tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22020163.post6735426209171150070..comments2023-10-24T07:28:50.297-04:00Comments on Thinking on the Margin: Does Thinking Like An Economist Undermine Community?Brian Hollarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09365101283657395331noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22020163.post-51094705896850866012008-02-26T23:18:00.000-05:002008-02-26T23:18:00.000-05:00Most of the elderly people I've talked to, have ri...Most of the elderly people I've talked to, have rich memories of the past. Other than better medical care, and some other technologies, many of them have warm memories of past days. As far as "diverse" communities having all this energy, etc, family and kin based communities, being all fuddy duddy and boring supposed places, so you say. Well such places are maybe not as exciting, but are far more stable over the centuries. When the modern version of community works for a few centuries, THEN we will be able to say that it works. Right now, it hasn't been around long enough to know. civilization is always at the edge. When disaster strikes, it's closenit communities who tend to survive it. Not groups of barely aquainted strangers. This is one of my pet peeves. the assumption that everything about todays world is so much better, than it ever was. Well, it very well is in some ways. But in others, maybe not so much. All you have to do is read diaries that have been left to us thru history, to realize these people actually had interesting lives. And thier lives were more comfortable most of the time, than we think. Some people had hard lives. But many people lived modest, but good lives. By the way, if you think living 30 miles away is just as good as living in the same community, try it during a disaster. Like, say an ice storm. We, have had 2 very bad ones, within one years time. Nobody got in or out of town. for days. Your neighbor helped you, or nobody did. Technology, only goes so far. Sooner, or later, someone has to check on the old lady without power down the street. And you can't do that via bluetooth. Anyway, I'll close out my rant now, remember, some time in the future, somebody is going to be talking about todays world, HOW COULD they live so primitively back then? We, of course know, being here, that they wern't half as bad as those future commentaters think it was.brierrabbithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02159138666926348235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22020163.post-45142360545420479562008-02-26T17:25:00.000-05:002008-02-26T17:25:00.000-05:00It seems to me the author is complaining more abou...It seems to me the author is complaining more about economic development in general than "thinking like an economist." I don't know quite why he chose that title, other than to have the cutesy tie-in to the phrase "the dismal science." <BR/><BR/>It's always so easy to look back with nostalgia and remember the good ol' days were not quite so good, or else they would have lasted. <BR/><BR/>There's a reason why insurance has replaced your neighbors help; it's because in the past your neighbor's help wasn't always so reliable. Not all small towns were Mayberry or like those in the Waltons. Life was tough, and the cold reality is that people were in many ways people were less sensitive.<BR/><BR/>Remember, when people find something that works they tend to stick with it. When things are not working so well, they seek out a different system. So the fact that the good ol' days led to these more modern times tells you that the mechanisms of the past did not work as well as what we have now, in terms of meeting people's overall needs. That's why people in their ingenuity sought to create something better.<BR/><BR/>So even if you could go wave a magic wand and recreate the old ways, you would find that in very short order people would abandon them once again and formulate something along the lines of what we have now.thinkinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06024721812573340354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22020163.post-59505007975889950082008-02-26T09:47:00.000-05:002008-02-26T09:47:00.000-05:00I'd suppose that depends on what the worldview of ...I'd suppose that depends on what the worldview of the economist is that effects the underlying assumptions. A Christian might come up with one set, a secularist might come up with some items that are exactly opposed, an economist which environmentalist but without a religious affiliation may come up with another set.<BR/><BR/>I think this article is too uniform. Economics is a science and like other sciences it it depends on the set of given behind the scientist that effects the course of the application.Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00261766465382455822noreply@blogger.com