tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9140612503596105113.post7298785219723864710..comments2023-04-07T14:21:19.083+03:00Comments on Decisions and Info-Gaps: The Pains of ProgressYakov Ben-Haimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10765902456064490854noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9140612503596105113.post-55214460879211365222011-09-30T20:49:37.127+03:002011-09-30T20:49:37.127+03:00There is a lot of food for thought in this blog pi...There is a lot of food for thought in this blog piece, and it is much more fun to think about it than grade the exams of my graduate course, even if it is one of my favorites (System Reliability and Safety). <br /><br />Wars (esp. Civil Wars) and Revolutions can be and have been terribly inefficient and costly (both in human life and resources) ways to try to improve things (not always with success, and even if successful, not permanently). And to make it worse, those killed in a war have usually been 20-something year olds, long before they have lived a useful, full life. <br /><br />Herodotus, the so-called "Father of History", said it best about War and Peace: In peace, children usually bury their parents, but in war, parents usually bury their children. (from memory). And speaking of victors writing history, Herodotus did write about the Persian wars, where his fellow Greeks won, but he also devoted more than one of his 9 books to Egypt, which was a main source of Egyptian history, for lack of an Egyptian history book, even though the greeks at that time did not rule Egypt. (they did so about 200 yrs later, under the Ptolemies, for 3 centuries)<br /><br />I once read a humorous piece with a typical American dad, probably in the 50s-60s, who had found the solution to every problem he had with those around him. Whenever somebody was complaining, or was not giving him the best service, he gave them some money or a gift they wanted. That was sort of "the American way". You like Alaska? You pay $7.5 million (!!), which even after inflation is an utterly insignificant $0.75 billion, and it's yours (or maybe it was a lease?). Far cheaper than waging a war to conquer it! Same with the "Louisiana purchase" back in the early 1800s.. and in that case it was not just Louisiana but a large area containing about a third or a fourth of today's US states.<br /><br />"Idleness" raises more questions. Four hours a day sounded like a low number of working hours to Russel in 32, the same way that our current 8 or less hours a day would have sounded to somebody back when the normal workday for most workers was 12 and more hours. <br /><br />I remember (but not the exact phrasing) Lev Tolstoy having said at one time how much he enjoyed doing nothing. But he also said of writing "War and Peace", I believe, that it was a very difficult, time consuming enterprise, when he tried to improve on the text again and again. He did not get the whole thing perfect just by inspiration, I guess.<br /><br />I better stop here before my comment is as long as the blog itself!<br /><br />Have a good weekend, all!Tassos Perakisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9140612503596105113.post-10092677319724721632011-09-30T18:45:30.428+03:002011-09-30T18:45:30.428+03:00It was probably a risky proposition to include rev...It was probably a risky proposition to include revolution as an example of progress. Social revolutions can and often do lead to regress, not progress (Islamic Revolution in Iran is one example.) What we call revolutions in science and technology are not really revolutions: old knowledge gets integrated with new one, not negated; old technology co-exists with new one for significant time.Slava Ryaboynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9140612503596105113.post-77771272695701482452011-09-30T17:19:31.005+03:002011-09-30T17:19:31.005+03:00Significant Progress without serious innovation an...Significant Progress without serious innovation and discovery is also possible and can be of tremendous practical and economic value, even if it cannot be caught in econ numbers such as the GDP. But I am defining progress in a wider sense, perhaps.Tassos Perakisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9140612503596105113.post-76328082333317171662011-09-30T15:57:05.837+03:002011-09-30T15:57:05.837+03:00You almost had me wait before I would respond, but...You almost had me wait before I would respond, but the last line made that impossible. It too much reminds me of a line that has made a deep impression on me since I read it for the first time. <br /><br />"For the intelligent being was not living in the present alone; there can be no reflection without foreknowledge, no foreknowledge without apprehension, no apprehension without a momentary slackening of the attachment to life" Bergson 1932, 179*.<br /><br />* http://www.archive.org/stream/twosourcesofmora033499mbp#page/n191/mode/2upRon de Weijzehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05135626951792092605noreply@blogger.com