Where Satisfaction Comes From
A series of Saturday misadventures resulted in a meditation about why we enjoy experiences and why we don't. (Issue #132)
Before we get to today's main topic, some miscellaneous goodies and things worth your attention…
Only her algorithm knows for sure. Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld (whose Romantic Comedy I enjoyed) and an AI trained on her work each created Sittenfeld-esque short stories ($). Can you tell which one Sittenfeld wrote? (I guessed right.)
The GOP presidential candidate posted AI-generated images of Taylor Swift endorsing him. Swift has not endorsed him, which gets into interesting legal issues around deep fakes. See also my recent piece, "New Cracks in Reality."
For folks who follow the Ad Biz, my friend Joe Marchese wrote a terrific piece in Ad Age ($) about why human attention beats algorithms.
Here's an uplifting NYT story about how an AI-driven "personalized brain pacemaker" ($) is helping people suffering from Parkinson's to manage their symptoms and lead happier lives.
On the odd side, Chick-Fil-A is launching its own streaming service with family-friendly programming. The QSR chain's new streamer will feature both original and licensed content, heavy on reality programming. It's unclear whether this will be free (like Tubi and Pluto) or have a monthly fee. One wag on LinkedIn quipped, "What are they calling it, NetChix?"
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On to our top story...
Where Satisfaction Comes From
Sometimes things go off the rails. Like yesterday. After a sunny visit to our town's Farmers Market, where we obtained a morally questionable amount of berries and peaches, La Profesora and I decided to go on a hike. We wanted to try someplace new, since one of Oregon's blessings is regional park after regional park, so we consulted the oracle of AllTrails, picked a lakeside spot, and sped northwest for an hour.
We couldn't find the trailhead, driving back and forth and back and forth over several miles until a kindly man named Alex at the park's welcome center oriented us. We located the lake, which was more of a puddle, and started walking the trail. Each time we thought, "ahh, now we are getting to the forest-y nature part," we'd round a bend and find ourselves at a campsite, walking past an aromatic sewer, crossing the back part of the nearby little town, being dodged by people zipping by on e-bikes and small motorcycles, or walking next to the highway. After an hour, La Profesora said, "I'm done." I agreed. We were also hungry and looking forward to dinner at a well-reviewed Indian restaurant halfway home.
One thing to know about La Profesora and me is that we have a mixed marriage in every conceivable way, including spice tolerance. I'm a gigantic wimp when it comes to spicy food. The YouTube show Hot Ones is my vision of burning hell (although the Conan O'Brien episode is among the funniest things I've ever seen). Our kids make terrible fun of me about this. Meanwhile, La Profesora adds jalapeños to everything. It would not surprise me to see her sprinkle sliced hot peppers onto ice cream or add hot sauce to a PBJ.
We explained this to the nice man taking our order at the well-reviewed Indian restaurant, and he arranged the mild stuff on my side of the table and the napalm-infused stuff on her side of the table. A basket of garlic naan perched like the Berlin Wall between us.
Whenever I've traveled in India, I've done so with boxes of Power Bars in my luggage because I learned the scorching way that there's daylight between my definition of mild and the definition in some regions of India. I soon deduced that the folks in the kitchen of the well-reviewed Indian restaurant came from one of those regions because the mild food... wasn't.
"Your face is flushed," La Profesora said as I suavely used a piece of naan to smother the flames on my tongue. "Oh really?" I replied. "Hmm." A few minutes later after she tackled a spinach dish she had (it turned out recklessly) asked to be made spicy, her eyes widened and she slumped back in the booth, her neck growing red. Dear lord, I thought, this food has vanquished my spice-loving spouse!
As we gathered the many leftovers into plastic containers (it would have been rude to abandon them), I met La Profesora's eyes and said, "Froyo, I need frozen yogurt." Compassionate as ever, she nodded, and we repaired to a nearby Menchie's. The yogurt cushioned my tender tummy against some of the impact, and I will convey the rest of the gastrointestinal havoc by inviting you to Google the phrase, "Oh, the humanity."
When our son sampled the leftovers, his eyes widened, and he met my gaze. "You ate this?" "Yeah," I sighed.
Reading this, you might think La Profesora and I had a rotten time on the hike that wasn't and with the cuisine so hot it could be measured in Kelvins, but that's not the case. It was absurd and bizarre, but we had fun because our goal was to be together.
Is there a point? Actually, yes.
Two recent articles intellectually rhyme with our peculiar Saturday.
My father (thanks, Dad!) shared an Op-Ed from Tuesday's Los Angeles Times ($). Aurora Hernandez, who works checkout at a Food 4 Less (Kroger) in Boyle Heights (where my family lived a century ago), wrote a piece in support of California Senate Bill 1446 that would set standards around self-checkout, which eliminates jobs and stresses out the remaining workers who have to monitor too many self-checkout stations at once.
Hernandez has a bigger argument:
I’ve worked at Foods 4 Less for five years, and I love serving my community. I have long-standing customers who seek out my register and with whom I share moments of personal connection week after week. But with longer lines at the fewer human-staffed registers, there’s less time to say “hi,” another way automation is shredding the social fabric.
The second article, "Less Plain Sailing" ($) is from the August 17th issue of The Economist. It describes the post-COVID resurgence of pleasure cruises and how niche-themed cruises focusing on Taylor Swift, Star Trek, The Golden Girls, Wrestling, KISS, and other themes are taking off. If you're a fan, then such a cruise is a delightful opportunity to spend time with people who share your interest. If you are the partner of a fan (one man described himself as a Swifty "fan by marriage"), then you get to witness your partner's pleasure and practice mindful patience at the same time: a twofer!
Both articles—one negative, one positive—drive at the same idea. Our satisfaction with experiences and the ostensible goals of experiences can be different. The goal of Hernandez's customers is to buy groceries, but their satisfaction comes from chatting with the cashier. The goal of the cruisers is to soak in all things Swift, Star Trek, etc., but the satisfaction comes from the conversations they have with the like-minded. La Profesora and I shared some weird events yesterday, but we experienced them together, which was the point.
Businesses love to remove operational friction to speed customers towards their goals. Digital technologies are exquisite at enabling this. However, in the process they also remove the positive social friction that happens when people spend time together, which is where satisfaction comes from.
Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday.
* Image Prompt: A brown haired, brown eyed, glasses wearing middle aged white man with graying temples is sitting in a restaurant booth with plates of Indian food in front of him. His mouth is open. Small flames are on his tongue. He has a mildly pained expression.
White rice. I always have some handy when I eat spicy. When my tongue gets hot, I grab a good bite of rice and let it sit there.