------------------------------------------ -- EZ A SZÁM CSAK TEXT FORMÁBAN LÉTEZIK -- ------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 22:48:35 EST Subject: *** FORUM *** #171 Tartalomjegyzek: ---------------- Felado : peter@61820 Temakor : parajelensegek-Egely Felado : 72600.3046@compuserve.com Temakor : The competitive advantage of nations - survival of =============================================== Felado : peter@61820 Beerkezett: Wed Mar 13 08:50:27 EST 1991 Temakor : parajelensegek-Egely - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I=peter@kemist.uu.se Kedves Diana! (es mindazok, akik az UFO-parajelensegek-Egely vitaban erdekeltek) A parajelensegek elegendoen erdekesek ahhoz, hogy egy jot lehessen vitatkozni roluk. E levelemben nem kivanok allast foglalni arrol, hogy ezek tenyleges avagy hokusz-pokusz dolgok. Amit szeretnek hangsulyozni az az, hogy vannak jelensegek, amik megerdemlik azt, hogy odafigyeljenek rajuk. Az odafigyeles ket dolgot eredmenyezhet: vagy kiderul, hogy humbug az egesz, de ezt is fontos lenne tudni (tobb evszazados misztikakat torolni); vagy pedig tenyleg "valami van!", s ez meg izgalmasabb. Az a hozzaallas, hogy "mivel a jelenlegi fizikai torvenyekkel nem magyarazhatok meg, igy eleve lehetetlenek", az enyhen szolva is tudomany ellenes. A jelensegeket beletettek egy dobozba, amit ugy hivnak, hogy parajelensegek . Ez egy felrevezeto sematizalas, mert a gombvillam es Uri Geller, az UFO-k es a manilai csoda-doktorok nyilvan nem ugyanazon megkozelitest kovetelnek. (Ha tevednek, es a vegso ok ugyanaz lenne, am legyen!) Egy azonban bizonyos , hogy vannak dolgok, amik tenylegesen letezo jelensegek- mint peldaul a gombvillam. Persze a legtobb dolog olyan, amirol azt lehet allitani, hogy egy ugyes buvesz ezt meg tudja csinalni. Voltam pl. egy szeanszon ugy egy eve; na hat semmirol sem gyozott meg. Elolvastam Egely egy-ket konyvet, ami ugyan ugyszint nem gyozott meg dolgokrol sem pro, sem kontra, de azt meg sikerult neki vilagitania, hogy erdekes dolgokrol van szo. A jelensegek vizsgalata egyaltalan nem egyszeru. Egyreszrol tenyleg a szelhamosok kedvenc vadaszterulete, ami a tisztanlatas elhomalyositasa mellett a tudos "szakertok" bizalmat is alaassa. Masreszt ritkan (esetleg veletlenszeruen) fordulnak elo, s akkor is csak rovid ideig tanulmanyozhatoak. Egely tevekenyseget tekintve: kar, hogy a vizforgatasos kiserlettel lejaratta magat. A gombvillam kerdeskoreben azonban egy roppant izgalmas kutatasi teruletet tart fol. A negydimenzios elktron-gyuru elmeleterol kompetencia hianyaban nem kivanok allast foglalni. De az, hogy mi is ez a gombvillam, az tenyleg rejtely, s ha ezt a rejtelyt meg lehetne oldani, az sok ujdonsagot tartalamzhatna (pl. a gombvillam energisurusege lenyegesen nagyobb barmely ismert foldi jelenseg energiasurusegenel). De hat a dolog nem engedelyez egy szokvanyos kutatasi modszert, amit a fizikus szeret, nevezetesen, hogy a laborban fog egy jol definialt mintat, es megvizsgalja du 2-tol este 8-ig. Szoval Egely szerintem igenis fontos dolgot csinalt, persze el kell feledkeznunk (s lehet, hogy neki is) a sallangokrol (pl. vizforgatas, ami szerintem is teljesen hibas vagany). A telepatia, csoda-doktorok, kanal hajlitas es tarsaik pedig megernenek reszletes vizsgalatokat, amelyek persze ujfent csak nem egyszeruek, mert a targya az ember, ami aktiv elem a vizsgalatban; mert keves a "minta", azaz kevesen kepesek a jelensegek letrehozatalara es kevesszer; mert ki a fene ad ma erre penzt. Ettol fuggetlenul fonntartom, hogy izgalmas tema (a vegeredmeny pozitiv vagy negativ voltatol fuggetlenul). S vegul az olvasokozonseg megbotrankoztatasa vegett (vallalva a tudomanyos vilagbol valo kitagadtatas odiumat): szivesen vennek reszt ilyen jellegu vizsgalatokba. Udvozlettel Mogyorosi Peter Uppsala =============================================== Felado : 72600.3046@compuserve.com Beerkezett: Wed Mar 13 22:36:09 EST 1991 Temakor : The competitive advantage of nations - survival of - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Korrekcio: tegnapi (Forum #170) levelemben a capital szot kovetkezetesen capitol-nak irtam. Elnezest kerek, ebbol is latszik, hogy az angol nyelv sem rendelkezik megfelelo redundanciaval: egyetlen betut irtam el, amellyel egy uj, ertelmes szot krealtam, raadasul a mondatok ertelmet is megvaltoztatva. Azt persze nem tudom megmondani, hogy ez milyen freudian slip of the tongue volt, hisz a szoveget masoltam es a ket billentyu nincs is egymas mellett a keyboardon. Talan azert tortent, mert manapsag a capital es capitalist szavak is kezdenek tabukka valni? :-) Kedves Voros Peter, Igazan nem kekeckedni akarok, csak gondoltam, ha mar vegigragtad magad Michael Porter opus magnuman, akkor erdekel minden vele kapcsolatos kritika. A New York Times Book Review egy tavalyi szamaban (5/27/90) olvastam egyet a kozismert liberalis kozgazdasz kollega Lester C. Thurow (M.I.T.) tollabol. Nehany gondolata: His book starts in the right place: trade surpluses do not make for national success; trade deficits do not make for national failure. A country's success depends on a high and rapidly rising level of productivity. In the long run, productivity, and nothing else, determines our standard of living. "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" also ends in the right place: private companies, not governments, are primarily responsible for productivity's rate of growth. If businesses are to increase productivity, however, they must have the help of their workers' best efforts. This requires a large investment in education and training by governments, businesses and individuals. These investments must then be backed up by even larger investments in plants and equipments, research and development, and infrastructure. ...In between the right beginning and the right ending, Mr. Porter provides a lengthy tour through the 50 most successful export industries in each of 10 leading industrial countries. His aim is to look for the common denominators of success. Unfortunately, this long journey is made even longer by prose that is so turbid and turgid that sentences and paragraphs often have to be read several times to decipher their meaning. Even the author sometimes loses track of his argument. Mr. Porter preaches the economic equivalent of survival of the fittest. The closer one looks, however, the less predictive power this theory, like its counterpart in the study of evolution, seems to have. No one viewing Homo sapiens 100,000 years ago would have predicted the species' dominance today. No biologist can say precisely what characteristics caused a species to become extinct, since there is almost always some other species with exactly those characteristics that did not die out. The same is true of Mr. Porter' tour through 500 successful export industries. For every example there is a counterexample. Japan and Italy are the two countries with the largest post-World War II increase in export. The former has a government organized to help its industries; the latter has one organized, it seems, in effect to disorganize its economy. The rising value of the yen from 1985 to 1989 forced Japanese companies to become more efficient; a rising dollar from 1981 to 1985 caused American companies to go out of business. All of Mr. Porter's findings predict that Olivetti cannot be successful in Italy, yet it is. In both biology and economics, the more detailed the analysis, the more random the result appears to be. ...The problem is that no one can say when or why a country stops increasing productivity and enters the wealth-driven stage of decline. From Mr. Porter's perspective, Britain has been in this stage for most of the century; America entered it 25 years ago; and Germany, Sweden and Switzerland are headed into it. But all of this is, of course, a tautology. When productivity ceases to rise rapidly, the wealth-driven stage is said to exist. Calling decline the wealth-driven stage, however, does not help us to better predict, understand or reverse decline. While it is correct to say that government can never be the prime actor in international competition, Mr. Porter too lightly brushes over actions by foreign governments that have created problems for the United States. What does one do about the European consortium Airbus Industries? Without a huge worldwide backlog of airplane orders, this publicly owned and subsidized company would be driving Boeing out of business. What does one do about a Japanese Government that prevents foreign companies from using superior technologies to gain an established market there (Motorola's cellular phones, Corning Glass's fiber optics)? Foreigners are welcome only when they have lost their technological edge. ...Mr. Porter has come to conclusions very similar to those reached by others, and none of their writings has made a dent in the system. I suspect his analysis won't either. We all know that we should consume less and invest more in education, R&D, plants and equipment, and infrastructure. But we don't. We all know that the American financial system places a dangerous emphasis on short-term profits. But we don't change the system. ...What we need is what we don't have: a President willing to tell the people that the news from the competitiveness-productivity front does not bode well for our future standard of living [ezt hivjak a pszichologiaban "denial"-nak]. What we don't have is a political process that would then support a President in changing what must be changed. [Azt hiszem Thurow itt - tipikus liberalis modra - feluton megall a kovetkeztetesek levonasaban. Mi a helyzet azzal a melyen gyokerezo gazdasagi strukturaval, amely a monopoliumok kialakulasanak melegagya? Vagy a korporaciok es a kormany hatalmi osszefonodasaval?] As Mr. Porter's analysis of Britain illustrates, decline does not within itself contain the seeds of regeneration. Those seeds must come from elsewhere, and neither Mr. Porter nor any of the other writers toiling in these fields knows where that elsewhere is to be found. Udv. Leirer Laszlo