Is satisfation related to the log of the number of possesions

Please provide me with some feedback on the following article, preferably after counting up all that you own and trying to analyse the information as per this article.

THE LOGARITHMIC NATURE OF SATISFACTION VS THE NUMBER OF POSSESIONS A PERSON OWNS

By Adrian Johnson

Faced with a high probability of becoming unemployed, combined with having recently developed a stronger interest in energy and resource depletion issues, made April 2004 a really good time for me to go through every aspect of my life with the axe, looking to cut costs even further than the highly frugal life a scientist is obliged to live on economic grounds, and that I prefer to live anyway on environmental and spiritual grounds.

The resulting audit turned out to have been one of the single most important discoveries of my life , owing to the fact that , for me at least, satisfaction is directly proportional to the natural log (or any other log , you just change the gradient of your graph) of the number of items a person owns. Being a scientist made the extremely important nature of this discovery obvious to me, however to explain this to non scientists or those who dislike maths is also easy.

The exponential curve that people who sell investments like to boast reflects the sustainable return you reap for the rest of your life if you buy shares or negatively geared apartments becomes a straight, sloping line with a positive gradient if you take its log. (Continuous growth is actually impossible due to resource limitations, pollution, and the fact that if a price goes up too high in real terms you will never find a buyer who can purchase the investment)

The implication of this is that any person with even a modest number of possessions can not substantially increase their happiness by buying more, and this is diametrically opposed to the message advertisers want us to believe. Furthermore it proves the saying that there is not enough on this Earth to satisfy even one persons greed. Any person wealthy and foolish enough to try would probably get to the point that they could not physically count what they owned without even reaching the point at which they felt they were 4 times better off than before they started their shopping spree. Even more important is the fact that anyone with the courage to do so can probably rid themselves of at least 2 /3rds of their possessions without feeling like much has been lost at all.

TAKE THE CHALLENGE YOURSELF IF YOU DARE

1. List every item you own that you care enough about to record. You will soon find this impossible, so group similar functional lots into 1 entry i.e. “table and chairs”,”Bed and Bedding”, “box of junk”, etc.

2. Set up (or get someone to set you up) a spreadsheet with the following columns: Item, cost, service life, number of times used per year, overall importance rating, cost per time used, cost per year, is replacement intended, is this an emergency item, etc. Some of these require you to create formulas; others are best filled in once the calculations are complete.

3. Rate each item from 1 – 5 on this scale. 1 = immediate severe or fatal consequences if gone i.e. warm clothing or food. 2 = extremely important i.e. plates, cutlery, bed, etc, OR severe or fatal consequences if absent in an emergency i.e. torch, first aid kit, 4 weeks of dry food and water. 3 = highly desirable items whose absence is not a health hazard, and that are worth replacing or that you would take with you if you moved house i.e. toaster, microwave, TV, desk. 4 = not really needed, replacement not intended, but worth keeping until failure occurs or a good sale price is offered. 5 = this item is not needed, or you very rarely use this item, or you are in the process of selling, giving away or dumping it, or it is only there because you cant be bothered getting rid of it.

4. Expect some nasty shocks and pleasant surprises when you examine the cost per unit time and use columns, and also the total of what you spent on things you hardly ever use.

5. Add up the number of items in each category and take the natural or other logs of these numbers depending on the calculator you have. If you can get your items sorted automatically by category and do this with the dollar value totals it would be worthwhile, but my computer illiteracy has prevented me from attempting this myself. (Exclude house and car or your figures will be distorted)

6. Plot one linear and one log graph of these values, using the ratings from 1 – 5 on the X axis to represent a linear scale of the relative benefit that your possessions are providing you with (do not take the log of this axis) and make sure you comprehend the significance of you findings.

7. Take the antilog of a point that is about twice your relative benefit category 5, i.e. 10 on the X-axis and, note that it would be unachievable without denuding all the Earths resources in a very short period of time.

8. Now you have this knowledge you are required to act on it. This may require a degree of spiritual enlightenment first. Such persons are then capable of making sacrifices to their lifestyles for the benefit of others, and also of thinking in terms greater than the present day. Before I did this audit I was more selfish and money minded than I am today, and concentrating less on these matters has been of great benefit to both future generations and myself. As to the spiritual benefits such changes bring, the best way to describe it is to say that seeking more possessions is to spiritual development what staring into the sun is to observing the other stars, it hides them completely. You may even find yourself adding a Bible into you list a few months down the track and being totally repulsed by the current values of our society at the present time.

9. Give a copy of this to everyone you know so they can also benefit from it, however be aware that most people lack the courage to act on its contents.

SAMPLE GRAPHS TO EXPECT

These are approximate counts only as

some items were hard to categorise,

based on my audit results.

X axis == category 1 , 2, 3 ,4, 5 . category of item

Y axis (linear) = 10, 25, 50, 100, 300. Y axis (log) = 2.30 , 3.22 , 3.91 , 4.60 , 5.70.

Labelled as number of items per category and log of the number of items per category

Forums > Social Discussion > Is satisfation related to the log of the number of possesions owned?