I have almost finished reading the brilliant book Beyond Growth by the economist Herman Daly. It is worth quoting at length:
We have three economic problems to consider: allocation, distribution and scale.
Allocation refers to the apportioning of resources among alternative product uses—food, bicycles, cars, medical care. An allocation is efficient if it corresponds to effective demand, that is, the relative preferences of the citizens as weighted by their relative incomes, both taken as given. An inefficient allocation will use resources to produce a number of things that people will not buy, and will fail to produce other things that people would buy if only they could find them. It would be characterized by shortages of the latter and surpluses of the former.
Distribution refers to the apportioning of goods produced (and the resources they embody) among different people (as opposed to different commodities). Distributions are just or unjust; allocations are efficient or inefficient. There is an efficient allocation for each distribution of income.
Scale refers to the physical size of the economy relative to the ecosystem. The economy is viewed, in its physical dimensions, as a subsystem of the larger ecosystem. Scale is measured as population times per capita resource use—in other words total resource use—the volume of the matter/energy throughput (metabolic flow) by which the ecosystem sustains the economic subsystem. Scale may be sustainable or unsustainable. An efficient allocation does not imply a just distribution. Neither an efficient allocation or a just distribution, nor both, implies a sustainable scale.
The three concepts are quite distinct, although relations among them exist, as noted above.
(I had planned to write on this topic, but instead put a gift card towards this purchase—a lucky choice, in hindsight. Usually I am happier to read on new topics than to share my clumsy initial thoughts. Experience is starting to show this is a good habit.)
Daly points out that economics and the problem of scale cannot escape elementary thermodynamics. Human economic activity takes low-entropy matter & energy as input and produces high-entropy wastes. The ecosystem has a limited ability to convert the latter to the former. He also hints that the scale of the economy is unsustainable, or will soon be at current rates of growth. There are also a number of elegantly simple diagrams I will surely reproduce and reuse.
The very clear explanations lend weight to a number of incubating personal beliefs:
These considerations motivate major changes, but of course they don't mean that we must choose to be unhealthy, uncomfortable, hungry or unhappy.
More (hopefully) soon.
I stumbled across a short but fascinating work by the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called variously the The Art of Controversy or The Art of Being Right. Wikisource has one version; another site has what seems to be the same English text alongside the original German. Read it in full!
His topic is controversial dialectic:
...the art of disputing, and of disputing in such a way as to hold one's own, whether one is in the right or the wrong—per fas et nefas. A man may be objectively in the right, and nevertheless in the eyes of bystanders, and sometimes in his own, he may come off worst.
The prefatory rationale for this discussion is interesting, but more useful are the thirty-eight tactics proposed in the body of the work. For example, here is #24 ("State a false syllogism"):
This trick consists in stating a false syllogism. Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from it other propositions which it does not contain and he does not in the least mean; nay, which are absurd or dangerous. It then looks as if his proposition gave rise to others which are inconsistent either with themselves or with some acknowledged truth, and so it appears to be indirectly refuted. This is the diversion, and it is another application of the fallacy non causae ut causae.
I have no idea of the popularity of this work among modern politicians, but even if they are entirely unaware, Schopenhauer literally wrote the book on argumentation—in 1831! The presentation is neutral, but I am inclined to read it as a spotter's guide to dishonest debate. Of statements by public figures and the online commentariat which infuriate me, not a single example falls outside his categories.
Armed with this knowledge, I have been able to point out the underlying fallacies or distractions when I see these methods in use, instead of falling prey to them. Often the author retreats from an unsupportable claim. When I prepare arguments myself, I check to see that I am giving my case honestly, and not using these shortcuts to merely appear persuasive via distraction.
Some time ago I stumbled across the following:
Despite the objections of purists and the present high cost, it's clear that this is the way of the future. Reviews point out the sophistication of the electronic control; for example, the cages adjust slightly when cross-shifted (an outer gear at the crank and an inner gear at the rear cassette, or vice versa) to eliminate the familiar rattle. The rear derailleur also overshoots so that the chain is driven into the new gear quickly.
Only professional cyclists could have the finesse to do this through delicate control of conventional shift levers, and I know I would be never be capable—certainly not while pounding up the steep hill on Walmer Road, near Casa Loma.
This, and other other innovations such as Cervélo's hidden rear brake and powerful, two-watt LED front lights suggest further ideas:
A more modest idea is a crankset side light. Many cranksets (including the FSA Omega on my 2008 Kona Jake) have one arm—on the side opposite the chainrings—clamped around a hollow axle that passes through the bottom bracket. The tube is covered by a small dust cap. Instead of the cap, insert a small device with a dynamo, battery, and a single, blinking LED. This side light would serve the same purpose as spoke-mounted reflectors.
The general concept is that small accessories don't require huge, or any, batteries. By efficiently diverting a fraction of the rider's output, electronic parts can be powered reliably whenever a bicycle is in motion.
To avoid the taint of modernity, I'll lie and say that a friend once remarked, apropos of nothing, "'Welcome' mat in an empty field."
Some weeks later, I was walking behind the University of Toronto Press warehouse on Dufferin when I saw the item in question. It was about noon early in the summer, before the oppressive, July-August Toronto heat scorched the colour out of the city. There was a welcome mat sitting on a low, grassy hill, where the back of the warehouse faces G. Ross Lord Park and the West Don River.
What strikes me now is the minimalism with which the idea was conveyed.
Were I first to see it, I might have tried to write haiku. Another friend, a photographer, would have stepped back and pulled out his DSLR camera for a shot, which to the average Flickr browser would have even odds of being carefully staged. Others I know would write contemplative short fiction.
Instead the concept was presented bare, without even an imperative — "Imagine an...", or, "Ask me where you can see the..." — anchored only by the unmentioned existence of the thing referred to. It took me some time to realize the elegance of this method.
And, full disclosure: It was his instant messaging status!