We Luddites
31 December 2006 at 8:02 am Nicolai Foss 2 comments
| Nicolai Foss |
In permanent shock since he learned that I own but never use a cellular phone (a middle-management tool if there ever was one!), my co-blogger often argues that I am a Luddite, and claims that this, rather than my significantly higher teaching and administration load, accounts for my relatively low blogging frequency (guess who is also maintaining the more technical aspects of O&M?). I plead partly guilty to the charge, but wish to point out that there are much great sinners than me. Enter NYU Professor and prominent Austrian Mario Rizzo.
Pete Boettke reports that
Mario . . . was slow to join the technological revolution. Roger Garrison is a master of the power point, Larry White is an expert not only on surf music, but also everything electronic from e-money to blogging, but Mario — like Israel [Kirzner] — stayed away from computers. When I joined the faculty at NYU in 1990, Israel had Larry White’s old computer in his office and it still had never been turned on in 1998 when I left. Mario had resisted the computer for years, but by 1998 he was at least emailing on the computer (with a hunt and peck version of typing that was charming). He did not, however, use the computer as others do to ease his research burden, etc.
Now, however, Mario “embraces modernity” with a brand new website. I am happy to see that Mario has posted my favorite Rizzo paper, his paper with Robin Cowan, “The Genetic-Causal Tradition and Modern Economic Theory.” (Look at the quality of the copy and the case may still be made that Mario is a luddite ;-)).
Organizations and Markets 
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Ronnie Ann | 31 December 2006 at 3:33 pm
Laughing. Have to add my own luddite ways to this post. As a former long-time business process consultant to NYU’s IT area who has worked with some of NYU’s core state of-the-art administrative systems, I wish to share the fact that I don’t even own a cell phone. And, in fact, I just bought my first CD/DVD player about 1 1/2 years ago. I do however admit to now having three of my own blogs. Sigh. It’s hard out there for a luddite.
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Peter Klein | 31 December 2006 at 5:37 pm
All Ludditism aside, has anyone else tried this “Selected Works” platform (hosted by B.E. Press) Mario is using? Interesting to see B.E. Press diversifying into the hosting of websites for individual scholars.