[FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Russ Abbott]

Nick, What lessons do you take away from the rat experiment? Certainly,
breeders can use space differently from natural populations. But that isn't
surprising. If the natural density of a rat population is 200/quarter acre,
what do you make of that, and why do you think it's important?

P.S. I'm assuming that we don't have to argue too much about what "natural
density" means. Of course, it will differ depending on circumstances such
as weather, food availability, etc. But I assume that's not your point.

-- Russ Abbott
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles


On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 9:47 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nick,
>
> I suspect that if people only did what they 'need to do' the economy would
> collapse.
>
> On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 10:34 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> I have asked this question before and nobody has responded (for clear and
>> good reasons, no doubt) but I thought I would ask it again.  What exactly
>> is this economy we are bent on reviving?  What exactly is the difference in
>> human activity between our present state and a revived economy.  We can go
>> to bars and concerts and football games?  Is that the economy we are
>> reviving?  It seems to me that the difference between a “healty” economy
>> and our present status consists possibly in nothing more than a lot of
>> people frantically rushing about doing things they don’t really need to
>> do?
>>
>>
>>
>> You recall that I invoked as a model that experiment in which 24 rats
>> were put in a quarter acre enclosure in Baltimore and fed and watered and
>> protected to see how the population would develop.  They never got above
>> two hundred.  Infant mortality, etc., was appalling.  Carnage.  In the same
>> space, a competent lab breeding organization could have kept a population
>> of tens of thousands.
>>
>>
>>
>> Don’t yell at me.  What fundamental proposition about economics do I not
>> understand?
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
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