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> " I soon discovered that all the books leaned on the same central argument: value is an inherent consequence of scarcity. My rebuttal to that was simple: it’s

> " I soon discovered that all the books leaned on the same central argument: value is an inherent consequence of scarcity. My rebuttal to that was simple: it’s an exception, not a rule. My kids’ doodles are scarce, but in a gallery, they wouldn’t fetch much. " There isn't really a market for kids doodles, and with the barrier to entry being really low the supply is many orders of magnitude higher than the demand. So the central argument stays. Not a great start of the article this.

bawolff 4y ago
Which was precisely the author's point.
- _pgln 4y ago
  No its not. Scarcity in economics refers to when the demand for a resource is greater than the supply of that resource. The kids doodles aren't scarce because there is little demand for them. On the other hand there is demand for NFT's (whether you think there should be or not). The comparison doesn't make any sense and just makes the author look dumb.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    The author wasn't responding to economists who were using the word in that sense, he was responding to bitcoin evangelists who often claim that the value in bitcoin comes from its limitted issue (without reference to demand). I have certainly heard bitcoin evangelists make such claims, so i really dont think it is a strawman argument. If you want to take the metaphor further, there is really no barrier to entry for starting a cryptocurrency and supply of cryptocurrencies in general far outstrip demand. So it is very similar to a kids doodle.
    - _pgln 4y ago
      > Late last year, at the peak of the non-fungible token (NFT) craze, I purchased about a dozen highest-rated NFT books on Amazon. I did this because I wanted to publish a balanced critique of NFTs; I figured the most honest approach would to get familiar with the best-articulated arguments put forward by the proponents of this tech. Its quite clear from the first few lines of the article that the author did not intend to debunk some silly claims but to respond to the best ones. Using a definition of scarcity that does not reference demand to write off NFT's entirely shows that the author has no idea what hes talking about. > If you want to take the metaphor further, there is really no barrier to entry for starting a cryptocurrency and supply of cryptocurrencies in general far outstrip demand. So it is very similar to a kids doodle. Yes, but people don't want just any cryptocurrency. They want Bitcoin, ethereum, etc whos demand is greater then the supply. So no its actually similar to a kids doodle.

bawolff 4y ago

Which was precisely the author's point.

_pgln 4y ago
No its not. Scarcity in economics refers to when the demand for a resource is greater than the supply of that resource. The kids doodles aren't scarce because there is little demand for them. On the other hand there is demand for NFT's (whether you think there should be or not). The comparison doesn't make any sense and just makes the author look dumb.
- bawolff 4y ago
  The author wasn't responding to economists who were using the word in that sense, he was responding to bitcoin evangelists who often claim that the value in bitcoin comes from its limitted issue (without reference to demand). I have certainly heard bitcoin evangelists make such claims, so i really dont think it is a strawman argument. If you want to take the metaphor further, there is really no barrier to entry for starting a cryptocurrency and supply of cryptocurrencies in general far outstrip demand. So it is very similar to a kids doodle.
  - _pgln 4y ago
    > Late last year, at the peak of the non-fungible token (NFT) craze, I purchased about a dozen highest-rated NFT books on Amazon. I did this because I wanted to publish a balanced critique of NFTs; I figured the most honest approach would to get familiar with the best-articulated arguments put forward by the proponents of this tech. Its quite clear from the first few lines of the article that the author did not intend to debunk some silly claims but to respond to the best ones. Using a definition of scarcity that does not reference demand to write off NFT's entirely shows that the author has no idea what hes talking about. > If you want to take the metaphor further, there is really no barrier to entry for starting a cryptocurrency and supply of cryptocurrencies in general far outstrip demand. So it is very similar to a kids doodle. Yes, but people don't want just any cryptocurrency. They want Bitcoin, ethereum, etc whos demand is greater then the supply. So no its actually similar to a kids doodle.