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A person has 250 units of food sitting in a room, earns them at 2 units per day, and can consume them at 1 unit per day. They have saved 250 units such that if

A person has 250 units of food sitting in a room, earns them at 2 units per day, and can consume them at 1 unit per day. They have saved 250 units such that if they stopped earning, they'll be alright. Another person has 2,500,000,000 units of food sitting in a room, earns them at 200,000 units per day, and can consume them at 100 units per day (not as filling but tastier let's say). They are... also only saving? C'mon.

unit91 8y ago
The problem with this line of thinking is it assumes a specific purpose, then name-calls based on that premise. Maybe consumption isn't the goal and you're unaware of it. If I have as much food as a grocery store, I'm a hoarder because consumption is my goal. The grocery store isn't hoarding (or even saving) food because consumption isn't the goal. Retail sales are the goal. Again, I'm not here to fight about economics. That wasn't my point. My point was ridicule isn't an argument. Calling someone a hoarder may make you feel good, but it isn't an argument.
- dota_fanatic 8y ago
  Degree matters, it often makes all the difference; as such, we have different adjectives to describe those different degrees. In my hypothetical, while technically true that both are "saving", it is more descriptive to use "hoarding" for the latter case, both in an objective sense to describe the degree and in a subjective sense to describe how that degree of storage should be evaluated. Their goal is to save obscene amounts of wealth that will never ever be used, could never ever be used by a single person in a natural lifetime, "I've saved so much WAOW!" Who cares. Wealth is gained on the shoulders of giants, all the people and technology that came before us. Maybe it should be harder, much harder for people to save levels of money that most everyone would describe as hoarding. The wealthy saving/hoarding so much money, having so much power relative to the masses is leading to super great outcomes?

unit91 8y ago

The problem with this line of thinking is it assumes a specific purpose, then name-calls based on that premise. Maybe consumption isn't the goal and you're unaware of it. If I have as much food as a grocery store, I'm a hoarder because consumption is my goal. The grocery store isn't hoarding (or even saving) food because consumption isn't the goal. Retail sales are the goal. Again, I'm not here to fight about economics. That wasn't my point. My point was ridicule isn't an argument. Calling someone a hoarder may make you feel good, but it isn't an argument.

dota_fanatic 8y ago
Degree matters, it often makes all the difference; as such, we have different adjectives to describe those different degrees. In my hypothetical, while technically true that both are "saving", it is more descriptive to use "hoarding" for the latter case, both in an objective sense to describe the degree and in a subjective sense to describe how that degree of storage should be evaluated. Their goal is to save obscene amounts of wealth that will never ever be used, could never ever be used by a single person in a natural lifetime, "I've saved so much WAOW!" Who cares. Wealth is gained on the shoulders of giants, all the people and technology that came before us. Maybe it should be harder, much harder for people to save levels of money that most everyone would describe as hoarding. The wealthy saving/hoarding so much money, having so much power relative to the masses is leading to super great outcomes?