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Lentil convexity: Difference between revisions
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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. | 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 | 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 an extra single tin each. As the hippies vegans and health nuts, who buy lentils for fun, are also buying their regular quota, we can see that in nervous times, the supply of lentils will diminish quickly. | ||
And now a second order of dependence emerges. For | And now a second order of dependence emerges. For some of the 95%, who have not yet crossed the the threshold for precautionary lentil purchase, notice that the lentil shelf in the supermarket is nearly empty. It prompts them to reconsider their apprehension of apocalypse. They move closer to their threshold. They collect the remaining lentils. | ||
The supermarket management will now intervene, alarmed at this sudden run on lentils. Their immediate reaction will be to impose an item limit. It posts a sign on the shelf restricting customers to 3 tins each. Limiting most customers, who would normally be seen dead buying ''one'' tin, to three, has no effect on the problem, since our lentils-for-judgment-day-only types, would have bought one tin anyway: the problem is not that one or two people are bulk buying, but that all people are single-item buying. The three-items per customer (a) irritates the hippies who would ordinarily buy ten tins anyway, and (b) further validates the suspicion among non-hippies that we are indeed in desperate times. After all, one could hardly ask for a clearer sign of of imminent Armageddon than LENTIL RATIONING — I mean, panic buying hippy food: could it get any worse than that? The 95%, one one, up their demand from one tin to the maximum permissible three. | The supermarket management will now intervene, alarmed at this sudden run on lentils. Their immediate reaction will be to impose an item limit. It posts a sign on the shelf restricting customers to 3 tins each. Limiting most customers, who would normally be seen dead buying ''one'' tin, to three, has no effect on the problem, since our lentils-for-judgment-day-only types, would have bought one tin anyway: the problem is not that one or two people are bulk buying, but that all people are single-item buying. The three-items per customer (a) irritates the hippies who would ordinarily buy ten tins anyway, and (b) further validates the suspicion among non-hippies that we are indeed in desperate times. After all, one could hardly ask for a clearer sign of of imminent Armageddon than LENTIL RATIONING — I mean, panic buying hippy food: could it get any worse than that? The 95%, one one, up their demand from one tin to the maximum permissible three. | ||