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From: condict@csd1.UUCP (Michael Condict)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Money not "wasted" on silos and space
Message-ID: <136@csd1.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Dec-83 17:21:59 EST
Article-I.D.: csd1.136
Posted: Sun Dec  4 17:21:59 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Dec-83 22:57:38 EST
References: <536@dciem.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 34

Martin Taylor appears to provide examples of exactly the sort of ivory-tower,
blind-to-the-obvious reasoning that I was complaining about in my original
note about the economic uselessness of useless things.

First he says that my logic (which concluded that materials and labor spent on
useless things lower the amount of materials and labor available for useful
things) is refutable, because "structure" has "value" too.  This sort
of jargon makes me exasperated, not to say frustrated.  Of course bridges and
roads require materials and labor to keep in repair.  But in that respect they
are just like tv sets, which we buy every so often because they wear out.  If
there is something special about "infrastructure" and the way it relates to my
logic, he did not point it out.

Second, he throws in a metaphor about the economy being like a heat engine.  My
first reaction is that metaphors are for people who want to prove something
about A but can't, so they say A is like B and then prove it about B.  If you
can't see anything suspicious about this reasoning send me mail and I'll prove
to you that 1=0.  My second reaction to this particular metaphor was, okay,
let's accept it for the moment and see what happens.  Well, when I'm using a
heat engine, I don't want any of its output to go to useless things (like
running the air-conditioner in my car with the windows wide open).  Rather, I
want all of it to be used for, say, making me go faster.  The reason I feel
this way sounds remarkably like my logic in my previous message:  my heat engine
converts fuel to work at a limited rate, and in some circumstances, this rate
is inadequate (I love acceleration), so naturally I don't want to reduce the
rate at which useful work is performed by wasting some of it.

Finally, Mr. Taylor's aruments about loops and working fluids in the economic
heat engine were obtuse far beyond my poor abilities to make intelligent
responses to them, so I won't, except to say (humorously) that it sounds like
he is claiming that the economy is fuel-injected and turbo-charged.

M. Condict	...!cmcl2!csd1!condict
Courant Inst., New York U.