Ok, listen all you home-brewing bean-grinding single-efficiency surrender monkeys,
Taleb is quite clear that the chief benefit to cocktail parties is convexity (although his secret benefit is a venue to be insufferable), and bars are just cocktail parties for people who don't get invited.
(ERE calls it all "maximizing serendipity".)
Sure it'd be nice to live in a sun-drenched californian seaside paradise or greek city-state where you can just loaf about for free in the agora with an open-bar but as it is in the fallen world most
"third places" are privately owned and require a token purchase.
So following Taleb, as far as coffees & pints go, if you're single, the convexity's off the charts. Off the charts. Probably one or two people reading this owe their existence on this planet originally to a little cocktail-party/pub "optionality".
I spend too little time at cafes, pubs & parties these days, but a quick sample of other forms of optionality I've enjoyed from them:
- 2 serious job offers. (one goofy one was bumping into an otherwise highly-functioning acquaintance and consulting on his CRM work. any of the systems-savvy people here reading this here could have helped him. And would likewise be too smart to take a CIO job involving CRM). The other was more ridiculous.
- a two-month vacation on a yacht in the Sea of Cortez. (friend of a friend showed up for a drink. option accepted.)
- the best book I'd never have read all year
- a kitten
Sure, most days out for a pint these days consist of staring at everyone staring at their phone, and you may already have all the work & optionality you need with family, work, targeted forums, or just checking out "casual encounters" on Craigslist..
I'll also reiterate that bars and cafes are much worse convexity than cocktail or dinner parties and maybe even Facebook, but those require having friends.
So, it's long-tail stuff, like Empirica Capital, most days you bleed a little with nothing to show, but when it pays off, jackpot.
(and remember, level 32 of ERE is managing convexity flows. or something.)
also I should explain to my fellow Americans here that for what Did's talking about, pubs in Ireland are nothing like Irish pubs: they're strangely well-lit and look a little like your living room or at least your grandparents', they don't hang harps and leprechauns on the wall, (well, ok, leprechauns), they've got kids and things running around and whole families in there, there'll be nine on the same street that all look the same but you're only supposed to go to one, people stay there like all day, I'm pretty sure they serve in some counties as seats of local government, if a lady invites you to a snug it's not necessarily dirty, if you decide to watch football, don't worry: you're not drunk; it's not rugby, it's just really, really weird, and under absolutely no circumstances should you order a car-bomb. I don't really understand them.
but they're very social places. not to mention two or three of the finest novels of literature in english have been written in (and despite) them.
or take cafes. readers of this blog are well aware of the Personal Finance Latte-a-day fallacy, but the secret tragedy underlying that is the false equivalence between a take-out (ok, "take-away" for you plastic paddies) polyethylene-coated paper cup of sweetened coffee milk and a expertly-pulled cappucino or latte in a proper cup or bowl enjoyed in a pleasing & convivial atmosphere.
Part of that is due I'm sure to Starbucks dependency on a brisk take-out business to maintain margins so that some guy in the corner can spend three hours on photoshop ordering nothing more than a Tazo. So, yes, I agree that 10cents of home-brewed coffee is a far better deal than four dollars of that swill and waiting in line with commuters. but all you home-brewers: what are you optimizing?
Monetary outlay. Possibly quality. But remember all that renaissance-man, "web of goals", systems-thinking claptrap we deploy so we don't have to admit we are just cheap bastards? Let me give an example: What is more web-of-goals for my situation where I have the following requirements for life:
Desiderata:
- Internet
- Caffeine
- Ok, I should probably spend less time on the internet
- And maybe I should get at some exercise
- Convexity
Option 1:
1.1 Paying Verizon-Yahoo 60 bucks a month for broadband. (I.)
1.2 Hook up the wireless. (V?)
1.3 make & drink a coffee (II.)
1.4 avoid going on a run (IV.) because I'd have to wear shoes and instead I am:
1.5 clicking on clickbait & downloading Tinder (V.)
(note, III is impossible in this scenario)
Option 2:
2.1 Go for a walk down to the local cafe (IV.)
2.2 Enjoy internet for $2 bucks during which you can download more than you can consume in a week (I.)
2.3 Receive a free coffee (II.)
2.4 Enjoy cafe/pub convexity (V.)
2.5 Eventually they kick you out (III.)
Note they cost about the same! And seriously speaking, when I was living without electricity, I used cafes exactly in this manner and enjoyed those benefits at a monthly outlay equivalent to about what I'd spend for broadband. Side benefit, it encourages more focused and less compulsive internet use. Seriously, though, expense it that way for attaining all those diverse desiderata, it could be a real deal.
I don't think cafes/bars are a particularly high-density source of convexity by any stretch, and at this point my chit-chat abilities have atrophied to the point that at any pub in Ireland I'd be considered severely autistic, but let's at least include serendipity/optionality and some webs of goals in our systems thinking here.
Anyway, in the spirit of things I've been writing this out over a coffee at a local bar and the woman down the way appears to be lofting the plans for a New Bedford-style whaling boat(!). I better find out what that's for...