tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439734.post6335120786629435816..comments2023-09-03T06:41:01.993-07:00Comments on BLOG OF SCIENCE!: Cannabalism, entropy, economics and consumerism.Dan Levitishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13581109290998307861noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439734.post-74196667867802284632008-11-21T10:10:00.000-08:002008-11-21T10:10:00.000-08:00I concede that frog illogic and algae illogic are ...I concede that frog illogic and algae illogic are different from human illogic. We are in a class of our own, I suspect.<BR/><BR/>I don't concede the sustainability of a service economy, though you should know I meant my comments only in regard to the <I>relative</I> sustainability of a service economy as compared to a manufacturing economy (which is what I interpreted you to mean). I'm not sure what you mean about what's going into and out of the box. A legal brief is rather complicated, as far as I can tell. Does that mean anything here? You'll have to explain your argument against my argument better so I can argue against you some more.jtehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17318378188704219078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439734.post-13810304440599495062008-11-18T09:09:00.000-08:002008-11-18T09:09:00.000-08:00JTE-Wrong on all three counts, and you only made t...JTE-<BR/>Wrong on all three counts, and you only made two points!<BR/>Humans and animals are certainly both prone to behaving illogically, but their patterns of illogic cannot be quite the same as ours. As you point out, our illogic is (in part) the result of the process of natural selection shaping our neurology and physiology. The same is true for other species, but other species have different evolutionary histories than we do, meaning that their neurology and physiology must have different patterns of illogic written into them than we do. <BR/>A consumer services economy is necessarily unsustainable so long as the stuff coming in has a higher degree of order than the stuff going out. What results from a consumer services industry that actually comes out of the box, rather than just circulating in the box? Heat, garbage, CO2, sulfer dioxide, debt. What goes in? Lots of stuff we have nothing to trade for except promises.Dan Levitishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13581109290998307861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439734.post-37072820447403445722008-11-17T06:59:00.000-08:002008-11-17T06:59:00.000-08:00PS: not yet back to work, but...You are right that...PS: not yet back to work, but...<BR/><BR/>You are right that economic bubbles must collapse. That does not extend to the "consumer services based economy." They are not analogous. Consumer services are no more bubblish, per se, than mining for bauxite. A bubble <I>can</I> be established that is based upon--but unsupported by--consumer service value, but consumer services do not necessary create bubbles that must burst. Consumer services are real values, as real as those from manufacturing. (Where "real" is from the realm of social relations, but no less real for that reason.)jtehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17318378188704219078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439734.post-84425009443524746902008-11-17T06:55:00.000-08:002008-11-17T06:55:00.000-08:00I'm not sure the difference between humans and oth...I'm not sure the difference between humans and other species is so great. Individual humans behave in "illogical" ways (depending on how the outside observer defines the logic--including when the observer allows the actor to define the logic for his or her self). Is that different than for, say, animals? There are general patterns of behavior, and biologists can successfully postulate evolutionary explanations for the "logic" of those patterns; but the same is true for patterns of behavior by humans--recalling, of course, that some patterns are developed under one environmental circumstance, but can linger through behavioural inertia after the circumstances change. Then it might look like pure illogic, but in the bigger picture it's just the same lag-time process that affects evolution in other spheres. Yes?<BR/><BR/>Americans are human, and so are Chinese, so what you describe in your final paragraph is not a situation of universalized cannibalism but a case in which one fraction of the total population can perhaps be described as living cannibalistically while other fractions do not. And given the porousness of the borders to economic flows, I don't see how this can be properly analogized to a population that is specializing in cannibalism.<BR/><BR/>This isn't to say that the American economy can sustain permanent trade deficits. (Nor would any economist say that it can.) (Which begs the question, then, of how the logic of economic science differs from the physical science logic you offer for biology--at least in this regard. I don't mean to suggest that economics is something other than a social science as a general rule; just that I see an overlap between that social science and that biological/thermodynamic science on this issue.)<BR/><BR/>Etc., but time to get back to work.jtehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17318378188704219078noreply@blogger.com