

Your comfy chair might be making you soft - cwan
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/archives/2010/06/hard-chair-hard-heart.html

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albemuth
The article is not about chairs people, read it first before commenting.

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Groxx
* clicks through to article __*

* clicks through to full text of the research __*

* slams into paywall __*

Gah! And how is one supposed to verify any of the information in such an
article, without paying the gatekeeper? It strikes me as the epitome of
ethical failure in science to block access to knowledge, or to only sell it,
or to somehow ration it to specific people.

~~~
drallison
Pay-per-view articles in scientific publications present a significant drag on
progress and pose an ethical dilemma of the first order. Science (information
and data ought to be free) and a market economy (I have something you want and
will sell it to your for the highest price I can negotiate) are antithetical.
See Robert Laughlin's _The Crime of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific
Mind_.

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samratjp
I'd also like to throw in music in there. A friend of mine did some research
[sorry don't remember the article link] on negotiation and music influence
before the negotiation. If I remember correctly, classical music made the
negotiator soft. So, next time you want to be a tough negotiator, don't listen
to classical music before and give a comfy chair to your opponent at a soft
musicky place :-)

~~~
eru
Of course you should keep in mind, that the objective of (most) negotiations
should be to find a solution that's equitable to all parties. And the other
guy should still be happy with his position after he slept a night on it.

~~~
derefr
The object of the negotiation itself is to seek equilibrium. That goal is best
_achieved_ , though, by each _party_ to the negotiation acting out of pure
self-interest, not ceding any unnecessary ground to the other. (The Nash
equilibrium of the Iterated Prisoner's dilemma has both sides defect on every
turn, in other words.) To "win" the negotiation, both sides should be primed
"hard."

~~~
eru
> That goal is best achieved, though, by each party to the negotiation acting
> out of pure self-interest, not ceding any unnecessary ground to the other.

That's true for certain cases. In an iterated game, possibly with more than
two players, enlightened self-interest could make people seek a reputation for
fairness and generosity.

Also -- have you looked at the ultimatum game? It works like this: Alice
proposes how to split a dollar between herself and Bob. Bob can accept the
division, and both get paid out by the game, or Bob can reject, and nobody
gets anything.

Real Bobs tend to reject `unfair' proposals, even when the game is not
iterated. That's not rational (at least within the game). So if Alice where
driving as hard as she could go with a rational Bob, she won't get anything
when playing with Humans.

~~~
derefr
> Real Bobs tend to reject `unfair' proposals, even when the game is not
> iterated. That's not rational (at least within the game).

It is rational when you add to the game the human consideration of post-game
retaliation. The threat of revenge for injustice (whether by the loser, or an
arbiter) creates the potential for "fairness and generosity." Real Bobs are
made to stop playing.

~~~
eru
Yes. But Humans are so hard-wired on it, that this behaviour persists even in
anonymous one-shot sessions.

~~~
eru
Played via computer without any face to face contact.

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garply
I've had like a $5 chair that kills my back (jabs into it) whenever I slouch
against it for the past year. Every couple of weeks I think to myself: "I
really should go buy a more comfortable chair" and then I reprimand myself
because I feel like if I'm slouching I'm not working as hard as I could be.
People have told me I'm masochistic, but I'm happy to see someone else who
thinks I'm not being totally irrational.

~~~
MrFoof
I'm of the mindset that the objects you use most are the ones that should be
given the most attention, simply because extra consideration and money spent
is most likely to affect your quality of life.

For me, it would be:

* Bed * Computer * Desk chair * Shoes * Phone

... and so forth. So I won't think twice about spending extra on these objects
since I spend the majority of my day interacting with them.

For seating, my rule is it has to be comfortable enough that I can fall asleep
on/in it, and that I shouldn't notice the object I'm sitting on.

Besides, humanity has designed millions of chairs throughout history. Millions
of iterations. There's no excuse that they still produce chairs that are
genuinely uncomfortable, and you owe it to yourself to find one that really
does work for you.

~~~
Groxx
To drag this thread further off topic...

My wife and I hunted around for a while, and bought a frickin' _awesome_
mattress. It does wonders to your attitude to not wake up sore and stiff. And
I like that my toes finally don't hold up the end of the sheets (california
king FTW, though finding sheets for it is a PITA).

And, personally, I think people pay _far_ too little attention to their feet.
Good shoes are worth the money (unless you're a barefooter, in which case no
shoes is worth the money (or Vibrams)).

