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Nothing is intrinsically a 'resource'. Something becomes a resource when it can be used to further some human activity. Iron wasn't a resource until iron forgin
by Confusion 11y ago
Nothing is intrinsically a 'resource'. Something becomes a resource when it can be used to further some human activity. Iron wasn't a resource until iron forging was invented. Without humans, no resources exist.
- jacquesm 11y agoBut the iron was already there before we declared it something useful. Ants use 'resources', so do bacteria so without humans resources definitely do exist and are being used actively, whether we declare something to be a resource to us or not does not change the fact that it was a resource before our wandering eye fell on it. Asteroids are a nice example. They're 'untapped resources', objects we one day may use as resources but which for now just sit there because we haven't found a way to make tapping that resource cost efficient.
- Confusion 11y agoFine: nothing is intrinsically a resource. Nutrients weren't a resource before some self replicating process started using it for some purpose, probably fairly directly related to replication. And iron ore still wasn't a resource until humans came along and invented forging. The term 'resource' does not describe the natural state of something. It describes a relationship between things: something is a resource for some goal(s), by some entity(ies). The relationship did not exist when the other party was not in that relationship, for instance because the other party did not exist. Thinking new resources cannot come into existence is making a category mistake, thinking whether something is a resource is absolute, intrinsic, independent of context.