Comments on: Aaron Mentele on business http://www.oeic.net/oeic/2007/07/12/aaron-mentele-on-business/ Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:14:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.3 By: Eric Buchanan http://www.oeic.net/oeic/2007/07/12/aaron-mentele-on-business/#comment-50 Eric Buchanan Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:27:24 +0000 http://www.oeic.net/oeic/2007/07/12/aaron-mentele-on-business/#comment-50 Is it slightly terrifying that so many people in the business world considers this a bad thing? Is it slightly terrifying that so many people in the business world considers this a bad thing?

]]> By: steve http://www.oeic.net/oeic/2007/07/12/aaron-mentele-on-business/#comment-51 steve Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:41:33 +0000 http://www.oeic.net/oeic/2007/07/12/aaron-mentele-on-business/#comment-51 I'm not sure if it's terrifying, but it is certainly a cause of the present situation we're in culturally and environmentally, namely fulfilling short term goals to the exclusion of ever even thinking about long term goals. At the macro scale, such behavior isn't distinctly human, rather looking a lot more like basic evolutionary principles. No goals, just a network responding to state changes. That's the crux of why endless growth fascinates me: it's completely illogical, and clearly impossible, but it's rationalized after the fact through Keynesian economics as the only feasible way to operate. Yet another instance of the discrepancy between man's view of himself as the rational animal and the actual case of population behaviors. All a really complex way of saying: a person can be smart, people are stupid. I’m not sure if it’s terrifying, but it is certainly a cause of the present situation we’re in culturally and environmentally, namely fulfilling short term goals to the exclusion of ever even thinking about long term goals. At the macro scale, such behavior isn’t distinctly human, rather looking a lot more like basic evolutionary principles. No goals, just a network responding to state changes.

That’s the crux of why endless growth fascinates me: it’s completely illogical, and clearly impossible, but it’s rationalized after the fact through Keynesian economics as the only feasible way to operate. Yet another instance of the discrepancy between man’s view of himself as the rational animal and the actual case of population behaviors. All a really complex way of saying: a person can be smart, people are stupid.

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