[FRIAM] ill-conceived question

[Sarbajit Roy]

Its a variation on Parkinson's Law   (work expands to fill the time) ...
"Economies expand to keep their populations sedated"

On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 10:17 PM 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/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ...
>> .... . ...
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>
>
> --
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 505 670-9918
> .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ...
> .... . ...
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200503/09168e9b/attachment.html>