What can I say? I have a thing for distinguised older guys.
What can I say 
Congrats on your raise! Now take over!
omg a pale skinned red head, nice…
Well, keep in mind you are a cutting edge earlier adopter looking at this. Alvin Toffler’s perception seems to be sort… of… sadly accurate in a sense for the masses.
The internet has been available in one form or another since the 50s. Yet look at how long it’s taken to really dig it’s roots everywhere, and really establish itself?
It’s about 60 years now. In Alvin’s terms, that’s just about perfect. The maximum time he reckoned it would take 2 waves to complete! (It’s been awhile since I’ve read him, but 30 years max per wave, right?)
Alvin Toffler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genius for a % of the population, yes, certainly!
People who use smart phones are still in the cutting edge category, except in certain markets in Japan and Europe where smartmones are just as cheap ($0) as anything else. Thus people choose smart phones even when don’t need them.
Keep in mind, though, that the iphone operates off of a familiar model. It’s like a computer on your phone, only streamlined and with a “cute” factor that works very well with the new generation.
Context and product life span play a role, too. Mobile phones in the first world are seen as disposable, having no more than 2 or 3 year lifespan, so why not upgrade?
Cars are not seen as so disposable. I still run into old cars that are gross polluters every single day.
It can also take awhile to establish new “filling stations”, as necessary. The FCX clarity is pretty impressive, but the market is very much limited by access to those stations.
Honda FCX Clarity - Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle - Official Web Site
That’s a good way to describe it, Andrew. The US is indeed sort of fat and lazy at a bureaucratic level these days. Heck, we pay more as much or more taxes than many outright socialist countries do, but with less benefits. They collect the money, but don’t use it efficiently. (don’t let published tax %s alone fool you, due to the complexity of filing US taxes, it often collects less money than do countries like the UK which stick to a simple one page form)
I’m not a socialist, but damnit, I should be getting more for my money if I’m paying it! 
(I’m also damn jealous of the way there’s hardly any red lights in places like Vancouver, British Columbia. Government achieved that? Really??? Wow!)
Also, the extreme liability inventors face here is just too much for me to take… Every meeting I’ve had with lawyers the past 2 years has in some way made me feel kind of sick, as I slowly but surely came to learn that the country I thought was one of the best in the world, had become sort of bizarre in it’s treatment of innovators. As a self protective urge, I almost always get the urge to run away, and seek employment at the local McDonalds. Let the big corporation “mothership” take the liability hit.
I mean… take my money if you really have to, but don’t threaten my freedom and very limited time I have to live for being inventive and creative, please!
Bottom line, though, is that if that the “American Dream” still fuels a lot of people to productive action. The problem is, it’s a bit of a fib these days if you actually look at the legal code. Edisons and Bells (the true creators of new wealth for others, btw) are not appreciated these days – they’re instead, seen as carcasses for tort lawyers to irrationally feed from.
If they do not bring current laws and regulations in line with allowing the actualization of those dreams, they will eventually destroy this country.
We need some legal changes in our basic structure to really help the economy (like how about modifying holding taxes which force businesses to borrow for every little thing?)… but back to what pheromones can do.
Yes, the ultra-hygiene in the US has indeed retarded some of the social gelling in the US.
Not in parts of the south, mind you, but there are many places in the US that could definitely benefit from some social enhancement. Statistics show that more people are lonelier now than ever, despite the internet.
End of page 1 ends … “people in this country continue to drift apart. We need to know why.”
Yeah, well, I know one reason why. We all do! We’re just too damn clean over here. Europeans make fun of us. While they have fun socializing at their cafes, and even the supposedly asexual English have free-for-all-sex compared to Americans, they say that we Americans smell like bottles of shampoo, or even barbershops.
To counteract the side effects of this, I hope to get the social molecules out there… somehow. Maybe not with a literal pheromone “bomb”, but certainly in other ways.
You know what’s funny about that?
US companies (in general) not only make crap in China (and I use that word word very intentionally since I am constantly disappointed with product quality these days), but we’re also responsible for that crap when we sell it here or use at part of our products.
i.e., if you buy some poorly made widget made in China at your local store, you can sue both the retailer and entire US based distribution chain for either real or imagined damages. Lawyers tend to leave the Chinese manufacturer alone. Too hard to go after.
That means we (as in you and I, and everyone, and more directly, the US business person) pay for China’s QC sins when US businesses choose (or are forced) to buy from China.
The problem is, since almost everything is made there, we almost have no choice. We’re forced into the world’s worst liability situation. The crazy US liability laws (and they ARE crazy when “nanny state” Europe’s liability laws are more than100 times less severe), combined with the world’s worst made products from China.
Whoa!
Our pheromones are synthesized here in the US, and our fragrances are made here and in France. The last thing we have that’s made in China is our bottles. (we buy from US distributors, though, so we pay a price that could’ve bought a locally made product)
Do you understand now why I even want to insource the manufacturing of those bottles? Yes, I sort of have a quality fetish, sure, but over the past year and a half or two years, I’ve learned even more reasons why it’s important to have one. Scary reasons. I never knew before we could be held responsible for mistakes made by suppliers from other countries.
This brushes against the topic:
Product recalls rise; analysts recommend better relations with China - JSOnline
I honestly have an anxiety attack every time I think about doing a true consumer project here in the US. I wish pheromones could help with legal anxiety, but they just don’t! Laws don’t seem to be influenced very much by pheromones at all. 
All that blah blah, and I didn’t say the obvious:
Congrats on the raise!
In someone like Mountain Jim’s cases, the situation is really tough since personal persuasion and reliability doesn’t factor into the matter as much. Someone with an Excel spreedsheet far away from him decides his fate.
However, for companies that are still tickin’ on a relatively free market, pheromones like these can help a lot.
I’m especially impressed that A314 isn’t just a cloak. After all these years, there’s no real habituation of self effects, like there is with a more molecule such as TAA. It virtually makes, forces you almost, to act more responsibly. To actually fulfill a more valuable role. To produce more for your company, and thus, earn more money.
You know the real sad thing about our current economic affairs is that every $1 our government burrows 46 cents is coming from China.
The sad truth is we are slowly becoming the United States of China everyday.