The Economic Lives of Animals

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2017-biological-markets/

by Thevet • 9 years ago

26 8 9 years ago

tpeo• 9 years ago

Even John Maynard Keynes, the father of modern economics, attributed our irrational choices to “animal spirits.”

Yeah, there's an equivocation in this reference. The "animal" in "animal spirits" doesn't refer to non-human lifeforms, rather it means "of or relating to a soul". The expression itself is an obsolete medical term which designated what people from late antiquity to the modern period thought was the cause of bodily movement.

By the early 20th century, it had become a somewhat quaint and tongue-in-cheek expression. To say that someone was "full of animal spirits" was to say that a person was lively, restless, or something like that.

There's without doubt a conflict between rationality and irrationality in Keynes' usage of it. But that conflict isn't alluded to through a reference to "animals", in the contemporary sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_spirits_(Keynes)

https://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/11/16/exorcising-...

msgilligan• 9 years ago

And the term 'Homo Economicus' is usually (and originally) used pejoratively to critique economics for its oversimplification of human behavior.

anotheryou2• 9 years ago

please no animations where I'm trying to read...

exotree• 9 years ago

I found the animations to be quite informative in helping me see the animals, thus helping me understand the article more clearly. They also were very tastefully done. I hope this publication continues.

anotheryou2• 9 years ago

Which includes the necessity for looped animation?

agumonkey• 9 years ago

Reminds me of the video of monkeys living with dogs. It's a very weird collaboration (in a particular context, based on free food from humans nearby).

erikpukinskis• 9 years ago

The first person who starts a SnapChat and Patreon for a famous working animal, and uses it to defend their legal right to minimum wage and some degree of autonomy will change the world, regardless of the outcome of the case.

The first egg farm that pays the chickens a wage, and lets them choose between different "jobs" will make a huge splash. Once consensual animal products enter the free market, there will be a fascinating forcing function on animal welfare, possibly leading to legal personhood for some animals.

paperkettle• 9 years ago

dont forget algorithms ! http://nonhumans.net

The Economic Lives of Animals

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