Trivia

1BC Civ Forums

Home

Members

FAQ Links

Welcome Guest ( Login | Register )

108 posts, Page 9 of 11

«««7 8 9 10 11 »»»

Trivia

Rate Topic

Display Mode

Topic Options

Author

Message

Locus Coeruleus

7/22/2008 12:03 AM

Radical Centrist

Last Seen:
Today @ 6:04 PM

Posts: 5,592
Visits: 27,821

ok, that's all fine and good doc, but what's your point? I'd still rather have financial security than not have it? Common sense tells me that much. I'd rather have that comfort level than leave certain things out on a whim, that might cause me great stresses because my bank accounts are a bit slim.
-- Reaching out now and I touch your face, Please believe I'm only traveling. Like seeking wonder from a foreign place, It matters not from where I'm coming. -Ween, "Back to Basom".

Scipio Africanus

7/22/2008 9:49 AM

Grognard fantôme

Last Seen:
Yesterday @ 9:35 PM

Posts: 7,585
Visits: 9,899

Relative deprivation is my point. For millions of years, we were "happy" without sidewalks, concrete, writing, currency, rank, ascriptive status, markets, etc. If we really want to answer the question as to whether investing in a house is a good strategy for an average Joe, I maintain we must place average Joe not just in immediate socio-economic or cultural context, and not even just in recent historical context, but in natural historical context. It is only be stepping back from the blinders of Civilization that we can see just how uncivilized we really are, and how much we suffer unnecessarily as a result of it.
-- "'The front' is wherever you stop running away. Get used to it. This is what modern warfare looks like." K T Cat

Locus Coeruleus

7/22/2008 1:26 PM

Radical Centrist

Last Seen:
Today @ 6:04 PM

Posts: 5,592
Visits: 27,821

and not even just in recent historical context, but in natural historical context. But joe doesn't live in that context, he lives in this one...You are what you eat, and you are a product of your environment. What do you think would happen if you transported cro-magnon man into the 21st certury? You have to account for that...
-- Reaching out now and I touch your face, Please believe I'm only traveling. Like seeking wonder from a foreign place, It matters not from where I'm coming. -Ween, "Back to Basom".

jerm

7/22/2008 3:33 PM

Elite Pathogen

Last Seen:
Today @ 7:47 PM

Posts: 4,494
Visits: 11,167

You scientists may have more in-site than I so please share but, has the modern Homo Sapien been around for millions of years? I thought we didn't arrive onto the scene until 250K years ago. That's a long time but wasn't there something that singled our our "race" of Homo Sapiens, the one's with stout minds and creative thinking, about 50K years ago? Since then, how long have humans lived in villages for security? What's good for the Erectus isn't necessarily what's good for the Sapien is it? Could it be that we moved from hunter gatherers to more complex communal units because something in us desired more security than our previous "versions" did. As populations increased as conditions improved and technological breakthroughs came about, these communities grew eventually into what we have today. Could this security instinct combined with many other instincts of this great ape have led to investing? Happiness is not the only need or motivation of human beings. While it may facilitate happiness if done correctly, happiness is not the primary purpose behind investing.
-- -A government that is powerful enough to do anything for us is powerful enough to do anything to us. -Fred Thompson -There are two races of people, the decent and the indecent. - Victor Frankel -They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. - Benjamin Franklin Consequences

Scipio Africanus

7/22/2008 5:36 PM

Grognard fantôme

Last Seen:
Yesterday @ 9:35 PM

Posts: 7,585
Visits: 9,899

Locus Coeruleus (7/22/2008) and not even just in recent historical context, but in natural historical context. But joe doesn't live in that context, he lives in this one...You are what you eat, and you are a product of your environment. What do you think would happen if you transported cro-magnon man into the 21st certury? You have to account for that... Hypothetically, the evolved psychological mechanisms inside Joe, and making him "tick" emerged during that natural historical context. Some good examples that are pretty well substantiated empirically: The Westermarck Effect; the Sex-Bias in Jealousy Effect; sex-differences in spatial ability and hand-eye coordination; discounting future costs in the face of present short-term benefits; phobias (not too many AIDs phobias, but people still phobic of spiders and snakes even when they live in Manhattan); inability to account for actual risks of a low-probability event that has catastrophic effects (e.g., the effects of infrequent flooding on flood plains, or beaches). We think we totally blank slates but we not.
-- "'The front' is wherever you stop running away. Get used to it. This is what modern warfare looks like." K T Cat

-M-

7/23/2008 3:47 AM

lame duck

Last Seen:
Yesterday @ 11:44 AM

Posts: 1,802
Visits: 4,333

1. Why a laundrymat is a disapearing business model?
-- Never try to impress a woman, bcz if u do she'll expect u to keep up the standard for the rest of ur life. W. C. Fields

Nuclearcow

7/23/2008 7:06 AM

Udderly ridiculous

Last Seen:
Today @ 9:56 PM

Posts: 3,925
Visits: 4,738

Because its not very cheap and isn't very convenient. Most people can afford their own machines for laundry in the comfort of their own home. Why spend a lot elsewhere where you can spend a lot (maybe equally or lesser in the long run) for something more convenient?
-- "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow-lines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain "Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Harold Thurman Whitman

-M-

7/23/2008 7:11 AM

lame duck

Last Seen:
Yesterday @ 11:44 AM

Posts: 1,802
Visits: 4,333

Man wasnt that easy. NC you got the reason right, it being that washing machines being affordable. But why them washing machines have gotten so affordable?
-- Never try to impress a woman, bcz if u do she'll expect u to keep up the standard for the rest of ur life. W. C. Fields

Scipio Africanus

7/23/2008 9:26 AM

Grognard fantôme

Last Seen:
Yesterday @ 9:35 PM

Posts: 7,585
Visits: 9,899

-M- (7/23/2008) Man wasnt that easy. NC you got the reason right, it being that washing machines being affordable. But why them washing machines have gotten so affordable? (a) Plenty of cheap (one could argue "slave") labor in plenty of the lower-income countries? (b) Incredibly modern global logistics and transport? (c) robotics, computers and other factors that have made building components in sub-factories, then shipping them to assembly factories much cheaper; (d) more streamlined retail chains = the elimination of the Mom & Pop style retailer by the hyper-specialized, high-volume, low margin mega-mart style retailers. In sum: Globalization & Neo-liberalism Ackgh! Pphtooie! [can't believe that word actually came out of my Broca's area . . .] And all this despite the increase in commodity (silicon, copper, zinc, etc.) prices over the past few years. ADDIT: the unforeseeable downside of the extinction of the laundromat? Even further dwindling of fertility, increasing in suicide/alcoholism/general Durkheimian "anomie" . . . Why? I met my wife in a laundromat!
-- "'The front' is wherever you stop running away. Get used to it. This is what modern warfare looks like." K T Cat Edited: 7/23/2008 9:28 AM by Scipio Africanus

-M-

7/23/2008 9:58 AM