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On being the right size (1928)

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Re: On being the right size (1928)

#11

Post by [deleted] »

xerophtye wrote: post #8

As amazing as the article is, i have one confusion. What about dinosaurs? In the eagle part, he said eagles CAN'T be as big as tigers etc. But what about Pterodactyls? How did they manage to be so big? Oh and weren't all the dinosaurs cold-blooded? So, if I am not mistaken, didn't the author say that we get over the problem of heat loss by being warm-blooded? Or does that just mean that they had to eat ALOT more? (th…

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Re: On being the right size (1928)

#12

Post by tbrake »

xerophtye wrote: post #8

As amazing as the article is, i have one confusion. What about dinosaurs? In the eagle part, he said eagles CAN'T be as big as tigers etc. But what about Pterodactyls? How did they manage to be so big? Oh and weren't all the dinosaurs cold-blooded? So, if I am not mistaken, didn't the author say that we get over the problem of heat loss by being warm-blooded? Or does that just mean that they had to eat ALOT more? (th…

Pterodactyls were small. They had roughly the same wingspan as the modern bald eagle.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#13

Post by breakyerself »

This is really an argument against socialism as the communists tried to implement it. Where the state nationalizes every industry and all workers become employed by the state which plans everything centrally. Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationalized or socialized, but not much more than already is in the best parts of Europe. The main idea is to make the enterprises benefit those who do the actual work and also make them accountable to those people and their communities. The main problem with capitalism is that someone other than the people doing the work get to decide how the work is done and how to spend the surplus of value that work generates. If the workers decided these things they would never vote to outsource their own jobs and would rarely choose to pollute their own communities. They wouldn't vote to reward a tiny minority with a fortune while they pay themselves poverty wages.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#14

Post by forktheif »

xerophtye wrote: post #8

As amazing as the article is, i have one confusion. What about dinosaurs? In the eagle part, he said eagles CAN'T be as big as tigers etc. But what about Pterodactyls? How did they manage to be so big? Oh and weren't all the dinosaurs cold-blooded? So, if I am not mistaken, didn't the author say that we get over the problem of heat loss by being warm-blooded? Or does that just mean that they had to eat ALOT more? (th…

Earth's atmosphere had more oxygen in it back then, which it easier to be big.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#15

Post by TheSOB88 »

xerophtye wrote: post #8

As amazing as the article is, i have one confusion. What about dinosaurs? In the eagle part, he said eagles CAN'T be as big as tigers etc. But what about Pterodactyls? How did they manage to be so big? Oh and weren't all the dinosaurs cold-blooded? So, if I am not mistaken, didn't the author say that we get over the problem of heat loss by being warm-blooded? Or does that just mean that they had to eat ALOT more? (th…

Well, there was more oxygen in the air back then, which gave animals more energy. The largest pterodactylid was the Quetzalcoatlus, with a wingspan of about 40 feet. I understand it was mostly a glider. It was also very, very lightly built.

And no, we haven't thought dinosaurs were cold-blooded since the 70s or something.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#16

Post by mynameishere »

xerophtye wrote: post #8

As amazing as the article is, i have one confusion. What about dinosaurs? In the eagle part, he said eagles CAN'T be as big as tigers etc. But what about Pterodactyls? How did they manage to be so big? Oh and weren't all the dinosaurs cold-blooded? So, if I am not mistaken, didn't the author say that we get over the problem of heat loss by being warm-blooded? Or does that just mean that they had to eat ALOT more? (th…

Check it out. Six years ago Yahoo! answers had some decent answers:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080301144511AA...

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#17

Post by yk »

xerophtye wrote: post #8

As amazing as the article is, i have one confusion. What about dinosaurs? In the eagle part, he said eagles CAN'T be as big as tigers etc. But what about Pterodactyls? How did they manage to be so big? Oh and weren't all the dinosaurs cold-blooded? So, if I am not mistaken, didn't the author say that we get over the problem of heat loss by being warm-blooded? Or does that just mean that they had to eat ALOT more? (th…

The size is not only determined by the underlying physics, but also by the environment. So there can be a arms race of size, the predator needs to be roughly the same size as its pray, so the larger pray has a evolutionary advantage which gives larger predators an evolutionary advantage.

And to stay with the analogy of the article, the same is true for organizations. Some parts of organizations need to be as large as the corresponding parts of competing organizations. For example the legal department and marketing.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#20

Post by dantheman »

breakyerself wrote: post #13

This is really an argument against socialism as the communists tried to implement it. Where the state nationalizes every industry and all workers become employed by the state which plans everything centrally. Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationaliz…

Jobs would still move, it's just that an industry in another country owned by someone else would eventually take the business. That is unless the local industry was somehow able to ban foreign competition.

The beauty of capitalism is that it roots out inefficiency. If you take a look at history, state controlled enterprises are the most polluting.

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