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We really need to stop calling everything a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a very specific thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme http://en.wikipedi
by athst 15y ago
We really need to stop calling everything a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a very specific thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
Adding that label to everything you think is bad cheapens both the meaning and the point you're trying to get across.
- near_acorn 15y agoIt isn't being applied to "everything [people] think is bad"; it is being applied to situations where the form "bad" takes is a reliance on continuous growth/investment/new-rubes to prevent collapse/disaster. It may cheapen the technical use of the term, but it most certainly conveys "the point [people are] trying to get across". Apparently, people find that of more general use than preserving a term-of-art of limited audience.
- bonzoesc 15y agoWhy not use "unsustainable" instead of "Ponzi scheme?"
- near_acorn 15y agoI think people are emphasizing the peculiar relationship between investment/growth and staving off disaster. Oil is "unsustainable" it is not a Ponzi scheme (in the popular sense) because if people doubled the amount of oil they bought this year this would, in general, bring the endgame closer and not further.