Sample Sizes

Essays

Sep 13

It would be nice if we could try everything in sample sizes. Instead of the pint-sized bottle of Crest, maybe we flash mob a week of a new relationship and then put it back on the shelf if it’s not the right flavor. Maybe the pizzeria owner has a bin called “Just the Tip”, and it’s only the tip of the pizza to try. Someone is going to owe me money for that one.

I know they have free trial periods for a lot of things, but those are usually a farce. If it’s impossible to return, no one’s going to do it, and that’s the game. You can return your sample if you play hopscotch in the rain, on a Wednesday in October, while wearing a down vest and holding an old TV antenna in a lightning storm. They know what they are doing.

Maybe people would give up too easily if you could return everything after a swig. Sometimes the first sip of that allegedly fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice is too tart to fathom drinking the whole mini-bottle. Your aversion to puckering makes you think it won’t be good if you continue, but there is the mystery in finding out.

It’s crazy to me that AI is either on or off. It either destroys or saves humanity, or we get nothing. Why isn’t artificial intelligence being screened for potential world exclusion inside a small trial group in a nondescript Amway building in Shreveport? Seems less risky.

I think this is how drug dealers do their business. They give you a little taste. Wouldn’t that work with a single pouch that held one fat Cheese Doodle inside? You get that and one-fer with a Funyun and see which one you want to splurge on. Maybe you toss in a solo wrap of a pickle chip to boot. The combinations are endless.

Or maybe the problem in America is that the portion sizes for everything are out of control. A large soft drink at the movie is brought to you on a barge. The large popcorn could fit two puppies in it. The deal is in the twelve-pack of Hanes T-shirts, not the one-off white tee you know is just an undershirt.

What about jobs? Everyone gets a week to see if it’s the right fit. If both parties agree that it is, you move forward. If one party isn’t feeling it, you call it. I guess everyone would try to overperform in that first week and then slowly engage in human lamaze, but still, there’s something in a sample size for human behavior.

Relationships and business are really about finding the right match. Oil and vinegar to oil and water. If there were more acceptable human sampling in society, there might be fewer houses on fire. But I guess that’s why they built dating sites: for sampling. But then they infused them not with lavender, but with bots and trickery. So, in the end, size doesn’t matter.