Newsgroup sci.econ 57620

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Mike Asher wrote:
>
> 
> Still fail to see it.  What is it?
> 
I reply:
This complaint against solar is based on the assumption that proper 
engineering cannot make (presumably active) home solar power safe.  
Say dlj takes the position that the far more difficult and long term 
engineering necessary to create safe nuclear reactors, maintain tame 
fish stocks when wild stocks are eliminated, consistently feed an 
additional 30B people, etc. is all possible.  Then being defeated by a 
comparatively simple engineering problem casts doubt that these latter 
problems can be solved (as well as hurts his credibility with the 
pro-solars), and his position can be used as a future argument against 
assertions that these more difficult problems can be solved.  This 
will hurt his credibility with the technological Utopians.
Say dlj takes the position that these other problems can't be solved.  
Then his doubt about solving even a comparatively simple problem such
as safe solar heating will do nothing but hurt his credibility 
(further) with this same group as well as with the pro-solar crowd.
Say he takes the middle ground, that some problems can be solved and 
some can't.  Well, the arguments above still hold and the only way he 
can avoid hurting his credibility is if he didn't have any to begin 
with.
Just for the record, my original comment was intended tongue-in-cheek 
because his assertion clearly lent itself to the above analysis.

Jay Hanson  wrote:
>                           The corresponding
>human population is a function of per capita rates of material
>consumption and waste output or net productivity divided by
>per capita demand (Rees 1990).  This formulation is a simple
>restatement of Hardin's (1991) "Third Law of Human Ecology":
>
>(Total human impact on the ecosphere) =
>                         (Population) x (Per capita impact).
This remarkable passage demonstrates ignorance of the meaning of
"function of", "Law" and "=".  It confuses measurement with
arithmetical tautology.  It blithly assumes that "impact" is
defineable, and that "ecosphere" is something separate from "human."
All in all quite a performance.
                              -dlj.

Jay Hanson  wrote:
>                           The corresponding
>human population is a function of per capita rates of material
>consumption and waste output or net productivity divided by
>per capita demand (Rees 1990).  This formulation is a simple
>restatement of Hardin's (1991) "Third Law of Human Ecology":
>
>(Total human impact on the ecosphere) =
>                         (Population) x (Per capita impact).
This remarkable passage demonstrates ignorance of the meaning of
"function of", "Law" and "=".  It confuses measurement with
arithmetical tautology.  It blithly assumes that "impact" is
defineable, and that "ecosphere" is something separate from "human."
All in all quite a performance.
                              -dlj.

In article <328A2FAA.6AE6@vegas.infi.net>, The Generalissimo
 writes:
>> Shake this!!  Sucker!!!
>> 
>> You sound like such a nice man!  Are you college educated???  I am
always
>> amazed at how much wisdom some people are able to impart with so few
>> words!!!
>
>And we are waiting for some from you, but they never arrive.
And, as you wait, just sit on it, Gen!!!  You seem to have a great
imagination!!  That should help in your idle pensive moments!!!
Smile awhile, and while you smile, another smiles and soon there's miles
and miles of smiles and all because you've smiled!!!!!!!!
:)"Jack":)
John H. Fisher  -  TaxService@aol.com
Philadelphia, Pa. - Atlantic City, NJ - West Wildwood, NJ
Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise!!

taxservice@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In article <328A2FAA.6AE6@vegas.infi.net>, The Generalissimo
>  writes:
> 
> >> Shake this!!  Sucker!!!
> >>
> >> You sound like such a nice man!  Are you college educated???  I am
> always
> >> amazed at how much wisdom some people are able to impart with so few
> >> words!!!
> >
> >And we are waiting for some from you, but they never arrive.
> 
> And, as you wait, just sit on it, Gen!!!  You seem to have a great
> imagination!!  That should help in your idle pensive moments!!!
> 
Could we expect a liberal to do anything other than hide under a rock?
> 
> :)"Jack":)
> 
> John H. Fisher  -  TaxService@aol.com
> Philadelphia, Pa. - Atlantic City, NJ - West Wildwood, NJ
-- 
"To its committed members ( the democratic party) was still
 the party of heart, humanity, and justice, but to those
 removed a few paces it looked like Captain Hooks crew --
ambulance chasing lawyers, rapacious public policy grants
persons, civil rights gamesmen, ditzy brained movie stars,
fat assed civil servant desk squatters, recovering alcoholics,
recovering wife beaters, recovering child-buggers, and so forth
and so on, a grotesque line up of ill mannered, self pitying,
caterwauling freeloaders banging their tin cups on the pavement 
demanding handouts". (The Washington post, 11/12/94)  Nicholas Von 
Hoffman 
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with 
another...
When a long train of abuses and usurpations, persuing invariably the 
same 
object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotisim, it is 
their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and provide 
a new guard for their future.
Thomas Jefferson
July 4, 1776

mfriesel@ix.netcom.com writes:
> Suit yourselves. But in a week one or more of you will be posting
> how technological developmenst are sure to solve some immensely more
> complicated problem.
Few things are as hard as getting people to change habits. And it is
important to succeed with it to get rid of "diffuse" pollution
sources. Its a lot easier to build say 10 complex powerplants and
train a thousand people then to get a million to change their way of
living. :(
> By the way, check out passive solar. This approach uses things like
> properly designed overhangs, oriented walls and windows, ordinary
> convection, etc. etc.
It is allways smart to use good design. Dont forget to also build it
to last a long time.
Regards,
--
--
Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
Mail: Magnus Redin, Björnkärrsgatan 11 B 20, 584 36 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600

brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears) posted this .sig:
>"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic 
>statements, and make little mention of the doubts we may have.
>Each of us has to find a balance between being effective and 
>being honest."
>     - Steven Schneider, proponent of CFC-banning.   
>	"Our Fragile Earth", Discover, Oct. 1987. pg 47
I'm glad Harold has brought attention to this stream of
environmentalist thought. It highlights the genuine contempt which
many soi-disant environmentalists hold for the rest of us.
Here in Canada there has been a recent scandal when Farley Mowat,
boozer, happy-go-lucky, nationalist agitator, and general hail-fellow
well-met, confessed to fiction in his supposedly factual book on
wolves.
The book, a marvellous tale if only because of his story of his
marking off territory by pissing on rocks, wolf style, when he lived
in the wild to study them, exculpated wolves from attacks on caribou,
said that they lived on mice, basically, and that caribou bones were
only found around human settlements.  All three of these are lies.  
It may or may not be the case that human over-hunting are a threat to
the caribou -- but this question has been obscured for the next year
or so, until Mowat's dishonesty works its way through the system and
through the public's consciousness.  In the meantime, if there is harm
being done to the caribou, Mowat is the person responsible for it.
                                         -dlj.

Santa Exploits Elves!
The early Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (now New York) revived the
memory of a (perhaps mythical) Saint Nicholas from the 4th or 5th century
AD, and transformed him into Santa Claus. He supposedly supervised
Elves in the production of toys for children, and personally delivered 
them all over the world using a reindeer pulled flying sled.
This was seen as being a GOOD thing at the time: the children got the 
toys and it didn't cost anything.
But today, if he  were to do that, Santa would find that attitudes had
changed, and he would be in trouble on several fronts. The toy
manufacturers would protest that he was providing unfair competition, and
organized labor would agree, and  demand that he pay union wages to his
elves.
The US government would insist on minimum wages for the elves, and
want to verify their green cards, if the toy factory was in Alaska.   
There would likely be some concern expressed over his relationship with
the little elves, and rumors that he must be some sort of a pervert.
And he is the wrong race. Now US law does not permit anyone but
certified "Native Americans" to own reindeer. 
Times have changed.
-- 
                     ,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___( O O )___ooo_______________
                       (_)
         jim blair        (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu)
for a good time, call http://www.execpc.com/~jeblair/

>- you have a higher assault rate than america
>        - you have a higher burglary rate than america
>        - you can learn it from any pair of almanacs
I was away for a while, so I thought this was a statement about Russia
but it seems we are comparing Canada with some other country. 
Well, guys, there were so many myths and misconceptions that 
I enjoyed hearing about life in Canada (there is 100 million 
people living here, we have wild animals walking through Toronto, 
there is snow here 11 and a half months in a year so we only drive 
snowmobiles, etc etc) but this one beats them all. I guess the
american press (was this Forbes?) did not have almanacs available 
to look these hard facts up, so they went and voted Toronto 
the best city to live in the world. This was based apparently on a 
low crime rate (little did they know), education, standard of 
living etc. We should write to them and
straigthen them out.  anna. 

There is only one thing actually false in Ehrlich's story of the bet.
Having to pay more than $500 on a $1,000 futures contract is not "a
small sum" relative to the size of the contract.  The tale is fuzzy in
other ways than not mentioning how much Ehrlich had to pay.  Of
course, for a man who got a $350,000 prize for making repeated false
predictions, $500 is a small sum.  To mention only the false
prediction in _The Population Bomb_ is again fuzzing up matters.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.

In article <01bbd111$52af73e0$89d0d6cc@masher>,
   "Mike Asher"  wrote:
>mfriesel@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>> > 
>> > The deaths from people falling off roofs will dwarf the 
casualties
>> > from nuclear power, Chernobyl included.
>> > 
>> Replies like this won't do much for your credibility.
>
>Unfortunately, this is true.   Risk analysis studies rate solar 
power as
>more dangerous than coal or nuclear.
>
	This is hilarious!  Solar power more dangerous than
nuclear power.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!  I suggest you check out any
book critical of risk analysis to get a more objective picture
of the situation.  A good start might be Perrin's _Normal
Accidents_, (Perrin served as a consultant to the commission
on the TMI incident).  Perrin summarizes some of the conventional
arguments against current forms of risk analysis as well as 
adding some devastating ones of his own.
Mike

With Christmas fast approaching I might as well post the same thing
that gets me in trouble every year.  (Why limit it to personal
acquaitances, let everbody on the net go for my throat.)
	Nobdody ever really seems to address an obvious consequence of the Sant
Claus Conspiracy.  But, all the adults have conspired to con kids into
beliveing that if they are good, (i.e. of worth), Santa will reward them
at Chritmas.
        WELL HELLO!!!!  Any idea why kids who grow up poor and nvere get
anything from Santa, go on to feel worthless, hopeless and end up in
jail or on the dole forever.
	Making a foolish asssumption, I would say that the majority of people
reading this, as they have some means of support sufffiecent to have
internet access, probably didn't get "Forgotten by Santa" as. kids
	So, before you go and continue the conspiracy with your own kids,
remember that for every child this lie makes happy, at least one will
suufer severly for it. (Santa = (1 lie + 1 happy child deceived=1 crying
child.)
-- 
John Reder (jreder@tiac.net)              
             _\|/_
            (o   o)
   -----o00-(_)-00o------------------------

In article <328952A1.2A4D@ix.netcom.com> mfriesel@ix.netcom.com writes:
>dlj wrote:
>> Home solar and wind power is the most dangerous idea since the
>> back-yard swimming poool, a major menace to life and limb.
>Unable to engineer a solution to even this simple a problem?  No faith 
>in technology?  Don't think a few billion more people can come up with 
>the solution? 
A few *trillion* people can't repeal the law of gravity.  Roof workers 
have one of the highest Workers' Compensation rates because of 
their high accident rate, resulting in death or permanent back and neck 
injuries.   These are the professionals.  Imagine a few billion amateurs 
up there.  
Ron Hickman
-
Ron Hickman 

In article <56d2l3$k1q@agate.berkeley.edu>,
   atanu@are.Berkeley.EDU (Atanu Dey) wrote:
>Bruce Scott TOK (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de) wrote:
>: Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
>
>: [argument with set of figures leaving out 1995 omitted]
>
>: : As an aside, I will note that the majority of agricultural land in the
>: : world is farmed with low-tech inefficient methods.  Expantion of the use 
of
>: : modern agriculture, new species, and good infrastructure, can more than
>: : double world food production.  All without an additional acre being 
farmed,
>: : though, in the US at least, agricultural land usage has been on the 
decline
>: : for many years.   Perhaps you have some statistics here?
>
>: You are welcome to calculate the increase of the crude oil drawdown rate
>: if the rest of the world farms the way the US does.
>
	Define "efficiency" please?  Is using heavily subsidized oil and
water to increase yields "efficient?"  As Arnold Pacey points out in _The
Culture of Technology_, from the yield/hectare standpoint capital-intensive
farming is more "efficient," but from the energy input/yield standpoint,
low-tech, labor intensive farming is more efficient, many times more, in fact.
There are no grounds for choosing either as a measure of efficiency, 
efficiency is a social or ideological value, not a scientific one.
(Of course, the above does not take into account the massive subsidies the oil 
industry gets. If you look in _Federal Energy Subsidies: 1992_, put out by the 
EIA of the US Energy Dept., you'll find that the oil indusrty as a whole has 
paid no net taxes every year since WWI, when the drilling credits were 
passed, according to a CBO study cited in the aforementioned tome.)
Mike

In <56apr7$o8i@newsy.ifm.liu.se> redin@lysator.liu.se (Magnus Redin) writes:
...
>Isent Davids point correct?
>It is dangerous to climb around on roofs, check any nearby statistics.
....
Radiation causes cancer. And many other diseases. People in Chernobyl'
could tell you a lot about it.
Ari Solovyova

In article ,
Jeff Potter   wrote:
>I have some Homework that i'm not to sure about.  If anyone can help me
>out it would be greatly apprecitated.
>
>A monopolist sells three consumers with the following demand curves:
>Q1=120-5P, Q2=50-10P, Q3=150-5p.  She/He produces the good with a
>technology that has the following cost structure: TC = 8 + 4Q2, MC=8Q
Why is it that in homework problems, dMC/dQ is always positive, at
least for large Q?  Is this a reasonable model of reality?

In article <56cli6$b34@news.inforamp.net>,
David Lloyd-Jones  wrote:
>I want to encourage the Chicken Little folks to recognise the dangers
>built into the "simple" technologies they advocate.  Somehow they keep
>forgeting the ambulance and the emergency room built into their way of
>doing things.
Except that people are already up on their roofs for lots of other things
already, including shingling, gutter work, chimneys and TV antennas. The
extra trips required for solar would seem like a very small blip in the
statistics.
A long time ago, I did in fact take a fall from a one story roof, and
while I would not care to repeat this experience, I was uninjured.
At the time, I was installing a wood stove, so I guess this would
count as an alternative energy, but most trips to the roof involve
very mundane things that have nothing to do with my solar panels.
Most important precautions would probably be rubber soles, well secured
ladder and a method of moving materials to and from the roof without
carrying them up the ladder. Compared to really dangerous stuff such
as driving a car and occasionally riding a bicycle though, this really
seems like small potatoes, and any risk assumed is purely voluntary.
>                                -dlj.

In article <01bbd0d6$0771d520$89d0d6cc@masher>,
   "Mike Asher"  wrote:
>John McCarthy  wrote:
>>  
>> I am unable to accede to Jay Hanson's request that I not 
comment on
>> his posts.  When I read a post that I consider mistaken, 
I respond to
>> it for what I imagine to be the benefit of the audience. 
 Sometimes it
>> benefits the poster, but I am ready to give up on Jay 
Hanson changing
>> his mind on anything.
>> 
>
>I pointed out to Hanson that his definition of carrying 
capacity was
>mistaken; I got an insult and a kill-file threat for my 
trouble...via
>private email!   If Mr. Hanson would kill-file everyone who 
points out his
>mistakes, he could avoid being upset so often.   His temper 
tantrums lend
>little weight to his statements.
>
That may be so, but I am just onery enough to want to "gig" 
him on a regular basis.  Ha ha!

In article 
,
   l.mcfadden@mail.utexas.edu (Loretta McFadden) wrote:
>Harold wrote:
>> USDA has been studying soil erosion for years, and would 
like nothing
>> more than to prove it to be a large problem, and hence 
generator of
>> programs for them to administer.  Their survey found the 
average loss
>> to be 7 tons a year per acre of farmland, while natural 
regeneration
>> runs at 5 tons a year/acre.  Call it a net loss of 2 tons 
per acre.
>> Two tons an acre is 1/65 of an inch.  Thus, in 65 years, 
the average
>> farmland will lose 1 inch of topsoil.  Assuming it has 
been farmed the
>> entire 65 years.  Some fallow years will make up for this 
loss.
>> 
>Harold - "natural regeneration?" And how many conventional 
farmers add
>anything but petroleum-derived fertilizers, herbicides and 
pesticides to
>their soil? Tell me, what do you know about farming and the 
pressures
>conventional farmers are under to strip-mine the soil? 
"Fallow years?"
>You're sticking your head in that denatured soil and 
closing your eyes to
>reality. 
>
>You make assertions, present no references, state that even 
the press agrees
>> with you (like that's a good reference!), then question 
the motive of
>> the character of the previous poster. 
>
>You're right - other than name some publications, I 
couldn't be specific
>about studies, stats, numbers - so I'll butt out and leave 
you to be
>refuted by the people who've got the information at their 
fingertips. Of
>which there are many, I see. My point about the mainstream 
press is that
>they're generally unimaginative, unquestioning and not 
interested in any
>new information unless they're cudgeled over the head with 
it - like alot
>of people who prefer not to face the damage we've done to 
our world. 
>
>Betsy
Oooo!  An assertive female!  Go for it, Betsy.  BTW, if you 
want to lock horns with Harold, you better have your facts 
straight before you begin.

In article <328a0115.512954578@nntp.st.usm.edu>,
   brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears) wrote:
>l.mcfadden@mail.utexas.edu (Loretta McFadden) wrote for all 
to see:
>
>>Harold wrote:
>>> USDA has been studying soil erosion for years, and would 
like nothing
>>> more than to prove it to be a large problem, and hence 
generator of
>>> programs for them to administer.  Their survey found the 
average loss
>>> to be 7 tons a year per acre of farmland, while natural 
regeneration
>>> runs at 5 tons a year/acre.  Call it a net loss of 2 
tons per acre.
>>> Two tons an acre is 1/65 of an inch.  Thus, in 65 years, 
the average
>>> farmland will lose 1 inch of topsoil.  Assuming it has 
been farmed the
>>> entire 65 years.  Some fallow years will make up for 
this loss.
>>> 
>>Harold - "natural regeneration?" And how many conventional 
farmers add
>>anything but petroleum-derived fertilizers, herbicides and 
pesticides to
>>their soil? Tell me, what do you know about farming and 
the pressures
>>conventional farmers are under to strip-mine the soil? 
"Fallow years?"
>>You're sticking your head in that denatured soil and 
closing your eyes to
>>reality. 
>
>I am sorry you are unaware of the use of modern 
conservation tillage.
>Few farmers wish to "strip mine" the soil, though I am sure 
that this
>situation does occur.
>
>Are you actually Shiela, better known as the Word Warrior? 
 She had a
>similar debating style; attack character and intelligence, 
make
>assertions, present no references.
I don't believe it!  There is a female Nudds in the world.  
Heaven help us all!

briand@net-link.net (Brian Carnell) wrote:
>On 11 Nov 1996 06:29:20 GMT, jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy)
>wrote:
>>
>>I do not agree with what I take to be one of Julian Simon's sometime
>>points - that there are no limits at all.  I do accept his evidence
>>that we aren't close.
>
>Agreed.
>
If the approach to a limit is asymptotic, the time to get there is
infinite.  In this sense there are no exhaustible supplies of
anything.
To think that supplies are exhaustible requires the fallacy of
applying free goods arithmetic to economically costed and priced
processes.
                                 -dlj.

George Mobus wrote:
> 
> The term growth is
> generally applied to some measurable parameter relative to a bounded
> structure.  
Does your generality apply to "growth in economic well-being"?
> Improvement is a more nebulous concept that is more often in the
> eye of the beholder...   
The average citizen on this planet doesn't eat as well as the average
house pet in America; the average citizen would like to improve that
situation.  Are you calling that "nebulous"?  
> Just what is growing?
> 
Production of goods and services which improve people's economic
well-being, as decided by the people themselves.  
-- Steve
*-----------------------------------------------------------*
 "The problem of the economists is that despite years of 
  effort to predict economic change, they remain nearly 
  oblivious to the vital processes of innovation and new 
  company formation that constitute economic development."
  --George Gilder
 "Nothing is more conducive to progress than the widespread 
  belief that it can occur."
  --Charles Van Doren
*-----------------------------------------------------------*

jim blair  wrote:
>Santa Exploits Elves!
>
>The early Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (now New York) revived the
>memory of a (perhaps mythical) Saint Nicholas from the 4th or 5th century
>AD, and transformed him into Santa Claus. He supposedly supervised
>Elves in the production of toys for children, and personally delivered 
>them all over the world using a reindeer pulled flying sled.
>
>This was seen as being a GOOD thing at the time: the children got the 
>toys and it didn't cost anything.
>
>But today, if he  were to do that, Santa would find that attitudes had
>changed, and he would be in trouble on several fronts. The toy
>manufacturers would protest that he was providing unfair competition, and
>organized labor would agree, and  demand that he pay union wages to his
>elves.
There is in fact a good argument that we should not allow the import
of toys made abroad by child labor.  Children in third world countries
should not be allowed to take jobs away from adults, any more than
that should be allowed here.  Adults should not be allowed to take
children away from schooling, however humble it be.
We will keep buying the toys, even if it costs a bit more to check
that they come from adult labor.  The long run gains in educating the
present generation's children, anround the world, is well worth while.
Good try, jeb, but your joke just isn't funny.
                                    -dlj.

David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) wrote:
: >Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
: >: As an aside, I will note that the majority of agricultural land in the
: >: world is farmed with low-tech inefficient methods.  Expantion of the use of
: >: modern agriculture, new species, and good infrastructure, can more than
: >: double world food production.  All without an additional acre being farmed,
: >: though, in the US at least, agricultural land usage has been on the decline
: >: for many years.   Perhaps you have some statistics here?
: >
: >You are welcome to calculate the increase of the crude oil drawdown rate
: >if the rest of the world farms the way the US does.
: There is nothing here about the rest of the world farming "the way the
: US does."  Feeding chemical fed corn to cattle is a singularly stupid
: way of both using land and feeding people.
But Mike is quoting North American yields.  That means North American methods.
: The major hindrances to the productivity of land are the lack of
: potassium and of nitrogen.  The United States burned its eastern
: forests to export potash to Europe, then conquered the Pacific to get
: the islands it authorised itself to seize under the Guano ct of 1899.
It is good to see the truth here.  No platitudes about democracy here.
: Modern agriculture -- modern, not American, being Asher's keyword --
: replaces these olde tyme moves with the simple strewing of phosphate
: rock, available in vast quantities in Saskatchewan, Idaho, California,
: Peru, and elsewhere.
:  
: In American agriculture the main source of nitrogen is ammonia, which
: used to be made out of electricity, and is today made more cheaply
: from natural gas.  This is not the only way of doing it. India and
: China both built large populations on small land areas by planting
: nitrogen fixing plants, lentils and soybeans, respectively. 
I repeat my comment about energy stocks.  I note that it went unanswered.
: It will be a quick fix, literally, in Sudan once the civil war ends,
: to alternate soybeans with millet on the Bor uplands.  This will mean
: an immediate, cheap, and huge improvement of productivity; the
: necessary survey work has already been done, by satellite, and is on
: file on the Internet at University of Arizona.  My partner's family,
: those who have not been murdered by the government, own some of the
: land, and bide their time in universities in Europe, Canada, Botswana.
Yes, landowners.  What will be left for those who have had their land
confiscated?  
: I think there is an automatic Nobel Prize in either chemistry of peace
: for the person who comes up with the nitrogen-fixing grain, tuber, or
: fruit tree.  As genetic engineering -- think of it as a new kind of
: biodiversity -- proceeds, I expect these prizes to be claimed over the
: next few years.
It is nice to hope.  In the meantime, I'll let you eat all that lovely
Monsanto gentech grain.  If they aren't too cowardly to mark it, we can
both have the type we want.
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron:       http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/

mobus@sanjuan.cs.wwu.edu (George Mobus) wrote:
>In article <56bj78$o18@news.inforamp.net> dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)  
>writes:
>>  
>>                              * * *
>>  
>> You ask for "no more quips," but you evade my suggestion that limits
>> to growth implies the idea that the world cannot be improved, and that
>
>Unfortunately I did not save the original post in this thread so I can't quote  
>it here.  
George,
You would make more sense if you didn't jump in in the middle of
sentences.
>   If you have it and can show me where I am wrong, via email or in  
>this forum, please do so.  At any rate, I do not recall the suggestion in that  
>post that the "growth" referred to "improvement" per se.  The term growth is  
>generally applied to some measurable parameter relative to a bounded  
>structure.  Improvement is a more nebulous concept that is more often in the  
>eye of the beholder.  I did not take the original post to be questioning the  
>idea that improvement (in the sense of evolution or increasing complexity with  
>stability) could not take place.  I've never understood the term 'economic  
>growth' as it seems to be commonly used.  Is it growth of the money supply  
>(with coupled devaluation perhaps), is it growth of GDP (coupled with  
>increases in consumption).  Just what is growing?
GNP.
>> this is in fact a blasphemy, an assertion that mankind has reached the
>> peak of perfection.  This is not a "quip."  It is a serious
>> accusation, that the doom and gloom set have arrogated to themselves
>> the moral position of judges over all, even if it puts them in the
>> self-contradictory position of saying that a flawed world is perfect
>> because is is unimprovable.
>This seems an overly strong reaction to what seemed to me a perfectly  
>legitimate, open and honest inquiry.  How do you get from a question about the  
>nature of growth in natural systems (and I take the economy to be a natural if  
>poorly understood system) which, so far as we know, seem not to grow without  
>limit, to charges of blasphemy?  Quite a leap of assumption it seems to me.
It wasn't a _reaction_ to your enquiry.  It was the major point of my
original point about which you were "enquiring" or which you were
attacking, and which you glissaded over.
                                    -dlj.

John McCarthy (jmc@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
: It is useless to complain about insult from Nudds and Friesel and
: Mason.  They prefer flame wars to discussions of fact, as you can see
: from the answers to your last post.
I agree, except for the set of flamers.  You should drop Friesel from
that list, and add a few others.  Particularly those employing smear
tactics (eg, 'nazi' or 'racist').
--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de
Remember John Hron:       http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hron-john/

ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) wrote:
>
>And sure, people don't eat that much fish (it's so expensive, after all).
>I'm not claiming that it would be a big deal if no fish was ever 
>caught again -- there's plenty of chicken.  But it would be kind of 
>a waste, and I like eating fish.
Lemme see now, there's "Chicken of the Sea" tuna -- and then in the
Buddhist countries you're not supposed to eat pigs, so pork is called
mountain whale.  I guess we can assume the soybean folks will come up
with artificial surimi...  :-)
                          Cheers,
                             -dlj.

Alastair McKinstry wrote:
> 
> What resources have we created ?
Alastair,
First of all, technology DEFINES what's a resource and what isn't.  On a
south seas island, palm leaves represent a roof-making resource -- that
is, until a missionary brings corrugated tin.  
Secondly, technology defines the SUPPLY of any given resource.  Before
the Arab oil embargo in 1974, we could drive x miles on a dollar's worth
of gasoline.  Then the Arabs cut off what they thought was the "supply";
which prompted the Japanese, Americans, and Germans to perfect fuel
injection technology -- thereby doubling gas mileage in a few years. 
Result: we could still drive x miles on a dollar's worth of gasoline, in
spite of the doubling of gasoline's price.  
These examples were borrowed from Paul Zane Pilzer's book, _Unlimited
Wealth_.  I highly recommend it.
-- Steve
*-----------------------------------------------------------*
 "The problem of the economists is that despite years of 
  effort to predict economic change, they remain nearly 
  oblivious to the vital processes of innovation and new 
  company formation that constitute economic development."
  --George Gilder
 "Nothing is more conducive to progress than the widespread 
  belief that it can occur."
  --Charles Van Doren
*-----------------------------------------------------------*

Michael Turton wrote:
>>Unfortunately, this is true.   Risk analysis studies rate solar
>> power as more dangerous than coal or nuclear.
>
>This is hilarious!  Solar power more dangerous than
>nuclear power.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
My source is "Energy Risk Assessment" Herbert Inhaber, 1983,  Gordon &
Breach.  Solar power is rated far more dangerous than nuclear, and even
more so than coal, with its deaths from lung disease and mining accidents.
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. 
The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into
practice what these peddlers and pen-pushers have timidly begun.... "
  - Hitler to Rauschning

On Tue, 12 Nov 1996 10:31:38 -0500, l.mcfadden@mail.utexas.edu
(Loretta McFadden) wrote:
>Biggest question of all - why are you on this list? Is it just
>to bait people who acknowledge these facts? 
Can't take disagreement?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Carnell                   http://www.carnell.com/
brian@carnell.com   

Hickman says:
> 
> A few *trillion* people can't repeal the law of gravity.  Roof workers
> have one of the highest Workers' Compensation rates because of
> their high accident rate, resulting in death or permanent back and neck
> injuries.   These are the professionals.  Imagine a few billion amateurs
> up there.
> 
I reply:
Well, guess you guys best forget about safe nuclear, safe waste 
storage and transport, solving food shortage problems with 
agro-engineering, replacing wild fish stock with farm-raised fish, 
extracting little bits of Uranium from ordinary rock, etc., etc.  You 
don't seem to think it possible to design a simple solar home without 
causing people to fall off the roof all the time (getting back to the 
issue from the above tangent).

Hi, all.
I'm looking for a good, comprehensive resource on the causes of the 
Great Depression. Is there a good consensus as to what really
was the cause? I've read Ravi Batra. good book, but wrong ( so far ). 
I accept the possibility that no good, comprehensive resource exists.
I also accept the possibility that no coherent cause for the depression
exists.
Personally, I think Prohibition caused it ( burp! ).
Please copy answers via email. 
-- 
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
- Shakespeare quote at end of "Runaway Train" - taken from Richard III
Les Cargill 608 Thoreau Lane Allen, Tx 75002

bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) wrote:
>I repeat my comment about energy stocks.  I note that it went unanswered.
Energy is not a stock, it's a flow.  Incoming sun is a high fraction
of a horsepower per square yard.  Uranium and geothermal are both
there for the next few billion years.  In due course we shall no doubt
tap the solar wind.  In the meantime, we've got enough gas, oil, coal
and peat to last us a few hundred years at an American scale of
consumption, unlikely though that scale is to become general.
Not a problem.
                            -dlj.

Magnus Redin wrote:
>
> 
> Few things are as hard as getting people to change habits. And it is
> important to succeed with it to get rid of "diffuse" pollution
> sources. Its a lot easier to build say 10 complex powerplants and
> train a thousand people then to get a million to change their way of
> living. :(
I reply:
Nahh, it's a design problem, and it's much easier, just for example, 
to design a home solar panel that doesn't require you to get on the 
roof.  You won't get management of these complex powerplants to change 
their habits either, nor the tendency of their masters to look at 
short-term profit at the expense of safety.
M.R. says:
> 
> It is allways smart to use good design. Dont forget to also build it
> to last a long time.
> 
I agree.

Magnus Redin wrote:
> 
> Jay Hanson  writes:
> 
> > While the dollar price of extracting minerals may have been falling,
> > the energy cost of extracting minerals is steadily climbing -- as
> > the laws of thermodynamics predict that it will. 
Huh? The laws of thermodynamics predict no such thing! "Energy" costs
are really fuel costs, which are more sensitive to politics than 
scarcity.
Another contribution is probably made by the fact that mining older 
mines costs more. 
Yet another "Life's an endless cycle of death and decay" site. 
Call Oliver Stone. Maybe he'll make a movie out of it.
See:
> > http://www.aloha.net/~jhanson/metal.gif
> 
> What if that is correct? Run a power line to the nearest hydro
> powerplant, nuclar powerplant, or large windmill farm and perhaps in a
> few decaed solar powerplant. Problem solved. And if there is no power
> nearby build a powerplant. The easets to find suitable nearby
> locations for are probably nuclear powerplants.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> --
> --
> Magnus Redin  Lysator Academic Computer Society  redin@lysator.liu.se
> Mail: Magnus Redin, Björnkärrsgatan 11 B 20, 584 36 LINKöPING, SWEDEN
> Phone: Sweden (0)13 260046 (answering machine)  and  (0)13 214600
-- 
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
- Shakespeare quote at end of "Runaway Train" - taken from Richard III
Les Cargill 608 Thoreau Lane Allen, Tx 75002

Alastair McKinstry  wrote:
> 
> Yes, at current usages there is an "almost infinite" amount of Uranium
out
> there. However this is not a new situation; in 1890 the amount of oil
> present was billions of times the annual oil usage, too.
> 
> The annual oil usage went up exponentially. The amount of recoverable oil
> went up too, as we developed better recovery techniques. But it only went
up
> polynomially, not exponentially.
> 
> As long as we have exponential growth in the usage of the material, the
only
> thing that matters is that the volume is finite.
> 
Good heavens!  If you're going to take that tack, then we better not use
solar power; after all, the sun is only good for another couple of billion
years.
> Ultimately there is a fixed input of energy to Earth from the Sun; there
is a
> fixed supply of minerals on the planet. Maximising the efficient use of
those
> resources is where our wits come in; many (in fact most) civilisations
have
> failed in this regard. But we must recognise this fact.
Why must we stop with the resouces on this world?
--
Mike Asher
masher@tusc.net
"A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither
equality nor freedom."
Milton Friedman 

Alastair McKinstry  wrote:
>The annual oil usage went up exponentially. The amount of recoverable oil 
>went up too, as we developed better recovery techniques. But it only went up
>polynomially, not exponentially.
He wrote it again and again.  He did not, however, supply any
evidence.
The fact is oil use has declined several times in the period.  It has
gone sideways a great deal.  The exponential versus polynomial
contrast is a piece of bogus scientism of the worst kind.  Sounds
impressive, but none of it is true.
There are all kinds of countervailing pressures to growth, including
stupidity, wish for relaxation, lack of cultural aptitude, and sheer
satiety.  On the other hand it is obvious from any back of the
envelope calculation that we can feed ourselves at a healthy Japanese
level, and make the energy to live in great wealth -- even using the
technologies we have today.
Of course the doom-sayers may prevent us from doing so, in which case
it will be the poor who suffer, as always.
                                      -dlj.

jeblair@earth.execpc.com (Je Blair) writes:
>B. From my original post: an elderly couple with a low income who own their
>own home with no desire to move. The more the value of their house
>increases, the higher their property tax bill, and the less they have to
>spend. For them, the richer they are, the less they can afford. This is
>especially a problem in Wisconsin where a modest home can have property
>taxes of $3-4,000 per year, and is rising rapidly every year.
Let's deal with this fascist statement analytically:  Why did the
property taxes go up?
POLITICIANS DROVE OUT ALL THE INDUSTRY
1.  Typically, this happens because people vote and rig zoning laws to
drive all businesses out of their city.  I know, because my hometown
is the property-tax capital of america, for this reason. I have a
feeling it's this way in liberal Wisconsin, too.  Now, elderly people
vote in the largest numbers of any segment of the population.  If
their taxes are high, they have nobody to blame but themselves, since
they (1) drove out all the businesses, (2) failed to vote themselves a
tax break.  Typically, these people want something for nothing : a
bedroom city, free of any traffic or noise or pollution that comes
with a productive economy.  These people, with political power, are
culpable for making the city a jobless place, and they want an
exemption from the after-effects of the mischief they helped to
cause...
PROPERTY TAXES WENT UP
2.  Property taxes may go up after voter referendums, they go up
because people elect politicians who raise taxes, they go up because a
previous generation neglected to pay their fair share.  In most if not
all cases, the elderly couple had political power in years past to
stop this, and they did not, and/or they did not pay their fair share
in the past, and are being asked to make up for the shortfall...
HOUSING VALUES WENT UP
3.  BECAUSE OF INFLATION.  Let's take a look at the value of houses in
the last 20 years.  They have exploded in value.  Housing tracked
inflation, inflation was high.  If this elderly couple was smart they
bought in the 1960's or early 1970's, and inflation GAVE THEM A FREE
HOUSE !!!  Hell, my mom bought a house worth nearly $200k now, she
finished paying for it eight years ago; her loan payment was ~$212/mo.
So, now that these elderly people have a free house - they paid for
less than half of it -- you are saying that we should lock-in their
windfall by somehow exempting them from their fair share of property
taxes ???  Are you serious ???
4.  BECAUSE OF CHANGED LAND-USE.  During their working lives, this
couple undoubtedly lived near the city center, which is where housing
values most likely to appreciate.  Now that they are retired, these
rich retired bastards are displacing young people who have to live
hours away and commute for hours every day, and the entire economy
runs WORSE because these elderly people stay at the city center.  Or,
they might be displacing higher-density affordable housing or some
other potential business, and unemployment among the young is at
near-record levels -- again they are indirectly hurting the young.
They should sell and get out of the way.  There are a million nice
places to live in this world if you have a pot of cash.  They had all
the advantages of living close to the city center for much of their
lives; now these greedy old people want to displace other people and
make them suffer to edify themselves.
WHAT THEY CAN DO
They can reverse mortgage some of their house and use some of its
capital to pay the property taxes.  In nearly all cases, after paying
the taxes over many years, they have still earned tax-free
appreciation on their home.
Or, they could sell the house and move elsewhere.  This is a good idea
if they are displacing other people or businesses : they may be greedy
anti-social elderly people, making others suffer because they are
stubborn and inflexible.  They should mend their ways...

Nassim Taleb  writes:
>I am interested in a poweful times series package for a non-programmer? 
>What is the most widely used out there? Is Gauss a good package?
>Nassim Taleb
>Taleb Research
	If you are a non-programmer, then Gauss is about the worst that
you can do. It has an extremely steep learning curve, though it's great
power and versatility are well worth it. Perhaps something simpler like
TSP, of which there is an ever easier version (sort-of) called Micro TSP
to start out on. The makers of Micro, however, recently turned out their
new Windows version called E-Views, which has a lot of nice new feature
(like I hear it can run the Johanson procedure for testing for
cointegration really easily).
	Jim in Boulder

Steinn Sigurdsson (steinn@sandy.ast.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
: What I'm asking is "same" defined consistently.
: That is when evaluating "fish" prices, do the good
: people adding up the CPI(fish) separate out
: Mackerel fillets and Lousiana Spiced Mackerel fillets
: (to use DLJs example). If you sell 1000tons of plain
: Mackerel one year and 500 tons plain and 500 tons
: Loisiana at three times the price, will that show
: up as a rise in the cost of "fish", or not?

Much of what you say is true, and your analysis of the
caveats involved in using price information to measure
resource scarcity are well taken.
Why, then, are the Simonites so cavalier about using
price *decreases* as evidence for resource abundance?
You can't have it both ways, and the same caveats
apply in both cases.
In fact, of course, price variations are a very *poor*
measure of abundance or sustainability. The physical
data are far more reliable. That is, the best way to
measure the abundance of fish is to count the fish.
Bo