"knowledge spillover"
it was just too hilarious. i had a coffee spillover cause i choked on that one and laughed so hard i almost had a bladder spillover too. my keyboards a mess and i've decided never to read one of these wanker papers again or else i'm going to have invest in a box of depends.
"the genetically driven female mating preference of fewer higher fitness offspring is the utility maximizing choice; rather than the male mating preference of maximizing the quantity of children so that some proportion of these will survive. The model shows that the male impulse inhibits the transmission of human capital and will only occur in economies that are very poor or have highly inefficient institutional environments"
WOW! people all over the world apparently are rational about fucking too. and it's genetically driven, so like natural for grrRls to not like fucking because that leads to offspring. and not only that, we're hardwired to prefer higher fitness offspring. and buoys, well they've got these impulses to produce lotsa offspring and they don't care if they're not too bright, they just want lots of them, hedging (?) their bets that enough will survive. survive for what? author doesn't say? transmission of property maybe?? i'll fess up and admit that i skimmed so... and maybe his refs stand in for an explanation so.... anyone available to explain this one? i promise i won't shoot you.
the deal is this Doug. see, the author assumes no altruistic impulses toward children. okay. and, it appears, he also assumes that not much time need be invested in child-rearing in order to transmit human capital (knowledge, skills, etc). feminists and others just call it 'good enough parenting' but hey, whatever, let's call it "minimal necessary impulse toward the intergenerational transmission of human capital" or something snazzy like that. sounds way kewler. moreover, he's arguing that the fewer children the more time spent transmitting human capital per offspring. hence, offspring then magically become smarter , possess more skills and are hard working. voila! efficient, advanced economy--an information-based one no less!
"In order to keep the dynamics of the model tractable several simplifying assumptions were made [I'LL SAY] that should be relaxed in future research [subtextual translation help: author needs to get laid so he can relax].....Second, permitting children to be reproduced by the mating of agents identified by their sex, rather than by parthenogenesis."
HELP! what *IS* this guy talking about? i get the first part, but this parthenogenesis bizzo?? the model assumes parthenogenesis?
"the "twin peaks" pattern of the data..."
sure....now that's the brightest thing this guy said in the whole paper. def. reminds me of an episode of twin peaks. title: lost in the valley of the dolls between the twin peaks
"a North-Olsen institutional poverty trap"
weird association: i kept thinking nellie olsen from little house on the prairie. just thought i'd share.
kelley
and here i promised myself that i wouldn't p post today to make up for my over- posting this week. ahhh well.....