Pizza Night Wisdom

Pizza Night takes me back to my first day in Econ 101 my freshman year of university. The prof had us all laughing out loud by drawing “Beer Versus Pizza” graphs on the board to illustrate a universal truth: more pizza is good, but at some point you will forgo extra pizza to get some beer to go with the pizza you already have. Marginal utility is rarely monotonic to infinity.

To see the general applicability of this principle, play this substitution game: use the concept of “Security” in lieu of “Pizza” and the concept of “Freedom” in lieu of “Beer,” and ask if the dynamic is any different. Do you in fact want all of one and none of the other? More security is good, but at some point, you want more freedom rather than additional security. And vice versa.

More is always better in a vacuum, but life is not a vacuum.