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 <thompnicks...@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 > > thompnicks...@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
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