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I’m not talking about putting infinite value in a system or exponentially increasing investments. I haven‘t made a case for either of those. I’m sorry, I don’t
by dsacco 9y ago
I’m not talking about putting infinite value in a system or exponentially increasing investments. I haven‘t made a case for either of those.
I’m sorry, I don’t really know how to express the point more clearly at this juncture, so I guess this will have to do:
1) in finite, discrete measurements of time, the activities of a game can be positive sum;
2) corollary to point 1, the aggregate market valuation trends upwards over time.
You keep focusing on infinite or underspecified measures of time for your arguments, which is frankly incoherent for the discussion at hand. This indicates to me that you don’t believe anything can be zero or even positive sum, because according to your logic - as literally stated - the value of gold is negative sum because resources are finite and time is not, so gold will eventually be stolen.
Not only is the probability of a thing being stolen outside the interactions of the game we’re considering, it’s not relevant to valuation unless you rigorously quantify its cost (such as through insurance) for a discrete measure of time. In essence, you’re conceptually refuting central tenets of game theory by invoking Murphy’s law.
- Retric 9y agoI have no objections to things being positive sum. Consider planting crops. The 'output' of the system over time is lower due to entropy, but the value of chemical energy in corn is vastly higher than the value of nuclear energy in the Sun. note it's the transformation that's providing value. The problem is coins and gold are not being transformed AND there are costs that are inherently part of the system. Poker with N players is ~zero sum, poker with N players and a house stake is negative sum among the players. Clearly, coins follow the second example with a house (equipment) taking profits off the table. Now, if you want to say commerce is positive sum and coins can provide value as a medium of exchange that's an argument around their relative utility. Which is currently generally* less than money as you go money > coin > stuff vs money > stuff. However, coins as an investment is a different argument. If I hold a coin for 200 years then it's not part of any transaction. * Coins as a means of circumventing currency controls is yet another argument.