wedrifid comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 3 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Kevin 14 June 2010 06:14AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 19 June 2010 10:10:10PM 0 points [-]

William Nordhaus created a price index for light (based on hours of work per candela-hour) from the stone age to modern times.

How much did it cost a cave man to walk outside? Or are we including the time he spent digging renovations to put the sky-light in his roof?

Comment author: SilasBarta 19 June 2010 11:15:23PM *  3 points [-]

Heh. Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Nordhaus didn't subtract off the previously-free sunlight lost to global dimming and the attenuation of natural sources of nightlight due to interference from artificial light.

This is NOT to say I'm endorsing some kind of greenie move toward a pre-industrial time just so we can see the undimmed sky or have less "light pollution". I'm just saying that ignoring natural and informal sources of wealth is a bad habit to get into.

Reading paper to see if I can guess them right...

ETA: Ohhhhhh! Can I call 'em or what?