Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

Over at Project Syndicate: Economics in the Age of Abundance: BERKELEY – Until very recently, the biggest economic challenge facing mankind was making sure there was enough to eat.

From immediately after the dawn of agriculture until well into the Industrial Age, by far the most common human condition was what nutritionists and public-health experts would describe as severe and damaging nutritional biomedical stress.

Jo Walton (2015): The Just City (New York: Tor Books: 9780765332660) http://amzn.to/1WQi0cn

John Holbo: Walton’s Republic: What is Athene’s motive in dragging all those robots from the future to help build this thing?...

Brad DeLong: Re: ‘What is Athene’s motive in dragging all those robots from the future to help build this thing?’ Aristoteles son of Nikomakhos of Stagira:

Over at Project Syndicate: Economics in the Age of Abundance: 250 years ago in the richest society that was then or ever had been--Imperial Augustan-Age Britain--the adolescents sent to sea by the Marine Society to be officers' servants were half a foot--15 cm--shorter than their counterpart gentry's sons whose heights were recorded as they entered the army as officers. 150 years ago the working class of the United States--the richest working class that was then or ever had been--was still spending roughly 2/5 of extra income at the margin simply on more calories. Pre-Industrial Agrarian-Age human populations, even Mid-Industrial populations, and a third of the world today were and are under what nutritionists and public-health experts see as severe and damaging nutritional biomedical stress. READ MOAR