[lbo-talk] the gains from variety

[Carrol Cox]

Excessive variety (and excess begins fairly soon as variety increases)
can be at best disruptive of activity and (at worse) the source of
serious pathology. See the essay "The Tyranny of Choice" in the current
(April 2004) Scientific American.

Warning: At some time (which I didn't notice at the time) in the last 10
to 15 years Scientific American ceased being a very dependable source of
scientific information, becoming little better than the Science Page of
the daily newspaper or various pop science periodicals. The article
cited here is too short, too breezy to be very useful.

Nevertheless, distrust of growth of variety and proliferation of choices
is safer than a simple trust in "more is better." It seems almost
tautological that (say) 3 choices is apt to be better in every way than
50 choices.

Carrol