Two days ago I was driving a passenger who is a professional skier helping US Olympic team with fund raising and race organization. During the entire trip from somewhere in San Rafael of Marin county to the SFO we never stopped talking, with me asking all the questions out of pure curiosity. One thing I remembered well is that he told me the Scandinavian countries like the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Faroese are very good at downhill skiing because they do that from childhood, with big icy mountains nearby and the entire village of people can just get out and have some fun.
This got me thinking: This is a good example of accumulated preferences! It contains several elements that define the term well. First of all, we have time related accumulation, starting from one’s early ages and into adulthood. Secondly, we have scale accumulation, as the entire village of people go to the trip in the nature, during which human interactions are inevitable and that can reinforce the emotions, knowledge related to the activity. Lastly, we have feedback or consequence accumulation, where the learning we did over time acts to strengthen the skills and feelings.
As the guy told me in his own words, “people there take skiing for granted as it is a part of their lives.” Although there is a dangerous side, in the sense that people take the thing for granted and stop improving and polishing their skills and just wanting to have fun, the above three accumulations (in time, scale and feedback) are very powerful.
The final element of accumulation is natural endowment. Had there been no snow covered mountains nearby, the skiing trip would probably lost half the people in the village. Having said that, it is not the central element of the process, because the human side matters more. I can picture the scenario that the entire village may still get to it despite the mountain is miles away, as long as people formed a tradition from the past and carry it on over time, it is still doable!