- 1. Reductio ad infinitum/or how to induce without getting a
hernia
- “all human behavior can be measured.
Data can be collected and average performance can be determined, and
how much variation there is. One can determine what variables are
correlated with success.”
- “all you gotta do is take the stats—
- keep the records, keep compiling facts
- measuring off the distance between
- and how much time it takes,
- and how often it’s taken;
- it’s not too tough, believe me.
- there are numbers that will correlate
- with every behavior—and if we
- can get them on a stat sheet,
- every behavior becomes a number
- until you know precisely—
- with a variable error of maybe
- 1 or 2 percent—
- you can know precisely how many times
- a person will make an error
- in judgment, how often
- they will commit a crime.
- how frequently they will sleep together
- how much they will spend on entertainment,
- on food, on drugs, on lightbulbs,
- on floorwax, on books,
- how often they will flush their toilet
- and how often they will commit suicide.
- we can reduce all the variables of success
- into a simple coefficient.
- all we need are the facts.”
- 2. Reductio ad adsurdum/or the reduction of deduction
- “we are looking for joe average—
- you know the guy on the street—
- the cat who doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary—
- you know—he wakes up tgen minutes late
- has his coffee on the run, a beer at lunch hour
- and a couple of hi-balls on the way home—
- makes an average salary, lives in an average neighborhood
- has 2.3 kids, would like to cheat
- on his wife if he ever got the chance,
- but has always been too shy,
- has two cars, but leaves the new one at home
- for the wife, doesn’t get excited about too much
- except football in season and watching his kid race
- dirt-bikes in the summertime down by the county fair.
- we think we can find out everything you need to know
- about human behavior from this guy—from this one guy.
- I know it sounds crazy, but we think we can.
- all we’ve gotta do is find him.”