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vending machines
Apr. 29th, 2007 02:57 pmVery often I see people who have lost money to a spiral-arm vending machine walk away, leaving a dangling treat. It enlightens a central problem with human thinking. The probability of successful dispensing is only greater now than it was before, so that the expected value of payoff is higher (we must know that there is a chance of it not working the first time...) and yet so many people walk away. The problem is that we only respond in terms of regret of having taken a bet which, although quite reasonable, happened to not work. So upset by the late realization that everything is a risk, we take the worst outcome of all. The better way to look at it is that, having lost 65 cents to no fault of one's own, one now has a very good chance to get TWO pieces of candy for 32.5 cents apiece, and a practical certainty of getting the desired one piece! What could be better?
Of course, if one decided after one crooked deal to not use the machine or others like it ever again, this would be a reasonable strategy. However, I doubt that happens often and one shouldn't delude oneself into believing in such a ridiculous commitment. It is also of course possible that the purchaser had brought only the requisite 65 cents or equivalently does not wish to change a bill.
Another analysis is here:
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~bergmann/vending_machine.html
The possibility of a physical solution of inducing dispension by harmonic oscillation, as discussed above, raises an ethical consideration. Since obtaining the product for "free" in this way (as opposed to breaking-and-entering ab initio) is acceptable, perhaps this entirely invalidates the rational consumer framework used above.
One may also criticize the analysis above by evoking a scene of infinite regress where one iterates the same stake as an sizable stack of smashed snacks is wedged against the glass. But it is not the same scenario as the snacks are too large to dispense at all, as opposed to the likely one-off failure of full rotation which is rational to assume in the first case.
Of course, if one decided after one crooked deal to not use the machine or others like it ever again, this would be a reasonable strategy. However, I doubt that happens often and one shouldn't delude oneself into believing in such a ridiculous commitment. It is also of course possible that the purchaser had brought only the requisite 65 cents or equivalently does not wish to change a bill.
Another analysis is here:
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~bergmann/vending_machine.html
The possibility of a physical solution of inducing dispension by harmonic oscillation, as discussed above, raises an ethical consideration. Since obtaining the product for "free" in this way (as opposed to breaking-and-entering ab initio) is acceptable, perhaps this entirely invalidates the rational consumer framework used above.
One may also criticize the analysis above by evoking a scene of infinite regress where one iterates the same stake as an sizable stack of smashed snacks is wedged against the glass. But it is not the same scenario as the snacks are too large to dispense at all, as opposed to the likely one-off failure of full rotation which is rational to assume in the first case.
