Nine out of ten times when I claim that something is of poor quality, people will try to point out that the product was also not very expensive. People always go for the compromise, and the “bang for your buck,” which I think is kind of stupid. Why? I’m glad you asked;
Remember when you first were taught divisions in school, and they teach you that bullshit line about how you can’t divide a number by zero? Well, that’s as bullshit as that rule is, you can divide by zero, but the result will always be infinity. Don’t believe me? Well, take any number, and divide it by ten, then divide that same number by nine, then by 8, then by seven, etc. Do that until you reach one, then divide it by 0.9, then 0.8, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5, etc. The smaller the number becomes that you’re dividing by, the bigger the result. The more you approach zero, the more the result approaches infitiy.
Now, to get back to my point; when something is free, no matter what the quality is, or however you decide the quanity quality, the “bang for your buck” is always infinity, because the quality per buck spent = quality / money spent, which is to say X / 0 = infinity. So, if someone were to give me a old, beat up, Vauxhall Asma for free, the bang for my buck will be infinity, just like if someone were to give me a Lotus Elise 190e Sport for free.
And that, my friends, is a load of wank. Anyone who wants to sell me that line of nonesense, no matter how true it is, will get: “What don’t you pull the other one, mate, that one’s got bells on it.”
Contradicting yourself? I don’t really get your point.
You have this theory about why it’s ‘kind of stupid’ for people to look at the value something has based on the quality of the item and it’s prize.
Yet if I follow your own theory it just proves those people right, as long as you don’t get it for free.
Let’s say, for argumanets sake, that you can rate quality from 1 to 10 (with ten being the best possible quality).
If you buy a ’10-quality’ item for €10,-, the value would be 10 : 10 = 1.
If that same item would cost €1,- the value would be 10 : 1 = 10.
If you buy a ‘1-quality’ item for €10,- it’s value would be 1 : 10 = 0,1.
Yet if you bought the same item for €1,- it would be 1 : 1 = 1.
So, to get back at the beginning of your post, people are right about ‘bang for your buck’.
The less you pay, the more value it has, simple. I’m not native English by the way, from The Netherlands just as you I guess, so maybe ‘value’is not the best word, but you catch my drift).
So you may have a point about things that are free, you theory just doesn’t fly when things aren’t free.
The value of shit is still shit, even if it’s free. It’s very Dutch of you to think that shit suddenly gains in value as you pay less for it. It’s still a pointless, useless and worthless hunk o’ shite.
So no, I’m not contradicting myself, I feel, but perhaps I wasn’t blunt enough; the value of a hunk of shit when given to you free isn’t the same as the value of a Lotus Elise 190e Sport when given to you for free.
Like I said, ‘value’ is probably not the best word.
And like I also said, you may have a point about things that are free.
Having said that, I agree with you, the ‘hunk of shit’ has no value (even if it is given to you for free), and the ‘Lotus Elise hwatever type’ (I don’t care much about cars, not even fancy ones, sorry) does have lots of value, especially if given for free.
But that has nothing to do with any theories (however interesting they are), but with the simple fact that the ‘quality’ of the hunk of shit is very low, whereas the ‘quality’ of the Lotus is very high.
By the way, just stumbled on this site via a search for something, and I like some of your postings. So this is just me disagreeing on this particular post, I don’t mean to flame.
I guess I just don’t get your logic;
first you tell us how you disagree with the fact that most people considder cheap things to have ‘bang for buck’, even if the item is of low quality.
Then you tell us you don’t agree with something that’s teached at school (so something most people would considder true), and you tell us your own take on this matter (in short: something divided by zero = infinity).
Next you go apply your own logic (the one that is different from what is considdered true) on the fact that most people considder cheap but low-cost products to have ‘bang for bucks’, to come to the conclusion that it’s not true…
You say “low-quality item A divided by zero is infinity, and high-quality item B divided by zero is ALSO infinity”. You come to the conclusion that -following this logic- both items are supposed to have the same value, but also say that that -ofcourse- is not true.
That’s strange (and contradicting) to me, because you apply your own logic on the two items, and than say the outcome is ‘a load of wank’.
I’m puzzeled.
I guess the “spraakverwarring” comes from the fact that in one case I use the term “quality” and in the other case I use the term “value?”
Or perhaps it’s because you think that in my explanation of the “bang for your buck” theory, I’m also agreeing with it? Because let me assure you, I’m not.
What I’m saying is not a contradiction, to me at least. See, I don’t believe that both the Lotus and the hunk of shit have the same value, if received for free, however, the idea of “bang for your buck” does. The “bang for your buck” theory says that the bang for your buck on both items is infinity, because both of them were given to you for free. I don’t subscribe to that point of view, since I think the value of a Lotus, regardless of the fact that it was given to you for free is a lot higher than the hunk of shit.
Oh, and by the way, why don’t you sign up and post under a name that I can call you by. It makes talking to you a bit more pleasant.
Call me sredlums :-) Took your advise and registered.
I think I can pinpoint the part where I disagree with you better now.
You say, in your last reply: “The “bang for your buck” theory says that the bang for your buck on both items is infinity, because both of them were given to you for free.”
I don’t think that’s accurate.
I’ll explain:
1. I think we agree that the ‘bang for buck’ theory is common (believed to be true by most people).
2. I also think we agree that the theory ‘no number can be divided by zero’ is common (also believed by most people to be true).
3. you disagree with theory 2, and have your own theory about that: ‘every number CAN be divided by zero, and the result is always infinity’ (this theory is -however plausible it may be, but that’s not the issue here- not believed by most people to be true.
I hope we agree so far?
So, when you say “The “bang for your buck”theory says that the bang for your buck on both items is infinity, because both of them were given to you for free.” then that is simply not true. Or, put differently, it is not believed by most people that everything that is given for free is worth the same!
Theory 1 does NOT say that, but you applied your OWN theory 2 on theory 1, which makes it a new theory, let’s call it theory 4: The “bang for your buck” theory says that the bang for your buck on both items is infinity, because both of them were given to you for free.”
So only YOUR theory 4 says that things that you get for free are worth the same.
So what we have is theory 1 (that is common), you then have your own theory 3 (that is not common) about theory 2 (that is common), apply that on theory 1, and then you don’t agree with the outcome, and use that fact to ‘prove’ that theory 1 is not true.
But the fact is you are not talking about the common theory 1 anymore, you are talking about your own -not common- variant you created by applying your own -not common- theory on that.
Hm, is ANYBODY still following this? ;-)
Conclusion: you can’t say ‘people are wrong’ about the ‘Bang for your buck’ theory, when most of ‘those people’ don’t even agree with your variant of the ‘bang for your buck’ theory that you think is wrong.
Hope that made it any clearer :-/
Crystal clear. However, I present to you the following Wiki article; [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero]Division by Zero[/url]. I am not the only one who thinks that a division by zero will give you an unendingly big number. It’s not my theory, it’s mathematics. We get taught that “delen door nul is flauwekul” but that’s the biggest lie out there. We only get fed that line of nonesense because it might be a little bit too much for people to grasp when in grade-school.
Conclusion: I am supported by a whole slew of evidence that a division by zero equals infinity, regardless of the number that’s being divided. Therefore, all things given to you for free have the same value. Therefore, “bang for your buck” is a load of wank.
I really appreciate you taking the time to try and prove me wrong. I’ve really enjoyed it so far. :)
:-)
I like discussions, so my pleasure…
By the way, I have a seriuous conflict with my employer, and as a result of that our lawyers are trying to agree on what my employer has to pay to get rid of me, because there’s no way I will be working there again.
In the meantime I don’t have to work, but I still get payed, so it’s a sort of long payed vacation… :-)
Anyway, just wanted to explain that I have plenty of time at the moment!
I’ll read the article you mentioned sometime later, but like I said, my point was not to prove you wrong about this theory (be it yours or someone else’s), but about ‘what you did with it’.
But enough about that.
I like the fact that you question things, instead of just asuming they are true because someone told you or becaused it is supposed to be true. I do that to…doesn’t allways make things easier, and sometimes people get a little tired of it, but well, so be it…