They are starving, when miraculously they find a box filled with canned food. What to do? They consider the problem, bringing their collective lifetimes of study and discipline to the task.
Being the practical, straightforward sort, the engineer suggests that they simply find a rock and hit the cans until they break open. “No, no!” cry the chemist and economist, “we would spill too much food and the birds would get it!”
After a bit of thought, the chemist recommends that they start a fire and heat the cans. The pressure in the cans will force them open and the food will conveniently already be heated. But the engineer and economist object, pointing out correctly that the cans would likely explode and splatter the food all over the beach.
The economist, after carefully studying the cans and reading the labels, starts scrawling a series of equations in the sand, which eventually cover the entire beach. After much pondering, he excitedly announces, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” as he points to the final equation. They ask him to explain, with their visions of finally getting a meal causing them to regard the economist with a new sense of respect.
The economist clears his throat and begins, “First, assume a can opener …”
“An engineer, a chemist, and a climate scientist are stranded on a deserted island. . .
I only have the mental capacity to memorize about 5 jokes. Now I have to decide which one to delete to make space on my 286 brain for THIS one.
What Fred said!
Economics is still called the dismal science. There wasn’t any mathematics to it until they invented Lotus and Excel. Anything else is beyond these philosophers ability. They don’t use scientific methods in their data collection and they rely too much on anecdotal evidence. This from an engineer.
If you lay all the economists in the world end to end; they will never reach a conclusion…
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Had it been and engineer, a chemist, and a physicist, the punch line would have been, “Consider a spherical can.”
an economist, a controller, and an accountant were trapper in a vault with the door removed……….
Agree, with a few notable exceptions such as the economists Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand. 🙂
Seriously, take the can, find a flat rock or other hard, abrasive surface and wear down the bead on the rim. Just be careful towards the end part because you don’t want to spill too much.
Yes, I’m no fun at all 😉
Yeah,you’re no fun,but when push comes to shove, I’d rather be alive with you than an engineer,a chemist,and an economist,or a rabbi,preacher,etc.
If you are lucky enough to have a toucan or two cans on this deserted island, you can use the rim of one or beak of the other to open the cans. Anyone that starves to death surrounded by canned goods deserves that fate.
The key move is to tax or borrow the can and then spend it into the island economy, creating 1.4 cans of economic growth. This is why Japan is at 200% debt to GDP and undertaking a bigger relative debt gain in the next few years than Obama has.
Bah! Both the engineer and the chemist, being practical sorts, would be carrying Swiss Army knives, which have very effective can openers built in.
I know how to get a can of Beer open…
You heard about the constipated accountant? He worked it out with a pencil.
_________
These two guys get together every other week for a few drinks. When it gets to the philosophical part of the evening, the first one says to the second, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
The second says, after a pause for rumination, “Yes, I do.”
The first then says, “If you had to come back, who or what would you come back as?”
The second says, after a pause for rumination, “I’d come back as one of three things.”
The first says, “What’s the first thing you’d come back as?” The second says, “That’s easy: a rooster — you’re the only one in the hen house, and you get to spend your life f—— your brains out.”
The first says, “Wow! What’s the second thing you’d come back as?” The second says, “That’s easy: a thoroughbred — you get to spend three years running around the track, and then you get put out to the stud farm, and you get to spend the rest of life f—— your brains out.”
“Well,” the first says, “what’s the third thing you’d come back as?” The second says, “That’s easy: a sperm whale.” “A sperm whale?”, the first asks. “Yeah, that’s easy,” says the second: “You’d have a six foot tongue and a hole in the back of your head to breathe through!”
I thought the punchline was going to be the engineer and chemist eating the economist.
😉
I too have never met a working engineer without a Gerber tool. So, I’m pretty sure that the engineer and chemist, being applied science sorts, would sort it out and survive. Eventually they’d want to ditch the economist since economists are constant scolds who seek to make life miserable for the productive class.
Regardless, wouldn’t that island be the most OCD place on the planet until they were rescued?
Awaiting Captain Capitalist’s response.
Yeah well, I’m no economist, nor engineer nor chemist…but in my youth I made a point of mastering the manufacture of primitive weapons….tools actually.
Don’t assume nothin’…just get ta work…..
The solution…select the right rock, and a dirty great boulder and whack the rock….fashion a primitive knife…it ain’t swiss but will punch, pierce, and cut most stuff…
When ya get put back in the stone age…act accordingly…we ain’t run outa rocks yet.
A fire sharpened spear and an atlatl are handy….don’t nobody say they ain’t got fire…fire is numero uno….hint ya take two sticks….
A physicist, accountant and statistician are at the horse races, discussing which horse will win the next race, over a beer, of course.
The statistician talks of form and going conditions but admits that he will probably be right only 20% of the time.
The accountant talks of odds, money bet, weight and handicap and states boldy that he will be within 50% accuracy, if it doesn’t rain.
The physicist states that he can precisely and definately say which horse will win the race … assuming a spherical horse.
Justin Trudeau and a physicist are sitting in adjacent seats in airplane. Trudeau says to his seatmate, “Let’s talk. I hear that the flight will go faster if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”
The physicist, who had just opened a good book, closes it slowly, takes off his glasses and asks, “What would you like to discuss?”
Justin says, “Oh, I don’t know; how about Nuclear Power?”
The physicist says, “OK, that could make for some pretty interesting conversation. But let me ask you a question first: A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff, but the deer excretes pellets; the cow, big patties; and the horse, road apples or meadow muffins. Why is that?”
Trudeau says, “I don’t know.”
The physicist says, “Oh? Well then, do you really think you’re qualified to discuss Nuclear Power when you don’t know shit?”
A funny article and the comments here are even more hysterically funny.
Years ago, I took my B.Comm (accounting) and the university insisted that we take courses from other disciplines in order to to obtain a “rounded” education. Philosophy, social science and economics. We referred to them as “bird” courses because unlike real businees courses, they were laughably easy to pass..a guaranteed “A”, as well as being a complete waste of time.
At the time Canada was in the throes of stagflation, and I took some delight in asking the Prof. how that could possibly be. He stammered a bit, and said that it didn’t fit into the model. I suggested that maybe the model was flawed. I don’t think he liked me after that.
Macro economics is an example of pathological science – non-science that its practitioners refuse to recognize as flawed reasoning, despite its lack of predictive power, its reliance on ad hoc explanations, and dependence on a large, hazy set of axioms whose individual importance not even all macro economists agree on. State supported universities should refuse to fund its existence.
Microeconomics, on the other hand is the fundamental understanding that every successful businessman uses, and whose axioms are few and which essentially all of human history has vindicated.
If anyone takes seriously the pronouncements of macro economists, they should have their heads examined. The prosperity of the western world only exceeded that of all other cultures when governments and men recognized, and embodied in law, the verities now known as microeconomics. That progress was only interrupted when governments were allowed to follow the precepts of the pseudo-science that is macro.
Stephen Harper has been our prime minister for something like seven years, yet the average Canadian doesn’t seem to know that he is an economist. At a party recently a straw poll revealed that most people there, and these are educated professional people, thought he was a lawyer.
A Communist, a Muslim, and an Illegal Alien walks into a bar.
The bartender says, “What’ll you have tonight, Mr. President?”
*SNORK* ar Qz
Small C – so Paul Krugman should be listened to? That’s his field. and, IMHO, he’s a big pie in it. Also IMHO, economics is the dismal science because either it tells you you can’t have your cake and eat it to, or its predictions are wrong and shouldn’t be trusted. Read one or more of the Captain’s books (no, I don’t get a commission) or some by Thomas Sowell. It can be rigorously and empirically done, but no one likes a Cassandra. Particularly when the $$$$ printing presses are on overtime.
I’m an engineer. Love the joke. What loss level is acceptable? That depends on how hungry you are. When they’re hungry enough, either they open a can (with loss) or the economist contributes to the larder. Whichever will cause less loss in the long term.
Snagglepuss for the win!
I would use a sharp, pointed rock to open the cans.
Roflmao!
I was hoping I would be able to use that this evening.
C Miner –
No, Krugman should not be listened to in his agitprop declarations about the national economy. You may wish to read a principles of microeconomics text so that you can gain an understanding of what microeconomics is, and understand the point I was making.
Yours is a sloppy post.
Er, mine was a sloppy post? Have you met OK?
“If anyone takes seriously the pronouncements of macro economists, they should have their heads examined.” Thomas Sowell is a macro-economist. He is possibly the most erudite individual it has been my pleasure the read. That was the basis for my post. I suspect that an economics course with him as the professor could easily pass as “applied history” in the same way that engineering is applied science.
Micro or macro can be used or abused. The main point I get out of Dr. Sowell’s writing is to look very closely at the medium and long term results of policies to see what is being incentivized. For example, If the goal is education of schoolkids, then standardized testing administered by the teachers (who stand to gain money or perks if their kids do well) doesn’t give rewards for kids learning, it gives rewards for teachers whose kids get the right answers on the tests. Some good teachers would have been rewarded, but from recent headlines, far more cheaters and exploiters of the system did (and got promotion because of it). We still have the goal of educating children. We still need a method of incentive that will help good teachers and punish the bad.
Krugman was listed only as an example of how little faith some micro economists can engender. Having the tools and using them properly are two different things.