🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 13614@cco.caltech.edu, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
>Just what, then, DID you mean by the verb "compel"?

The same thing Garrett Hardin means when he uses the long phrase "mutual
coersion mutually agreed upon" -- with some qualifications. Sometimes we
don't get the agreement of everyone, only a substantial majority.

It is compulsion when the coach of a rowing team exhorts his team to row
harder than they would if each of them decided for himself how much of an
effort to make. It is also compulsion when what motivates them all is
their approach to the edge of a waterfall.

Compulsion is not just about the imposition of the will of a few on a
resisting many. Sometimes it does involve that, but more often not.

>In what sense do you mean, "[m]ore like the work done in universities than like
>the work done in cities today"?  And what makes you think that a significant
>percentage of the population is NOT "averse to mainly intellectual pursuits"?

In the compact cities I envision, few of the occupations by which people
now make a living would find a place. Little manufacturing. Distribution
would mainly be by electronic ordering and delivery by conveyer systems.
What would be left would be things like research, learning, teaching, and
the arts. Mostly things requiring professional skills. Not everyone will
have the aptitude or the inclination. But aversion has been known to 
diminish under the pressure of the need to earn a living. Even many 
scientists need external pressure to do their best.

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jdr@starflight.corp.sun.com, starflt@uunet.uu.net
Jon Roland
Starflight Corporation, 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A,
Redwood City, CA 94063-4142, 415/361-8141