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Relaxation as productivity?

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Hazmatac

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Yes, you have to have the idea first; no one is questioning that, but if you do not bring it into material form -- i.e. write down the recipe or cook food based on your idea -- then you haven't created anything.

So you're saying that the first two scenarios are examples of productivity and the subsequent ones are not, right?

If it is just in your mind as an idea and you haven't acted to bring it into material form, then you have skipped a necessary step in production.

There is a difference between "skipped" and "not yet gotten to it." The poet in our Thursday/Friday example was not skipping step 2, he simply had no time left for it on Thursday and therefore could only do it on Friday. The question is this: if later he reminisces on how he created the poem, would he be right to consider Thursday a very productive day of his, the day that made his poem possible, or would he be more correct to think, "I was being an unproductive slob on Thursday, doing nothing but lying under a tree and thinking, but I made up for it on Friday by writing an excellent poem" ?

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I wouldn't say someone is a slob for thinking about something, so long as he does take rational action to be productive at some time before his resource run out. I see this as similar to what I said about Hank's research: He was using resources, not creating products. So, if you sit under a tree and come up with a rational way of making a lot of money, if you don't act on it, then you are not being productive on that idea.

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BTW, since you

there isn't really a significant disagreement between us from my perspective. To quote again from that favorite "earlier post of mine," I consider the question of sleep to be a marginal issue. Stuff for hairsplitters to worry about, if you like. :)

Yeah, I don't think its really a big deal, but good for practice. Not exactly life or death I would say

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I wouldn't say someone is a slob for thinking about something, so long as he does take rational action to be productive at some time before his resource run out. I see this as similar to what I said about Hank's research: He was using resources, not creating products.

I see. That would mean that someone who specializes on research is never a productive person at all, though, wouldn't it?

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I see. That would mean that someone who specializes on research is never a productive person at all, though, wouldn't it?

I think it depends on the context. Companies and universities pay people to do research and to write reports on the grounds that they will come up with something patentable or useful. In that sense of earning a pay check, they are being productive -- getting paid to do what their bosses what them to do for the sake of making a profit on it. But pure research without any useful end I think is actually against a rational standard. It is only because they may come up with something useful that they can be paid to do that. In Hank's case, no one was paying him to do the research, he was consuming resources for the sake of coming up with a better metal. It was only after he created Rearden Metal that he was actually being productive in his research. So, if someone wants to pay you for the sake of gaining information on some aspect of reality, then you are being productive in the sense of earning a pay check, but no one could afford to do that unless their researchers came up with something useful. For example, researchers who come up with new pharmaceutical drugs can be paid their salaries only because every once in a while they can come up with a new and profitable medication. Pharmaceutical companies put billions into research because they know if their researchers come up with a new medication they can make more billions in profits. Otherwise, they couldn't afford to shell out billions to the researchers and equipment.

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