Trying to be a little less tendetious than Scott above, I do want to say that the excerpt (and the gratitutious swipe at McMansions that preceded it) are what to me is a central exhibit in the tradeoff between
1) stuff is expensive and labor is cheap
2) labor is expensive and stuff is cheap.
You go aroud some eastern cities (or say Lilek's site) and see impressive hand-crafted artistry in the detail work of buildings from the late 19th earliest 20th century. My late grandmother's old (I almost daresay peasant, but it was fishing village middle class) house in Nova Scotia had some really nice touches (in the places that it was not compeltely falling apart) that I would have loved to have been able to cut out whole and ship down to the states.
But there is no way even a typical upper middle class professional couple that's trying to keep their condo/townhouse under 600K would be able to afford today the man-hours required to contruct buidings this way - but they can afford quite readlily the pre-fabbed Granite countertops and Crown(sp?) molding.
And not everyone is cut out to be an artist. And complaints of the conformity of American middle & upper-middle class go back to at least Sinclair Lewis if not earlier.
@Simon K,
"And Europe seems to have been unusually cold during the middle ages"
I thought it was the complete opposite (defining 'middle ages' as CE 1000 +/- 300 yrs), which is why Leif Erikson and the boys were able to do what they did, and thence the "Little Ice Age" that came along at the end of that period ended the Viking Settlements and set up (along with the Crusades and Black Death) the political upheaval that would bring a close to the Medieval period.
Just as the Cold War brought about the National Defense Interstate Highway Act
And while there's no doubt that the interstates were a direct and substantial contribution to late twentieth century American prosperity (esp the raising of living standards in rural areas) I would question Interstate highways contribution to acutally winning the Cold War.
I have a fondness for trains. My inherent Henry Clay whigishness like big infrastruture projects. I would like the see a substantial increase in the excise taxes on retail gasoline and diesel as well on the barrel head (but won't due to the current political landscape and promises/self-preservation instinct of the current - and any other - adminstration)
Nonetheless this: This plan, fleshed out in the book Moving Minds, would create a national transportation network that provides reliable, efficient and mostly train-based public transportation to all Americans
strikes me as *exactly* what we had in 1910 at the precipice of the automobile age. It clearly wasn't a utopia. (and of course ironically(?) the 'pro-railroad' and 'anti-railroad' - note scare quotes - political landscape is pretty much a 180 of what it is today)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Learning from Poverty”
Trying to be a little less tendetious than Scott above, I do want to say that the excerpt (and the gratitutious swipe at McMansions that preceded it) are what to me is a central exhibit in the tradeoff between
1) stuff is expensive and labor is cheap
2) labor is expensive and stuff is cheap.
You go aroud some eastern cities (or say Lilek's site) and see impressive hand-crafted artistry in the detail work of buildings from the late 19th earliest 20th century. My late grandmother's old (I almost daresay peasant, but it was fishing village middle class) house in Nova Scotia had some really nice touches (in the places that it was not compeltely falling apart) that I would have loved to have been able to cut out whole and ship down to the states.
But there is no way even a typical upper middle class professional couple that's trying to keep their condo/townhouse under 600K would be able to afford today the man-hours required to contruct buidings this way - but they can afford quite readlily the pre-fabbed Granite countertops and Crown(sp?) molding.
And not everyone is cut out to be an artist. And complaints of the conformity of American middle & upper-middle class go back to at least Sinclair Lewis if not earlier.
On “The Idiocy of Rural Food”
@Simon K,
"And Europe seems to have been unusually cold during the middle ages"
I thought it was the complete opposite (defining 'middle ages' as CE 1000 +/- 300 yrs), which is why Leif Erikson and the boys were able to do what they did, and thence the "Little Ice Age" that came along at the end of that period ended the Viking Settlements and set up (along with the Crusades and Black Death) the political upheaval that would bring a close to the Medieval period.
On “Not the Robin Hood you were thinking of”
@Rincewind,
Mr. Elwes, welcome, I didn't know you read this blog.
On “Parmenides and non-Parmenides”
That is r/3 to 1.
"
So when Parmenides says that being is a sphere he is more saying that being is a unity in that a sphere has a ratio of surface to volume of 1 to 1
A sphere has a ratio of surface to volume of r/3, no?
On “A Better Plan for Energy Security?”
Just as the Cold War brought about the National Defense Interstate Highway Act
And while there's no doubt that the interstates were a direct and substantial contribution to late twentieth century American prosperity (esp the raising of living standards in rural areas) I would question Interstate highways contribution to acutally winning the Cold War.
"
I have a fondness for trains. My inherent Henry Clay whigishness like big infrastruture projects. I would like the see a substantial increase in the excise taxes on retail gasoline and diesel as well on the barrel head (but won't due to the current political landscape and promises/self-preservation instinct of the current - and any other - adminstration)
Nonetheless this:
This plan, fleshed out in the book Moving Minds, would create a national transportation network that provides reliable, efficient and mostly train-based public transportation to all Americans
strikes me as *exactly* what we had in 1910 at the precipice of the automobile age. It clearly wasn't a utopia. (and of course ironically(?) the 'pro-railroad' and 'anti-railroad' - note scare quotes - political landscape is pretty much a 180 of what it is today)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.