6 ms·

Ah, the hypothetical "entire new pie". Just produce it, bro; then there will be no more arguments about inequality.

by jsprogrammer 11y ago

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Yeah, there will. People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Then how is it a solution? Also, the pie is fixed.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    > Then how is it a solution? I didn't claim that it was. Maybe you should ask saulrh that. > Also, the pie is fixed. Economic growth has exceeded population growth rather reliably for the last two hundred years or so. The pie is definitely not fixed.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      The pie gets bigger, but most people's concrete amount of pie they get generally does not change, while a tiny amount of people end up with the benefits of the expanding pie.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Unless you believe something like the Banach-Tarski paradox [0] is possible in our world, there is a relatively constant amount of matter within our reach. (In fact, there is a finite amount of matter that we will ever be able to reach.) This puts a hard cap on how much "stuff" can exist. Therefore, the pie is fixed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        I think most of us don't define "pie" that way. In particular, I (and, I presume, saulrh) were talking about the economy, not about the total amount of matter within reach of the human race. Even using your definition, though, the pie is not fixed. We can't mine the moon today. Perhaps someday we can. If so, the amount of matter available to us is not fixed. Or perhaps we can mine the earth's core. More mundanely, there's fracking. That's dramatically added to the amount of matter (of a particular useful form) that is available to the human race.
        saulrh 11y ago
        I wasn't even defining it economically, although that's one very concrete way this mentality appears. It also appears in discussions of civil rights, in everyday social interactions, and even when people are offered sterilized game-theoretic experiments. It's a depressingly general pattern.
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        >I (and, I presume, saulrh) were talking about the economy So am I. What is "the economy"? I submit that it is the tracking of material in space. There is a fixed amount of space on the planet as well. At some point, there will be no more space or material to place another Hearst Castle. I guess someone should provide an example of an "entire new pie". (Interestingly, this is what I demanded in my first post.) My theory even explains your observation that 'People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie'. The reason they complain is because the pie is fixed and the new pie is a lie. If we could just create "entire new pies", then there would be no reason to complain about the newest pie, because we can just create yet another entire new pie.
        AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        See, you're talking about the fundamental limits of the economy (or the human environment), and the rest of us aren't. We're talking about the economy this year vs the economy last year (or next year). We aren't anywhere near the fundamental limits of the amount of material, or the amount of space. Therefore, what the rest of us mean by "the economy" has plenty of room to grow. And that's where "the new pie" comes from - it's the growth in the actual economy as experienced by actual humans participating in it, not growth in the fundamental limits of the economy. There are (probably) fundamental limits to the economy. That's a different topic than the one the rest of us are talking about, though. You keep using the same words ("pie", "economy") to talk about something different, and then you argue that we're wrong. It's tiresome, and also not useful for actual communication.

Ah, the hypothetical "entire new pie". Just produce it, bro; then there will be no more arguments about inequality.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

Yeah, there will. People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Then how is it a solution? Also, the pie is fixed.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  > Then how is it a solution? I didn't claim that it was. Maybe you should ask saulrh that. > Also, the pie is fixed. Economic growth has exceeded population growth rather reliably for the last two hundred years or so. The pie is definitely not fixed.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    The pie gets bigger, but most people's concrete amount of pie they get generally does not change, while a tiny amount of people end up with the benefits of the expanding pie.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Unless you believe something like the Banach-Tarski paradox [0] is possible in our world, there is a relatively constant amount of matter within our reach. (In fact, there is a finite amount of matter that we will ever be able to reach.) This puts a hard cap on how much "stuff" can exist. Therefore, the pie is fixed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      I think most of us don't define "pie" that way. In particular, I (and, I presume, saulrh) were talking about the economy, not about the total amount of matter within reach of the human race. Even using your definition, though, the pie is not fixed. We can't mine the moon today. Perhaps someday we can. If so, the amount of matter available to us is not fixed. Or perhaps we can mine the earth's core. More mundanely, there's fracking. That's dramatically added to the amount of matter (of a particular useful form) that is available to the human race.
      - saulrh 11y ago
        I wasn't even defining it economically, although that's one very concrete way this mentality appears. It also appears in discussions of civil rights, in everyday social interactions, and even when people are offered sterilized game-theoretic experiments. It's a depressingly general pattern.
      - jsprogrammer 11y ago
        >I (and, I presume, saulrh) were talking about the economy So am I. What is "the economy"? I submit that it is the tracking of material in space. There is a fixed amount of space on the planet as well. At some point, there will be no more space or material to place another Hearst Castle. I guess someone should provide an example of an "entire new pie". (Interestingly, this is what I demanded in my first post.) My theory even explains your observation that 'People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie'. The reason they complain is because the pie is fixed and the new pie is a lie. If we could just create "entire new pies", then there would be no reason to complain about the newest pie, because we can just create yet another entire new pie.
        AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        See, you're talking about the fundamental limits of the economy (or the human environment), and the rest of us aren't. We're talking about the economy this year vs the economy last year (or next year). We aren't anywhere near the fundamental limits of the amount of material, or the amount of space. Therefore, what the rest of us mean by "the economy" has plenty of room to grow. And that's where "the new pie" comes from - it's the growth in the actual economy as experienced by actual humans participating in it, not growth in the fundamental limits of the economy. There are (probably) fundamental limits to the economy. That's a different topic than the one the rest of us are talking about, though. You keep using the same words ("pie", "economy") to talk about something different, and then you argue that we're wrong. It's tiresome, and also not useful for actual communication.