This past summer, razor maker Schick had announced the Quattro, a four blade razor. It's pretty obvious they're trying to "one-up" their competitor Gillette's Mach 3 (which only sports three blades).

What's next? You can already predict a "Mach 5" with five blades -- or maybe Gillette will skip over five and go for the even six. This could continue for years, and we can look forward to a razor that holds 12 blades, letting you shave in one stroke.

If I had the cash (and/or desire) I might look into starting my own razor company and beat them both to the puch with a five or six blade razor of my own. Why would someone buy the Mach 3 when they could buy a razor with five blades on it?

Personally, I like the Mach 3 just fine -- but even better would be a razor with one blade that actually worked, and lasted longer than a few weeks.

This same "One-upsmanship" exists in all sorts of industries. Products touting "0 Carbs" are showing up all over the place, KFC is setting the record straight, announcing that eating their fried chicken is healthy because it's a "high protein, low carb food" (they, in fact, are comparing the fried chicken to Burger King's Whopper -- where the chicken comes out essentially the better of two evils). Everything is Super-Sized and just barely better than any other competitor's product on the market.

So, what's my point? Is a world with four blade razors and zero-carb french fries better than a world with three blade razors and regular-carb fries?