Brian Christian Quotes
To see what happens in the real world when an information cascade takes over, and the bidders have almost nothing but one another’s behavior to estimate an item’s value, look no further than Peter A. Lawrence’s developmental biology text The Making of a Fly, which in April 2011 was selling for $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping) on Amazon’s third-party marketplace. How and why had this—admittedly respected—book reached a sale price of more than $23 million? It turns out that two of the sellers were setting their prices algorithmically as constant fractions of each other: one was always setting it to 0.99830 times the competitor’s price, while the competitor was automatically setting their own price to 1.27059 times the other’s. Neither seller apparently thought to set any limit on the resulting numbers, and eventually the process spiraled totally out of control.
Quotes to Explore
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I constantly remind people that crime isn't solved by technology; it's solved by people.
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I would watch anything with Meryl Streep in it.
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When people are like, 'What do you think of this vampire craze?' - well, I don't really feel like it ever ended, personally, 'cause I've always been into them, like 'Underworld.'
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The claim that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked because fundamentalists hate our prosperity and freedom is a ridiculous lie.
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You'll hear 'Hippie,' or, 'Get a haircut.' I like it. I think it's funny because they think we've never heard that before. So, like, good one.
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If you're going to give people authority and hold them responsible and ultimately accountable for their performance, you've got to get out of the way.
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I have always had great respect for former president Mandela. The personal sacrifices he made in order to achieve what was right for the people of South Africa is something I carry with me every day.
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I have no new voices - they've all been used.
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I directed the men in our barque to approach near the savages, and hold their arms in readiness to do their duty in case they notice any movement of these people against us.
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Foreign investors are looking for a consistent and stable policy in India.
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We believe in the dignity of man as an individual, whatever his race, colour or creed, and his right to better, fuller, and richer life.
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Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view.
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Millennials are a very interesting generation for a lot of reasons. They're absolutely adorable, but they have some significant challenges. Their lives and their careers are delayed by about 10 years, partly because of the recession, also because of technology and also because of the way that they approach things.
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You could make a case that women addicted men to their sexuality and then withdrew their sexuality until we provided them with a source of income.
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There are a lot of people who will tell you I'm very ruthless. I'm very fierce. If I feel I'm right, if I feel I've been violated, then I am like a warrior from hell!
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The message of guidance that neither politics nor philosophy nor religion now seems able to provide, we look for in modern literature.
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Values determine behavior; Principles determine the consequences of behavior.
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The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
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To see what happens in the real world when an information cascade takes over, and the bidders have almost nothing but one another’s behavior to estimate an item’s value, look no further than Peter A. Lawrence’s developmental biology text The Making of a Fly, which in April 2011 was selling for $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping) on Amazon’s third-party marketplace. How and why had this—admittedly respected—book reached a sale price of more than $23 million? It turns out that two of the sellers were setting their prices algorithmically as constant fractions of each other: one was always setting it to 0.99830 times the competitor’s price, while the competitor was automatically setting their own price to 1.27059 times the other’s. Neither seller apparently thought to set any limit on the resulting numbers, and eventually the process spiraled totally out of control.
