I am of the increasing opinion that humans have massive neurological defects in their ability to evaluate the value of something. Somebody who will think absolutely nothing about paying $4 for a latte 3 times a week will deliberate for weeks about spending 99 cents for the new Angry Birds, which they will enjoy for hours and hours. People who will pay $20 for two Cokes and a popcorn at the movie theater bitch about them charging the "exorbitant" price of $19.95 for a DVD of the movie that they will have forever. People will drop $100 at the bar, but think twice before giving $20 to charity. FOCUS: What do people overvalue or undervalue in your opinion? ALT FOCUS: What do you personally overvalue or undervalue?
FOCUS: What do people overvalue or undervalue in your opinion? ALT FOCUS: What do you personally overvalue or undervalue?[/quote] People that dip or smoke. One of my coworkers buys a can of dip every other day and a pack of cigarettes every three days and complains about not having enough money. He also buys soft drinks every single day at the gas station on the way to work. Some people are just bad at math. Holy shit lottery tickets. I was in line at a gas station and the lady in front of me won $35 and spent it all right there on more tickets. I think she missed the point.
I think people undervalue intelligence for sure. Just look around you any given day as an example. Another thing that's undervalued in North America for sure is software. The time and money that goes into creating the program you're pirating is surprisingly high, and alot of the time these days its not just a company making software but individuals who don't have a salary and rely on purchases. I've really taken a step back the past couple of years and have started to buy alot of my software: you can get updates as soon as they come out, support when you need it, etc. Another thing, as a student, that I see undervalued on a daily basis (and I'm still quite guilty) is office hours and extra help. It's not just there for shit's and giggles folks. Things that are overvalued by people? Fuck I could go on for days. Let's stick to the ones that annoy me most. 1. "The good ol' days": There's this notion that life used to be easier, it's what society has made people strive towards. Don't work harder, just wish things were easier. Life was never easy and never will be. Just because two decades ago didn't share your affliction of today doesn't mean they didn't have one of their own. 2. Starbucks. Need I say more? Frylock hit this one on the head. 3. Used Apple products. This one doesn't annoy me, but it still stuns me, yet I love it. I use macs, so when I go to sell a 3 year old one and can get $600 or so off kijiji it's incredible. You can't do this with a PC. I don't understand the logic of people to buy a 3 year old computer for that price, but it makes me getting a new one cost the same as a new PC. I'm stunned. But I know I'll get $500 for my laptop if I sell it this summer, then I'm gonna buy the latest Macbook Pro. My personal ones: Overvalue: Electronics Going to the bars Undervalue: Haircuts from people other than myself or a roommate Reading I'll stick with that for now cuz I gotta run now that I spent time writing this up.
Try all apple products. In addition to all the other price considerations involved a lot of what you're paying for is snob factor of the brand. Apple is a fashion item, like it or not, and the resale value comes purely from that, because clearly the outdated hardware and software of a 3 year old macbook is not worth that much in and of itself. Just saying. I waaaaay overvalue drinks at bars. I think my barometer for price has been severely thrown off kilter because the first places I went after I was able to legally buy alcohol were a series of concerts, so whenever a beer costs me less than $10 and/or i get something that's not in a shitty clear plastic cup in my mind it's "awesome value!" The upside to this is that I'm easily impressed.
I never overpay anything, really. I don't need to work out in a flashy gym just because it plays house music, has metal stairs and slightly hotter (and more crass) chicks working out in it. I don't need a car or house that I can't afford to make every bill payment on time for. I won't pay $100 for fucking BLUE JEANS because that is just stupid. Unless somebody reads the label they cannot tell the difference between Wranglers and Diesel. Only Wranglers cost $125 dollars less and are five times tougher. And don't tell me it's for quality: all denim feels the same, period. The problem with overvaluing these days is a combination of The Obsession With Presentation that rules society nowadays with disgusting overpricing. $100 for a fucking plastic LAWN CHAIR? Toss my salad, asshole. Tim Horton's coffee tastes twice as good as Starbucks and is one third of the price. It's the only coffee I buy. And by the way, that's not a coffee you purchased at Starbuck's. It's a milkshake. When it has whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and flavour added to it then it is NOT coffee it's a faggy-ass milkshake. That HAD to be said. When people refer to the "Good Ol' Days" I wonder which days they refer to: The slaughter of World War One, Two, The Depression, The Dust Bowl, Vietnam, The Sexually repressed & boring 1950's, The Spanish Flu, etc..... everything was just Nazis and death by disease back then. Sure, nowadays the teenagers act like bigger assholes than ever and the new music sucks worse than any era yet, but at least I'm not going to die from Polio.
Overvalue: Top-of-the-line smart phones. This could be said about any product that's the "latest and greatest," but I find it especially true with phones. Why do people put so much stock in all the things that their phone can do these days? The commercials I find most annoying, and unfortunately they're very popular during NFL games, are the ones that boast how many "apps" you can have. For every app that has a great utility, there seems to be 3 or 4 that are totally worthless. I find it absurd that people will shell out an additional couple hundred dollars on a phone, just so they can access their fucking Facebook page at a moment's notice. Speaking of which... Facebook. Being in college, it seems like I can't meet anyone without them saying, "You should add me on Facebook." Why, so I can read about all the mundane minutiae that happens over the course of your day? I notice people having conversations of increasing importance on their Facebook wall, things that have no business being discussed anywhere but privately. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine and her recent ex had a spat via Facebook comments about whose fault it was that their relationship ended. Right there in the open, for their 700+ "friends" to see. Classy. Undervalue: Sleep. I'm guilty of this one as well, and it's a habit I've been trying to break recently. Doctors don't recommend 8 hours for kicks. Healthy, natural sleep is a commodity that many people take for granted. Again, being in college, this is something I see often. People pulling all-nighters on papers or regularly going on 3-4 hours of sleep baffle the hell out of me. Why do you that to yourselves?? Spelling, grammar, reading, and all other things intellectual. For fuck's sake, when you send me a text or write me an email, take the time to spell the word in its entirety. Don't write "tm" when you mean "tomorrow." Don't write "lyk" when you mean "like." Don't write "LMAOSHTTGHIIATFO" when you mean "laughing my ass off so hard that the gerbil hidden inside is about to fall out." And what's with this trend of putting extraaaaa letterrrrsss in worrrrrds for no reasonnnnn? Don't get me started on the fucksticks who write entire sentences or, Allah forbid, entire goddamned paragraphs without a comma or punctuation mark of any kind. I don't consider myself a grammar Nazi by any means, but I twitch like Jeffery Dahmer off his meds when my peers write like English is their third language. See, now I'm pissed off and it's not even noon. Fuck you, Fry man.
I'm going to have to agree with whoever said that cell phones are greatly over valued. I'll admit, I have a shittier-than-average phone, but it does exactly what I need it to: make calls. I even disabled texting because I am one cheap motherfucker. If someone wants to communicate with me, they can call me (if urgent or in need of a timely response) or email me. I am playing nanny for 5 kids this week. Guess what? 2 of them, ages 8 and 9, have iPhones. Are you fucking kidding me? The worst part is, the kids are going to grow up thinking that these luxuries are necessities. I think that is partially the issue with the US's shitty economy now. Growing up with entitlements like that can really screw your head on wrong and lead to some bad financial choices down the road.
Poppies For you Americans, most of the Commonwealth wear red poppies sold by the legion (traditionally, from the last Saturday of October to the 11th of November), usually obtained in exchange for a small charitable donation, and they're available from boxes set up in coffee shops, libraries, and sometimes sold in malls and on street corners by veterans themselves. It occurred to me this year - most people won't put more in than a few dollars' worth of loose change. If you tipped a bartender or waiter that much, they'd probably wonder what they did wrong. And this money goes to support veterans and local legion branches, too. What the hell is that about. Booze People undervalue quality in their booze. Life is too short to drink the bad stuff. That said, booze is ridiculously overpriced up in this part of the world. Shrugging off my desire to point out that study which said that getting 8 hours of sleep per night can increase your risk of heart attacks (and also you need less sleep as you get older - the elderly usually only need 3-4 hours on average), both of these points are right on. Way too many of my friends, as well as myself, sleep deprive ourselves to all hell during school. And really, it's not necessary in the slightest - with a bit of time management and discipline I could go to sleep at 10 pm just about every night. And then you feel like absolute crap the next day, you have to take a nap in the afternoon, and then the pattern gets reinforced and you're never getting proper sleep, and then all of a sudden you're waking up at noon or later on weekends. Now that I'm on break and done classes, I've taken to going to bed at a reasonable hour and waking up while the sun is still out and it feels great. As for the second part - if I could add a slight variation, very few people are capable of holding an opinion these days, let alone a conversation, about something that isn't their cell phone plan. With most people I know, if I mention something that happened in the news, I get a disinterested 'yeah'. Commentary on a sociological phenomenon? 'Oh, yeah, I've noticed that...' Dissection of what happened in a movie? 'Yeah, I didn't really like that film / I liked that film / I didn't really pay attention to that film.' As a plus, it makes finding people capable of responding to these statements and contributing something original a lot more valuable. And as a corollary, if you are ever in the vicinity of two iphone, blackberry or other smartphone users and one of them brings up their blackbeery or iphone or whatever, just fucking run. The next half an hour will be consumed by how many minutes, texts and megabytes of data they get, for how much, from which provider, and how good or bad the customer service is.
I actually believe that this varies depending on the technology in question. Take stereo receivers. I can never bring myself to buy a top of the line stereo receiver whenever I'm in the market for one, noticing that I'm paying double or triple for something that only has a few more features. My dad on the other hand always gets a very high end model. I'm on my 3rd receiver in 12 years, while he's on his 2nd in over 40, and our current receivers both pretty much have the same features. My dad's friend bought a Pioneer receiver that cost $1300 in 1969, and that fucker is still going strong.
I realize a lot of people on here are going to say intelligence is undervalued, but in my opinion it's a bit overrated. I think wisdom trumps intelligence any day of the week. If you toss out the morons, most people don't suceed because they were smart, they suceeded because they were honest with themselves and worked their asses off. Plus, it seems that most people don't realize that for the majority of people their IQs aren't too far apart. It's kind of funny too, I can damn near guarantee that if you did a survey the average IQ people thought they had would be at least 20 points higher than their real IQ. Smart phones are way overvalued in my opinion. Who needs all of those stupid apps? And who needs to constantly have the internet at their figure tips? I go online occasionally with my phone, but it's really not necessary. If you need one of these for your job - I get it. Otherwise you're just wasting your money. One dumbass friend of mine skipped out on our spring break vacation so he could spend the money on an iphone instead. What a tool. I think cars are overvalued. Now, I want to have a damn nice car at some point in the future, but for most of us we only need the damn thing to get from point A to point B. The amount of pleasure I derive from driving a $40,000 vs $4,000 car is pretty low. I agree that an ability to write is way undervalued. In college I only got a B once on a paper, and it was because I was always one of the few people in the class who could write intelligibly. It was kind of nice because I didn't have to work that hard. When I was in a group with people and we had to slap a paper together it was fucking annoying because I always had to edit. I think quality food is undervalued as well. Too many people never eat in nicer restaurants or bother to cook a good meal. I'll eat McShit at times too, but you got to treat yourself once in awhile. Quality beer is the most undervalued quantity I can think of. If I had a dime for every time I listened to two dipships argue about what was better between bud light and coors I'd be fucking rich. Most of these horse piss beers barely even taste different, let alone could be considered good. I feel sorry for these people. Seriously.
Undervalue- Self-taught education and reading. Too many people think education stops after schooling. In relation to that- Overvalue- Formal education. MBA's tend to think their shit doesn't stink, and a piece of paper can only get you in the door.
In fact, a survey (of sorts) was done - have a look at the bottom right of the comic. Spoiler And bear in mind the vertical axis is a fucking logarithmic scale. I once got marks docked on a paper because the TA didn't know the proper usage of "affect" and "effect".
Regional and lifestyle issues necessitate better smart phones. I have a Samsung Fascinate, one of the newest Android Phones. Did I pay more for this phone? You bet. Do I spend over an hour a day on a bus, making the investment worth it? Also a yes. I think that when commuting buy public transit, the more features your phone has the better.
Maybe to some. I hate Windows more than you can imagine. If I could run OSX on PCs without having to go through the hackintosh shit I might. I think OS X kicks the shitpile out of Windows. But the fact of the matter is, Apple builds the most solid, resistant, and reliable laptops on the market. And consumer studies have shown that. That's not to say there's no faction of Mac users that are using macs because they "look pretty". I hate those people. The following is not shitting on Kampf Trinker, he just happened to have most of what everyone said after all in his post so quoting was easier. Yea, when I said intelligence I didn't mean IQ or book smarts. I don't consider that the standard of intelligence anyway. It's striking a balance between book smarts and street smarts that's undervalued. There's people who think living the streets will do - and for some it does. Same goes for books. In the end, the people who are successful in the world have a bit of both. I find this contrast funny. So many people try this shit. I agree with the beer thing to a degree. But beer isn't a huge worry for me. I find my iPhone or Android phone a fuck ton more important than having a beer-man's beer. I can listen to music the 2 hours or so a day I'm walking. I can do stuff on the bus to be productive during a time I'd instead be staring at the walls. I get emails constantly from professors and TAs with answers to questions or info for assignments. To say this phone is an integral part of my life is an understatement. I can understand when people don't need a smartphone, plenty of people don't. But I can't stand people who have never used one for more then a little bit and gone "I don't need nun dis new fangl'd technomology. My phone dun make calls and dats good 'nuf." If you're gonna shit on something - try it out. I realize there's a $ hump to overcome to try it out. But do that or shut up (Not aiming this at anyone). Watching two minutes of football and not liking it doesn't make it a worthless sport. Seeing one bad movie doesn't mean movies are bad. If everyone didn't have such a desire to give booze a try, nobody would drink it. If you only had one sip and judged the entire experience off that, the world would be more-or-less dry. If you haven't given a smartphone a chance you're like your parents whom you've likely been trying to force a computer on for sometime now (I know a few people on here have mentioned trying to get their elders online). My mother didn't think she needed a smartphone. Then I gave her my old iPhone and guess what? She answers the phone even when I call now. Why? Because she actually remembers to bring the goddamn thing with her. Plugs her music into her car, she can even text now that she's not trying to use T9. My dad, however, still considers any smartphone wholly unnecessary. I know he'll be singing another tune when he gets the next hand-me-down.
Undervalued: Cooking. It's not fucking hard to make good, fresh food. And yet so many people don't. Or ever take the little bit of time it takes to learn how to. Overvalued: A modern university or college education (for the most part). It boggles my mind how more and more people are getting somewhat useless degrees (yes, you liberal arts fags, I'm looking at you) that puts them tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I can see some degrees being worth it, but a lot of them equate to "a piece of paper to get your foot in the door". Damn expensive piece of paper, if you ask me. Undervalued: The Trades. Heard Mike Rowe on the Adam Carolla podcast discuss this... the trades are being looked down on, and everyone's fucking off to college. Screw that. Universities needed more students years ago, so started that whole marketing thing to increase enrolment. It worked. Really, really well. Now the Trades need to do the same thing.
I've never had a smart phone... but, here's the thing, freshman year of college I had one of the earlier mp3 players or whatever (before iPod took over), and for a little bit walking to classes and all that it was ok, but then, I just kind of stopped using it. Never a real choice, just after awhile started preferring just walking, thinking, that sort of thing, to listening to music. And I am a fan a music. I ride the bus now often as well, and I have never had the desire to be sitting there listening to music, or surfing the internet, or playing games, or any of the things that people do on their smart phones. Usually I'll read if I've been reading somethign lately that I'm in to, or I'll think about shit. Really, I like the time I spend walking for thinking. Whatever I've been studying or reading or writing lately, walking is great for puzzling stuff out. Which I guess brings me to something that I guess would be what I think is undervalued. I hesitate to say it, because it's kind of hokey and definitely a product of my own particular way of experiencing the world, but I think people undervalue that idle time mentioned above. That walking, or riding the bus, or anything, time to just think on your own about things, observing the world around you, without drowning out those thoughts with music, or ignoring them completely by texting/surfing the net on the smart phones. Maybe you like to do that thinking when your laying down for bed or whatever, but I can't help but think there is a loss of connection with the physical world when we drown it out and ignore it all the time when we are out there in it. I'm not so sure even how I feel about whether any of that might be true or not, just throwing something out there.
Undervalued Tolerance. It is plain as day in this thread. Smartphone vs regular cell phone. Craft beers vs big brand domestic light beers. Starbucks vs Folgers. Just because someone else has a different opinion than you on these and other matters does not make them inferior or vice versa. To each their own.
Agreed. IQ is a vastly imperfect system for evaulating "intelligence," used to buttress the "bright supremacist" arguments of racists and social Darwinists. I'd add anything innate or genetic, e.g., looks, breeding, or "talent." The ugliest dude can look decent if he wears clothes that fit, breaks out the Stridex once a day, etc. Autodidactic entrepreneurs have added a lot more value to my life than the Royal Family has lately. Many of history's great geniuses (not just artists, but statesmen like Abraham Lincoln) plowed through severe mental illness. You can be born with perfect pitch, but if you don't show up for choir practice, no one will give a fuck. Time spent thinking about innate characteristics is time spent copping out. Take what you're born with an go balls-to-the-wall with it. Who's up for firewalking?
I don't consider disagreeing with me shitting on me so don't worry, not offended. Anyway, I kind of skirted over it in my post, but I was trying to make the point that I understand it when people have legit uses for a smart phone - jobs, school, extended time on a bus, etc. The thing is for most people I know who use one this doesn't apply to them. They want a smart phone so can can sit on their ass and twitter like a dork when they go to a bar. It's lame and just kind of pisses me off. Besides, you don't have a to buy an expensive phone to check your e-mail and go online. As for music, that's what I have my ipod for. You went to college too didn't you? I guess that was like 70 years ago though back when it was a big deal. I think college these days is mostly about the 4 year experience rather than learning. That sounds ridiculous, but for most majors you don't learn jack shit about anything that will help you in the real world. My major was marketing, which is incredibly easy and a pretty useless field of study. It did get me a job though, for what it's worth. And no, I never expected to make serious money because my degree would do the work for me.