Useless Conversations

“Do you just want to eat here?”
“That’s fine.”
“Or we could go back into town. There are several choices there.”
“This is fine.”
“Are you sure? We just had pizza the other day.”
“I don’t mind. We won’t find the perfect place to eat way out here.”
“We might find something else in town.”
“What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean, ‘What do you want to do?’?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Why are you getting irritated?”
“I’m not getting irritated.”
“Yes you are. You have a very irritated-sounding voice. Your face looks irritated.”
“Well, if I’m irritated, it’s only because you are being irritating.”
“Oh! Thank you very much! Next time why don’t you just stay home? I don’t want to go places with you if you are going to be so grumpy.”

From Marginal Revolution, I learned of a professor at Swarthmore named Barry Schwartz who believes that Americans suffer from too many choices. With too many choices, our utility goes down instead of up.

This is ridiculous. I cannot be made better off by having fewer choices. However, I might be better off if my wife had fewer choices.