ignore that advice and became pretty much what was expected of mildly-bright boys from mining towns in the Southwest United States; I became an engineer.
Time passed, and with it came the rise of computers, networks, massive data stores and new disciplines like "data science". Computers and programming are now second nature to me, and I have demonstrated on more than one occasion a facility for analyzing data, but I still didn't really care for Data with a capital D. Since this post is about Data, you might suspect that my attitude about data has changed, and in some sense it has. What drove that change of heart is difficult to say, but much of it has to do with an ongoing controversy within the academic disciplines of probability and statistics. Now, the fact that controversy exists at all in fields that are perceived as staid as Prob and Stats is surprising. The fierceness of the controversy is surprising as well, at least on the side of one of the camps. The controversy is that between Bayesian and Frequentist camps, and the controversy has as much to do with epistemology as it has to do with anything, for the difference has to do with how we say we know things that are fundamentally uncertain.
It is the idea of this controversy that appeals to me, which keeps me near my roots as a person grounded, so to speak, in ideas, but with a new and evolving interest in data. For the Bayesians and Frequentists have very different ideas about what data tells us, and what data is good for. It has taken me a while to understand the differences between the two camps, and I can't say that I completely understand what is going on, but I have learned a few things.
The first is the connection of the Bayesians with what I think is the scientific method. Bayesians see probability as a measure of belief. The term that is used is plausibility -- a measure of the intensity of the truth of a statement. Bayesians see data as grist for a mill that generates belief. As new data comes in, our beliefs in the plausibility of statements are updated. This aligns with the scientific method which posses that the state of knowledge as a fluid, changing thing. Interference in Bayesian statistics has to do with computing the probability of a random variable, in this case the statistics that is being inferred, is within some bounds.
The Frequentists just sort of go with the numbers. A probably is just the number of times a thing did happen divided by the number of times that thing could happen. Parameters are not random variables in themselves, but are constants that we attempt to identify from the data, and the data can only give a probability that the parameter is bounded. You assume that you have all of the data -- if not, then why are you fooling around? And there is no fussing around with a prior belief. The data doesn't update the prior belief, it just is.
The statistics that I'm being taught is of the Frequentist variety, although there have been brief excursions into Bayesian territory. The Frequentist posture seems to be one of a benign superiority -- we are doing math, the Bayesian are doing computer science for the most part. The Bayesian see the Frequentists are old fashioned fuddy-duddies that have yet to get a clue.
Where am I? Well, I'm mostly pragmatic. I'm learning the Frequentist theory and I appreciate its power and understand why it is used everywhere. I also understand, I think, the Bayesian point of view and its power, especially given the prevalence of data and computing. I also appreciate that Bayesianism offers a theory of knowledge which Frequentism lacks. I am looking forward to learning more about the Bayesian techniques and understanding some of the edgier cases where one technique seems to dominate over another.
I didn't used to like data. There was a test, a personality/interest test, that was given with the American College Test (ACT) when I took that test long ago. The test placed your interested on a circle, the top of which was labelled "Data", the left-hand side labelled "People", the bottom-side labelled "Ideas", and the right-hand side was labelled "Things". My responses to the questions placed me at the very bottom of the circle, definitely in the "Ideas" area, and about as far away from the "Data" area as you could get. I believe my recommended occupation was graphic designer. I wasn't sure what a graphic designer was back then, but I did ignore that advice and became pretty much what was expected of mildly-bright boys from mining towns in the Southwest United States; I became an engineer.
Time passed, and with it came the rise of computers, networks, massive data stores and new disciplines like "data science". Computers and programming are now second nature to me, and I have demonstrated on more than one occasion a facility for analyzing data, but I still didn't really care for Data with a capital D. Since this post is about Data, you might suspect that my attitude about data has changed, and in some sense it has. What drove that change of heart is difficult to say, but much of it has to do with an ongoing controversy within the academic disciplines of probability and statistics. Now, the fact that controversy exists at all in fields that are perceived as staid as Prob and Stats is surprising. The fierceness of the controversy is surprising as well, at least on the side of one of the camps. The controversy is that between Bayesian and Frequentist camps, and the controversy has as much to do with epistemology as it has to do with anything, for the difference has to do with how we say we know things that are fundamentally uncertain.
It is the idea of this controversy that appeals to me, which keeps me near my roots as a person grounded, so to speak, in ideas, but with a new and evolving interest in data. For the Bayesians and Frequentists have very different ideas about what data tells us, and what data is good for. It has taken me a while to understand the differences between the two camps, and I can't say that I completely understand what is going on, but I have learned a few things.
The first is the connection of the Bayesians with what I think is the scientific method. Bayesians see probability as a measure of belief. The term that is used is plausibility -- a measure of the intensity of the truth of a statement. Bayesians see data as grist for a mill that generates belief. As new data comes in, our beliefs in the plausibility of statements are updated. This aligns with the scientific method which posses that the state of knowledge as a fluid, changing thing. Interference in Bayesian statistics has to do with computing the probability of a random variable, in this case the statistics that is being inferred, is within some bounds.
The Frequentists just sort of go with the numbers. A probably is just the number of times a thing did happen divided by the number of times that thing could happen. Parameters are not random variables in themselves, but are constants that we attempt to identify from the data, and the data can only give a probability that the parameter is bounded. You assume that you have all of the data -- if not, then why are you fooling around? And there is no fussing around with a prior belief. The data doesn't update the prior belief, it just is.
The statistics that I'm being taught is of the Frequentist variety, although there have been brief excursions into Bayesian territory. The Frequentist posture seems to be one of a benign superiority -- we are doing math, the Bayesian are doing computer science for the most part. The Bayesian see the Frequentists are old fashioned fuddy-duddies that have yet to get a clue.
Where am I? Well, I'm mostly pragmatic. I'm learning the Frequentist theory and I appreciate its power and understand why it is used everywhere. I also understand, I think, the Bayesian point of view and its power, especially given the prevalence of data and computing. I also appreciate that Bayesianism offers a theory of knowledge which Frequentism lacks. I am looking forward to learning more about the Bayesian techniques and understanding some of the edgier cases where one technique seems to dominate over another.
Friday, August 24, 2012
The Big Blue Marble, Part II
So yesterday I wrote about the confluence of radio and sailing, and how that invokes in me feelings of awe and concern. This post is to elaborate and expand on those feelings. Today I stayed home from work as both my wife and my son are ill with a cold. This gave me the opportunity to work more with the radio, and attempt to make more contacts over that device. To those of you who know nothing about amateur radio, one large aspect of this past time concerns making contacts with distant but like-minded souls across the earth. These contacts can be separated by ten of thousands of miles away or they can be with the person next door. These contacts are called QSOs, which is a hangover from Morse code days. There are tens of thousands of QSOs completed in the course of a day.
There is a feature of the Earth, the ionosphere, that permits these contacts, and the quality of that feature can vary from day to day, and can vary from region to region. The thing about today was that the ionosphere gods were very displeased with me today, and their displeasure was demonstrated in a now hot, now cold performance. At one moment my radio signal was heard by another station in Sweden, and at the next moment I could not hear anyone. But the same ionosphere was effecting hundreds of other hams in far away places, in what I believe was a similarly capricious way. These hams were scattered all over the world, and they were all effected by the same weird ionosphere, which is a feature of the world that no one knew existed one hundred years ago. We were all in it together, and that sense of community invokes in me a feeling of awe and of respect.
This is driven home when you view the numerous maps that show the state of something, anything, in the world. Go to Google maps and you can zoom out to see a view of the Earth with North and South America somewhere in the center, and the other continents, no less important, on the side. If I were a European, I suppose my Google map would be centered on Europe. Still, it is all there, the whole Big Blue Marble, and we are all on it together, and we are all doing something on that sphere, and sometimes we are all doing things together, including silly things like bouncing radio signals off of the ionosphere. That fact, that simple fact, fills me with awe.
And concern. Even in the midst of the ocean, you can still be connected, and who wouldn't want to be so connected. Even in the midst of the ocean, there is someone near by, which could be a relief or a source of sadness. But it is more and more difficult to "get away from it all", and even if you could get away from humanity somehow, you would still be on this world, this Earth, and you would still be effected by the ionosphere and by all the other layers of the atmosphere, and you would still be effected by humanity through the changes that humanity are generating on that atmosphere. You would still be effected by changes that humanity is generating on the land and on the sea.
My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together, and soon, those communities with which I am so proud will collapse in a jumble of competing groups. Let's hope not.
There is a feature of the Earth, the ionosphere, that permits these contacts, and the quality of that feature can vary from day to day, and can vary from region to region. The thing about today was that the ionosphere gods were very displeased with me today, and their displeasure was demonstrated in a now hot, now cold performance. At one moment my radio signal was heard by another station in Sweden, and at the next moment I could not hear anyone. But the same ionosphere was effecting hundreds of other hams in far away places, in what I believe was a similarly capricious way. These hams were scattered all over the world, and they were all effected by the same weird ionosphere, which is a feature of the world that no one knew existed one hundred years ago. We were all in it together, and that sense of community invokes in me a feeling of awe and of respect.
This is driven home when you view the numerous maps that show the state of something, anything, in the world. Go to Google maps and you can zoom out to see a view of the Earth with North and South America somewhere in the center, and the other continents, no less important, on the side. If I were a European, I suppose my Google map would be centered on Europe. Still, it is all there, the whole Big Blue Marble, and we are all on it together, and we are all doing something on that sphere, and sometimes we are all doing things together, including silly things like bouncing radio signals off of the ionosphere. That fact, that simple fact, fills me with awe.
And concern. Even in the midst of the ocean, you can still be connected, and who wouldn't want to be so connected. Even in the midst of the ocean, there is someone near by, which could be a relief or a source of sadness. But it is more and more difficult to "get away from it all", and even if you could get away from humanity somehow, you would still be on this world, this Earth, and you would still be effected by the ionosphere and by all the other layers of the atmosphere, and you would still be effected by humanity through the changes that humanity are generating on that atmosphere. You would still be effected by changes that humanity is generating on the land and on the sea.
My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together, and soon, those communities with which I am so proud will collapse in a jumble of competing groups. Let's hope not.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Big Blue Marble
Those of you who have been regularly following this blog (yuk yuk) will note my longish absence and wonder where I have been. Well, I could say that I've been busy, but I am tired of using that as an excuse. As Nassim Taleb wrote elsewhere (and I paraphrase), saying that "I am busy" is a sign of either disinterest in you or a sign of incompetence. I prefer saying that I have been disinterested in posting to this blog.
Last time I wrote I was really jazzed about Facebook and all things Internet. This was after reading "The Social Animal." Now, a year later, I can say that I am safely over that, and that I have disable my Facebook account (yes, friends, I know and I am sorry) and that I have minimized my use of computers, cell phones, and the like.
Well, you ask, what does this somewhat bizarre person in Tucson do with his time? It varies, but this week I have been working in the "Man Cave" on my radio. Recently I have got onto APRS from my home station in the Cave, and have demonstrated the transfer of messages via APRS from my home station to my APRS ready handheld radio.
I have also been working with Winlink 200 which is a very delightful protocol for the transmission of email to and from HR radio stations. Very neat indeed. There is some integration with GPS, or you can just type in your current position and send a position report to the rest of world.
It is the position reports to Winlink 2000 that prompted me to generate this first post in over a year. Just look at all of the yachts that are sailing in the midst of the oceans. Many are in the Pacific and Indian oceans, few are in the Atlantic. Many just appear to be exploring exotic coast lines -- Palau, Greenland, Fanning Island to name just a few. I am in awe of these audacious sailors, and wish that my own circumstances would let me join them.
But looking at these reports shows me just how small the world is. The entire Google map fits on this smallish laptop screen, and each of those blue pinpoints in the oceans represents a small vessel in transit, and those are just the ones that we know about. There are certainly more out there. Even though you are hundreds of miles from the nearest land, you can still be in touch with others. That is a remarkable fact that is due to a combination of technologies: sailing, navigation, and electronics, and the fact that our world will support communication over the flimsiest of methods.
Last time I wrote I was really jazzed about Facebook and all things Internet. This was after reading "The Social Animal." Now, a year later, I can say that I am safely over that, and that I have disable my Facebook account (yes, friends, I know and I am sorry) and that I have minimized my use of computers, cell phones, and the like.
Well, you ask, what does this somewhat bizarre person in Tucson do with his time? It varies, but this week I have been working in the "Man Cave" on my radio. Recently I have got onto APRS from my home station in the Cave, and have demonstrated the transfer of messages via APRS from my home station to my APRS ready handheld radio.
I have also been working with Winlink 200 which is a very delightful protocol for the transmission of email to and from HR radio stations. Very neat indeed. There is some integration with GPS, or you can just type in your current position and send a position report to the rest of world.
It is the position reports to Winlink 2000 that prompted me to generate this first post in over a year. Just look at all of the yachts that are sailing in the midst of the oceans. Many are in the Pacific and Indian oceans, few are in the Atlantic. Many just appear to be exploring exotic coast lines -- Palau, Greenland, Fanning Island to name just a few. I am in awe of these audacious sailors, and wish that my own circumstances would let me join them.
But looking at these reports shows me just how small the world is. The entire Google map fits on this smallish laptop screen, and each of those blue pinpoints in the oceans represents a small vessel in transit, and those are just the ones that we know about. There are certainly more out there. Even though you are hundreds of miles from the nearest land, you can still be in touch with others. That is a remarkable fact that is due to a combination of technologies: sailing, navigation, and electronics, and the fact that our world will support communication over the flimsiest of methods.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Facebook and the Age of Networks
I believe they, our posterity, will call this the Age of Networks, just as we have passed through the Age of Analysis, the Age of Reason, the Romantic Age, and the Age of Faith. Networks, and the order and chaos which they bring, are a dominant feature of this time, just as steam engines were 150 years or so ago. One of the more fascinating networks must be Facebook.
I have resisted joining Facebook for many years. My wife has been an active participant, spending hours on line "interacting" with her friends and acquaintances, but I have tossed FB of as nothing more that a passing fad.
Then I finished "The Social Animal" by David Brooks, which changed my mind about society in general and social networks in particular. Brooks doesn't really address that much the phenomena of social networking, but it doesn't take much to extrapolate from his wonder of our well-socialized minds and brains to what Facebook is all about. We are wired to "interact" with each other at fairly sophisticated levels, starting from infancy on. Social networks are a natural extension over computer networks of that innate ability and desire to connect. "Just connect," Forester once wrote -- and the consequences of "just connecting" are astounding. And fun.
It is fun to catch-up with old classmates and friends, connect with acquaintances you'd like to know better, commiserate with my sister, flirt with what must be a kind of on-line prostitute, and ignore my wife. It is fun to discover whatever happened to some old acquaintances. I'm still not sold on online games, but I can see their usefulness. I don't want to spend much more time on Facebook, but I can see devoting some of my time to it.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Peak Oil and an Energy Theory of Value
One thing that struck me in The Archdruid Report last week was that the Peak Oil community is really trying hard for what I will call an "Energy Theory of Value". There are some variation on this constructed theory that might be more appropriately called a "Power Theory of Value", but this idea behind all of this theorizing has to do with the embodied energy content of goods or services, and how that relates to value. But first, some definitions.
A "theory of value" is an attempt to answer an age old question, "why do some things cost more than others?" Attempting to understand what was behind the notion of value goes way back; I believe that the ancient Greek made their own attempts at settling the question, and the discussion then was a part of the field we call philosophy. As time went on, Europeans developed more refined but competing notions of values. In the early and late Enlightenment, value theory broke into two camps: a subjective (or external) and an objective ( or internal ) theories. A subjective theory of value suggests that value lies solely in the valuers, while an objective theory of value suggests that value lies in some intrinsic quality in the good or service itself. A famous objective theory is the Labor Theory of Value. Simplistically, this theory claims that the intrinsic value of a good or service is derived from the labor content that went into generating the good or service. A subjective theory will make an appeal to the marketplace. At one of level of subjective theories, people will point to supply and demand curves to suggest prices. At a deeper level, subjective theories will point to the opportunity cost of the good or service, and frame the price in terms of the cost of the next best substitute.
I find objective theories very straightforward. These theories are certainly more computable than are the subjective theory in that to compute a price or cost one sums up the costs of the underlying constituents, such as labor. In an energy theory, you would sum up the embedded energy costs of each product to discover its price.
Subjective theories are mentally slipperier. Prices are set by markets, and you need a set of demand and supply curves to work out prices, or prices are set by something that is forgone. These are kind of virtual prices. Nevertheless, subjective theories dominant the discussion in economics, and it is the slipperiness of opportunity cost that has the power to explain any number of price phenomena.
Now in the Peak Oil discussion, much is made of the necessity of energy inputs into the production of good and services. One example that the Archdruid brought up was the production of iron. The density of iron ore or iron sources is not the problem goes the claim. It doesn't matter how diffuse these sources are, as long as you have sufficient energy, you can extract all the iron you want. A very diffuse source is seawater itself, and yes with sufficient energy you could extract mountains of iron. It is the scarcity of energy and not of iron or water that sets the price of iron.
A "theory of value" is an attempt to answer an age old question, "why do some things cost more than others?" Attempting to understand what was behind the notion of value goes way back; I believe that the ancient Greek made their own attempts at settling the question, and the discussion then was a part of the field we call philosophy. As time went on, Europeans developed more refined but competing notions of values. In the early and late Enlightenment, value theory broke into two camps: a subjective (or external) and an objective ( or internal ) theories. A subjective theory of value suggests that value lies solely in the valuers, while an objective theory of value suggests that value lies in some intrinsic quality in the good or service itself. A famous objective theory is the Labor Theory of Value. Simplistically, this theory claims that the intrinsic value of a good or service is derived from the labor content that went into generating the good or service. A subjective theory will make an appeal to the marketplace. At one of level of subjective theories, people will point to supply and demand curves to suggest prices. At a deeper level, subjective theories will point to the opportunity cost of the good or service, and frame the price in terms of the cost of the next best substitute.
I find objective theories very straightforward. These theories are certainly more computable than are the subjective theory in that to compute a price or cost one sums up the costs of the underlying constituents, such as labor. In an energy theory, you would sum up the embedded energy costs of each product to discover its price.
Subjective theories are mentally slipperier. Prices are set by markets, and you need a set of demand and supply curves to work out prices, or prices are set by something that is forgone. These are kind of virtual prices. Nevertheless, subjective theories dominant the discussion in economics, and it is the slipperiness of opportunity cost that has the power to explain any number of price phenomena.
Now in the Peak Oil discussion, much is made of the necessity of energy inputs into the production of good and services. One example that the Archdruid brought up was the production of iron. The density of iron ore or iron sources is not the problem goes the claim. It doesn't matter how diffuse these sources are, as long as you have sufficient energy, you can extract all the iron you want. A very diffuse source is seawater itself, and yes with sufficient energy you could extract mountains of iron. It is the scarcity of energy and not of iron or water that sets the price of iron.
But that is not the complete picture. It is the relative scarcity of components that will drive the price of iron higher. If the labor, energy, raw material (anything from low-grade ore to saltwater) become more scarce relative to the other components, then the opportunity cost of iron will increase. Energy is just one component in this mix.
There is also a problem with using Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) as a metric to judge the economic validity of any project. It may be economic to drill oil at an EROEI less than one. The problem with EROEI is that it treats all BTUs as equal. Now physically all forms of energy are equivalent. But not all manifestations of energy are economically equal. There is a well-known example that is currently in practice that illustrates this notion. It has been stated that the number of calories invested in the production of one calorie of food is greater than one, especially in the exercise of American agriculture. This is a perfect example of an EROEI less than one, but where the underlieing activity is economically valid. I could think of other examples. One that just came to mind was the rapid oxidization of iron, which was discussed above. Now, I'm guessing that the oxidization of iron is exothermic -- energy is released in the reaction. With pure oxygen, the right catalists and so on you could use the iron you produced from seawater to drive the power plants that drive the extraction of iron from the sea. Now of course, this would be a (very) losing proposition, but just because the energy return of iron is poor relative to its production, doesn't mean that iron isn't valuable in its own right, for other purposes. Now I agree that EROEI is an important metric in many instances, but care should be employed in its use.
Certainly, the decline of dense, fluid, and relatively safe forms of energy will have an impact on industrial civilization, and I don't currently see a ready replacement. However, oil and gas will continue to be valuable products into the future.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Spent
I finished Geoffrey Miller's "Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior" a few weeks ago, and found it to present an enlightened and useful view of human behavior, especially in the context of markets. My problem is that Miller's evolutionary psychology seems to explain too much -- like viruses are to doctors, and vortexes are to aerodynamics, EP explains all of human behavior, and there isn't much you can do about it (like viruses and vortexes).
Still, it is such a sexy idea, and does seem to have an explanatory power. One example is Miller's characterization of human personality into 6 categories. The first and most dominant is intelligence, the character that is sometimes quantified by IQ tests. The other five are signalled by the acronym "OCASE", which stands for Openness, Contentiousness, Agreeableness, Stability, and Extroversion. Miller claims that all other human personality characteristics can be factored onto these five elements, that these five elements have a normal-like distribution across individuals, and that there a benefits and disabilities that accrue to individual that sit at opposite ends of these base characteristics. For example, an extremely open person would have opportunities to interact with more environments, situations, and people than would less open person, but at a cost of increased contraction of various aliments, both phyical and mental. The opportunity cost of less openness is to forgo those extreme experiences. Most people will be neither very open or very close, and their behavior may vary from time to time.
Having discussed these six personality characterisics, Miller then proceeds to tie them to marketing and consumption through the idea of signalling. Many of the discretionary products that we purchase are done so to signal the type of person we are, letting potential mates, allies, adversaries, and so on know that we have such and such characteristics. Miller is astonished and somewhat disappointed that marketer have yet to discover his personality basis. Marketers prefer instead to continually refactor markets into smaller and more precisely defined segments that have little to do at first blush to Miller's basis elements. This is testable, I think. One could score people on the basis, then use the score to predict the kinds of articles a person is likely to have purchased or will purchase.
It isn't clear that these six elements are in fact a good basis for human personality. Miller himself seems to want to refactor the "extroversion" element into two qualities, one for real personal extroversion, and the other to represent a kind of personal energy or personal initiative. However, this is also something that could be tested, but determining what is left unexplained by the model.
Still, I have had fun in the past couple of weeks estimating individual OCASE levels for the folks that I deal with on a regular basis. Moreover, Miller suggests ways that we might overcome overconsumption by acknowlegding the signalling purpose to our shopping, and looking for alternatives. I especially like it when he suggest more do-it-yourself activities. In all, Miller's is exposing an interesting and possibly useful theory, his writing is engaging and sometimes over the top, and his book was very enjoyable.
Bill
Still, it is such a sexy idea, and does seem to have an explanatory power. One example is Miller's characterization of human personality into 6 categories. The first and most dominant is intelligence, the character that is sometimes quantified by IQ tests. The other five are signalled by the acronym "OCASE", which stands for Openness, Contentiousness, Agreeableness, Stability, and Extroversion. Miller claims that all other human personality characteristics can be factored onto these five elements, that these five elements have a normal-like distribution across individuals, and that there a benefits and disabilities that accrue to individual that sit at opposite ends of these base characteristics. For example, an extremely open person would have opportunities to interact with more environments, situations, and people than would less open person, but at a cost of increased contraction of various aliments, both phyical and mental. The opportunity cost of less openness is to forgo those extreme experiences. Most people will be neither very open or very close, and their behavior may vary from time to time.
Having discussed these six personality characterisics, Miller then proceeds to tie them to marketing and consumption through the idea of signalling. Many of the discretionary products that we purchase are done so to signal the type of person we are, letting potential mates, allies, adversaries, and so on know that we have such and such characteristics. Miller is astonished and somewhat disappointed that marketer have yet to discover his personality basis. Marketers prefer instead to continually refactor markets into smaller and more precisely defined segments that have little to do at first blush to Miller's basis elements. This is testable, I think. One could score people on the basis, then use the score to predict the kinds of articles a person is likely to have purchased or will purchase.
It isn't clear that these six elements are in fact a good basis for human personality. Miller himself seems to want to refactor the "extroversion" element into two qualities, one for real personal extroversion, and the other to represent a kind of personal energy or personal initiative. However, this is also something that could be tested, but determining what is left unexplained by the model.
Still, I have had fun in the past couple of weeks estimating individual OCASE levels for the folks that I deal with on a regular basis. Moreover, Miller suggests ways that we might overcome overconsumption by acknowlegding the signalling purpose to our shopping, and looking for alternatives. I especially like it when he suggest more do-it-yourself activities. In all, Miller's is exposing an interesting and possibly useful theory, his writing is engaging and sometimes over the top, and his book was very enjoyable.
Bill
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