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Lentil convexity: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Lentil distribution.png|300px|left|Lentil buying projections in peacetime yesterday. The average per 100 people is 15, and any more than 28 is genuinely unthinkable.|thumb]]But in actual fact lentil purchasing decisions are ''not'' independent, as our new friend the [[coronavirus]] pandemic illustrates. They just ''seem'' like it, in most markets. Ninety-five percent of the sample are connected by a general disposition ''not'' to buy lentils. But this disposition is a function of one’s apprehension of the proximity of [[apocalypse]]. Apocalypses are, in the main, rare, and one does not tend to form an opinion that one is nigh purely through ones’ own deductions from meteorological and astronomical data. Rather, we apprehend oblivion because someone said it on Twitter. Because Owen Jones wrote a thought-piece on it, or because — ''by Jupiter, everyone is suddenly buying lentils and there are hardly any left in Sainsbury’s''. | [[File:Lentil distribution.png|300px|left|Lentil buying projections in peacetime yesterday. The average per 100 people is 15, and any more than 28 is genuinely unthinkable.|thumb]]But in actual fact lentil purchasing decisions are ''not'' independent, as our new friend the [[coronavirus]] pandemic illustrates. They just ''seem'' like it, in most markets. Ninety-five percent of the sample are connected by a general disposition ''not'' to buy lentils. But this disposition is a function of one’s apprehension of the proximity of [[apocalypse]]. Apocalypses are, in the main, rare, and one does not tend to form an opinion that one is nigh purely through ones’ own deductions from meteorological and astronomical data. Rather, we apprehend oblivion because someone said it on Twitter. Because Owen Jones wrote a thought-piece on it, or because — ''by Jupiter, everyone is suddenly buying lentils and there are hardly any left in Sainsbury’s''. | ||
So, we get ''infected'' with the idea of Apocalypse ''by each other''. Our legume-buying habits ''are not independent after all''. They are all formed out of a collective consensus about the ''non-imminence'' of the second coming. While each person’s threshold for precautionary lentil purchase in the event of imminent apocalypse will differ, across the group, news of the unchecked spread of coronavirus will bring each person closer to that threshold, and some of them over it. As they walk past the tinned goods shelf, it only takes a small proportion of that 95% to pick up a tin to blow the grocer's expectations out the window. Let’s say 5 of the 95% decide to buy a in each.assume also that the hippies vegans and health food fanatics in the sample are also buying their regular quota, we can see that the grocers supply of lentils will quickly be depleted. | So, we get ''infected'' with the idea of Apocalypse ''by each other''. Our legume-buying habits ''are not independent after all''. They are all formed out of a collective consensus about the ''non-imminence'' of the second coming. While each person’s threshold for precautionary lentil purchase in the event of imminent apocalypse will differ, across the group, news of the unchecked spread of coronavirus will bring each person closer to that threshold, and will push some of them over it. | ||
As they walk past the tinned goods shelf, it only takes a small proportion of that 95% to pick up a tin to blow the grocer's expectations out the window. Let’s say 5 of the 95% decide to buy a in each.assume also that the hippies vegans and health food fanatics in the sample are also buying their regular quota, we can see that the grocers supply of lentils will quickly be depleted. | |||
And now a second order of dependence emerges. For imagine some of the 95% who have not crossed the the threshold for precautionary lentil purchase, but notice that the lentil shelf in the supermarket is nearly empty. This might prompt them to reconsider there apprehension of apocalypse. They will collect the remaining lentils. | And now a second order of dependence emerges. For imagine some of the 95% who have not crossed the the threshold for precautionary lentil purchase, but notice that the lentil shelf in the supermarket is nearly empty. This might prompt them to reconsider there apprehension of apocalypse. They will collect the remaining lentils. | ||