Re:The Economic Lives of Animals
by tpeo on Friday August 04, 2017 @03:41PM
(#14931457)
> 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.
Re:The Economic Lives of Animals
by erikpukinskis on Friday August 04, 2017 @05:02PM
(#14932236)
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.
Re:The Economic Lives of Animals
by exotree on Saturday August 05, 2017 @12:54AM
(#14934291)
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.
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-...
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.