The anthropic principle, evolution and economics.

So which is it? You think a choice is "the force" that alters the state of inertia? Inertia of what?

If you think you have a point perhaps you'll restate it, since many other things besides choice alter states of inertia. In fact on the universal scale, choice is (as known to a human anyway) probably an extremely miniscule portion of the "things that effect inertia".

Any thought put to this end (even if you're doing it) is abstract. Demand is a choice about subjective good. Something whimsically comes to mind.. say a new bike? Sure I'd like a new bike. That's smooth. It is now in my subjective good to have a new bike. Hmmm.. I have the 500 bucks, but I like whores more than bikes. Hell I might have to suck up the opportunity cost of going bike free to get whores. Maybe I should go whore free in favor of this dandy bikes? Since I only have resources for one at this time, I choose to deem it in my subjective good to choose the bike. That choice created demand. The choice to type these words did the same, but the supply chain is pretty damned short at this point. If I were a quadraplegic, the supply chain might be a bit lengthier.

I agree, but they are only really a resource if a POV places value on them right? There is no value in a binary star system unless projected there by a POV (unless there is some manner in which that binary star system is its own POV).

Whether or not 'will' is a facade is pretty much moot, but that is a long conversation that is not really relevant to this thread but that hasn't stopped you until now eh?

Remember this?:

Which is it T? Facade or just scarce?

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Oh and you said "the facade of human will", but you also said "action is choice". You can't really have a choice if will is a facade right? Does that mean there is no action?

 

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I don't see that the two conditions are mutually exclusive.

You have it exactly. I just don't see what's so hard to grasp from there about the idea that scarcity is a myth.

True. I was referring more to the difference between the freeze-frame version of the theory and what happens when you try to apply it to a model that is in motion.

Wes, I think it's a really dumb argument to simply dismiss everything that disagrees with you as irrelevant, especially when you are so utterly incapable of demonstrating that irrelevance.

It's your topic. If it's so easy to explain, then do so. For once.

 

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So to you "exists" and "doesn't exist" are the synonyms?

Facade: "illusion created to distract or entertain -> an illusion is something doesn't actually exist"
Scarce (via your usage): "not very much of something -> something that exists".

Not much in the way you use it. I was way ahead of you. In fact, as soon as I realized you meant something different by the word than I did, I tried to straighten you out. Using it in the way you mean does nothing to test my intended purpose. I even rewrote it for you:

Which you never refuted, but instead continued:

I highlighted what I suspect might have been your attempt to address it... but I have no idea what you mean by it. Which conditional fact?

Let's break it down like you like it:

You haven't established it to be a myth. I said "(paraphrasing) in my context I use the term scarcity as "any activity takes time"". A direct consequence of that is that there is a finite amount of resource R at a given time, as I demonstrated with:

.... which you did not dispute either, so there is nothing to quote you on, having ignored it completely.

1) Any definition, conditional or not, is abstract.
2) Every model has boundary conditions.
3) If you're actually addressing it in the terms I've mentioned, how do you propose that you pretend that it takes no time to produce a soy patty? Do you think that pretending that you have infinite of them increases the accuracy of your model somehow? Do you not pay attention to your surroudings to that degree? If I need to make a steak, but it takes fifteen minutes - I can't make it in ten. Dig? If I need air to survive and I don't have any, I die. It is an observation, not a presumption. I state it forthright because it's power is IMO, a facet of the anthropic principle. perhaps preceding it. Perhaps the anthropic principle is the first corollary of scarcity (per my definition).

You have not established the cause. What you speak of is simple prudence. Stores result from projected requirements. Depending on the nature of the good, a store of it is prudent to the supply chain for reasons of accounting for potential supply chain failures. If it's oh, food for instance, what happens if there's only enough to eat for today at your house, and no food available for a month because the train broke down in idaho?

Further, why do you insist "amount" is the problem? It is sometimes, but "amount" is just a consideration along with logistics issues, which are fundamental. Plenty of food is shipped to countries in need. There is plenty of food in the world that is not surplus. It simply gets intercepted on its way to who should get it. Not much you can do about it without wars and such, and look what happened in somalia right? Do you keep putting your money into a broken vending machine? You still don't get food out of it unless you break the glass, and that is simply impractical for the most part due to the whole politics thing eh? I mean, that is part of the benefits of invading Iraq. Less people there will starve because he's not there to take their food and sell it to someone else for arms.

Lastly, it really pisses me off to be still talking about "scarcity" as in the sense I defined it, arguing about it without directly demonstrating the flaw is simply juvenile, as "stuff takes time" is IMO, unquestionable. We are at an impass and it seems to me you put us there on purpose. It's difficult to say what with all the apparent mental illness happening in your neck of the woods. You seem determined to fight and I'm goddamn sick of it.

LOL. Who decides what is enough T? YOU apparently? How do you presume the authority? Are you mad because no one cares what you think is good? How have you contributed to the economy? Why is your "good" more pertinent than mine? If I contribute more, should my impression of "good" be increased proportionally?

Regardless of your assertions, individuals establish value remember? It's the subjective good that matters. Maximizing the ability of as many people as possible to attain their subjective good is the profit function of the model, regardless of your opinion. It's interesting to me how individual profit functions add up to make the whole, and how different system give different individuals the power to influence the constraints of the model.

I was referring more to the difference between the freeze-frame version of the theory and what happens when you try to apply it to a model that is in motion.

Now that I read it a gazillion times, you sentence actually makes no sense. The difference between X and what happens when you try to apply X to something? X is still X.

LOL. I agree. Thanks for pointing it out. I'd think you'd stop doing it since you point it out as such. I see you seem to be blaming me for your problem, but you have yet to actually refute what I've said, so you have yet to disagree with was is on the table, or if as I couldn't tell if you implied above, you think "stuff does not take any time", then we are at an impasse and I agree to disagree. You are irrelevant exactly because you have not refuted the stated definition.

to me, this proves that capability:

I suppose if it's under a thousand words it can't be proof to you or... ?

Perhaps you'll enlighten me as to why it doesn't sway you. Please be as brief as possible.

Actually you've pretty well thread-jacked eh? Oh well it didn't seem like it was going anywhere anyway so at least I got to see your performance. Bravo, you've shown you're willing to take the premise "I refuse to communicate" to a new level. Yay you.

You know what's weird is that I'd swear I have, yet you swear I haven't. That is just straight funky.

LOL. That's like asking me to get my pet rock to read bed-time stories to the kids. It doesn't really matter what I say to it, it will never know what the hell I'm talking about.

 

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And?

So you say, now.

And what an effort that was.

Sincerity has never been one of your strong points, Wes. "Straightening me out" by ignoring what I'm posting and then complaining that I'm ignoring your point is a dubious way of looking at it.

I didn't see how it was relevant.

Honestly, Wes? You know those times I take stabs at your reading comprehension? It's things like that, dude. Seriously.

There is a scarcity that is presumed in economic theories that is much like the one you've painstakingly defined. And, like your definition, the presumption when applied causes the human benefit of the economic organization to somehow collapse in times of abundance. And whether it is Capitalism or Socialism or Marxism, the major economic paradigms share that sense of scarcity inasmuch as diverse religions all share notions of God or alternate reality. The problem with the presumption of scarcity when applied is that periods of abundance actually screw up the human endeavor because of the economic paradigm.

I could have guessed you would say that. I don't see how your retort is relevant inasmuch as it doesn't matter according to the sentence you're responding to and what it communicates.

I don't see how this is relevant.

Nor this. That's why I let it go without comment. Flip a coin, Wes, and it really doesn't matter. Heads, you're upset. Tails, you're upset. I think you're just looking for a reason to be pissed off.

(1) And?
(2) Those boundary conditions are generally presumed. Sometimes they are incorrect. This latter point is what you seem to be having great difficulty with.
(3) Yeah, I dig. I just think you're splitting hairs beyond any sense of applicability. For instance, who says you need a steak? The problem is that the economic presumption centers on desire, not necessity. There's also the bit about evolution not intending human beings to stay still for all time. I mean ... dude! Air is scarce? I didn't realize that life was such a burden, Wes. When it's microwaving a freaking burrito, I think you're just being lazy. When air is scarce because of the natural requirement of breathing ... well, you're just being ridiculous.

Its significance is a presumption.

Help me out with something, Wes ... now, let's pretend for a moment that you crystallize your economic theory and present to the world some absolutely genius treatise that is a great sell for people and helps humanity understand its place in nature. Just ... just so I can get a better picture in my head, how many bureaucrats will be quantifying the air?

Look: Blood is not scarce for the demand of a heartbeat. The nail was only scarce because there was a war afoot. (1, 2)

For someone who hates to read my posts, you sure want to see a lot of words from me. I mean, really, why prices and with them functioning economies collapse in times of abundance is its own topic. I'm sure we'll get around to it.

If I'm so remote as that, I'm sure I'll find a reason to own a rifle. Just such an occasion, it would seem.

And, at the level you're invoking, a ridiculously self-centered standard.

No, as I read the topic, you inserted your own context into a discussion I was having that might well have eventually resolved these issues. And then you refused to consider what I put before you and refused to make a coherent demonstration of why that material was impertinent. Now you're down to splitting hairs in order to avoid the issue you chose to pursue.

Are you really out of arguments?

Don't make your hatred such an issue. Hell, whatever your problem is hit me completely from left field, Wes. I still don't get where the attitude is coming from. Oh, right. You hate me.

Wow. Are you really that bitter? I would think feeding and housing the mouths we have is a decent start.

You need to start looking at these issues a little more rationally. Your hatred is clouding your perspective.

How that argues against the notion that scarcity is a myth is still beyond me, but if you insist ... well, yeah.

Again, how you think that argues against the notion that scarcity is a myth is beyond me.

Yes. And it's all contrived to describe something that escapes our full perception and understanding.

Ask Christians about X in the case of Matthew 25 in history. What they have done and failed to do unto others does not change X--in this case, what is written in Matthew 25.

It doesn't change X at all, Wes, but I don't see how that's important. X can be what it always has been and still be wrong.

Well, if you really want to break the impasse, you can try going through this topic honestly and responding to what is in front of you. Calling it impertinent and offering no explanation of what you mean is just rude.

I'd post it again, but you didn't care the first time.

Short words, so as not to confuse you, just like you requested:

• It does not sway me because it is still false.
• It does not sway me because it is not applicable.

(Sorry about the four-syllable word.)

More hyperbole without any real substance.

Crying that things are irrelevant or impertinent when you have no better response does not constitute explaining anything, Wes.

And only you can make it so absurd.

And that's still your problem, Wes.

You can go around treating people like rocks, and all it would accomplish is explaining why you ducked the issues you chose to highlight.

 

Wes

Just something I'm reading through at the moment. Thought you might find it ... well, either useful or impertinent. I'll leave that judgment up to you.

• Taylor, Jerry. "The Growing Abundance of Natural Resources." Market Liberalism: A Paradigm for the 21st Century. Edited by David Boaz and Edward H. Crane. Cato Institute, 1993. See http://www.cato.org/pubs/chapters/marlib21.html

 

For a minute I thought my emotional reaction to your assenine behavior all around this site, which I parlayed to you in the Lou thread was maybe a bit much.

Thank you for vindicating me, you piece of shit.

Now fuck off, cunt.

You are despicable.

 

The guy has good points. Too bad you're incapable of understanding them, or applying them to what I have said. If you weren't a complete fucknut, you'd notice that what he has said in no way contradicts the point(s) I've made.

But since you are a stupid cunt, you have little choice but try to stick everything into your dirty twat. Fuck you, fuck off.

 

Holy shit. Tiassa citing the Cato Institute? Isn't this one of the signs of the apocalypse? This reminds me so much of arguing with nico. She always winds up supporting my arguments by trying to argue against them. It's comical. T. This article is typical conservative rhetoric that gets pimped out to justify wanton, reckless destruction of habitat in the name of progress. Ever notice how Buckethead Limbaugh is always screaming about how there are more trees in the U.S. right now than there were 200 years ago, as if that's some sort of moral justification for clear-cutting virgin timber? I think we can all agree that Buckethead wouldn't know old growth timber if it was shoved up his azz, but that doesn't stop him from decrying all conservationists as Wacko Environmentalists. He doesn't know shit about the issue and he exposes his ignorance every time he goes on a rant about it.

This article is no different. This asshat singles out 13 minerals and points to a decrease in price over ten years as evidence that resource scarcity is a myth? Taking random examples out of the whole of a commodity market is lazy and sophomoric. This guy should know better. I'm sure I can find you some stocks, like Ebay for example, that have bucked the bear market over the last three years, but that doesn't mean shit. It's still been a bear market, up unti recently.

T. Did you know the price of steel has nearly DOUBLED since the first of the year? Do you know why? And do you understand the ramifications? Two months and steel has become so scarce that many dealers wont even quote you a damned price on the phone. They're telling their customers "We'll let you know the price when the truck gets to your door..". Now that's some crazy shit, no?

Scarcity is myth...tell that to a businessman.

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People and their policies. It isn't a shortage of iron ore. It isn't a shortage of peeople. It isn't a shortage of time.

I noticed that your post was thin on substantial argument. Let me know when you get around to something more useful.

You might as well say, "God is a myth? Tell that to the apostles."

In other words, whatever you say, Father Fifteen.

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"It's comical. T. This article is typical conservative rhetoric that gets pimped out to justify wanton, reckless destruction of habitat in the name of progress."

For once I agree with 15of the19. I think some people have the apocaly[pse planned for 2007.

But, Tiassa, things are scarce. I would assume you have heard of teh hubbard peak. Or that the easily got to resources of a number of elements are running out. Hence the hypoerbolae in that CAto piece. It assumes that we wil exponentially improve our technology in such a way as to vastly increaase our available resources. But that isnt a given. Biotech might be one way, and it might well work out, but we cant assume it will.

 

But what things?

And?

Actually, I'm trying to follow an exchange that took place between Hubbert and Exxon:

The value placed on a resource that makes it scarce is, as Wes has repeated over and over, subjective; that is, humans decide for reasons rational and irrational (largely irrational) what the value of something is. That value can make something seem scarce no matter how much there is. The scarcity seen in the resource becomes a product of our own minds. I figured "scarcity is a myth" to be a bit more workable an idea than, "scarcity is a delusion."

Well ... that's a sticky consideration. On the one hand, you're right. It's a very dangerous presumption. To the other, though, history indicates a rather high probability. It keeps happening with increasing frequency.

Let's take a look at something Nissen wrote:

Nissen's analyses are based on a two-dimensional representation. The amount of oil in the world is not fixed. However, fixed as Nissen applies it is a reasonable enough approximation as it is reasonable to presume that six-billion people on the planet will consume oil faster than natural processes create it. Nonetheless, fixed and finite implies a static number that indicates no new oil entering the system at all, a condition that is inaccurate and hints after the myriad unaccounted factors in documenting the relationships between resources and the people who use them.

But you'll notice between both Nissen and Hubbert is the idea of, "as long as we use oil for energy . . . ."

That choice is among the many that makes scarcity a myth. I mean, you raised the issue of hyperbole ... for obvoius reasons, I'll skip the overblown Michael Moore "dialogue" discussing the diversity of seemingly-essential products that depend on oil, and not just in the sense that we need to lube the gear that makes the products. How use the resources, and whether we use available and viable alternatives to a given resource are choices. Scarcity in any applicable human-species sense is self-imposed. I know food is a tough thing in many parts of the world. I know clean drinking water is a tough thing in many parts of the world. But allocating resources to accommodate all of humanity just isn't a high enough priority to people. They'd rather discuss their myths and figure out how to make things scarce for even more people. The moral or ethical implications are beside the point--it should be evident that it's not a lack of resources itself, but rather a human obstruction to abundance.

Scarcity is a myth just like "God is vengeful" is a myth. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a powerful sermon, legendary in its effect. Nearly canonical in the academia of American literature, nothing about the appeal or effect or apparent rude genius of Jonathan Edwards' desperate tantrum makes anything about the myths it exploits real. It's a very convincing sermon within a certain set of presumptions. If you're willing to believe his attributation of God is correct, it's a terrifying vision of the world.

Look at Hubbert and Nissen: they're discussing within a presumed framework, within the myth. Yes, if you create this and this and this impediment, this and this and this scarcity will result. I think that's pretty evident.

Demand and necessity are two different things. "Scarcity of resources" in economic theory presumes that supply must trail demand. A few years ago, for instance, the cost of basic milk and butter climbed ridiculously around Seattle. It wasn't because there wasn't enough cows or milk to provide for living necessity, but that too much was being sold off to make specialty products. So here supply trails demand, but if we look at it in terms of the species, we make one product that is a vital foodsource scarce in order to accommodate luxury. Or, just to make it a little more applicable: the food I give my child (e.g. necessary to grow the future generation of the species) is made scarce in order to accommodate the luxurious demands of a few. The presumption is based in unnecessary desire and not living necessity. Wes offers the standard: a resource is scarce because it is not readily available. you have to do something to acquire it

This is complete horsepucky. Resources are scarce because you have to cook a steak, or walk to the bathroom? Air is scarce because you have to breathe? The steak example ignores the abundance of a house, electricity, and a steak to cook in the first place. With 1.7 billion people unable to find clean drinking water anywhere around them due to political considerations, I find it absolutely perverse to define scarcity according to the effort it takes me to walk to the kitchen and get some. It's an inapplicable definition; one should not need a degree in macroeconomics in order to breathe. To borrow a phrase from the religious folks, if God had intended for humans to remain in one place, he would not have given us legs. In fact, let's blame God for differentiating in the first place. We'll climb the mountain because it's there, but heaven help us, resources are scarce because we have to walk to the kitchen?

One can define a word how they wish. Whether or not that definition is of any use is a separate question entirely.

 

You really don't know shit about shit do you?

Citing applicable theories that are proven wrong on a daily basis is not enough to convince you.

I picture you standing on the corner screaming "The only reason you believe the sky is blue is because you've been taught that it is so..." Neverminding the scientific fact that the sky is blue for a reason.

You choose to live in an alternate reality.

Congratulations. Your intentional threadjack was a success.

 

Nope. If I ever choose to take issue with the sky being blue, it will be to question the choice of the phonetic value "blue" being used to indicate that range of wavelengths. There's also that arcane bit about what I would see through your eyes, whether blue would look like blue to me. But that's a different issue for a different time.

Is that what we call invalidating the basis of a theory? Threadjacking?

Man, I gotta get hip with the new buzz lingo. I'm still stuck in post-mod, where colloquialisms didn't assert to be useful.

 

Just some notes:

See, for some reason, the idea of building an argument is just foreign to some people. Mention of Adam Smith was written off early as an appeal to authority, but in Sperber's review of Dowd we find the very discussion of Adam Smith that nobody wanted to have.

And we also find discussion of elements of the myth of scarctiy: That scarcity is intentionally created and sustsained is a large part of what makes scarcity a myth. Additionally, of course, there are ridiculous and arbitrary divisions like, oh, national boundaries.

UC Humboldt defines economics as "the study of how scarce resources are allocated among competing uses."

In this definition, scarcity is presupposed. It is tantamount to defining religion as "the study of how God interacts with Creation and the ritual practice deriving therefrom."

That the paradigm presupposes something does not make it real, it only makes it essential to the paradigm.

Theoretically, economics by UCH's definition is unable to cope with surplus or abundance. I think this is reflected in practice, as abundance is actually a "bad thing" inasmuch as it makes prices collapse and sets in motion a nasty chain of interrelated conditions.

Similarly, religions are often unable to cope with the assertion of a lack of God.

 

Ahh, now I see tiassa is coming round to what i was saying earlier about scarcity being in part due to continued demand and desire for stuff.

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I think it might be helpful to momentarily float the idea of total absolute scarcity, and actual present day scarcity. The difference being that we will one day in the next century or so, run out of oil, therefore over the course of humanities existence, oil is scarce. However, by comparison, despite the many starving people in the world, as has been mentioned before, food isnt actually scarce, but the money is. Which might lead onto a debate on the merits of a monetary system involving the creation of money by creation of debt, but I digrees.
Now, I wonder if its possible for It also to be seen that peoples demands for stuff so far seems to be very great. Thus, as long as that demand keeps up, there will be at some point, scarcities. Like with say a new computer product. It isnt efficient to build 20 factories to build it, becasue not everyone will have the scarce stuff, money, to buy it at once. But enough people do buy it that supply cannot keep up with demand. Thus scarcity ensues. The point is, I think, that within the current system, and limitations on production and vagaries of human nature, that it is impossible to produce everything that people want, insofar as there are limits on how many people are needed for certain kinds of work, and the capital invested in manufacturing has to be raised, and the plants that produce cement or iron cant quite produce it as instantaneously as we'd like. so we end up with scarcity.
Does this make any sense or am I beggining to sound like tiassa on a bad day?

 

Some other thoughts about scarcity etc and their changes over time. In the good old days, we depended far more on crops and products derived from animals and plants, thus were dependent upon their yearly cycles, and some years there were bad harvests. Also, because of technical difficulties, there were limits as to how much could be extracted of something like Tin. A factor in the changes in house building in france and england in the 13/14th centuries was the scarcity of long trees suitable for the old style of house, thus the new one was made, using shorter beams interlocked, the gaps filled with wattle and daub or bricks or suchlike. Whereas nowadays, at the moment, we are stil limited in what we can dig out the earth by our technology, but also we could dig out more and faster. But we cant afford to.

 

By your own analysis, anything of value right? Isn't that what you said?:

Did you think guthrie said:

... because he was talking about something specific... you fraud?

If you don't put value on it, it's not a goddamn resource, so it doesn't matter how much of it there is, you fucking moron.

so you just deem the reasons of value irrational eh? you offer no "understanding" to try to put yourself in their shoes and comprehend how it is that they value what they do, but you wag your finger and tell them you dissaprove. why do you think they should care what you think, when you don't care what they think? "your reasons are irrational!". that will surely win their hearts and minds.

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the scariest part is, T,... and you should take this into serious consideration some day: What if you're wrong? What if this whole time, all of your finger wagging bullshit has been in due to some inability you have to actually communicate. You know how to do one thing for sure: bury people under your horseshit. Perhaps you've exploited this your whole life? Perhaps you've got a nasty little habit of being an incommunicative unreasonable cunt but you win arguments that way so you keep doing it for the satisfaction of the kill. Perhaps you've found this is the only way you can have some control in your life, given that you fucked up and knocked up some chick you don't respect, dropped out of college, blah blah blah all the other shit you've fucked up in your life... and now you're stuck looking into your child's eye's and you can't fucking accept that daddy is a "never gonna be" who "might possibly have been" if it weren't for that he opted to be a goddamn loser, so you fucking compensate. You compensate and you fucking bury people under your mountains of horseshit, pretending no one but you has a point, no one but you knows a fucking thing, and no one, NO ONE, beats you on your home turf... sciforums. Maybe that's why every goddamn conversation with your pathetic ass is a fucking pissing contest, where you pretend your point is the only possible way to validly assess whatever and then you put every word spoken into your cunt and wonder why everyone else's voice is so muffled. Idiot.

Fucking rocket science eh? Wow.

"becomes"? Tell me idiot, when was it a product of anything else?

That you have introduced a consistent train of thought, that is the delusion. You're over your head and you don't realize it.

If you weren't such a pretentious, pompous, dicknose pissant, you may come to understand that "dangerous" is not an applicable word to a boundary condition of a model. "correct" or "incorrect" and maybe "useful" or "not useful" are the considerations to question.

Which, if you were anywhere near as smart as you think you are, you might check that uhm, well you know, SO FUCKING WHAT???? I said "stuff takes time". That there will be more stuff later than is available now does not in any way contradict that. "scarce" is in contrast to "infinity" you fucking dolt, and the word conveys the meaning well if you aren't so pretentious as to insist that you know better.

As if you can see more (than two dimensions) eh? Self righteous dipshit.

When? The concept of "fixed" has to do with "time" so tell me, "when?". If it's not static then what is it? Some kind of function? Is it linear? Exponetial? Positive or negative? Is it increasing now? What then? What is increasing now? Oh the amount of oil? You mean compared to how much we're taking out? Uhm.. wow hey that directly reflects that formula I wrote out eh? Weird.

If natural process are continually creating it at some rate, that rate will limit the supply and in turn, the rate of consumption. Hence your presumption is pretentious, pointles blah blah.. I suppose: self important. I mean, all you have to do is write a 10 page legal brief on it and you'll win! That's what you want eh?!?! Every conversation is a contest T, don't forget. I'd hate to see you actually communicate with one of your inferiors.

Consumption is constrained by the rate of supply.

Assuming that natural resources are "fixed and finite" is a true statement given a defined time period. During that time period, value is assigned to things making them into resources and it happens an amount over a period of time. If per the supplied equation you integrated from the first point of interest in time, and your functions adequately described the system, you would show exactly how much of resource x there is at the and of the time period, or any point within it. Perhaps the individual writing your article lacked knowledge of calculus, and as such doesn't comprehend value of the terms "fixed and finite" as they have no context given his ignorance. Maybe that explains a lot here.

LOL. That is simply UNTRUE, and indicative of the condition I just explained above. If resources are fundamentally scarce, that doesn't say anything about whether or not they will dissapear, amplify, change, or do anything until you know about the resource, why it is valued, where it is, how to do stuff with it, how long it takes, blah blah. It's possible - given the axiom of scarcity, that you could literally bury yourself and everyone else on the planet with resource x. Of course if you haven't been educated I can see how you might make that mistake. I have being attempting to educate you throughout this thread, but your ego and attitude problem keep you busy congratulating yourself for the kill, rather than engaging in a goddman conversation, you stupid fucking cunt.

You see asshat, a resource's availability is as I formulated: a function of time.

LOL. Uh huh. What the hell are you even talking about here? First of all, the condition is not innacurate, merely apparently beyond yoru comprehension. Sadly, I understand that means that to you, it can't exist. Let's expand your horizons son.

Pointing fingers? No way!

LOL. The only thing making scarcity a myth (in this thread) is the glass house you've contructed to ensure is stays that way.

What else is a myth eh? Physics? Love? Birth? I mean, throw out everything that is only a matter of mind as "mythical", then you might as well throw this conversation right along with it and shut the fuck up.

*holds mirror in front of the asshat's face*

How merciful. You spare us one asshat's idiocy for another. Your kindness abounds.

and you figured that out by yourself eh? what a big boy. hey did you notice that your sentence is pointless?

ANY axiom is self-imposed. It'd be fine to pretend the axiom is invalid and throw it out of your model, but if the outputs from the model do not reflect reality because you throw out that axiom.. then you just damaged your model because of your emotional requirement to pretend that axioms that don't suit your emotional taste should be thrown out of the model.

So since your sensibilities are offended, the head goes in the sand eh? Pretending doesn't make the model innacurate, it makes you stupid. LOL. It's funny that you go straight for the part of the model you don't understand and blame it without really understanding it. It's complicated by the fact that you possibly can't comprehend it, as you have no reference for it yet. It's hard for me to imagine that anyone exposed to calculus and such would make errors you've made, or the errors that your "taylor v2.0" made.

What a cunt eh? So since someone thinks scarceness exists, it follows that they want to make things more than way? Brilliant, and you say I sound religious? Man you should go back through everything you've ever said to me, fucknut, and pretend you wrote it about yourself. You could identify a lot of your issues with yourself that way I'm sure.

Yet to me they seem like the focal point of your argument which you have incidentally labelled appropriately as "beside the point".

Rather, an asshat's got a crayon shoved up his nose. "obstruction to abundance"? Dipshit. If you would actuall participate in the conversation, you might note where it was discussed that:

and:

Abundance is a comparative term which is not precluded from application in a system of scarce resources. Abundance is "compared to demand", whereas "scarce" is compared to infinity. If you have no clue what I'm talking about I'd guess your question along the lines of "why compare scarce to infinity when you only compare abundance to demand?".. lol.

LOL. No tiassa, scarcity is 2+2=4, almost literally. It's even more basic than that really.

You know first hand, I can tell. I mean, you make yourself the angry god don't you? You put those sinners in your hands right? I mean those who embrace the idea of scarcity, they are the monsters trying to starve the world eh?

Fuck the rest of your post. I'm sleepy.

 

I had thought you were talking about economics. After all, we are in the Economics forum and the word does appear in the topic post. However, as your incoherent, profane apoplexy suggests, I was wrong in thinking you were discussing economics.

Let me know when you figure out what it is you're actually talking about.

Wes, if you put even a scarce fraction of the effort you put into hating me into actually thinking, you might be able to make your point without exhausting yourself; of course, such a condition presupposes--dangerously--that you have a point to begin with.

In the meantime, I can't figure how I'm so important to you that you would put so much effort into deliberately failing to communicate. It's a thrilling performance, Wes, that serves as a testament to the sublimity of faith. I'm telling you there is a logical problem that comes with presuming scarcity as a given in any economic system because scarcity is a myth and you're telling me that God is great.

Yes, scarce according to the great infinity of sitting on your ass.

Look, Wes, you've defined scarcity according to what amounts to differentiation in monotheistic debates on the nature of God. At that point, you're right, scarcity isn't a myth; it's absurd and laughable and a sick joke.

 

Allright, I'll wing it.

I've had 2 days now to decipher this thread and before getting involved here as I was asked to months ago (yes, I realize I'm late. Screw me.) a disclaimer: Gendanken's heel is economics or anything having to do with the business world.


Some ad hominems:
Without meaning to I am led to focus on one thing and it is Tiassa's doing.

Tessie is notorious for long wind. In just trying to grind down his posts to a point, ONE CENTRAL POINT that has gotten lost in his masses of references and needless tangentials you tend to find yourself with your eyes tearing and your mouse crying to click on the 'X' in the window. I logged on earlier but ran out of time. For example, what does this:

"A Buddhist sage whose name escapes me at present once made the point that, while he could not say war was immoral, he did find it supremely inefficient as a means of dealing with suffering and desire and ignorance.

And that's just the thing. Anyone remember the "middle management purge" of the 1990s, as the economy refocused and moved into the Clinton era? While the purge was in search of profits, the fact remains that most of these people were extraneous."- Tessie

Have to do with this:

"The efficient retrieval and implementation of extraterrestrial resources is a bit of a challenge, but the rewards are huge. Furthermore, the challenge is complicated by extraneous issues. I look to 15ofthe19's point about expense and would respond, "Ask me again when the human species decides to get serious about the issue."- Tessie

or any appeals to pioneer days or moon rocks?

In order to understand the dilemma in this thread, one has to focus on other's participation here and only by doing so have I zeroed in on Tessie's platform (finally):

The planet can support ten times the population we have if we manage our resources correctly. How "Hotel Tokyo" life would look at that point, how megapolitan, how bland?

It's all a matter of what we choose. Scarcity of resources, even on an earthbound scale, is still a product of our own choosing as humans...

You'll never get to the meat of the matter unless you prick the little pedant with questions and milk the fucking POINT out of him.

He says:

Not only this but we are led to believe that the earth is as plentiful as it was years and years ago:

That there is an 'unprecedented abundance' in power supplies, this includes fossil and nonfossil fuels.
Yet I know how much Tessie pays in gas money.
I also know what he blames it on- a beauracratic choice to skirt issues and imagine scarcity where plenty abounds, sheer politics. Never mind that the current energy crisis in this very globalized world is based on something other than imagination.

That we have "barely tapped" into the earth's supplies of irons an ores, even pointing out a 31% decrease in their prices worldwide.
Yet there are hundreds upon hundreds of mines in Central Africa that have been bled dry by the diamond and silicon industries. I'm sure we all know why silicon is so popular nowadays, yes?

Taylor writes:

Yet overhead shots of massive baldsopts sprouting up accross the lush greens of African, Polynesian, South and Central American forests even in the Russian woodlands...all these baldspots a direct result of the organized stripping of the land for resources especially now due to technology, if I showed Taylor these overhead shots I'd bet he'd shut the fuck up, yes?

What I am seeing here is that fucked as I am in the field of business and its terminolgies, even I can conceptualize something as simple as this so why can't you, Tessie? The concept is fairly easy to understnad yet you have so much trouble with it.


Scarcity is defined by the simlpe logic of what it signifies- a finite whole subject to the laws of demand and supply and depleted, as with anything, in time. Someone here has even given you examples with shucked corn and 'x' being the irrefutable amount one is working with, regardless of rate.
They've also supplied a definition:

You seem to think that the world starves and children die because of choice yet I imagine you trying to grow beans in their dried up old gardens with "coopearation" and some gassy rhetoric on Adam Smith.

I'll quote it again:

See?

Add to this your mention earlier of survival of the fittest being, of all things, 'countersocial'. Countersocial? Your whole peformance in this thread is either you grasping to subjective abstracts to save face

OR

a severe lack in your ablities to open your mind up a bit

OR

an inability to think outside of books

OR

its simply yet another reason to believe this picture I've always had of you rooting for a dystopic paperbound fiction.

All others who have participated but gendanken did not address, pardon but this talk of depletion of sources being 'mythological' cried out to me and it was only by reading mostly everybody else's post that I could figure out where things stood.

 

I'm not sure you have.

For example, would you actually like an answer to that?

Hey, I pointed out my mistake, which was considering economy from an applicable perspective. Get over yourself, princess.

What are you going on about? Of course the energy crisis is based on something other than imagination. Our choices and actions are not imaginary. (Unless, of course, we wish to digress metaphysically, at least.)

You reinforce the real nature of our choices and actions with such an example. We'll revisit this in a moment.

No, I just don't panic when humans do something dumb like that.

Which is a wonderful but non-functional idea. But we've come to your definitions, which brings us closer to the issue.

Economics doesn't speak of scarcity related to necessity, but rather related to some amorphous vanity.

Somewhere between the "scarcity" of having to expend a resource in order to utilize a resource and the scarcity of a supply that must necessarily trail demand, something is lost in translation.

When scarcity is applied in relation to prices, as per your first definition, we are definitely well inside the myth of scarcity. Humanity has never functioned exactly according to economic theory, at least in our societal and civilized ages. There is a level at which I will defer to certain basic economic ideas as not being mythical, but we are not slugs in the garden or bacteria feeding on guano. We are human beings, and the processes by which we are subject to natural law seem, superficially, at least, different from slugs or bacteria.

Economic theory at its basic level is much like political theory or theology; the perspective offered is limited. Think about applicable "economic theories." No matter how much you crunch the numbers, Communism somehow manages to miss certain human aspects. Unfortunately, so does capitalism. (The former presumes humanity uniformly capable of recognizing the utility of the place of the individual in society, thus altering the relationship between individual and society and making the individual subservient to the community; the latter depends on questionable virtue, an artificially unequal utilization of resources, and makes the relationship between the individual and economy so important that the individual can become a tool of the economy. In either case, humanity defers its services to a cause when the cause is actually supposed to be a device that lends its services to humanity.)

Absent from these sorts of economic discussions is any sense of reality. Sure, there is only so much of anything, but if we stick solely to these two-dimensional considerations of economy, we'll never understand a simple question like how immediate bounty can upset the resource-utilization scheme to such a point as to call down a scarcity from the heavens.

Your second definition only reinforces the mythic aspect of scarcity. And here we revisit choices and actions. What makes the real estate "better"? Something one desires, something intangible? Having worked for an insurance company that got bad news every time a house slid off the hill in California, every time the tornados ripped through the midwest, and hearing woes about whether or not the rates would rise again and what the effect would be on the customers . . . . You know, Joe's view of the Pacific costs other people money; it's an inefficient utilization of resources that we choose. Jack has every right to build an expensive house, but crap, man, in Tornado Alley? (I'm glad I didn't deal with auto insurance.)

There is only so much food grown? Yes, and much of it rots because nobody's going to move it to where it's needed without profit. We have the food; we have the means of transport; to borrow a phrase, we lack the resolve.

Which brings us nicely to the next point:

It's the twenty-first century. We are the human species.

Yes, children starve and die because of choice.

We're playing a living game according to outmoded rules.

I'm sure this is significant in some way. Perhaps you could enlighten me?

I think it's rather quite funny that you would include "an inability to think outside of books" when what I am, in reality, calling for is a thorough thrashing of cookie-cutter, textbook-driven ideology.

We live in cooperative society. It's about time humanity got used to that fact and reassessed its stance as a victim of everything. We opt out of "natural law" when it suits us; after all, we charge people with murder and rape. We can continue to blame our choices on nature or we can start dealing realistically.

When we move into a warm-blooded reality, how can a concept measured purely by irrationality be anything other than mythical?