Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Monday, March 4. 2013

QQQ

“From the point of view of physics, it is a miracle that 7 million New Yorkers are fed each day without any control mechanism other than sheer capitalism.”


John Holland, scientist, Santa Fe Institute (h/t Carpe's Quotations of the day on the miracle of the market)

Posted by Bird Dog in Quotidian Quotable Quote (QQQ) at 11:46 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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I'd say that capitalism is the sole reason a city like New York can be supplied...
Were the government to try to "regulate" the food supply, mass starvation would inevitably result.
Of course emperor Bloomburg would love to see that, as part of his "anti-obesity campaign", as long as the dead are not people likely to vote for him.
#1 J.T. Wenting on 2013-03-04 13:39 (Reply)
You'd think the gummint would have to make us sell food to NYorkers, those insufferable people!

But so long as we get paid enough, we'll do it.
#2 Sam L. on 2013-03-04 13:41 (Reply)
I attended a Complexity in Business Seminar in 1994 which was run by the Santa Fe Institute. I had first read about the Santa Fe Institute the year before when I'd read James Gleick's book "Chaos", and I was intrigued to learn more.

It was, without a doubt, the single most enlightening conference I'd ever attended. Not a single person from my industry there but me, and I was able to learn so much from many of the people who were there from other industries.

Including John Holland, who was one of the main speakers, talking about genes and the complexity of networking.


I am amazed, after all these years and the number of great works the Santa Fe Institute have influenced, that they get almost no mention at all and continue to fly under the radar.
#3 Bulldog on 2013-03-04 14:44 (Reply)
A lot of good work on complexity theory and evolutionary computation has come out of Santa Fe. Gell-Mann was a co-founder.
#3.1 Zachriel on 2013-03-04 16:43 (Reply)
Gell-Mann was at that conference, too.

I had the good luck to meet many of the original founders at that conference.

I remain steadfast in my doubts on their political stances, since they run at odds with their approach to science.
#3.1.1 Bulldog on 2013-03-05 12:49 (Reply)

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