Il futuro della crescita economica

Growth - The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson

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Premessa: nell’economia del futuro a lavorare saranno dei robot: ovvero emulatori azionati con upload di intelligenze umane opportunamente selezionate e velocizzate. Gli uomini vivranno perlopiù in campagna con la rendita azionaria delle compagnie che producono emulatori.

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Faster Growth

the em economy should be more competitive in the sense of more aggressively and more easily replacing low-efficiency items and arrangements with higher-efficiency versions.

Note:PIÙ COMPETITIVI

Stronger urban concentration should also help promote innovation (Carlino and Kerr 2014

Note:INNOVAZIONE

For a long time, most innovation, and most of the total value of innovation, has been associated with a great many small and context-dependent changes (Sahal 1981). Most innovation has also long come from application and practice, rather than from “researchers” or “inventors” narrowly conceived. Most of the research that aids innovation is “applied” as opposed to “basic” research. Thus we expect most of this better and faster em innovation to consist of many small innovations that arise in the context of application and practice.

Note:INNVAZIONE CONTESTUALE APPLICATA E PRATICA

One might guess that a future very computer-centered economy improves at something closer to the recent rate at which computer technologies have improved. This suggests that the global em economy might double as fast as every year and a half, which is 10 times faster than today’s economic doubling time of about 15 years.

Note:CRESCITA: 10 VOLTE PIÙ VELOCE

our growth of inputs is still limited because of the limited rate at which we can increase the number of skilled laborers. There is little point in making twice as many machines if we don’t have twice as many people to run them.

Note:L’ INPUT CONTA PIU’ DELLA PRODUTTIVITA’

So the world economy has lately been doubling roughly every 15 years… In an em economy, however, labor can be grown as easily as capital; factories can make more ems to run machines as fast as they can make more machines to be run….

Note:OGGI RADDOPPIAMO LA RICCHEZZA OGNO 15 ANNI

Our basic economic theories of growth strongly suggest that this ability to rapidly increase inputs could allow an em economy to grow much faster than the 1.5-year doubling time weakly suggested by an em economy being computer-based (Fernald and Jones 2014; Nordhaus 2015). In fact, basic economic theory allows for the economy to double in a month, week, day, or even faster.

Note:DOMANI: RADDOPPIO OGNI MESE

Faster growth and innovation in the em era should encourage an emphasis on less durable capital equipment, including buildings. Such equipment should be designed for a shorter useful lifespan, under the expectation that more efficient designs will quickly become available.

Note:BENI A RAPIDA OBSOLESCIENZA

large increases in growth rates translate into large cost increases for systems that produce steady value, relative to systems that produce value quickly all at once and then end. So ems will use rockets and other disposable products more,

Note:TRIONFO DELL' USA E GETTA

Growth Estimate

To generate an empirical estimate of em economy doubling times, we can look at the timescales it takes for machine shops and factories today to make a mass of machines of a quality, quantity, variety, and value similar to that of machines that they themselves contain. Today, that timescale is roughly 1

Note:QUANTO IMPIEGANO LE MACCHINE A REPLICARSI

Today, humans are such a left-out component; our economy doesn’t grow this fast because we can’t replicate people as quickly as machines.

Note:REPLICARE L' UOMO, QUESTA LA DIFFERENZA COL PASSATO

an em economy focuses much more than ours does on computer capital, which has long seen much faster rates of innovation than has other forms of manufactured capital.

Note:RITMO DELL' INNOVAZIONE

the economy might double every (objective) year, month, week, or day (Hanson 1998)

Note:CONCLUSIONE

Another way to estimate the economic growth rate of the next era is to assume that the next era will grow faster than our industrial era by a factor similar to the factor by which our era grows faster than the farming era, or by which the farming era grew faster than the forager era.

Note:ANALOGIE: DIFFERENZIALE TRA AGRICOLTURA E INDUSTRIA

This method estimates a roughly 1 week to 1 month economic doubling time for the next era.

Note:STIME DEL SECONDO METODO

Growth Myths

There are several factors that some expect to influence growth rates, but which probably have at best modest effects. One such factor is the mental speed of citizens… Yes, there could be some weak effects because of ems running faster or slower, but these are mostly minor. It is mainly the existing capacity that creates more capacity, not the mental speed…

Note:IL MITO DELLA VELOCITÀ

Another factor that does not obviously suggest faster growth rates is the larger size of the em economy. Yes, a larger economy has more resources to pursue more possible innovations. But there are also usually diminishing returns in new ideas;

Note:IL MITO DELLE ECONOMIE DI SCALA

A third factor that does not obviously suggest faster growth rates is greater intelligence. While more intelligent people are more productive, and more productivity gives more growth, even so there isn’t obviously a more direct connection here, a connection not mediated by productivity.

Note:IL MITO DELL' INTELLIGENZA

Smarter people are awarded more patents, but that is in part because smarter people tend more to be sorted into the types of jobs that produce patents.

Note:TEST BREVETTI

A fourth factor that is less relevant for growth than many think is the number of researchers… even if the em world coordinates somewhat better than today, it seems that growth would increase by only a modest amount, as nations that do more research today do not grow noticeably faster (Ulku 2004)…. increases in research funding usually give much less than proportionate increases in research progress in a field (Alston et al. 2011…

Note:IL MITO DELLA RICERCA

Finance

Among their many roles, clans likely also serve as a basic unit of financial organization. For example, individual ems and subclans could relatively easily turn to their larger clans to insure against risks. Hidden information and actions, which are often obstacles to insurance, are less of a problem within a clan, especially when shallow mindreading is feasible.

Note:RITORNO DEI CLAN

A more competitive em economy likely adopts more efficient financial institutions. This plausibly includes more support for hostile takeovers of public firms (Macey 2008), and more use of private ownership of firms. As having worker control over firm management seems to reduce productivity, ems probably avoid that (Gorton and Schmid 2004).

Note:SCALATE OSTILI E COOPERATIVE

In most models and real markets so far, average interest rates (i.e., rates of return on investments) have usually been at least as large as economic growth rates. Thus as em era growth rates are large, em era interest rates are also large. This tempts slow humans and em retirees to save a large fraction of their income.

LA RENDITA

Come lavora un robot?

Work - The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson

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Premessa: per robot intendiamo macchine dotate di intelligenza artificiale. Probabilmente avremo a che fare con emulatori più che con robot, ovvero con macchine azionate tramite l’ upload di intelligenze umane opportunamente selezionate.

Work Hours

Today, successful people in very competitive jobs, professions, and industries often work a great many hours per week. This makes it plausible that selection for em productivity will produce a world of ems who are also very hard-working, even “workaholic,”

Note:WORK ALCHOLIC

“workaholics” tend to make more money, to be male, and to focus their socializing on scheduled times such as holidays. They also tend rise early to work alone and they often use stimulants (Kemeny 2002; Currey 2013

Note:STIMOLANTI A GO-GO

Many claim that working very long hours is usually counter-productive. For example, it is said that in construction, working 60 hours a week over 2 months actually results in less output than working 40 hours a week over that period (Hanna et al. 2005; Alvanchi et al. 2012; Pozen 2012; Mullainathan and Shafir 2013

Note:MA LAVORARE TANTO RENDE DAVVERO?

the reason most workers today tend to work too many hours might be because the few most productive workers are indeed more productive when they work many hours, and ordinary people are trying to resemble these super-workers. If this is the case, then ems will work many hours because they will mostly be selected from among those few super-workers.

Note:PERCHÈ SI LAVORA TANTO?

The selection for ems who work hard and well is likely to select for a work-orientation, rather than a leisure-orientation, in em cultures. During the industrial era, an orientation to leisure has become more common, and today is more common among women, the young, and the unmarried. People with a high school education are more leisure-oriented, compared with both those with more and less education.

Note:ORIENTATI AL LAVORO O AL TEMPO LIBERO?

Leisure-oriented people are less satisfied with their job, and they feel fewer intrinsic rewards from work and more from leisure.

Note:INCENTIVI INTRINSECI

This all weakly suggests that ems not only work more hours, they also tend to be male, married, care less about work relations, feel more obliged to contribute to society, and gain more intrinsic reward from work and less from leisure.

Note:RITRATTINO DEL ROBOT LAVORATORE

During the industrial era, we have spent much of our increasing wealth on more pleasant working conditions, as well as on more consumption variety and on working fewer hours. Poorer and more competitive ems are likely to reverse these trends, and accept more workplace drudgery.

Note:CONDIZIONI DI LAVORO

Some ems are likely to listen to music on the job, as that increases productivity in some kinds of jobs (Fox and Embrey 1972). Such music will typically be mild, wordless, and not otherwise distracting (Kiger 1989).

Note:MUSICA SUL LAVORO

Spurs

heavy use of “spurs,” who are em copies who are newly copied at the beginning of their workday, and then retire or are erased at the conclusion of their workday.

Note:CONTROFIGURE CON UN GIORNO DI VITA

In addition to saving on the cost of needing to rest from work, spurs also save on mental aging. As discussed in Chapter 4, Complexity section, em minds become less flexible and more fragile with subjective experience.

Note:GIOVANILISMO

U.S. workers recently reported spending an average of 7% of their time at work “loafing,” such as via eating, socializing, or web surfing. This percentage falls when workers more fear losing their job (Burda et al. 2016). More competitive em workers loaf less.

Note:BIGHELLONARE

Breaks help productivity more when they are short and frequent, when they happen in the morning relative to afternoon, and when the activities during breaks are preferred, social, work-related, and outside the office (Hunter and Wu 2015).

Note:BREAK

There is also evidence suggesting productivity gains from napping for 10 to 30 minutes one or a few times a day (Dhand and Sohal 2006).

Note:PISOLINI CONSIGLIATI

em spurs will tend to be made from copies who just finished a nap or break, and that spurs will have an extra productivity bonus for tasks that take less than about an hour or so to complete.

Note:CHI COPIARE PER LAVORETTI BREVI

in our world the peak is near 10 in the morning in construction, during the morning for sports with complex strategies, and in the afternoon for handwriting and for sports requiring great physical efforts (Alvanchi et al. 2012; Hölzle et al. 2014; Drust et al. 2005).

Note:PICCHI

Each em uses spurs created from the times of day which tend to give that em its highest productivity for the assigned task.

Note:COPIARE QUANDO SEI AL PICCO

Today only a modest degree of multitasking is productive. It seems that doing only one or two projects at a time is best (Aral et al. 2007

Note:MULTITASKING

To avoid many social complications, spurs are likely to interact less often socially with non-spur friends and lovers. Spur social interactions instead focus on other spurs, such as spur co-workers.

Note:LA VITA SOCIALE DI UNO SPUR

The use of spurs will encourage ems to coordinate and plan activities in their head before splitting into spur copies, to summarize their work well just before ending or retiring as a spur, and to organize tasks into units that can be completed in a subjective work day, with minimal need to recall details later.

Note:IL LAVORATORE E LA SUA STRATEGIA

Spur Uses

Spurs who end instead of retiring can help ems to deniably do things of questionable legal or moral status, if the main evidence of their actions was erased when their minds were erased. For example, a spur might try to alter some evidence of previous poor performance.

Note:LO SPUR USATO COME KILLER

Spurs that end could ensure privacy in short-term professional consulting. For example, a relationship counselor could make an isolated spur who hears about your relationship problems, offers advice to you in private, and then ends.

Note:SEGRETI PROFESSIONALI

Spurs make it easier to convince people of things without revealing one’s sources, by proving that “you would agree with my claim if you knew what I know.”

Note:AFFIDABILITÀ E CONFIDENZE. CHI È GIÀ NELLA TOMBA È IL MIGLIOR FIDUCIARIO

For example, spur safes could let a buyer choose among several sellers based on very open disclosures of buyer and seller details and secrets inside a safe. Potential mates might become more intimate in a safe to see how well they are matched… For example, government authorities could not simply pretend to have good secret reasons for their policies; others could ask to see those reasons inside safes.

Note:ESEMPI DI SPUR FIDUCIARI

Inside a safe, an advisor explains the non-idealistic reasons why some choice is best. Outside the safe, the em just follows the advice from the safe, and does not reflect much on why that advice differs from what their idealistic beliefs might suggest.

Note:CAMERA CARITATIS: SAFE

Spurs could also be used to test for biases. Today, psychologists show common biases by randomly splitting experimental subjects into subgroups that are given different prompts… em spurs could directly demonstrate such biases in individuals, and not just in large groups. An individual could be split into different copies that are given different prompts, and then their answers could be directly compared. Ems wanting to convince an audience of their impartiality might even empower independent judges or opponents to create such “split-tests.”

Note:RINTRACCIARE I BIAS

Social Power

Compared with us, ems are individually better at getting and keeping power. Humans today often compete for power, prestige, and material resources. But most of us are reluctant to compete fiercely and strategically, using all available means. It makes sense that we inherited such attitudes, because the forager world greatly punished such aggression… our habits of reluctant competition are often less adaptive in today’s rather different world, and are likely to also be less adaptive in the em world….

Note:EM PIÙ COMPETITIVI DEGLI UOMINI

In the farming and industrial eras selection effects have ensured that such aggressive competitors have been over-represented in positions of power (Pfeffer 2010).

Note:L'AGGRESSIVITÀ OGGI PAGA PIÙ DI IERI

They less often handicap themselves, such as by refusing to take a test that they might fail. That is, they don’t shy away from hard tests. They instead have stronger desires to improve themselves, and stronger beliefs that this is possible.

Note:L' EMULATORE CI PROVA SEMPRE. VUOLE MIGLIORARSI

Power-gaining ems are also more willing and able to sell themselves. They push more to make themselves visible to superiors, they are more attentive to what their bosses want, and they develop stronger relations with those bosses.

Note:LECCHINI

They are more able to project self-assurance, to read others and empathize with their point of view, and to tolerate conflict. They tend more to be suspicious of potential work rivals. Such ems are more strategic and careful in choosing the details of their career paths. They more often ask for things they want, even if rejection seems likely.

Note:AUTOCONTROLLO TOLLERANZA E IPOCRISIA

Power-gaining ems are better actors, in order to convince others of their power. They are better able to pretend and play a role. They tend to act like they are succeeding, even when they are not. They tend to express anger instead of sadness or remorse. They tend to stand up straight rather than slouching, and thrust their chest and pelvis forward rather than curling in on themselves. They more often move forward and toward others, and stand closer to others, instead of turning their back or retreating. They use tall bodies and deep voices, although of course all virtual ems could also easily do this if they wish. The hand gestures of such ems are short and forceful, not long and circular. They directly look others in the eye, instead of looking down or away.

Note:MODO DI COMPORTARSI E ATTEGGIAMENTI

Their language is evocative, specific, and often filled with forceful words and visual imagery. They often use emotional language terms, refer to us-them concepts and other contrasting concept pairs, pause for emphasis, and explicitly enumerate how many points they will make. Today, the powerful are different from the rest of us, and we should expect that ems will be different from us in those same ways.

LINGUAGGIO

10 buoni motivi

10 buoni motivi per essere cattolici (Italian Edition) di Mozzi Giulio e Binaghi Valter

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1. Perché questo mondo è stato creato

Un primo buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che è bello immaginare che questo mondo sia stato creato, e creato da un qualcuno che posso immaginare come una persona; un qualcuno al quale io, che sono una persona, posso immaginare di somigliare; con il quale posso immaginare di parlare; con il quale posso immaginare di avere una storia… mi pare bella l’immaginazione di un creatore che tutt’a un tratto o da sempre sente la voglia di averci qualcuno che non sia lui stesso, di un qualcuno che gli somigli ma che insieme sia abbastanza distinto da lui stesso da poterci parlare, da poterci passare del tempo, da poterci, ecco, avere una storia. Una storia d’amore, magari….

Note:È BELLO IMMAGINARE UNA RELAZIONE PERSONALE CON UN CREATORE

Questo, alla fin fine, m’immagino: che il creatore si sia fatto una sorpresa; che abbia fatto qualcosa che non s’immaginava, o che almeno gli è venuto del tutto diverso da quello che s’immaginava; che abbia fatto qualcosa che, essendo venuto com’è venuto, ha svelato allo stesso creatore qual era la segreta voglia, la voglia di un tutt’a un tratto, che da sempre egli coltivava: ma segretamente, nascostamente da se stesso.

Note:SORPRESA!

2. Perché questa storia è una storia d’amore

Un secondo buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che è bello leggere e rileggere, raccontare e riraccontare, la storia d’amore tra il creatore e il popolo che egli si è scelto.

Note:UNA BELLA STORIA D'AMORE

a fondamento di tutte le storie che si rispettino – succede che i personaggi cambiano. Si trasformano.

Note:CAMBIAMENTO

È andato avanti ancora un po’, il creatore, a progettare e saltuariamente realizzare distruzioni parziali o quasi totali delle creature; ha continuato ancora per un po’ a bruciacchiare questa o quella città, a sparpagliare questa o quella epidemia per punire questa o quella marachella; ma alla fine ha mollato la pezza. Ha capito che, ad accoppare il proprio innamorato per ogni qualsiasi marachella, non lo si fa reinnamorare più che tanto.

Note:IL METODO PUNITIVO NON FUNZIONA

Ora, guardate il bimbo nella mangiatoia. Ora, guardate quello stesso bimbo, poco più che trentenne, appeso agonizzante a una croce. È sempre lui. È sempre quello che finora abbiamo chiamato “il creatore”. C’è stato un bel cambiamento.

Note:IL METODO DELL' AMORE FUNZIONA

3. Perché abbiamo identificato il nemico

Un terzo buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che si sa quasi tutto sul nemico. Il nemico compare presto nella storia delle creature: è già lì, nel giardino che il creatore aveva piantato in Eden

Note:IL NEMICO COMPARE SUBITO

Lo vediamo nel giardino piantato in Eden dal creatore, e ci domandiamo: “Ma ce l’ha messo il creatore? E se il creatore è buono – poiché si dice che il creatore sia buono –, perché ce l’ha messo? E se il creatore è buono, perché l’ha creato?”, oppure ci domandiamo: “Non sarà che il nemico esiste indipendentemente dal creatore?

Note:ORIGINE DEL NEMICO

E viene, terribile, il sospetto che quei due siano complementari. Che siano un creatore e uno screatore; che siano, come coppia, i motori dell’universo, un principio di produzione e uno di distruzione, un principio di sistema e uno di entropia.

Note:DUBBIO GNOSTICO

Poi – facciamo un volo di secoli – troviamo di nuovo il creatore a confronto con il nemico: il creatore, fattosi creatura, sta sul monte a meditare in solitudine, e il nemico appare; appare, e fa un’offerta. Ti do tutto, dice. Metto nelle tue mani – come tu un tempo mettesti nelle mie mani Giobbe: non lo dice lì per lì, ma è sottinteso – tutte le creature. Regnerai su di esse. Potrai dare loro pace, salute, letizia, felicità perpetue. Ti riconosceranno – queste creature dalla zucca dura, così indocili e stravaganti – e ti adoreranno: per sempre. Il creatore fattosi creatura dice: no. E noi, che nel buio della sala osserviamo col fiato sospeso questa scena madre, urliamo di dolore. Ma digli di sì, cribbio! Ma che cosa ti costa! Ma se è quello che hai sempre desiderato! Pezzo d’idiota, per quanti secoli ancora vuoi che viviamo senza pace, senza salute, senza letizia, senza felicità? Ti basterebbe muovere appena la testa, fare un cenno, sussurrare un sì, posare su questo preteso nemico uno sguardo appena appena un pochettino benevolo, e sarebbe tutto risolto! Sarebbe tutto risolto, sì: come solvet saeclum in favilla, come tutto, alla fine, si scioglierà in un gran calore, in un punto rosso di fuoco. Ma non è ancora giunto il tempo della fine – infatti, siamo qui. Il nemico è quindi, prima di tutto, un nemico della storia…. Il nemico è quindi un sofista. Non vuole una cosa precisa; se la storia è lenta lui tenta di affrettarla; se va spedita lui tenta di fermarla….

Note:IL NEMICO DELLA STORIA

4. Perché questa storia è la storia di tutti

Un quarto buon motivo per essere cristiani, e cristiani cattolici, è che il messianismo universale (perché questo significano le parole: l’antico greco “christòs” traduce l’ebraico “messia”, ovvero “salvatore”; e “katholikòs” significa “universale”, più nel senso di “per tutti quanti” che in quello di “per ciascuno”) è per l’appunto un messianismo universale.

Note:CATTOLICO = UNIVERSALE

5. Perché non si è mai visto un Dio che si faccia carne

Un quinto buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che il creatore, circa duemill’anni fa, prese tutti in contropiede e si fece creatura di carne… La cosa è ovviamente incredibile: e le autorità di quel tempo – le autorità religiose e le autorità civili, di comune accordo o per convenienza reciproca – non ci credettero. La storia finì con un corpo appeso a una croce e una comunità di seguaci allo sbando:…

Note:SI È FATTO CARNE

possiamo prendere i Vangeli per quello che sono: Marco e Matteo, poco più che raccolte o promemoria, frutto di diversi e successivi assemblaggi, di detti, episodi, brevi discorsi di Gesù di Nazareth, passati per decenni di bocca in bocca, utili come sostegno alla predicazione orale, di facile comprensione per chiunque; Luca, un tentativo di fare un “libro scritto” a partire da quei materiali, aggiungendone altri, e mettendo tutto in bello stile greco, con un occhio di riguardo per un pubblico pagano e colto; Giovanni, più un libro di teologia in forma narrativa, rivolto a un pubblico di già credenti – o, sostengono alcuni, a un pubblico di affiliati a una di quelle religioni o spiritualità diffuse all’epoca, d’origine orientale, chiamate “misteri” –, che una narrazione “di annuncio” rivolta a tutti.

Note:I VANGELI

6. Perché questo Dio si fa riconoscere

Un sesto buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che Fëdor Dostoevskij, in quel bizzarro testo inesistente che è La leggenda del grande inquisitore – un testo che esiste, per modo di dire, così: è un poema scritto da Ivan Karamazov, personaggio del romanzo I fratelli Karamazov, ma nel romanzo il poema non c’è; c’è invece il racconto del poema che Ivan fa a suo fratello Alëša – s’immagina quanto segue: che il creatore, in un tempo e in un luogo più o meno corrispondenti alla Spagna del Cinquecento, torni a visitare le creature nell’aspetto di Gesù di Nazareth; che entri nel mondo con discrezione, in silenzio; che peraltro tutti lo riconoscano; che lo riconoscano, ovviamente, anche gli uomini dell’allora attivissima e potentissima Inquisizione cattolica; e che questi lo prendano e lo gettino in carcere. Nella cella scende a parlargli il capo dell’Inquisizione, il grande inquisitore: che lo guarda, lo osserva, e senz’altro – anche lui – lo riconosce. Dapprima il grande inquisitore lo interroga: “Sei tu? Sei tu?”; ma subito cambia idea: “Non rispondere, taci. E che potresti dire? So troppo bene quel che puoi dire. Del resto, non hai il diritto di aggiungere nulla a quello che Tu già dicesti una volta. Perché sei venuto a disturbarci?… l’Inquisizione, ammazzandolo, intende fare nient’altro che ristabilire l’ordine. Perché il creatore che si fa creatura, il creatore che abbandona la propria infantile onnipotenza narcisista e paranoide e viene tra le creature come un fratello, con affetto e mitezza, in un corpo esposto ai rischi e alle malattie e alla morte, è intollerabile: intollerabile all’epoca di Anna e Caifa, intollerabile per l’Inquisizione spagnola del Cinquecento, intollerabile nella Russia dei tempi di Dostoevskij – e intollerabile oggi, probabilmente. D’altra parte il grande inquisitore parla chiaro: “Non hai il diritto di aggiungere nulla a quello che Tu già dicesti una volta”, dice….

Note:LA LEGGENDA DEL SANTO INQUISITORE

7. Perché Dio ha avuto bisogno di una donna

Un settimo buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che il creatore, per farsi creatura, ha avuto bisogno del coraggio di una donna e di un uomo. Nella favola bella raccontata da Luca nel suo Vangelo, un messaggero si presenta all’improvviso a Maria, una giovane donna – probabilmente una ragazzina, considerati gli usi del tempo – promessa sposa al falegname – o carpentiere, come secondo alcuni è meglio tradurre – Giuseppe. “Rallégrati, piena di grazia”, le dice, “il Signore è con te”… “Ecco, concepirai un figlio, lo darai alla luce e lo chiamerai Gesù. Sarà grande e verrà chiamato Figlio dell’Altissimo; il Signore Dio gli darà il trono di Davide suo padre e regnerà per sempre sulla casa di Giacobbe e il suo regno non avrà fine”….

Note:IL SÌ DELLA DONNA

Doveva essere, Maria, una ragazza tosta. E domandò al messaggero: “Come avverrà questo, poiché non conosco uomo?” Un modo abbastanza indiretto e prudente di fare la domanda chiave.

Note:TOSTA

8. Perché la Chiesa custodisce la Sapienza

Un ottavo buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che la scena primaria della chiesa non è tanto l’indicazione di Pietro come pietra di fondazione (“Tu sei Pietro, e su questa pietra…”), quanto ciò che accadde in Gerusalemme – secondo il racconto di Luca negli Atti degli apostoli – cinquanta giorni dopo la Pasqua nella quale Gesù di Nazareth fu appeso alla croce, morì, e fu poi visto vivo.

Note:FONDAZIONE DELLA CHIESA

“Venne all’improvviso dal cielo un fragore, quasi un vento che si abbatte impetuoso, e riempì tutta la casa. Apparvero loro lingue come di fuoco, che si dividevano, e si posarono su ciascuno di loro, e tutti furono colmati di Spirito Santo e cominciarono a parlare in altre lingue, nel modo in cui lo Spirito dava loro il potere di esprimersi”… Ecco: questo evento affascinante per alcuni, ridicolo per altri, è la nascita della chiesa cattolica. Quella che, nella parabola dei vignaioli omicidi – quasi un titolo da film dell’orrore – raccontata da Matteo era sembrata una minaccia (“A voi sarà tolto il regno di Dio e sarà dato a un popolo che ne produca i frutti”) si realizza come dono universale: la predilezione del creatore per un popolo è tolta a quel popolo per essere data a tutti i popoli (quindi anche restituita a lui, si spera)….

Note:PENTECOSTE

9. Perché la profezia dà vita alla Chiesa

Un nono buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che il dono della profezia è sparso ovunque. Profeta non è – sia chiaro – chi è capace di prevedere il futuro: altrimenti tutti i profeti si arricchirebbero con il lotto… La profezia si occupa, in via esclusiva direi, del presente: del presente inteso come occasione di discontinuità tra passato e futuro…. il profeta è capace di vivere heideggerianamente all’aperto, in quell’aperto dove l’essere appare qual è…. Qui, nella percezione che un atto di libertà e un atto di speranza sono possibili, nascono i gesti di grande coraggio. Nascono i grandi amori. Nascono le grandi intuizioni cognitive. Nascono le idee che guidano i popoli. Nascono le accettazioni estreme, come quella di Maria. Nascono i rifiuti estremi, come quelli dei martiri (da Stefano a Jan Palach)….

Note:CHI E’ IL PROFETA

10. Perché tutto questo finirà in Gloria

Un decimo buon motivo per essere cristiani cattolici è che questo nostro mondo, questo mondo dei prima e dei dopo, sta viaggiando allegramente verso la propria fine, e noi con lui. Che cosa sarà precisamente questa fine, non è dato di saperlo… Sembra assodato – per quel che si può assodare circa ciò di cui non si sa nulla – che vi sarà un giudizio: saranno giudicati i vivi e i morti. Sorge il problema, tuttavia, di immaginare se ogniqualvolta una creatura muore essa venga subito giudicata, o se le creature morte siano state e saranno stipate da qualche parte, in attesa di essere giudicate insieme a tutte le altre…

Note:LA FINE

“C’erano sette fratelli: il primo, dopo aver preso moglie, morì senza figli. Allora la prese il secondo e poi il terzo e così tutti e sette; e morirono tutti senza lasciare figli. Da ultimo anche la donna morì. Questa donna dunque, nella risurrezione, di chi sarà moglie?”; la risposta di Gesù di Nazareth fu insieme chiara e oscurissima: “I figli di questo mondo prendono moglie e prendono marito; ma quelli che sono giudicati degni dell’altro mondo e della risurrezione dai morti, non prendono moglie né marito”.

Note:IL DILEMMA DEI SADDUCEI

Agostino d’Ippona, che è considerato santo, parlava di una innumerevole “massa dannata” che sarebbe finita all’inferno; Hans Urs von Balthasar, uno dei maggiori teologi del Novecento, dice che possiamo sperare che l’inferno sia vuoto: chi ce la conta giusta?

Note:L' INFERNO È VUOTO?

È un mistero bello e buono. Non vedo l’ora di vedere com’è.

E’ COMUNQUE UNA BELLA STORIA E SE SULLA FINE C’E’ QUALCHE DUBBIO, NON VEDO L'ORA DI APPURARLO

COMMENTO PERSONALE

https://fahreunblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/storie-lasche-storie-tese/

Tre proposte indecenti

Considerations On Cost Disease by Scott Alexander

I would make the case for the cost disease in the sectors Tyler mentions– health care and education– plus a couple more.

EDUCAZIONE, SANITÀ... E NON SOLO. PERCHÈ I COSTI ESPLODONO?

Per student spending has increased about 2.5x in the past forty years even after adjusting for inflation. At the same time, test scores have stayed relatively stagnant… reading scores went from 285 in 1971 to 287 today– a difference of 0.7%….

SCUOLA PRIMARIA

I discuss this phenomenon more here and here, but the summary is: no, it’s not just because of special ed; no, it’s not just a factor of how you measure test scores; no, there’s not a “ceiling effect”. Costs really did more-or-less double without any concomitant increase in measurable quality.

SPIEGAZIONI CHE NON REGGONO

So, imagine you’re a poor person. White, minority, whatever. Which would you prefer? Sending your child to a 2016 school? Or sending your child to a 1975 school, and getting a check for $ 5,000 every year?

PRIMA PROPOSTA INDECENTE

college is even worse… Do you think that modern colleges provide $ 18,000/ year greater value than colleges did in your parents’ day? Would you rather graduate from a modern college, or graduate from a college more like the one your parents went to, plus get a check for $ 72,000?…

UNIVERSITÀ... ANCORA PEGGIO

The cost of health care has about quintupled since 1970… an increase of about 800% in those fifty years….

SANITÀ

The average 1960 worker spent ten days’ worth of their yearly paycheck on health insurance; the average modern worker spends sixty days’ worth of it, a sixth of their entire earnings.

COSTO REALE DELLA SANITÀ

a lot of people think that life expectancy depends on other things a lot more than healthcare spending. Sanitation, nutrition, quitting smoking, plus advances in health technology that don’t involve spending more money.

L' AUMENTO DELLA VITA MEDIA È SPIEGATO DA ALTRI FATTORI

ACE inhibitors (invented in 1975) are great and probably increased lifespan a lot, but they cost $ 20 for a year’s supply and replaced older drugs that cost about the same amount.

SPESSO I MIGLIORAMENTI REALI SONO POCO COSTOSI

Countries like South Korea and Israel have about the same life expectancy as the US but pay about 25% of what we do…. Applying the estimates form published studies to the observed increase in health care spending in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2010 [of 40%] would imply that 0.3% to almost…

CFR INTERNAZIONALI. CONFERMATA LA SPESA INUTILE

If these numbers seem absurdly low, remember all of those controlled experiments where giving people insurance doesn’t seem to make them much healthier in any meaningful way.

RINFORZINO: L'ASSICURAZIONE SANITARIA NON MIGLIORA LA NOSTRA SALUTE.

a) Get modern health care b) Get the same amount of health care as their parents’ generation, but with modern technology like ACE inhibitors, and also earn $ 8000 extra a year

SECONDA PROPOSTA INDECENTE

we se similar effects in infrastructure. The first New York City subway opened around 1900. Various sources list lengths from 10 to 20 miles and costs from $ 30 million to $ 60 million dollars– I think my sources are capturing it at different stages of construction with different numbers of extensions. In any case, it suggests costs of between $ 1.5 million to $ 6 million dollars/ mile = $ 1-4 million per kilometer… Vox notes that a new New York subway line being opened this year costs about $ 2.2 billion per kilometer, suggesting a cost increase of twenty times– although I’m very uncertain about this estimate….

INFRASTRUTTURE. METRO DI NY

The same Vox article notes that Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen subways cost about $ 250 million per kilometer, almost 90% less. Yet even those European subways are overpriced compared to Korea, where a kilometer of subway in Seoul costs $ 40 million/ km (another Korean subway project cost $ 80 million/ km)… It suggests that the 1900s New York estimate above may have been roughly accurate if their efficiency was roughly in line with that of modern Europe and Korea….

CFR TRA PAESI

just ask yourself: do you think most poor and middle class people would rather: 1. Rent a modern house/ apartment 2. Rent the sort of house/ apartment their parents had, for half the cost

CASE: TERZA PROPOSTA INDECENTE

in the past fifty years, education costs have doubled, college costs have dectupled, health insurance costs have dectupled, subway costs have at least dectupled, and housing costs have increased by about fifty percent.

RIASSUNTINO

I worry that people don’t appreciate how weird this is. I didn’t appreciate it for a long time. I guess I just figured that Grandpa used to talk about how back in his day movie tickets only cost a nickel; that was just the way of the world. But all of the numbers above are inflation-adjusted.

COME MAI LA GENTE NON SI CHIEDE PERCHÈ?

And this is especially strange because we expect that improving technology and globalization ought to cut costs. In 1983, the first mobile phone cost $ 4,000– about $ 10,000 in today’s dollars. It was also a gigantic piece of crap. Today you can get a much better phone for $ 100.

LA TECNOLOGIA NON DOVEVA ABBASSATE I COSTI?

Patients can now schedule their appointments online; doctors can send prescriptions through the fax, pharmacies can keep track of medication histories on centralized computer systems that interface with the cloud, nurses get automatic reminders when they’re giving two drugs with a potential interaction, insurance companies accept payment through credit cards– and all of this costs ten times as much as it did in the days of punch cards and secretaries who did calculations by hand.

TUTTO PIÙ EFFICIENTE... EPPURE PIU’ COSTOSO

It’s actually even worse than this, because we take so many opportunities to save money that were unavailable in past generations. Underpaid foreign nurses immigrate to America and work for a song.

E IN PIÙ ABBIAMO UN ESERCITO DI BADANTI A BUON MERCATO CHE CI FANNO RISPARMIARE

Doctors used to make house calls; even when I was young in the ’80s my father would still go to the houses of difficult patients who were too sick to come to his office. This study notes that for women who give birth in the hospital, “the standard length of stay was 8 to 14 days in the 1950s but declined to less than 2 days in the mid-1990s”. The doctors I talk to say this isn’t because modern women are healthier, it’s because they kick them out as soon as it’s safe to free up beds for the next person.

IL PASSATO CI SEMBRA UN LUSSO: NELL’ERA DEL BABY BOOM IL MEDICO DI FAMIGLIA PASSAVA A VISITARTI… I GIORNI DI RICOVERO DELLA PARFTORIENTE ERANO RADDOPPIATI

III.

Suppose in some underdeveloped economy, people can choose either to work in a factory or join an orchestra, and the salaries of factory workers and orchestra musicians reflect relative supply and demand and profit in those industries. Then the economy undergoes a technological revolution, and factories can produce ten times as many goods. Some of the increased productivity trickles down to factory workers, and they earn more money. Would-be musicians leave the orchestras behind to go work in the higher-paying factories, and the orchestras have to raise their prices if they want to be assured enough musicians.

L'EFFETTO BAUMOL

If technology increases productivity for skilled laborers in other industries, then less susceptible industries might end up footing the bill since they have to pay their workers more. There’s only one problem: health care and education aren’t paying their workers more; in fact, quite the opposite… teacher salaries relative to other occupations’ salaries are actually declining….

BAUMOL NON SPIEGA NIENTE

This seems to me a lot like the case of the hospitals cutting care for new mothers. The price of the service dectuples, yet at the same time the service has to sacrifice quality in order to control costs.

IL COSTO ESPLODE E GLI STIPENDI STAGNANO

The overall pictures is that health care and education costs have managed to increase by ten times without a single cent of the gains going to teachers, doctors, or nurses. Indeed these professions seem to have lost ground salary-wise relative to others.

DOTTORI E INSEGNANTI NON BECCANO

Wall Street Journal: Why Doctors Are Sick Of Their Profession… The Daily Beast: How Being A Doctor Became The Most Miserable Profession… Forbes: Why Are Doctors So Unhappy?–… Vox: Only Six Percent Of Doctors Are Happy With Their Jobs. Al Jazeera America: Here’s Why Nine Out Of Ten Doctors Wouldn’t Recommend Medicine As A Profession….

POVERI DOTTORI

Meanwhile, I also see articles like this piece from NPR saying teachers are experiencing historic stress levels and up to 50% say their job “isn’t worth it”. Teacher job satisfaction is at historic lows.

LO STRESS DELL' INSEGNANTE

IV.

can we dismiss all of this as an illusion? Maybe adjusting for inflation is harder than I think.

POSSIBILI SPIEGAZIONI. È SOLO UN' ILLUSIONE

Second, might markets just not work? I know this is kind of an extreme question to ask in a post on economics, but maybe nobody knows what they’re doing in a lot of these fields and people can just increase costs and not suffer any decreased demand because of it.

ALTRA RISPOSTA: SCARSA INFO

Suppose that people proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Khan Academy could teach you just as much as a normal college education, but for free. People would still ask questions like– will employers accept my Khan Academy degree? Will it look good on a resume? Will people make fun of me for it?

KAHN ACADEMY

This can’t be pure price-gouging, since corporate profits haven’t increased nearly enough to be where all the money is going.

I PROFITTI NON GIUSTIFICANO QUESTA SPIEGAZIONE

Some of it is the administrative bloat that you would expect. But a lot of it is fun “student life” types of activities like clubs, festivals, and paying Milo Yiannopoulos to speak and then cleaning up after the ensuing riots.

LA QUOTA DI RETTA UNIVERSITARIA CHE PIÙ È AUMENTA

This kind of suggests a picture where colleges expect people will pay whatever price they set, so they set a very high price and then use the money for cool things and increasing their own prestige.

A QUALSIASI PREZZO

Or maybe clubs/ festivals/ Milo become such a signal of prestige that students avoid colleges that don’t comply since they worry their degrees won’t be respected?

SEGNALI

Third, can we attribute this to the inefficiency of government relative to private industry? I don’t think so. The government handles most primary education and subways, and has its hand in health care. But we know that for-profit hospitals aren’t much cheaper than government hospitals, and that private schools usually aren’t much cheaper (and are sometimes more expensive) than government schools.

IL PUBBLICO È INEFFICIENTE?

Fourth, can we attribute it to indirect government intervention through regulation, which public and private companies alike must deal with?

PESANO LE REGOLE?

This seems to be at least part of the story in health care, given how much money you can save by grey-market practices that avoid the FDA.

AL MERCATO NERO PREZZI DIMEZZATI

One factor that seems to speak out against this is that starting with Reagan in 1980, and picking up steam with Gingrich in 1994, we got an increasing presence of Republicans in government who declared war on overregulation– but the cost disease proceeded unabated.

CONTRO LA SPIEGAZIONE DELLE REGOLE

what about pet health care? Veterinary care is much less regulated than human health care, yet its cost is rising as fast (or faster) than that of the human medical system (popular article, study).

COSTI DI VETERINARIA

Fifth, might the increased regulatory complexity happen not through literal regulations, but through fear of lawsuits? That is, might institutions add extra layers of administration and expense not because they’re forced to, but because they fear being sued if they don’t and then something goes wrong?

PROCESSI FACILI. PARARSI LE SPALLE. EFFETTI COLLATERALI DELLA MARGINALIZZAZIONE DEL CAVEAT EMPTOR

A patient goes to the hospital with a heart attack. While he’s recovering, he tells his doctor that he’s really upset about all of this. Any normal person would say “You had a heart attack, of course you’re upset, get over it.” But if his doctor says this, and then a year later he commits suicide for some unrelated reason, his family can sue the doctor for “not picking up the warning signs” and win several million dollars. So now the doctor consults a psychiatrist, who does an hour-long evaluation, charges the insurance company $ 500, and determines using her immense clinical expertise that the patient is upset because he just had a heart attack. Those outside the field have no idea how much of medicine is built on this principle.

STORIELLA PER CAPIRE

Sixth, might we have changed our level of risk tolerance? That is, might increased caution be due not purely to lawsuitphobia, but to really caring more about whether or not people are protected?

SIAMO DIVENTATI DEI FIFONI

I read stuff every so often about how playgrounds are becoming obsolete because nobody wants to let kids run around unsupervised on something with sharp edges. Suppose that one in 10,000 kids get a horrible playground-related injury. Is it worth making playgrounds cost twice as much and be half as fun in order to decrease that number to one in 100,000?

CON I BIMBI LA COSA È CHIARA

To bring back the lawsuit point, some of this probably relates to a difference between personal versus institutional risk tolerance. Every so often, an elderly person getting up to walk to the bathroom will fall and break their hip. This is a fact of life, and elderly people deal with it every day. Most elderly people I know don’t spend thousands of dollars fall-proofing the route from their bed to their bathroom, or hiring people to watch them at every moment to make sure they don’t fall, or buy a bedside commode to make bathroom-related falls impossible. This suggests a revealed preference that elderly people are willing to tolerate a certain fall probability in order to save money and convenience. Hospitals, which face huge lawsuits if any elderly person falls on the premises, are not willing to tolerate that probability. They put rails on elderly people’s beds, place alarms on them that will go off if the elderly person tries to leave the bed without permission,

RISCHIO PERSONALE E RISCHIO STITUZIONALE

Eighth, might total compensation be increasing even though wages aren’t? There definitely seems to be a pensions crisis, especially in a lot of government work, and it’s possible that some of this is going to pay the pensions of teachers, etc. My understanding is that in general pensions aren’t really increasing much faster than wages, but this might not be true in those specific industries.

EXTRA COSTO E EXTRA COMPENSI

IV.

“LOOK, REALLY OUR MAIN PROBLEM IS THAT ALL THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS COST TEN TIMES AS MUCH AS THEY USED TO FOR NO REASON, PLUS THEY SEEM TO BE GOING DOWN IN QUALITY, AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY, AND WE’RE MOSTLY JUST DESPERATELY FLAILING AROUND LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS HERE.”

INGIUNZIONE

My uncle paid for his tuition at a really good college just by working a pretty easy summer job– not so hard when college cost a tenth of what it did now.

PAGARSI L' UNIVERSITÀ COL LAVORETTO ESTIVO

some people get upset about teachers’ unions, saying they must be sucking the “dynamism” out of education because of increasing costs. Others people fiercely defend them, saying teachers are underpaid and overworked. Once again, in the context of cost disease, both are obviously true.

TUTTI HANNO RAGIONE SE I COSTI SONO MALATI: SIA CHI INVITA A NON REGALARE SIA CHI INVITA AD AIUTARE

Imagine if tomorrow, the price of water dectupled. Suddenly people have to choose between drinking and washing dishes. Activists argue that taking a shower is a basic human right, and grumpy talk show hosts point out that in their day, parents taught their children not to waste water. A coalition promotes laws ensuring government-subsidized free water for poor families; a Fox News investigative report shows that some people receiving water on the government dime are taking long luxurious showers. Everyone gets really angry and there’s lots of talk about basic compassion and personal responsibility and whatever but all of this is secondary to why does water costs ten times what it used to?

ANALOGIA DELL' ACQUA

V.

In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandchildrens’ generation would have a 15 hour work week. At the time, it made sense. GDP was rising so quickly that anyone who could draw a line on a graph could tell that our generation would be four or five times richer than his. And the average middle-class person in his generation felt like they were doing pretty well and had most of what they needed. Why wouldn’t they decide to take some time off and settle for a lifestyle merely twice as luxurious as Keynes’ own?… Even if you’re making twice as much money, if your health care and education and so on cost ten times as much, you’re going to start falling behind. Right now the standard of living isn’t just stagnant, it’s at risk of declining, and a lot of that is student loans and health insurance costs and so on. What’s happening? I don’t know and I find it really scary….

IL SOGNO DI KEYNES SI INFRANGE SUL COST DISEASE

COMMENTO PERSONALE

Probabilmente parte del problema è dovuto al fatto che diversi fattori si intersecano e che quello preponderante è diverso a seconda dei settori analizzati. La mia intuizione è che il "signalling" domini nell'istruzione superiore mentre lo "show I care" domina nella sanità e nell'istruzione inferiore. Quanto alla casa, è sempre stata un indiscusso fattore di prestigio sociale, senza dire che nel settore immobiliare le regole hanno pesato eccome.

Come lucertole che pulsano sulla ghiaia

eamus Heaney. Terra di palude. Poesie. (Italian Edition)

***

le cose che potevano sommarsi o venir meno.

Note:OGGETTI SENZA MATERIA

la curva solitaria e astratta di treni distanti

Note:PENSIERI INVOLONTARI

adatti alla scomodità.

Note:RESOCONTO DI UNA GIOVENTÙ

… che fa girare il mondo senza far fiorire nessuno…

L’INAPPAGANTE CIVILTA’ DEL CONTRATTO

Peso squadrato dall’aspetto innocuo, finché non provi a sollevarla… Nera scatola di gravità,…

Note:L’ OSTINATA REALTA’ DELLE VALIGIE

La sofferenza passiva fa andare in tondo il mondo.

Note:UNA PASSIVITA’ DINAMICA

Rifiutare l’altra guancia. Lanciare la pietra.

Note:ODIO

il potere del potere non esercitato

Note:POTENZA DELL ASTENSIONE

Due aspetti in ogni questione, certo, certo.... ma ogni tanto, schierarsi è la sola cosa a cui si può ricorrere e senza discolparsi o compatirsi.

Note:MILITANZA SCUSATA

Il suonatore di cornamusa che arriva da lontano sei tu

Note:AGNIZIONI

che svolgi senza fine il tuo bordone

PRATO DI SERA

ti tiri su tra due mucche finché non passa il tuo turno, e ti riscuoti al tanfo dello sterco, chiedendoti: “Questo é tutto? Come era all’origine, ora e per sempre?”

CICLO

il restare a casa di chi s’ appoggiava allo stipite

BAMBOCCIONE

ebrezza del duty-free

GIOIE DEL VIAGGIATORE INESPERTO

una lucertola che pulsa sulla ghiaia

ESTATE

Nessuno di noi parlava. Le pozzanghere attendevano.

BUCO

Amava gli errori ispirati

BOBBY SANDS

lo scintillio dell’acqua frettolosa e bassa,

RUSCELLETTO

La sua canzone semplice, crepitante contro la pala… Le tue canzoni, quando le canti ad occhi chiusi come fai sempre, sono come una strada familiare di cui sapevamo in passato ogni curva

CANZONETTA

la sua compagnia era intima e confortante come una medicina che non sentivi agire.

LA SEDIA DEL POETA

Leonardo disse: il sole giammai vide un’ombra.

LEONARDO

Sangue viscoso e opaco sulle nocche del muratore, come marmellata di prugne

EDILIZIA

E i mattoni traballavano, assestandosi, battuti e allineati.

MURO

Era tutto un gettare, spalmare, spianare, scintillare finché non la lavava e la riponeva via nel fodero

Note:CAZZUOLA

“Negli anni quaranta, quando ero il primo figlio di una famiglia in perenne aumento, nella contea rurale di Derry

DEMOGRAFIA

i suoni notturni del cavallo che scalpitava nella stalla sotto il muro della stanza da letto si mescolavano ai suoni delle conversazioni degli adulti provenienti dalla cucina.”

CAMERETTA SONORA

La cabrata del chiurlo HL

Fuori per l'inverno (Italian Edition) di Febbraro Paolo

***

«La pazzia: che immensa calma. Vedi mostri che parlano del tempo, virus che salgono a te dalla maniglia che afferri ogni giorno,

Note:PAZZIA

Poche metafore, rime da incudine.

Note:POETICA

Finì coi piedi ad una scrivania, vent’anni dopo, a negoziare la rima difficile orario e salario, non so se appeso a una grossa lana di cravatta o dirimpetto piuttosto a uno sguardo di noncuranza e calcolo: il gancio del capitale.

Note:L’ ANTAGONISTA IN CARRIERA

Traccia la croce e un brivido spinale diffida ancora che non sia cattolica o uncinata: ma è sulla scheda elettorale… L’eretico sorride, va a votare: piega la scheda con cura, non si veda quanto ormai è diventato normale. Nell’aria del mattino scende in strada, lo mimetizza il ruolo di statale…

Note:CROCI

Fischietto qualche idea da manuale e se qualcuno chiede con lo sguardo rispondo “è una canzone, tipo balneare”. Il bello è che la so davvero, la canto bene anche a sentirla male.

Note:TORMENTONE

Quando un milite ti accorcia la fine rompendo l’ostia dei tuoi ginocchi schierati si voltano per non vedere…

Note:PIETÀ

strappai dal volume la riga più mia.

Note:EVIDENZIATORE

“il qui presente, nella fattispecie, fra intentio, voluntas, coercizione, et ergo, per le suesposte condizioni proprie loquendo il convenuto…”

Note:PIETRE LEVIGATE DEL FORO

«Non tentare con me» dice l’oceano alla vena d’acqua che per la spiaggia si dissimula e gli s’infligge. «Rossa di torba e minerale, non concepisci l’immensità del sale.

Note:FOCE

dentro un’estate da sedici gradi… Il sole si annida dopo un minuto d’oro, l’onda registra un friabile primato…

Note:BRITTAS BAY

Le rondini e i pettirossi che inseguono l’oro dei becchi nel peso leggero dell’aria

Note:PRIMAVERA

le piume arruffate, bianco su bianco, teste mature, caparbie e svettanti o curve, invece, e in cerca sott’acqua.

Note:ARRIVANO I CIGNI

ed ecco l’osso alla spiaggia: conchiglie, chele, teschi e carapaci, questa è l’impresa del mare.

Note:L' OSSO DELLA SPIAGGIA

la bassa marea li denuncia all’occhio inesauribile dei gabbiani.

Note:GRANCHI

Le alghe attorno mimano la sete con fare di serpente semivivo.

Note:FONDALI

Picchiate, volute e freni d’ala sono ispezione, radiogoniometro,   bianca manovra di puntamento.

Note:CABRATA DEL CHIURLO

Quella corrente spossa gli argini, sorda e sfiancante li slaccia.

Note:TRACIMA

Ti prego, luccio, non abboccare. Scansa la mia esca con degnazione… manda un segnale di evoluzione….

Note:SEGNALI DI EVOLUZIONE

L’amo conferma amore interessato, la lenza è occulta pubblicità:

Note:LA FRODE DELLA PESCA

La trama dei nèi

Note:COSTELLAZIONI

E si ritroveranno nell’Ade a sbiadire con l’ombra di Achille coloro che in terra impararono il greco vivendo l’affronto impareggiabile di Omero alle fedi moderne.

Note:GRECISTI

ipnotizzati dai sei battiti del verso di Virgilio.

LATINISTI

Razionale a sua insaputa

Se oggi cessassi di fare cio’ che non riesco a giustificare con la ragione, domani sarei morto

Friedrich von Hayek

On Two Forms of Rationality - Rationality in Economics: Constructivist and Ecological Forms by Vernon Smith

***

Introduction

The organizing principle throughout this work is the simultaneous existence of the two rational orders: constructivist and ecological. These two orders interact daily in ordinary human interaction,

Note:DUE ORDINI RAZINALI

Roughly, we associate constructivism with attempts to model, formally or informally, rational individual action and to invent or design social systems, and link ecological rationality with adaptive human decision and with group processes of discovery in natural social systems.

Note:MODELLO E ADATTAMENTO

Ecological rationality, however, always has an empirical, evolutionary, and/or historical basis; constructivist rationality need have little, and where its specific abstract propositions lead to some form of implementation, it must survive tests of acceptability, fitness, and/or modification.

Note:EMPIRISMO E RAZIONALISMO

I would conjecture that a critical element in understanding this proposition is to be found in human self-perception. We naturally recognize only one rational order because it is so firmly a part of the humanness of our reason and our mind’s anthropocentric need to think it is in control.

Note:PERCHÈ LA RAZIONALITÀ ECOLOGOCA NON È ACCETTATA? IL BISOGNO DI CREDERSI DOMINANTI

Constructivist Rationality

stems particularly from René Descartes (also Sir Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes), who believed and argued that all worthwhile social institutions were and should be created by conscious deductive processes of human reason… In the nineteenth century, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were among the leading constructivists….

Note:I PADRI DEL COSTRUTTIVISMO

Mill introduced the much-abused constructivist concept (but not the name) of “natural monopoly.” To Mill it was transparently wasteful and duplicative to have two or more mail carriers operating on the same route.

Note:ESEMPIO: IL CONCETTO DI MONOPOLIO NATURALE

Mill also could not imagine that it would be efficient for two cities to be connected by two parallel railroad tracks (Mill, 1848/1900, Vol. 1, pp. 131, 141–2, Vol. 2, p. 463).

Note:LO SPRECO DELLE STRADE PARALLELE

Many economists are either baffled that equilibrium theory works in these private information environments, or continue to think, speak, and write as if nothing had changed, that equilibrium theory requires complete or perfect information; others avoid confronting the question of what assumptions underlie the operational content of equilibrium theory.

Note:RATIO ECOLOGICA: UNA RIVOLUZIONE NELLA TEORIA GENERALE DELL' EQUILIBRIO

In economic analysis, the resulting exercises are believed to sharpen economic thinking, as “if-then” parables. Yet, these assumptions about the economic environment are unlikely to approximate the level of ignorance that has conditioned either individual behavior or our evolved institutions as abstract norms or rules independent of particular parameters that have survived as part of the world of experience.

Note:COME MODIFICARE IL MODELLO ORIGINALE

The temptation is to ignore this reality because it is poorly understood and does not yield to our familiar but grossly inadequate static modeling tools, and to proceed in the implicit belief that our parables capture what is most essential about what we observe.

Note:PERCHÈ SI FA FINTA DI NIENTE

Limitations and Distractions of Constructivist Rationality

it is necessary to remind ourselves constantly that human activity is diffused and dominated by unconscious, autonomic, neuropsychological systems that enable people to function effectively without always calling upon the brain’s scarcest resource: attention and self-aware reasoning circuitry.

Note:QUEL CHE TRASCURA IL COSTRUTTIVISMO

This is an important economizing property of how the brain works. If it were otherwise, no one could get through the day under the burden of the self-conscious monitoring and planning of every trivial action in detail.

Note:FARE TUTTO SOLO COL CERVELLO È TROPPO ONEROSO

“If we stopped doing everything for which we do not know the reason, or for which we cannot provide a justification . . . we would probably soon be dead” (Hayek, 1988, p. 68).

Note:HAYEK

Imagine the strain on the brain’s resources if at the supermarket a shopper were required to evaluate his or her preferences explicitly for every combination of the tens of thousands of grocery items that are feasible for a given budget.

Note:LA PROVA DEL SUPERMERCATO

The genes but also the cultural characteristics and institutions that survive are the ones that have created biological or cultural descendants who become “ancestors” who live and transmit this information (see Pinker, 1994, 2002).

Note:I SOPRAVVISSUTI

We fail utterly to possess natural mechanisms for reminding ourselves of the brain’s offline activities and accomplishments. This important proposition has led Gazzaniga (1998) to ask why the brain fools the mind into believing it is in control: By the time we think we know something – it is part of our conscious experience – the brain has already done its work.

Note:CREDERE DI SAPERE

And to Hayek, who had a thorough grasp of these propositions, but without the advantage afforded by recent neuroscience understanding, what was the “fatal conceit”? “The idea that the ability to acquire skills stems from reason.”

Note:L'ERRORE FATALE

That the brain is capable of off-line subconscious learning is shown by experiments with amnesiacs who are taught a new task. They learn to perform well, but memory of having learned the task escapes them (Knowlton et al., 1996).

Note:MIRACOLI DELL'AMNESIA

Also, there are numerous anecdotal reports of people seeking a solution to a problem who abandon it unsolved, but awaken in the morning with a solution… For example, Dmitri Mendeleyev reported that the critical rule underlying his periodic table of the elements came in a dream after unsuccessful efforts to gain insight while awake. Poincaré (1913) reports having given up on solving a particularly difficult mathematical problem only to have the solution suddenly appear to him on a trip to Lyon….

Note:SVEGLIARSI E RISOLVERE PROBLEMI

the other side of the phenomenon of subconscious problem solving is the brain’s ability to shut out all sense of self-awareness in the process of carrying out a difficult task

Note:QUANDO IL CERVELLO ORDINA ALLA MENTE

The current view is that, “Memories develop in several stages. After the initial encoding of new information during learning, memories are consolidated ‘off-line,’ seemingly while not being actively thought about through a cascade of events that is not well understood. In humans and other mammals, such an enhancement of recent memory may occur during sleep”… In a new study of navigation learning in rats, Foster and Wilson (2006) show evidence of memory consolidation during rest periods while awake….

Note:MEMORIA CONSOLIDATA OFF LINE

people are not aware of a great range of socioeconomic phenomena, such as the productivity of social exchange systems and the external order of markets that underlie the creation of social and economic wealth.

Note:INCONSCIO ED ECONOMIA

Ecological Rationality

an ecological system, designed by no one mind, that emerges out of cultural and biological evolutionary processes… Paraphrasing Gigerenzer et al. (“A heuristic is ecologically rational to the degree that it is adapted to the structure of an environment” [1999, p. 13]),

Note:ORDINE CHE EMERGE DALLA SELEZIONE

there are limitations to what we can deliberately bring about, and . . . that that orderliness of society which greatly increased the effectiveness of individual action was . . . largely due to a process . . . in which practices . . . were preserved because they enabled the group in which they had arisen to prevail over others” (pp. 8–9).

Note:VINCERE SENZA SAPERE PERCHÈ

People follow rules – morality, to David Hume – without being able to articulate them, but they may nevertheless be discoverable.

Note:LA RAGIONE RAZIONALIZZA... AL MASSIMO

This is the intellectual heritage of the Scottish philosophers and Hayek, who described and interpreted the social and economic order they observed and its ability to achieve desirable outcomes.

Note:ILLUMINISMO SCOZZESE

Hume, an eighteenth-century precursor of Herbert Simon, was concerned with the limits of reason and the bounds on human understanding, and with scaling back the exaggerated claims and pretensions of Cartesian constructivism.

Note:HUME VS CARTESIO

To Hume, rationality was phenomena that reason discovers in human institutions and practices. Thus, “the rules of morality . . . are not conclusions of our reason” (Hume, 1739/1985, p. 509). Smith developed the idea of emergent order for economics. Truth is discovered in the form of the intelligence embodied in rules

Note:LA RAGIONE OPERA A RITROSO

To paraphrase Smith, people in these experiments are led to promote group welfare, enhancing social ends that are not part of their intention. This principle is supported by hundreds of experiments whose environments and institutions (sealed bid, posted offer, and others besides CDA) may exceed the capacity of formal game-theoretic analysis to articulate predictive models.

Note:L'ECONOMIA SPERIMENTALE CONFERMA GLI SCOZZESI

What experimentalists have (quite unintentionally) brought to the table is a methodology for objectively testing the Scottish-Hayekian hypotheses under stronger controls than are otherwise available. This answers the question that Milton Friedman is said to have raised concerning the validity of Hayek’s theory/reasoning: “How would you know?”

Note:TESTARE L'IPOTESI HAYEK

Economic historian Douglass North (1990) and political economist Elinor Ostrom (1982, 1990) have long explored the intelligence and efficacy embodied in emergent socioeconomic institutions that solve, or fail to solve, problems of growth and resource management.

Note:OSTROM E NORTH

The distinction between ecological and constructivist rationality is in principle related to Simon’s distinction between subjective and objective rationality, procedural and substantive rationality, and between people making “good-enough” satisfactory decisions and making optimal decisions (Simon, 1955, 1956).

Note:HERBERT SIMON

procedural rationality and “satisficing” moves of subjects can converge over time to the substantively rational competitive outcome of equilibrium theory. (For a formal example, see Lucas, 1986.)

Note:LA CONVERGENZA DELLE RAZIONALITÀ

understanding decision making requires knowledge beyond the traditional bounds of economics,12 a challenge to which Hume and Smith were not strangers. Thus, “an economist who is only an economist cannot be a good economist” (Hayek, 1956).

Note:OLTRE L'ECONOMIA

Hume and Smith were part of a broader “Scottish enlightenment” centered in Edinburgh that blossomed in the period from 1745 to 1789. It embraced philosophy, political and social systems, economics, psychology and the mind, science, and poetry and literature (Robert Burns and others).

Note:ANCORA SULL'ILLUMINISMO SCOZZESE

China’s Great Leap Forward was a constructivist plan, blind to the accumulated intelligence and efficacy of ancient Chinese cultural traditions,

UN ESEMPIO DI COSTRUTTIVISMO