Monday, 11 May 2009
Saturday, 9 May 2009
Smacking Down A Creationist Fool
DonExodus2 on Youtube brings down the lies of Casey Luskin on that moron-enabling network Fox News.
A liar for Jesus is still a liar. The media needs to play editor and actually show when people are lying. Because opinion expressed without scrutiny is taken as expertise by those who don't know better. The media has a responsibility in order to make sure that what they are portraying is as accurate and unbiased as possible. To bring a merchant of misinformation onto the airwaves and treat his testimony as expert opinion is a neglect of duty by the media.
A liar for Jesus is still a liar. The media needs to play editor and actually show when people are lying. Because opinion expressed without scrutiny is taken as expertise by those who don't know better. The media has a responsibility in order to make sure that what they are portraying is as accurate and unbiased as possible. To bring a merchant of misinformation onto the airwaves and treat his testimony as expert opinion is a neglect of duty by the media.
Is Christianity more probable than atheism?
That is the question that John W Loftus wants to debate Christian apologist William Lane Craig on. Loftus was a former preacher and student of Craig who turned atheist and now runs the fantastic blog Debunking Christianity where he along with other former theists try to debunk Christianity. Now Craig has said he won't debate former students, though given the challenge it does seem appropriate to engage Loftus given his current credentials as a "new atheist". Unlike many of the other atheists recently putting out books, Loftus' book Why I Became An Atheist directly attacks Christianity in particular - contrasting the styles of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett who go after faith itself or the institution of religion.
In the spirit of things, here's why I would say that Christianity is not more probable than atheism.
The sheer number of options
Is Christianity more probable than atheism? The question itself is poorly defined as atheism and Christianity aren't competing ideas for the same prize. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any god, whether it be the Christian construct of the Trinity or any other deity. It is the ultimate position of scepticism, the notion that there isn't enough positive evidence for a belief in a higher power to warrant a belief. So to me the question should be is belief in Christianity is more justified than not believing. This means foregoing the choice between all other gods that have ever existed, but to many this is the only choice they have. It is either the religion of their peers or no religion at all, so in this sense the question of whether Christianity is more probable than atheism in this society is akin to asking whether Islam is more probable than atheism in Saudi Arabia.
But therein lies the first problem with the concept of a god - the globe is littered with different versions of the supernatural. Why is it that God in the Trinity form is not the default religion in Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan? Why is it that Hinduism dominates India, or Buddhism dominates Cambodia? Being born in Greece these days may mean a Greek-orthodox version of Christianity but just 2500 years ago it would have been a belief in the polytheistic deities. An Egyptian now would probably have a belief in Allah, but only 3000 years ago it would have been Ra and Osiris (among others) that littered the Ancient Egyptian religion. Aboriginals in Australia had their own tribal supernatural entities, the dreamtime story of the giant rainbow serpent has survived for 40,000 years yet in the last 200 this has been largely relegated to myth as Christianity has taken over.
What this demonstrates is that belief in God is wholly dependant on the time and place of birth. It is an accident to be born into a society where the meme exists or is introduced, which should wave a red flag considering the necessity for the meme in order for salvation. The notion of a maximally loving God that requires belief in order for reward means that anyone unfortunate enough not to be born in the right place and period of history is condemned to eternal torture for an event that is beyond their control. It may be that God will save those who have not heard the message, but this calls into question both the need for Jesus in the first place (as it creates a test where there was none) and the need to proselytise.
The sheer number of different gods also poses a problem for any one god. It can't be that all religions are true as many contradict the others, nor can it be that each religion is explaining the same god as it has the same stumbling block. So any explanation that explains the existence of God also needs to explain why other cultures and religions worship false idols. What makes Christianity so special that all other explanations involving that came before were mere fantasy, but in Christianity's case was an exception. And why if one particular tribe had the one true god did other tribes not fall in line?
The nature of reality
Modern human discovery has changed the way humans look at universe and our place in it. Geocentrism was dealt a fatal blow in the 17th century, special creation in the 19th century, and in the 20th century many of the secrets of nature have been unlocked. The God of the bible was one who created a flat earth where heaven was in the sky and all creatures were created ex nihilo. Even today in 2009, the fundamentalist belief of special creation and the moderate theistic evolution show just how much of a death blow Darwin's theory was to the Christian view of the universe.
We now live in a universe not where the earth is the centre, nor even the sun or our own galaxy is the centre. We are one species of approximately 10 million who orbit one star of about 200 billion in our galaxy alone. And that galaxy is only one of a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. There are more stars in this universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Yet this spiritual geocentric model of the universe remains.
The universe is big, really really big. And in order to see a big universe, the universe must be really old. The standard unit of measure for astronomy and cosmology is the speed of light. It takes 8 minutes for light emitted by the sun to reach earth, 4.3 years for the next closest star. That means when one looks at Alpha Centauri, the light we are seeing left the star 4.3 years ago. So seeing distant galaxies means that the distance measured in light years means that was how long ago that light we are seeing left the galaxy. We have observed galaxies over 13 billion light years away and thus the universe has to be at least 13 billion years old. By contrast the earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, and humans have been on this earth for around 150,000 years.
We have existed for 1/10,000th of the history of this universe, each one of our lives an even smaller fraction of that. We have evolved like every other organism that by all accounts is an unguided process. Yet despite the small part of the universe we occupy, the theist view of us having a special place in the universe by all accounts is putting us into an undeserved special place. Of course none of the science disproves God, but it does highlight the means by which God was created as a substitute for knowledge - and a poor one at that. Quite simply, the ancient Israeli accounts of the nature of reality are no more accurate than those of the Australian Aboriginals and as such the probability of the Christian god grows more and more infinitesimal as more is learned about nature and history.
Conclusion
There are so many reasons to conclude that Christianity is not more probable than atheism, but one argument stands above all. When it comes down to it Christianity requires faith, something of which to be sceptical of. Any idea worth having should be able to stand on it's own merits, survive rigorous sceptical scrutiny, and demonstrate insight into the universe. If the notion of any god, let alone the Christian construct of God were more probable than atheism then it shouldn't necessitate faith. Philip K Dick put it best when he said:
In the spirit of things, here's why I would say that Christianity is not more probable than atheism.
The sheer number of options
Is Christianity more probable than atheism? The question itself is poorly defined as atheism and Christianity aren't competing ideas for the same prize. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any god, whether it be the Christian construct of the Trinity or any other deity. It is the ultimate position of scepticism, the notion that there isn't enough positive evidence for a belief in a higher power to warrant a belief. So to me the question should be is belief in Christianity is more justified than not believing. This means foregoing the choice between all other gods that have ever existed, but to many this is the only choice they have. It is either the religion of their peers or no religion at all, so in this sense the question of whether Christianity is more probable than atheism in this society is akin to asking whether Islam is more probable than atheism in Saudi Arabia.
But therein lies the first problem with the concept of a god - the globe is littered with different versions of the supernatural. Why is it that God in the Trinity form is not the default religion in Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan? Why is it that Hinduism dominates India, or Buddhism dominates Cambodia? Being born in Greece these days may mean a Greek-orthodox version of Christianity but just 2500 years ago it would have been a belief in the polytheistic deities. An Egyptian now would probably have a belief in Allah, but only 3000 years ago it would have been Ra and Osiris (among others) that littered the Ancient Egyptian religion. Aboriginals in Australia had their own tribal supernatural entities, the dreamtime story of the giant rainbow serpent has survived for 40,000 years yet in the last 200 this has been largely relegated to myth as Christianity has taken over.
What this demonstrates is that belief in God is wholly dependant on the time and place of birth. It is an accident to be born into a society where the meme exists or is introduced, which should wave a red flag considering the necessity for the meme in order for salvation. The notion of a maximally loving God that requires belief in order for reward means that anyone unfortunate enough not to be born in the right place and period of history is condemned to eternal torture for an event that is beyond their control. It may be that God will save those who have not heard the message, but this calls into question both the need for Jesus in the first place (as it creates a test where there was none) and the need to proselytise.
The sheer number of different gods also poses a problem for any one god. It can't be that all religions are true as many contradict the others, nor can it be that each religion is explaining the same god as it has the same stumbling block. So any explanation that explains the existence of God also needs to explain why other cultures and religions worship false idols. What makes Christianity so special that all other explanations involving that came before were mere fantasy, but in Christianity's case was an exception. And why if one particular tribe had the one true god did other tribes not fall in line?
The nature of reality
Modern human discovery has changed the way humans look at universe and our place in it. Geocentrism was dealt a fatal blow in the 17th century, special creation in the 19th century, and in the 20th century many of the secrets of nature have been unlocked. The God of the bible was one who created a flat earth where heaven was in the sky and all creatures were created ex nihilo. Even today in 2009, the fundamentalist belief of special creation and the moderate theistic evolution show just how much of a death blow Darwin's theory was to the Christian view of the universe.
We now live in a universe not where the earth is the centre, nor even the sun or our own galaxy is the centre. We are one species of approximately 10 million who orbit one star of about 200 billion in our galaxy alone. And that galaxy is only one of a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. There are more stars in this universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Yet this spiritual geocentric model of the universe remains.
The universe is big, really really big. And in order to see a big universe, the universe must be really old. The standard unit of measure for astronomy and cosmology is the speed of light. It takes 8 minutes for light emitted by the sun to reach earth, 4.3 years for the next closest star. That means when one looks at Alpha Centauri, the light we are seeing left the star 4.3 years ago. So seeing distant galaxies means that the distance measured in light years means that was how long ago that light we are seeing left the galaxy. We have observed galaxies over 13 billion light years away and thus the universe has to be at least 13 billion years old. By contrast the earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, and humans have been on this earth for around 150,000 years.
We have existed for 1/10,000th of the history of this universe, each one of our lives an even smaller fraction of that. We have evolved like every other organism that by all accounts is an unguided process. Yet despite the small part of the universe we occupy, the theist view of us having a special place in the universe by all accounts is putting us into an undeserved special place. Of course none of the science disproves God, but it does highlight the means by which God was created as a substitute for knowledge - and a poor one at that. Quite simply, the ancient Israeli accounts of the nature of reality are no more accurate than those of the Australian Aboriginals and as such the probability of the Christian god grows more and more infinitesimal as more is learned about nature and history.
Conclusion
There are so many reasons to conclude that Christianity is not more probable than atheism, but one argument stands above all. When it comes down to it Christianity requires faith, something of which to be sceptical of. Any idea worth having should be able to stand on it's own merits, survive rigorous sceptical scrutiny, and demonstrate insight into the universe. If the notion of any god, let alone the Christian construct of God were more probable than atheism then it shouldn't necessitate faith. Philip K Dick put it best when he said:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Friday, 8 May 2009
Herd Immunity
With Swine Flu resonating through the media, the potential for a pandemic is a reminder of the ways in which viruses transmit. Though it's a sad that it takes a threat of this nature to keep people wary of the potential for getting ill. The reaction of medical establishments has been to give simple hygiene advice, hardly befitting a disaster of such magnitude. The Egyptian government slaughtering all the nation's pigs, though completely misguided and unnecessary, is more to the kind of reaction we'd expect. Unlike avian flu, this virus is transmitting human to human and as such any protections need to stop the spread of infection. The standard guidelines for illness are there for a reason, yet should be followed at all times.
It needs to keep being repeated that humans are social creatures, in the context of a society anyone has the potential to be a carrier of a virus. To completely avoid infection from others, it means isolation from society. This option being unfavourable due to the need for society in order to preserve our survival and as such should be a last resort option. So we need to accept that while we are individuals operating within a society, we remain at risk from others and a risk to others. We need to be mindful of what illnesses we could have and how they could spread.
The anti-vaccination people rest almost exclusively on the idea that it is a low risk not to get a vaccine for a now-uncommon ailment. If measles is very rare then the potential risk for not immunising a child is not very high. And if the claims about autism are true (they are not) then it would seem more of a risk to give the vaccine to a child than to not get it. But this individualism brings on the danger that if there were an outbreak, the community would be compromised. This may be individual risk, but there are those who at no fault of their own cannot get the vaccination and are put at risk by those who choose not to. The elderly, infants, and those who are allergic to the injections are all put an increased risk as the more who are not immune greatly increases the potential carriers.
Death of course is not the only problem from getting sick, in the workplace getting sick means lost productivity. And anyone who gets sick has the potential to spread that illness to others and they could suffer the same fate. Last August, I started at a new work environment. 3 days into working there I came down with an illness and had to take a week off to recover, and even then I was still feeling the effects for a while after as my body gradually recovered. But I wasn't the only one, a large portion of the floor were also off sick around that period. Someone came into work ill and in a closed-environment with many people around, the illness took down a lot of people.
Part of the problem in this workplace is that we have a lot of contractors working here. Contractors are paid by the hour, so if they take a sick day then that is 8 hours of lost income. Getting seriously sick could wipe out days of income, a situation nobody wants. Even if one feels up to working, coming into an office environment is inconsiderate as it puts others at risk. Same thing with catching public transport, same thing with participating in communal activities. It should not be a manager's responsibility to make sick people go home, it is an implicit duty of any member of society to be aware of the risks they pose to others. Having a scheme by which the ill are enticed to work and have little reason not to go is just going to cause problems in the long run.
The more infectious a disease, the greater the risk. Say that only 1 in 10 people will become infected by a virus. So if you transmit it to one person, then that person transmits it to someone else, it experiences linear growth. After 10 generations 10 people will be infected. But if it were more infectious and 2 in 10 people will be infected. If you come in contact to the same amount of people, 2 people will be infected and each of those will infect two more people each. After 10 generations, that's 1024 carriers as opposed to 10 if it were twice as infectious. 3 out of 10 and it's 60,000 people after 10 generations. This should demonstrate two things. Firstly that being highly infectious is grounds for social isolation, and secondly that even a few simple measures can significantly decrease the chance of spreading the infection.
To participate in society is to be aware that someone cannot act without regard to others. When it comes to heath, it shouldn't take a pandemic to remind us that one should avoid the sickly and that the sickly should isolate themselves to prevent further spread of that illness. Even taking simple measures such as washing hands properly and covering coughs can be the difference between a small and large outbreak. Waiting until a potential disaster neglects that these measures help save lives and help the community now. It shouldn't take a measles outbreak to get parents to vaccinate their kids, just as it shouldn't take a pandemic to stop people with regular flu from coming to work where they can spread it to others. It's common courtesy!
It needs to keep being repeated that humans are social creatures, in the context of a society anyone has the potential to be a carrier of a virus. To completely avoid infection from others, it means isolation from society. This option being unfavourable due to the need for society in order to preserve our survival and as such should be a last resort option. So we need to accept that while we are individuals operating within a society, we remain at risk from others and a risk to others. We need to be mindful of what illnesses we could have and how they could spread.
The anti-vaccination people rest almost exclusively on the idea that it is a low risk not to get a vaccine for a now-uncommon ailment. If measles is very rare then the potential risk for not immunising a child is not very high. And if the claims about autism are true (they are not) then it would seem more of a risk to give the vaccine to a child than to not get it. But this individualism brings on the danger that if there were an outbreak, the community would be compromised. This may be individual risk, but there are those who at no fault of their own cannot get the vaccination and are put at risk by those who choose not to. The elderly, infants, and those who are allergic to the injections are all put an increased risk as the more who are not immune greatly increases the potential carriers.
Death of course is not the only problem from getting sick, in the workplace getting sick means lost productivity. And anyone who gets sick has the potential to spread that illness to others and they could suffer the same fate. Last August, I started at a new work environment. 3 days into working there I came down with an illness and had to take a week off to recover, and even then I was still feeling the effects for a while after as my body gradually recovered. But I wasn't the only one, a large portion of the floor were also off sick around that period. Someone came into work ill and in a closed-environment with many people around, the illness took down a lot of people.
Part of the problem in this workplace is that we have a lot of contractors working here. Contractors are paid by the hour, so if they take a sick day then that is 8 hours of lost income. Getting seriously sick could wipe out days of income, a situation nobody wants. Even if one feels up to working, coming into an office environment is inconsiderate as it puts others at risk. Same thing with catching public transport, same thing with participating in communal activities. It should not be a manager's responsibility to make sick people go home, it is an implicit duty of any member of society to be aware of the risks they pose to others. Having a scheme by which the ill are enticed to work and have little reason not to go is just going to cause problems in the long run.
The more infectious a disease, the greater the risk. Say that only 1 in 10 people will become infected by a virus. So if you transmit it to one person, then that person transmits it to someone else, it experiences linear growth. After 10 generations 10 people will be infected. But if it were more infectious and 2 in 10 people will be infected. If you come in contact to the same amount of people, 2 people will be infected and each of those will infect two more people each. After 10 generations, that's 1024 carriers as opposed to 10 if it were twice as infectious. 3 out of 10 and it's 60,000 people after 10 generations. This should demonstrate two things. Firstly that being highly infectious is grounds for social isolation, and secondly that even a few simple measures can significantly decrease the chance of spreading the infection.
To participate in society is to be aware that someone cannot act without regard to others. When it comes to heath, it shouldn't take a pandemic to remind us that one should avoid the sickly and that the sickly should isolate themselves to prevent further spread of that illness. Even taking simple measures such as washing hands properly and covering coughs can be the difference between a small and large outbreak. Waiting until a potential disaster neglects that these measures help save lives and help the community now. It shouldn't take a measles outbreak to get parents to vaccinate their kids, just as it shouldn't take a pandemic to stop people with regular flu from coming to work where they can spread it to others. It's common courtesy!
Monday, 4 May 2009
Retailing Information
A couple of years ago I was at the local supermarket with my girlfriend when a stranger asked me for some cooking advice. Maybe he saw my gut and realised I loved food, maybe it was just a shot in the dark that a stranger could help out, but he just happened to ask me a question that I had knowledge on the matter. From memory it was a question about cooking a laksa and what noodles to use, and I was able to give him a recommendation and even a tip on how to cook it. He thanked me and asked if I were a chef. Nope, just an average chump who happened to have slight domain knowledge on the specific point in question.
The vision impaired leading the blind
It just happened to be circumstantial that I was there to give advice, but what else could the man do? Those who work at the store are trained monkeys, and I don't mean that as an insult. Rather that the job is the facilitation between people and product, ultimate choice comes down to the individual. For fundamentals like food, this model works. It is expected that by adulthood that people can know how to cook for themselves. And domain advice is as far away as a bookstore or even in magazines in the supermarket. There are approximately 40 cookbooks in my house with recipes and instructions on cooking for many different styles. Even the internet has scores of pages dedicated to how to cook; there isn't much excuse for that.
This is modern retail, where most people running the store need only knowledge of how to speak to a customer, be able to read off a specification sheet and use a cash register. Have serious questions about a product? Then asking a retail assistant is about as useful as a visit to the manufacturer's website. Having domain knowledge about a product in so many sectors of the market is just not necessary; it's far cheaper that way. We as consumers reap the benefits from not having to pay for the premium of domain knowledge. It may be for most people that it is unnecessary, but what of those who actually need the advice? Recently I was in a pharmacy where there was a shelf full of competing products all doing roughly the same thing and at the same price. I ended up buying a few to test them out because there's really no way I could expect domain knowledge on over-the-counter products.
Yet there are specialisations where domain knowledge is beneficial to the business. Hardware stores are something I see where the employees actually know what they are talking about. It could be a few reasons for this - the DIY market is large enough to require domain knowledge, such a job attracts educated laymen, or that the type of knowledge has a wide communal base. Whatever the reason, having such specialisation somewhat offsets the extra cost of not choosing major discount outlets for hardware supplies. For music supplies, outlets have to contend with eBay and the far lower prices so the business is forced to be advantageous in other areas of the customer experience.
When it comes down to it, ultimately profitability is what matters. Domain expertise costs money, so the less that is needed in order to keep a customer base the less that expertise is worth. The higher percentage of people with domain knowledge, again the less that expertise is worth. The cost / benefit analysis is something that always needs to be taken into account. Working in a computer store would require some knowledge about how to build computers, but it would not take someone with a master’s degree in computer hardware to do so. Hiring a high school drop-out who has never touched a computer in their life, however, is going to be a problem. This is why McDonalds can hire at $5 an hour while hiring to work in a computer store would cost more.
Brand power
Ultimately capitalism is about competition between products competing for your hard earned dollar. Most of us don't live in the luxury of having enough disposable income to be product testers, so there is importance in choosing the right product to begin with. Think of the competing products as memes. For the complete ignoramus looking for a product, without a frame of reference each meme would have equal worth so there needs to be a way to judge between memes. Yet on the shelf there are ways to entice the consumer into which product to buy. The packaging, the product description, the relative cost - all factors we use when buying items. Because for most things we do not know better, it would be expecting a lot for us to know better as there is just so much out there on the market.
Shelf advertising is about trying to part you with your hard earned money, so it does pay to be informed. It doesn't matter so much to waste $20 to try a new wine, but it does matter when laying out $2000 for a new television. Being informed pays, especially when it comes to complex devices where a simple demonstration will not cut it. The bigger the investment, the more informed one should be about the product invested in. The internet is again a great tool, between product reviews by those with domain knowledge and customer reviews that provide in effect a huge testing facility, a product's strengths and flaws can be found without too much hassle.
We are social creatures who gain memes largely from others. I could have been dead wrong or deliberately misleading to that man, but for whatever reason he trusted that I knew what I was talking about. It's that issue of trust that allows for one of the more useful means to choose a product and that is brand power. While sticking to certain brands may mean missing out on a superior product, it is at least an indicator of the type of quality that is associated with a product. A brand in this way is a trust between consumer and manufacturer, a voice of approval that needs no more than a fancy graphic in order to gain seed in an individual's mind. However dishonest we know advertising is (after all, it exists to sell a product), we understand that it still works; because it can place a seed in the mind of the audience. Any meme that is positively reinforced - even through artificial reality, has an advantage on a meme that doesn't.
Power to the people
When profitability is the goal, the retail market has no reason to change to help those who aren't in the know. And advertising is going to shape the way how we interact with products - this is the consumer environment we operate in. Ignorance is unavoidable, but it is something to move away from at any given opportunity. Knowing where to look for information is vitally important, something that requires planning. Going into a store completely ignorant of the wanted product is leaving yourself vulnerable to the knowledge of those selling you the product. Asking a random stranger for advice is no guarantee of success, after all not everyone has ruined a laksa by trying to cook the noodles in the sauce only to find that they absorbed all the coconut milk.
A post script: when I was first at university, I was boarding with a middle aged man and his mother. When he would cook pasta, he would boil it for an hour. When he asked how I was able to cook my pasta so well, I replied that I followed the instructions on the back of the pack. He once tried that and it failed, so instead of cooking for a couple of minutes longer, his solution was to boil it for 5 or 6 times what was recommended. The phrase 'read the fucking manual' not only for technology, which ironically for an IT student he failed at as well.
The vision impaired leading the blind
It just happened to be circumstantial that I was there to give advice, but what else could the man do? Those who work at the store are trained monkeys, and I don't mean that as an insult. Rather that the job is the facilitation between people and product, ultimate choice comes down to the individual. For fundamentals like food, this model works. It is expected that by adulthood that people can know how to cook for themselves. And domain advice is as far away as a bookstore or even in magazines in the supermarket. There are approximately 40 cookbooks in my house with recipes and instructions on cooking for many different styles. Even the internet has scores of pages dedicated to how to cook; there isn't much excuse for that.
This is modern retail, where most people running the store need only knowledge of how to speak to a customer, be able to read off a specification sheet and use a cash register. Have serious questions about a product? Then asking a retail assistant is about as useful as a visit to the manufacturer's website. Having domain knowledge about a product in so many sectors of the market is just not necessary; it's far cheaper that way. We as consumers reap the benefits from not having to pay for the premium of domain knowledge. It may be for most people that it is unnecessary, but what of those who actually need the advice? Recently I was in a pharmacy where there was a shelf full of competing products all doing roughly the same thing and at the same price. I ended up buying a few to test them out because there's really no way I could expect domain knowledge on over-the-counter products.
Yet there are specialisations where domain knowledge is beneficial to the business. Hardware stores are something I see where the employees actually know what they are talking about. It could be a few reasons for this - the DIY market is large enough to require domain knowledge, such a job attracts educated laymen, or that the type of knowledge has a wide communal base. Whatever the reason, having such specialisation somewhat offsets the extra cost of not choosing major discount outlets for hardware supplies. For music supplies, outlets have to contend with eBay and the far lower prices so the business is forced to be advantageous in other areas of the customer experience.
When it comes down to it, ultimately profitability is what matters. Domain expertise costs money, so the less that is needed in order to keep a customer base the less that expertise is worth. The higher percentage of people with domain knowledge, again the less that expertise is worth. The cost / benefit analysis is something that always needs to be taken into account. Working in a computer store would require some knowledge about how to build computers, but it would not take someone with a master’s degree in computer hardware to do so. Hiring a high school drop-out who has never touched a computer in their life, however, is going to be a problem. This is why McDonalds can hire at $5 an hour while hiring to work in a computer store would cost more.
Brand power
Ultimately capitalism is about competition between products competing for your hard earned dollar. Most of us don't live in the luxury of having enough disposable income to be product testers, so there is importance in choosing the right product to begin with. Think of the competing products as memes. For the complete ignoramus looking for a product, without a frame of reference each meme would have equal worth so there needs to be a way to judge between memes. Yet on the shelf there are ways to entice the consumer into which product to buy. The packaging, the product description, the relative cost - all factors we use when buying items. Because for most things we do not know better, it would be expecting a lot for us to know better as there is just so much out there on the market.
Shelf advertising is about trying to part you with your hard earned money, so it does pay to be informed. It doesn't matter so much to waste $20 to try a new wine, but it does matter when laying out $2000 for a new television. Being informed pays, especially when it comes to complex devices where a simple demonstration will not cut it. The bigger the investment, the more informed one should be about the product invested in. The internet is again a great tool, between product reviews by those with domain knowledge and customer reviews that provide in effect a huge testing facility, a product's strengths and flaws can be found without too much hassle.
We are social creatures who gain memes largely from others. I could have been dead wrong or deliberately misleading to that man, but for whatever reason he trusted that I knew what I was talking about. It's that issue of trust that allows for one of the more useful means to choose a product and that is brand power. While sticking to certain brands may mean missing out on a superior product, it is at least an indicator of the type of quality that is associated with a product. A brand in this way is a trust between consumer and manufacturer, a voice of approval that needs no more than a fancy graphic in order to gain seed in an individual's mind. However dishonest we know advertising is (after all, it exists to sell a product), we understand that it still works; because it can place a seed in the mind of the audience. Any meme that is positively reinforced - even through artificial reality, has an advantage on a meme that doesn't.
Power to the people
When profitability is the goal, the retail market has no reason to change to help those who aren't in the know. And advertising is going to shape the way how we interact with products - this is the consumer environment we operate in. Ignorance is unavoidable, but it is something to move away from at any given opportunity. Knowing where to look for information is vitally important, something that requires planning. Going into a store completely ignorant of the wanted product is leaving yourself vulnerable to the knowledge of those selling you the product. Asking a random stranger for advice is no guarantee of success, after all not everyone has ruined a laksa by trying to cook the noodles in the sauce only to find that they absorbed all the coconut milk.
A post script: when I was first at university, I was boarding with a middle aged man and his mother. When he would cook pasta, he would boil it for an hour. When he asked how I was able to cook my pasta so well, I replied that I followed the instructions on the back of the pack. He once tried that and it failed, so instead of cooking for a couple of minutes longer, his solution was to boil it for 5 or 6 times what was recommended. The phrase 'read the fucking manual' not only for technology, which ironically for an IT student he failed at as well.
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