Comments on: New York Times celebrates aimlessness http://blacksmythe.com/blog/2006/07/31/new-york-times-celebrates-aimlessness/ Intellectual discussions on pressing issues Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:07:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: kspence http://blacksmythe.com/blog/2006/07/31/new-york-times-celebrates-aimlessness/#comment-53 kspence Tue, 01 Aug 2006 01:52:25 +0000 http://blacksmythe.com/blog/?p=58#comment-53 Amen. A real nice experiment could be conducted out of this. Either controlling for race, or perhaps for income. We celebrate those women who decide to take time off from practicing law to stay at home with their children, agree with the research that says that it may be better for at least one parent to stay at home...then rail against single mothers on welfare because they don't know how to work. bass ackwards. Amen. A real nice experiment could be conducted out of this. Either controlling for race, or perhaps for income. We celebrate those women who decide to take time off from practicing law to stay at home with their children, agree with the research that says that it may be better for at least one parent to stay at home…then rail against single mothers on welfare because they don’t know how to work.

bass ackwards.

]]> By: Ed Hopkins http://blacksmythe.com/blog/2006/07/31/new-york-times-celebrates-aimlessness/#comment-52 Ed Hopkins Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:58:27 +0000 http://blacksmythe.com/blog/?p=58#comment-52 This article reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about the ethics of leisure and the value of different forms of labor with respect to the types of goods produced—abstract vs. concrete goods. We also discussed how different people might have different philosophical leanings regarding people who were similar to them and people who were different from them. We wondered how we might estimate how people would determine the amount of time, as a percentage of his or her life, a fellow U.S. citizen could ethically spend doing a few things (see the list below), and how ethical ranges might differ as a function of the judge’s own race, gender, culture, and socioeconomic strata and the race, gender, culture, and socioeconomic strata of those whom he or she would judge. OUR ABBREVIATED LIST OF A FEW WAYS U.S. CITIZENS SPEND TIME - Living in retirement status—living in leisure - - before age 40 - - between age 40 and age 60 - - after age 60 - Living off of one’s parents’ money and not selling one’s labor - Exchanging blue-collar labor for capital - Exchanging white-collar labor for even more capital/hour - Exchanging entertainment labor (professional athletes, star actors, music stars, etc.) for ridiculous amounts of capital/hour - Studying independently - Studying with a university - Writing stuff fewer than .000000001% of the world's population would ever read - Producing abstract goods (ideas, books, essays, artwork, poems) - Producing concrete goods (food, homes, live-saving medicines) - Volunteering in one's community - Volunteering in a foreign country - Blogging and surfing the internet - Watching entertainment television, playing videogames, or just enjoying thoughtless entertainment in any of its many forms We realized that differences in tastes, cultural values, and education levels would make it difficult to develop any useful normative answers that would apply to all U.S. citizens; however, we thought we might be able to develop some answers that would be based on economic optimization theory. The economic optimization answers would enable all of us to judge people's life choices based on whether or not they were economical choices. We could then make the fallacious leap to the normative ethical realm by equating uneconomical life choices to immoral life choices. And, that was when our conversation came to an abrupt halt, and we agreed that the conversation we were having was itself uneconomical and, therefore, probably immoral. :) This article reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about the ethics of leisure and the value of different forms of labor with respect to the types of goods produced—abstract vs. concrete goods. We also discussed how different people might have different philosophical leanings regarding people who were similar to them and people who were different from them.

We wondered how we might estimate how people would determine the amount of time, as a percentage of his or her life, a fellow U.S. citizen could ethically spend doing a few things (see the list below), and how ethical ranges might differ as a function of the judge’s own race, gender, culture, and socioeconomic strata and the race, gender, culture, and socioeconomic strata of those whom he or she would judge.

OUR ABBREVIATED LIST OF A FEW WAYS U.S. CITIZENS SPEND TIME

- Living in retirement status—living in leisure
- - before age 40
- - between age 40 and age 60
- - after age 60
- Living off of one’s parents’ money and not selling one’s labor
- Exchanging blue-collar labor for capital
- Exchanging white-collar labor for even more capital/hour
- Exchanging entertainment labor (professional athletes, star actors, music stars, etc.) for ridiculous amounts of capital/hour
- Studying independently
- Studying with a university
- Writing stuff fewer than .000000001% of the world’s population would ever read
- Producing abstract goods (ideas, books, essays, artwork, poems)
- Producing concrete goods (food, homes, live-saving medicines)
- Volunteering in one’s community
- Volunteering in a foreign country
- Blogging and surfing the internet
- Watching entertainment television, playing videogames, or just enjoying thoughtless entertainment in any of its many forms

We realized that differences in tastes, cultural values, and education levels would make it difficult to develop any useful normative answers that would apply to all U.S. citizens; however, we thought we might be able to develop some answers that would be based on economic optimization theory. The economic optimization answers would enable all of us to judge people’s life choices based on whether or not they were economical choices. We could then make the fallacious leap to the normative ethical realm by equating uneconomical life choices to immoral life choices. And, that was when our conversation came to an abrupt halt, and we agreed that the conversation we were having was itself uneconomical and, therefore, probably immoral. :)

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