Our daughter has been awesome the last couple days and since our plans for summer we had discussed for months leading in have changed so drastically, we are doing "surprise" things with her that she hasn't done before. Some of these things are really small and simple things, like having an ice cream and visiting a playground in a neighborhood we haven't been before and some of them are larger things.
Today was one of the bigger ticket items - a visit to part of an amusement park that is themed for younger children around the books of a local author. It has been open for several years now and had heard good things about it, so decided to check it out.
Okay, granted that this was a place for children to perhaps the age of seven, but no one in the place seemed to be having any fun at all, not the children and definitely not the parents. There was a little "town" of a couple houses selling over-priced nonsense that was mostly not even related to the place, there was one tiny and very amateur little show put on by three workers, who were also seemingly three of the total of about six working at the place, including in the cafes. They were heavily understaffed by the looks, even though some of the places that should have been available, were closed.
We spent about an hour there all up, milling about with others looking for something to do and not finding anything. My daughter, who is normally impressed by the simplest of things, was finding it hard to find anything too even talk about from the surroundings and seemed disinterested in pretty much everything, other than saying that the mini pig was cute. When my daughter is not saying much - it says a lot.
We were disappointed.
The "experience" that we never plan on repeating, cost us 48€ for tickets in and the crappy bowl of fries, a coke and a coffee that took 20 minutes to prepare because there was one person serving 40 customers, was another 18€ on top. As we left, we discovered that the parking (there was no sign saying it was a pay carpark) was 15€ more. So, for 81€ up in flames, we learned that the place sucked ass.
At least I got this picture of a peacock tail that I edited for this post.
What I wonder though is...
How come we have heard good things?
We are definitely not hard to entertain, but almost unanimously we have heard that this is a good place to take kids of our daughter's age. It has been hyped up and advertised in city guides and the like for ages and people we have talked to have recommended it.
What I think is that because they have been sucked into going to the place themselves and being forced to spend far too much for a very lame experience of anti-entertainment, they want to make others suffer too, so they don't feel like idiots who wasted their money. Rather than keep their buyer's remorse to themselves, or warn others away, they instead built up a narrative that made them feel better about their decisions.
I have a family member who is like this and pretty much everything he buys is the best and works hard to get others to buy similarly. However, when they do, he then starts to bring up all of the deficiencies the thing actually has. It could be a "misery loves company" kind of thing, or it could be that he likes to have the feeling that people follow him, as if he is an early adopter.
As far as early adoption and predicting the future is concerned, he doesn't have a very good track record, as the internet is a fad, digital cameras will never be good enough to replace film and electric cars will never be mainstream.
The latest prediction was that Bitcoin is a scam.
That came when it was around 1000 dollars.
But, this isn't about him, mostly, it is about people making recommendations so that they don't feel like idiots. I suspect that there are many, many people who haven't got into crypto because it would have made them feel like they were going against their peers and if they were wrong, they would feel like idiots and their friends would say "I told you so". Rather than face humiliation in the face of friends, they chose to go with the crowd.
Whenever the markets drop and the news is full of ridicule and the I-told-you-so-ers are out in force, they feel a sense of relief. But when the markets are up and new All Time Highs are being reached, they are jealous, bitter and hoping for a crash - because what if they were wrong?
No one likes to make decisions and then find out they were wrong in their choice and while this can be painful when there is a cost involved, it might be even more painful when the cost was an opportunity foregone. We see this all the time in the markets, where when it is high, people are saying how they want it to drop so they can buy more and when it drops, they don't buy. When it rises again, the same people will say that they should have bought or should have bought more, but they didn't.
I know many people who haven't got into crypto, even though the risk to them and their daily lives was negligible. I wonder how they feel now? Sure, some of them are saying "Taraz, Bitcoin is down 50% you fool!" but from when I first started telling them about it, it is also also up 3000%. *And they know it. I only have one friend that has been a little more openly honest and said that he should have listened to me, rather than a lot of people who he has since found out had very little idea as to what they were recommending.
This is not financial advice.
Isn't it interesting that it only goes in one direction? If someone says "Buy crypto" they feel like they have to give a disclaimer, but when the millions of people out there say "Don't Buy Crypto" it isn't considered financial advice. It definitely is financial advice though, as it doesn't matter what direction it is going. Not only that, the detractors are far more confident in their negative stance than the supporters are in their positive.
This is likely due to some kind of Dunning-Kruger effect, where the less someone knows the more confident they are that they know a lot, whereas the more someone knows, the more confident they are that there is a lot more they don't know, so are more cautious. There are a lot of people who know very little and are outwardly confident that crypto will fail, but they are far less certain when they see the price climbing. When it is climbing, they question if they missed something, that they didn't have all the information, that there was more to it than "Bitcoin isn't real" that they should have looked into before confidently making the financial decision not to buy.
No one can truly know what the market is going to do, let alone know all of the things that come up that can affect it in the future. My family member who confidently saw the internet as a fad, had no idea of what was already in development in the background. When he confidently said digital cameras were never going to be good enough, he had no experience or visibility on the technology to come and judged it on what it was in 1999. When he confidently predicted electric cars would never gain traction, he made the remark without knowing anything about them or the ecosystem they reside in at all. When it comes to Bitcoin, he has no understanding of the tech, economics, or social dynamics, yet can feel confident in giving people financial advice to not buy.
Confidence is a funny thing, as no experience is necessary to have it.*
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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I have some friends that I am still working on to buy some crypto. I have a feeling they will end up not doing it. Even though they have been around me for years and seen what crypto has done for me, they are still hesitant. I just hope they come around before it is too late!
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I think all will eventually be forced into doing it, though it will be too late for large gains for most. What will be interesting is how they go back and justify their decision-making processes of the past. How many will rewrite history to help themselves feel better?
I am guessing quite a few will do that. I worry about people like my parents. At least they have me to guide them if necessary.
I spoke to a friend today who had never heard of cryptocurrency or bitcoin!
I'm so sorry you wasted a day that way. Money is one thing, but time is much more precious to me. I've been there and done that at these places, with three unhappy kids in tow. I've always hated them myself. Maybe that's why my kids didn't have any fun either.
At least there are presents from Uncle G in the mail!
Wow. that must be very rare these days.
Me too. There is something too engineered about it, as if a person is expected to have fun within the constraints of public opinion on what fun should be.
He is crazy.
Well that's stupid.
I was trying to come up with something even if it was slightly ranty but that is that stupid that I got nothing XD
Sometimes, it is just too much work to rant! ;D
Yes definitely 🤣
We had a friend who liked to eat out and would try all the small, (what we refereed to as "hole in the wall" places), those little known tiny diners and dives as one TV show put it.
My wife and I liked to try tiny places out also when we we younger and our systems could deal with a bad food day. His recommendations, after trying one, were never visited. He thought this one particular place made the best grilled cheese sandwich in the world. It is very hard to screw up a grilled cheese sandwich, but this place did, they did not even try. I don't think anything was real food they used. Fake bread, (white sliced factory created monstrosity that did not deserve the term bread), fake cheese, (the kind you squirt over nacho's), and I think even fake margarine-which is fake butter.
And yeah why do people not say this is not financial advise when telling you to not buy something.
I like to try places too, but it is strange in Finland. There hasn't been a strong dining out culture in Finland for long (a couple decades) so when people have gone out, they generally order something they know they will like, rather than experiment. Men especially will commonly get a pepper steak, because it is hard to screw it up and the meat doesn't have to be great quality, as the pepper masks the flavor. I find it strange how big a difference in culture there can be i this regard, and it spills into other areas of risk assessment also.
I thought I would have a steak in a hotel restaurant once, because I thought they couldn't mess it up. I was wrong.
They offered another meal to replace it, free of charge. I said, no, please, just let me leave.
Sorry about your day out, that is disappointing.
That must have been a terrible steak! :D
One of the benefits to be young and healthy was getting to try a lot of different foods out. It has been a long time for me and food experimentation. I still like to try new stuff, but there is not a lot of choice where I live. We have Mexican, Italian, Greet, Chinese, and even on Thai place; so a good selection for two small towns that would not total 15,000 people added together.
I thought I would have a steak in a hotel restaurant once, because I thought they couldn't mess it up. I was wrong.
They offered another meal to replace it, free of charge. I said, no, please, just let me leave.
Sorry about your day out, that is disappointing.
Well...
eeerm... then let me tell you that...
Oh! ...seems like you already found the right answer by yourself eh? LoL
doing a new things with your family is a whole new experience
There are a hundred new things - this one could have been skipped :D
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