Please visit the Guardian's new weblog:
This might be the first time a mostly leftist paper is supporting such
clear, radical, free trade.
Leave a comment on one of the entries, maybe. I did, below. (complete with
wrong there, darn it)
Tom Grey
-
Here's a suggestion: China, India, and Br
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003, Bryan Caplan wrote:
> That seems to water down the Principle to complete irrelevance, doesn't
> it?
Well, the notion that life is very unlikely, but happened on earth
through sheer chance, does not require that earth is "special" in
any fundamental physical sense.
> If it
Robin Hanson wrote:
> . . . it has come to my attention that a horse weighs
> about ten times as much as a human. It would seem that
> horses would eat about ten times as much as a human, . . .
Quibble: appetite does not scale linearly with mass; some very small
animals eat their own weight daily,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Horses were almost never used in subsistence farming anywhere
> in the world. . . . Oxen were used to do heavy work such as plowing -
Until the invention of the horse collar, which (unlike the older
ox-yoke) allowed the horse to pull a plow without strangling itself.
Supp
> > Before using horses, no number of humans could
> > ever catch a migrating pack of bison or other large herbivores.
> > - Zac Gochenour
>
> But American Indians, prior to the European invasion, had no horses, yet
> they caught and ate bison.
>
> Fred Foldvary
Yes, and they did it by inducing
Christopher Auld wrote:
Suppose all planets are identical in the sense that they each have
a one in 10^100 probability of developing intelligent life. None
are "special" in any way ex ante; earth simply experienced a very
low probability event. Isn't such an argument consistent with both
the Pri
> Before using horses, no number of humans could
> ever catch a migrating pack of bison or other large herbivores.
> - Zac Gochenour
But American Indians, prior to the European invasion, had no horses, yet
they caught and ate bison.
Fred Foldvary
=
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> OK, but then the question applies to transportation. Can a horse
> really move as much as ten people, or is it that they can eat
> foods that are cheaper than food humans can live on?
The fact that a horse can consume and digest grasses is a contributing factor, but
definitely not the whole p
Quoting Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> OK, but then the question applies to transportation. Can a horse really
> move as much as ten people, or is it that they can eat foods that are
> cheaper than food humans can live on?
Quite likely both. Rapid transportation is what horses excel at!
-
At 12:20 PM 8/21/2003 -0400, Zac Gochenour wrote:
Horses, though, are much more valuable for their mobility. An interesting
tidbit: "equestrian foraging" developed as a subsistence pattern for the
natives in the Great Plains and Argentina. These foragers acquired horses
from the Spanish in the 16
In a message dated 8/21/03 12:32:07 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Oxen were used to do heavy work such as plowing - and often groups of
subsistence
>farmers will share a "village ox" for tasks that require that level of
>strength.
Not to mention the village plow.
Horses were almost never used in subsistence farming anywhere in the world. In some
instances of tenant farming, landowners would use horses for transporting goods in
bulk. Oxen were used to do heavy work such as plowing - and often groups of
subsistence farmers will share a "village ox" for t
Robert Fogel discussed the use of oxen and horses in one of the first
chapters of his recent book _The Fourth Great Awakening_. Horses are
actually better for plowing or pulling lumber than oxen for various
reasons, including strength. However, the anatomy of the horses' necks is quite
different fr
Quoting Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> A simple theory of farm economics says that farmers were mostly at a
> subsistence level through most of human history, at least until
> recently. I had always thought that horses were used in such subsistence
> farming, but it has come to my attention
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robin Hanson) writes:
>A simple theory of farm economics says that farmers were mostly at a
>subsistence level through most of human history, at least until
>recently. I had always thought that horses were used in such subsistence
>farming, but it has come to my attention that
I believe opportunity costs of ten humans pulling a plow are higher. So it is useful
to employ horses. Which horse is able to teach a children, except to eat a piece of
sugar?
Steffen
-Original Message-
From: Robin Hanson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 5:09 PM
I believe that horses are not used in subsistence farming. Oxen are
much stronger, hardier and easier to keep and when their working life is
at end you can fatten them up and eat them.
Alex
--
Alexander Tabarrok
Department of Economics, MSN 1D3
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA, 22030
Tel. 703-
I think the 10-1 ratio is altered quite a bit by the fact that a horse
either eats grain or forages for grass, whereas humans use up a great deal
of grain transforming it into meat. It takes several pounds of grain to
produce a pound of beef, for instance. Add to that the fact that humans
also ea
It's my understanding that horse were relatively uncommon as agricultural
animals, at least in western Europe and that the ox was far more common. This
may have more to do with the high demand for military horses after 632 (when
Charles Martel defeated the Moors using horsed cavalry) than with the
A simple theory of farm economics says that farmers were mostly at a
subsistence level through most of human history, at least until
recently. I had always thought that horses were used in such subsistence
farming, but it has come to my attention that a horse weighs about ten
times as much as a hu
At 04:47 PM 8/18/2003 -0600, Chris Auld wrote:
> I've finished a fantastic book that Robin lent me, *Where Is Everybody*?
> The author explores the paradox that (a) It seems like the galaxy
> should be full of intelligent life but (b) There is little evidence of
> its existence.
What sort of argu
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