Wednesday, March 17, 2010

To Maximize Utility

Define: utility
In economics, utility is a measure of the relative satisfaction from, or desirability of, consumption of various goods and services.

1. You have two peaches in your lunch box.
2. You plan to eat both of them one after the other.
3. One of which is sweet and one of which is not so sweet.
4. But pretend that you didn't know that - you have no idea whether each individual peach is sweet or not.

Question:
By eating which peach first, will you maximize utility?

My personal answer is:
The sweeter peach first.
Because while eating the first sweet peach, i will be thinking about the sweetness of the second peach. Mmm...

And that to me, is value.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

yeah but disappointment sucks......

Jason P said...

I would give one each to my sisters, and wait for their responses. If they are positive, I will compulsorily reacquire the fruit and proceed to eat it.