Humans only use ten percent of their brains, the trope goes, and the least interesting people immediately ask the least interesting question: what if we could use 100% of our brains? Gosh, wouldn’t that be amazing.
Executive Function Theft (EFT) is the deliberate abdication of decision-making, tasks, and responsibilities that are perceived as administrative or repetitive, of lesser importance, or aren’t pleasant or shiny, to another person, with the result that the receiving person’s executive function becomes so exhausted that they are unable to participate in, contribute to, or enjoy higher level efforts.”
– Abigail Goben, August 2023.
15 years or so back I bought a safety razor and a variety pack of blades to try it out. I think it cost me about eighty dollars. I only shave every couple of days and I only replace the blade every couple of shaves, so when I finally worked through sampler pack I bought a hundred of the blades I liked best for about twenty dollars… maybe a decade ago now?
I didn’t understand the phrase “give away the razor, sell the blades” for a long time.
That box of blades kept me stocked until recently, when I finally ran out. Another twenty dollars later I had another box of 100 blades, and I assumed that’d sort me out for a good long time.
And then I found the box of blades I’d misplaced and assumed I’d either used up or lost in the move, still about a quarter full. So here I am. Shaving is a solved problem in my life. As far as this one life concern goes I won’t need to buy a new razor or more blades or do anything but decide whether or not some soap smells nice for maybe the next twenty years.
If I’d gone the plastic cartridge route I’d have spent more in any of the last 15 years than I have on this entire exercise, and all I’d have to show for it is decade of worse shaves. Instead, I’m wondering if I should spend another twenty dollars on another box of blades right now and buy myself the near-certainty that I’ll never need to think about this again.
Like I said, I didn’t understand the phrase “give away the razor, sell the blades” for a long time, at least not what it means for the customer. It’s a way to save a few bucks up front as a distraction from the the low, low cost of you’re dealing with this problem forever, not only with money but time and effort as well. And at the end of the day you’re still getting a bad shave.
“Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month.”
– Terry Pratchett, “Men At Arms”
The least appreciated part of the Sam Vimes’ Boots theory of economic unfairness is poverty’s constant theft of executive function. The relentless cognitive drain of always dealing with problems that will never, that can never entirely go away, because the means to put them behind you – by design – are either inaccessible or simply don’t exist for that economic strata.
The old science fiction trope about humans only using 10% of their brain is a myth, to be sure, but the idea that you only bear a certain amount of cognitive and emotional burden in a day sure as hell isn’t. So you have to ask, where is it all going?
And the answer for a lot of people in a lot of little ways that add up fast is shopping for razor blades. Or boots, or shelter, or rent or their next meal or that sore tooth or losing their shitty job because the shitty car the can barely afford to run broke down or or or or or or or or or or or
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or maybe the question is what could we have, what could we become a society, if we decided to solve problems once and for all. If nobody ever had to spend 80% of their brain, every day, on bullshit problems we could solve for everyone once and for all.
Anyway, I bought my kit from Fendrihan, a Canadian shop I’ve been happy with. If you feel like treating yourself they’ll sell you a nice starter kit, but just a razor and one of their blade samplers will see you right. If you have the means you should give it a try, cartridge razors are trash.