On 1-5-2009 23:20, somebody wrote:
> "andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:49F### [at] hotmailcom...
>> * The Buxton Index is a prospective measure of individual or
>> institutional persistence, defined as the time horizon over which an
>> entity makes its plans. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buxton_Index )
> 
> I'm an atheist too, and this is how it works: I care about what happens
> during my lifetime, nothing else. Someone 20 years my senior cares about
> what happens during *his* lifetime, which falls 20 years short of my period
> of interest. Someone 20 years my junior has a vested interest in an
> additional 20 years after my expiry. In the end, if everybody is selfish, as
> they should be, it forms a continuum and it all works out 

I assume you would not be surprised if I told you that that is not true 
and the only symmetrical (but non-stable) solution is for everybody to 
be non-selfish.

> - well, as
> smoothly as anything works out in nature, which may not be saying much.
> While recognizing that different people have different expectations, it
> would be foolish of me to trade mine for someone else's. Just as I don't
> expect a 15 year old to care for the types of things I care, you cannot
> expect me to care for the things that a 15 year old should.
> 
> Buxton index for individuals is simple. $1M to a person at age 20 is the
> same worth as $10M to a person at age 60 and $inf to a person in
> deathbed/grave. 

The buxton index is about planning not about money.

> It's the aforementioned overlap across generations is what
> makes institutions or corporations behave unlike individuals. But, to state
> what should be painfully obvious but apparently is not, I am not an
> institution. 

I don't remember anyone suggesting that you are.

> Those who accuse me of inconsistency miss the obvious that my
> personal expectations and even values can, and should be, different from
> what I expect from institutions, corporates or governments. I don't need to
> do as what I lobby for the government to do, for instance.
> 
>

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