mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan) (02/10/85)
Given Martin Taylor's leisure-subsidy plan, the economically
efficacious thing for the worker to do is train for a profession which he
can expect to soon become obsolete. Wonderful.
Back later,
Daniel Kian Mc Kiernanmmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (02/15/85)
> Given Martin Taylor's leisure-subsidy plan, the economically >efficacious thing for the worker to do is train for a profession which he >can expect to soon become obsolete. Wonderful. > > Back later, > Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan It might be so. Is that so bad, if we all benefit from that choice? Also, there is a flaw in asserting that people normally choose the "economically efficacious" thing to do. That's a matter of psychology rather than mathematics, and people choose what to do for a lot of reasons. I suspect that most people would choose a job that made them feel wanted and useful to one that paid substantially more. On a more theoretical note, this exchange illuminates what I think to be a serious problem with McK's style of argument. The assumptions are clean, the arguments mathematical and possibly correct; but they don't apply to the nasty real complex world as closely as he would have us believe. Logic works well within its realm, but when carried too far from its foundational assumptions, it can lead to grandly fallacious results. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt
jlup@cci-bdc.UUCP (John Lupien ) (02/16/85)
<YUMMY!!!> > Given Martin Taylor's leisure-subsidy plan, the economically > efficacious thing for the worker to do is train for a profession which he > can expect to soon become obsolete. Wonderful. No, although the above could be usefully construed as representing an attempt at humor, it is not a fair assessment of Mr. Taylor's plan. The *personally* efficacious thing might be as you say. However, what a person does is up to them. The *economically* efficacious path would be to work on a widget machine to produce more leasure oppor- tunities<HUMOR<attempt>>. -John Lupien The above expressed opinions are my opinions. They may or may not correspond with the opinions of any other person, living or dead. <imaginary data>