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How much do you reject the division of labor?
Take The Big Here Quiz, via Jason Kottke. I got about five right out of thirty-four.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 11, 2006 at 04:40 PM in Science | Permalink
Comments
This is the division of leisure, not the division of labor. I got about 20 questions, most because my wife gardens and I sail. I wish I knew only 5 edible wild weeds trying to conquer my yard.
Posted by: DK at Jul 11, 2006 4:57:33 PM
I'm not sure I even got 3. Rather sad...
Posted by: jude at Jul 11, 2006 8:04:16 PM
Do you all agree with the basic premise of the test? I mean as people here in the US, we might choose to notice different big picture things about our environment.
Edible plants? Are you kidding? Ground cover 10,000 years ago? I guess I embrace the division of labor.
Well here is a thought experiment I play sometimes. I live near Chicago and lived in Chicago city limits for most of my adult life. Some times I wonder, starting down town, where is the first place that a human being hasn't trod upon? In downtown Chicago, I assume that if there were paint on the bottoms of everyones feet, literally all of the gound would be covered. But as you go out from downtown, where would be the first place where someone hasn't walked? Then the first square foot, then the first square yard, and so on. Is there a square mile on earth where nobody has ever set foot?
Posted by: mickslam at Jul 11, 2006 10:57:14 PM
18/34
Posted by: Dave Barnes at Jul 12, 2006 12:40:39 AM
I reject the division of labor approximately not at all. I'm a very smart chap, well-rounded, quick learner, etc. I looked at those questions and was struck by how little I cared to answer them. It's the equivalent of trivia for most people as it has no practical implications on how most people live.
I outsource any need I may have for being able to answer these questions.
Posted by: Johnny Debacle at Jul 12, 2006 6:20:23 AM
mickslam - interesting question. Maybe in Antarctica you could find a whole squre mile never trod upon, but even there I doubt it. Square yards should be easy to find in any place with rugged terrain - there's lots of land that is not on a good path for walking on and also visibly uninteresting to someone nearby.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 12, 2006 9:44:47 AM
I'm not sure how to score my answers on that quiz, because I know most of them to a good approximation, and that's good enough for me. As an amateur astronomer, I always know how long it is to the @#!$ full moon, for example. And I find local geology and ecology to be interesting subjects, so I'm not sure if that's division of labor or not, since I don't consider learning such things to be labor. That said, I think that several of the things on the quiz are worth knowing for their own sake, although certainly not all of them.
As for Mickslam's question, I've had similar thoughts. When I lived in Germany for a year or two, I wondered when the last time was that no one lived in the town I was in. That was prompted by a visit to a local museum, which featured items from the area going back through the Bismarck era, the Napoleonic wars, the earlier days of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, Roman settlements, Celtic/Germanic tribal days, megalithic cultures, and, in the last room, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal bones. All from the same town.
Posted by: Derek Lowe at Jul 12, 2006 9:54:28 AM
If you all believe that the quiz supports division of labor (ie, that you did badly because it's not your area of interest or expertise and that someone else should know those answers, etc...), does that also imply that you are willing to take an "expert's word for it" when it applies to watersheds (or global warming, for that matter)?
Why is it that we are proud to plead ignorance of a topic, yet reject advice from someone who's an expert in that topic - presumably because we don't like their advice?
I think economists suffer the same fate as many experts -- people just don't listen to someone who knows.
Posted by: David Zetland at Jul 13, 2006 12:09:37 AM
27/30 and a couple of the bonus questions. I looked up the location of my wastewater treatment plant the minute I finished the quiz.
(The first couple years after the pandemic are going to be hard on you guys. Come find me and I'll help you all I can.)
Posted by: Megan at Jul 13, 2006 3:14:01 AM
Maybe we should make our own quiz for the "big economic picture"...I'll bet that many people would get very few within 20%, but most readers of MR would nail almost all of them.
A few questions follow:
(1) What is the approximate GDP of the USA, in trillions? How much is that in per capita terms?
(2) How high is your household income relative to the average for your state?
(3) What fraction of your annual income do you currently owe to debtors, exclusive of the balance on your mortgage, if any?
(4) How much home equity do you have in your primary residence?
(5) Approximately how much income could you expect in retirement if you continued contributing the same amount you currently contribute until you retire?
(6) Approximately how large have the long-term average annual returns on stocks and bonds been since 1929?
(7) Name ten billionaires and explain how they accumulated their wealth.
Additions welcome!
Posted by: ModalHubby at Jul 13, 2006 7:15:42 PM
Ground nobody has trod upon can be found in the aftermath of a mudslide or volcanic eruption.
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