If that isn't enough proof that life is pointless, social exchange theory (SET) suggests that friendships only exist while their marginal benefits exceed their marginal costs.

In other words, friendships and relationships are governed by pessimistic economic theories.

While any economics class will teach you that marginal benefit should always equal marginal cost in an ideal situation, we are faced with the reality that life is not an ideal situation by my premise.

In other words, while many people will lack the ability to maintain any significant friendships due to the deadweight loss created by life's unfairness, the best any average person can hope for are friendships which amount to nothing (Marginal Benefit - Marginal Cost).

Post edited at 6:54 am on Jan. 8, 2009 by Lohrbas

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social exchange theory (SET) suggests that friendships only exist while their marginal benefits exceed their marginal costs.

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Does this add purpose to life? Or does it take away from the already pointless pursuit of purpose to life?

Does that make me insane?

Post edited at 6:29 pm on Jan. 7, 2009 by Chernobyl

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Grammar Nazi

Post edited at 6:28 pm on Jan. 7, 2009 by matto

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"Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude,
at least it's an ethos."
--Walter Sobchak

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Comparing life to a simple derivative.  
that's clever.

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Honestly, the goal was that someone would point out the obvious flaw that life has kinks/bumps/etc which would mean that it isn't differentiable at all.

Post edited at 6:28 pm on Jan. 7, 2009 by Lohrbas

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i do, regretfully, agree that your economic analysis of human interaction has merit.  i hope that i'm an exception, but i kind of doubt it.  the fact that a measure of the marginal costs and benefits of a friendship even exist is kind of depressing.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_exchange_theory

It made me despise my economics class =(

Especially when we covered the Nash equilibrium.

No one ever wins >.<

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Quote: from matto at 8:27 pm on Jan. 7, 2009

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i do, regretfully, agree that your economic analysis of human interaction has merit. i hope that i'm an exception, but i kind of doubt it. the fact that a measure of the marginal costs and benefits of a friendship even exist is kind of depressing.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_exchange_theory

It made me despise my economics class =(

Especially when we covered the Nash equilibrium.

No one ever wins >.<

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Honestly, the goal was that someone would point out the obvious flaw that life has kinks/bumps/etc which would mean that it isn't differentiable at all.

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But that's completely baseless, and, furthermore, if one assumes that life (happiness over time?) is a differentiable function, nothing particularly noteworthy is implied by taking its derivative down to zero.

Also, not all differentiable functions can be differentiated down to zero, anyway (e.g. sine), so that doesn't make much sense either.

Your economic ramblings are even more incoherent.

(edit)I cannot spell.

Post edited at 6:34 pm on Jan. 7, 2009 by telomere13

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http://www.golivewire.com/forums/peer-yatapys-support-a.html

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Quote: from Lohrbas at 9:28 pm on Jan. 7, 2009

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Honestly, the goal was that someone would point out the obvious flaw that life has kinks/bumps/etc which would mean that it isn't differentiable at all.

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But that's completely baseless, and, furthermore, if one assumes that life (happiness over time?) is a differentiable function, nothing particularly noteworthy is implied by taking its derivative down to zero.

Also, not all differentiable functions can be differentiated down to zero, anyway (e.g. sine), so that doesn't make much sense either.

Your economic ramblings are even more incoherent.

(edit)I cannot spell.

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My statement wasn't baseless.  The correct answer was that life has kinks and isn't differentiable.

Life clearly wouldn't be any trig curve because that would mean that it is ordered and not chaotic.

Perhaps you don't remember, but any time MB != MC, a DWL is created.  By my fictitious premise, MB would never equal MC.

SET suggests that MB and MC would be equal for a friendship to exist.  Thus, it's overall net friendship profit would be zero.

Thanks for playing though =)

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My statement wasn't baseless. The correct answer was that life has kinks and isn't differentiable.

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Which is... still baseless?  I mean, presumably, "life" is not continuous if you accept the Planck time as the smallest meaningful unit of time, but that would be just silly in this context.

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Life clearly wouldn't be any trig curve because that would mean that it is ordered and not chaotic.

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And yet not every stochastic function that is differentiable can be differentiated down to zero, obviously.

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Perhaps you don't remember, but any time MB != MC, a DWL is created. By my fictitious premise, MB would never equal MC.

SET suggests that MB and MC would be equal for a friendship to exist. Thus, it's overall net friendship profit would be zero.

Thanks for playing though =)

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It looks like you took an economics class in high school but don't know how to apply it properly to philosophical issues.

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http://www.golivewire.com/forums/peer-yatapys-support-a.html