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The Forthcoming--Behavioral--Economics of Abundance

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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.

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"Live Long and Prosper" Blogging...

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Manu Saadia: Trekonomics http://amzn.to/20ZqMdG (San Francisco: Piper Text: 941758754)

Forward by J. Bradford DeLong:

"Live long and prosper."

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

"Fascinating."

"Make it so."

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.”

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer."

“Highly illogical.”

"You can stop it!" "Stop it? I'm counting on it!"

Over the past century Star Trek has woven itself into our socio-cultural DNA. It provides a set of cultural reference points to powerful ideas, striking ideas, beneficial ideas that help us here in our civilization think better--even those of us who are economists.

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I Must Say: Crooked Timber Is Being Its Best Possible Self This Week...

Live from... is it Evans Hall? Or Syracuse? Or Thessaly?: A must-read for Thessaly, that is, for Jo Walton: The Just City and The Philosopher Kings

Isaiah Berlin (1953): "The Hedgehog and the Fox". Another: (probably) Pseudo-Plato: The Seventh Letter...

Most highly recommended from the drinking party:

Do read the whole thing--or at least, Plato's Republic, Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, The Just City, The Philosophy Kings, and the five symposium contributions above. I only wish I had some thoughts of my own to add of high enough quality to stand in such company...

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On Machiavelli's "Letter to Vettori": Hoisted from the Archives from 2003

Brad DeLong (2003): On Machiavelli's "Letter to Vettori": Or, The Value of the History of Economic Thought:

A surprisingly-large number of people have recently asked me why I am interested in the history of economic thought.

They make various points:

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Glosses on Jo Walton's Plato Fanfic and Robots: A Brief Pickup Platonic Dialogue: Today's Economic History

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:

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The Forthcoming--Behavioral--Economics of Abundance: Project Syndicate

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