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At last a thread that draws a response out of me. If my
response seems scattered, well, sue me...
I once failed a World Civ class because I could not believe
that Rudyard Kipling wrote "The White Man's Burden" as anything but
satire. I have come to understand that the human mind is quite capable of
producing claptrap psuedo-logic to defend bad behavior.
In the same vein, I figured mrj must have been trolling.
Could a rational human mind believe that garbage?
Hope for the best, and plan for the worst. While my mind
has a rough time believing the post to be earnest, perhaps it could be useful to
refute it.
Yes, uranium is a powerful material. Neglecting how much
it costs to extract, refine, etc. makes it appear very productive.
Yes, a backhoe multiplies the power of the operator, but if
you include the "costs" of the material and labor required to make, maintain,
and use one, it's productivity goes way down.
You completely neglect the "upsteam and downstream costs" of
the actions described.
It may balance your ethical book-keeping, but as in ENRON
controversy, it will eventually catch you. The tragic part is all the
other people you take down with you.
I could spend a lifetime trying to convince you that 1 minus 1
yields 0. Why should I have to? You were born with a brain similar
to mine. How sad that it became so completely polluted as to become
useless.
In the immortal words of Stan Lee, "Nuff
Said"
eric
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 4:53
PM
Subject: RE: [GBlist] re. Piece of the
"pie" and other guilt trips
> nobody can really believe the wealthy now work a
> thousand or ten thousand times harder to get that much
richer than the
> poor.
I certainly do. Or, at least, I would if it were phrased that
the people some people produce 10,000 times more wealth than
others.
Compare what a back-hoe can do versus a shovel, a crane versus
a man and a rope. Oh yeah, combine mechanical power with the increased speed
of information and decision making (blueprint correction made by realtime
cameras, faxes, computers versus waiting 2 days for the engineer to arrive at
the site). Oh yes, I can easily see increased productivity by factors of
1000.
-- glm
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