In Seth Godin’s post today, he uses an example of a fuel conservation problem to illustrate the practical limitations and pitfalls of coming across logic (in this case, arithmetic):
A simple quiz for smart marketers:
Let’s say your goal is to reduce gasoline consumption.
And let’s say there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.
If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:
- Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
- Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)
Trick question aside, the answer is the first one. (In fact, it’s more than twice as good a move).
We’re not wired for arithmetic. It confuses us, stresses us out and more often than not, is used to deceive.
I’ll focus on the “trick question” part and leave the math to the reader (Seth also includes a couple links in his post with demonstrations of the arithmetic.)
In all likelihood, the best answer to the problem would be c) none of the above. Replacing the Suburbans with 50 mpg Priuses – or even with cars that get just 20 miles per gallon – would be far better than either of the alternatives. And that’s obviously only one of many alternatives, including radical ones such as “walk!” These aren’t answers Seth is unaware of; he was just making his point about arithmetic, confusion, and deception.
The point I want to make in this post is this:
Optimizing a bad choice rarely gets you ahead of where you could be if you made a better choice.
Ahhh, and such is life with the 2-party political system. Hit. The. Nail. On. The. Head!