4 ms·

Let us make the example more extreme. Let's make it spending 100 billion on building a supermassive yacht, that you then proceed to sink for your own entertainm

Let us make the example more extreme. Let's make it spending 100 billion on building a supermassive yacht, that you then proceed to sink for your own entertainment. Which is not dissimilar from 10 million people spending $10k each on luxury consumption for themselves. Would you still argue that it still does no harm? You have just squandered 100b worth of society's resources - people's time, physical materials, engineering effort etc. for your own entertainment.

didibus 4y ago
That's a bit of an extreme made up example, which wouldn't be very representative of the common case, but I'll entertain it. Just keep in mind what's true of an extreme edge case, is not necessarily true of the common case, and you can't extrapolate like that. Say there was a 100 billion yacht, it still served as a means to redistribute flow of funds to others. Those engineers, material extractors, workers, staff, all that contributed to people being given some of that money. This goes towards creating an economy, and good economies can sustain countries and lift many people out of poverty, saving many lives. Creating a demand for people's labor and resources helps with creating an economy. This isn't money wasted, the money went to many people, it was a way to redistribute the money to others. So I don't see the harm at all, at least not from a financial standpoint, you could argue about environmental harm though. Now what about opportunity cost? Sure, maybe that 100 billion could have been used in ways that redistribute it more evenly, more fairly, or to people who needs the money most, or towards an endeavor that has longer term uplifting outcomes, etc, there might be a better use, though it becomes hard to figure out what use is truly better. The way I see it, there's two dimensions: - Redistributing money, who gets it? Split amongst how many people? - Potential for future returns, is the money spent in a way that gives people the means to produce more? The yacht definitely redistributes money, but maybe you disagree about the distribution of it, who got the money. Arguably the yacht could bring future returns. Creating a demand for engineers pushed more people into engineering, now more people have the engineering know how, they go on to use that to build other projects, creating an infrastructure that others can then leverage to make other things more efficient and build on top, etc. Basically, I just don't think it's as black and white as you claim, even in this extreme example.
- agent008t 4y ago
  The point of my example was to draw attention to what actually happens to the real resources, how they get used. They get wasted, which is a terrible outcome. I believe your focus on money obscures that fact. Money is just a mechanism for a (good, efficient, fair?) way of using the resources available. Money is not real wealth. What lifts people out of poverty is not money, it is ultimately useful stuff - food, shelter etc. produced so efficiently that people also are able to specialise and spend time on teaching, medicating, investing into producing not just the bare necessities but things that make them even more efficient and productive etc. In the yacht example, such scarce resources are squandered! The 'economy' created is quite literally destructive - it is geared towards consumption (i.e. destruction) of many resources - materials to build the yacht, countless peoples' time - for the mere entertainment of the person who then sinks the yacht. Yes, the people that were involved in building the yacht now have bigger claims on a shrinking share of resources. They personally win; the person who enjoyed sinking the yacht wins; overall society greatly looses and is now much poorer. So overall, society would be better off if that person just hoarded the money, buried it in their back yard, and preserved the scarce resources. That outcome is better than personal luxury consumption. Even better, of course, if they used it to get other people to do something productive that benefits wider society.
  - didibus 4y ago
    > So overall, society would be better off if that person just hoarded the money, buried it in their back yard, and preserved the scarce resources. That outcome is better than personal luxury consumption. Even better, of course, if they used it to get other people to do something productive that benefits wider society Ok, so your argument is in the actual materials consumed? The water, metal, and all that being "wasted" for a yacht, as opposed to used for life critical purposes instead? So, that's kind of the environmental aspect I mentioned, I'm not opposed here, sustainable resource use is important. But donating to a charity can similarly be a temporary waste of resources with no sustainability improvements made. Just feeding people food for an extra week for example, is very different from investing in sustainable farming methods that can guarantee us renewable and long lasting sources of food. And on that topic, it's surprising how in practice discoveries that can help us with sustainability and production methods are discovered through various other ventures, often military for example, but it can happen anywhere. The person who invented ammonia was researching chemical warfare, now it's used for fertilizer and dramatically helped boost our food production efficiency. These second order effects I think are hard to predict, similarly hard to predict what the workers that got money from building the yacht than go on to use that money for themselves, maybe they spend it investing in food production efficiencies.

didibus 4y ago

That's a bit of an extreme made up example, which wouldn't be very representative of the common case, but I'll entertain it. Just keep in mind what's true of an extreme edge case, is not necessarily true of the common case, and you can't extrapolate like that. Say there was a 100 billion yacht, it still served as a means to redistribute flow of funds to others. Those engineers, material extractors, workers, staff, all that contributed to people being given some of that money. This goes towards creating an economy, and good economies can sustain countries and lift many people out of poverty, saving many lives. Creating a demand for people's labor and resources helps with creating an economy. This isn't money wasted, the money went to many people, it was a way to redistribute the money to others. So I don't see the harm at all, at least not from a financial standpoint, you could argue about environmental harm though. Now what about opportunity cost? Sure, maybe that 100 billion could have been used in ways that redistribute it more evenly, more fairly, or to people who needs the money most, or towards an endeavor that has longer term uplifting outcomes, etc, there might be a better use, though it becomes hard to figure out what use is truly better. The way I see it, there's two dimensions: - Redistributing money, who gets it? Split amongst how many people? - Potential for future returns, is the money spent in a way that gives people the means to produce more? The yacht definitely redistributes money, but maybe you disagree about the distribution of it, who got the money. Arguably the yacht could bring future returns. Creating a demand for engineers pushed more people into engineering, now more people have the engineering know how, they go on to use that to build other projects, creating an infrastructure that others can then leverage to make other things more efficient and build on top, etc. Basically, I just don't think it's as black and white as you claim, even in this extreme example.

agent008t 4y ago
The point of my example was to draw attention to what actually happens to the real resources, how they get used. They get wasted, which is a terrible outcome. I believe your focus on money obscures that fact. Money is just a mechanism for a (good, efficient, fair?) way of using the resources available. Money is not real wealth. What lifts people out of poverty is not money, it is ultimately useful stuff - food, shelter etc. produced so efficiently that people also are able to specialise and spend time on teaching, medicating, investing into producing not just the bare necessities but things that make them even more efficient and productive etc. In the yacht example, such scarce resources are squandered! The 'economy' created is quite literally destructive - it is geared towards consumption (i.e. destruction) of many resources - materials to build the yacht, countless peoples' time - for the mere entertainment of the person who then sinks the yacht. Yes, the people that were involved in building the yacht now have bigger claims on a shrinking share of resources. They personally win; the person who enjoyed sinking the yacht wins; overall society greatly looses and is now much poorer. So overall, society would be better off if that person just hoarded the money, buried it in their back yard, and preserved the scarce resources. That outcome is better than personal luxury consumption. Even better, of course, if they used it to get other people to do something productive that benefits wider society.
- didibus 4y ago
  > So overall, society would be better off if that person just hoarded the money, buried it in their back yard, and preserved the scarce resources. That outcome is better than personal luxury consumption. Even better, of course, if they used it to get other people to do something productive that benefits wider society Ok, so your argument is in the actual materials consumed? The water, metal, and all that being "wasted" for a yacht, as opposed to used for life critical purposes instead? So, that's kind of the environmental aspect I mentioned, I'm not opposed here, sustainable resource use is important. But donating to a charity can similarly be a temporary waste of resources with no sustainability improvements made. Just feeding people food for an extra week for example, is very different from investing in sustainable farming methods that can guarantee us renewable and long lasting sources of food. And on that topic, it's surprising how in practice discoveries that can help us with sustainability and production methods are discovered through various other ventures, often military for example, but it can happen anywhere. The person who invented ammonia was researching chemical warfare, now it's used for fertilizer and dramatically helped boost our food production efficiency. These second order effects I think are hard to predict, similarly hard to predict what the workers that got money from building the yacht than go on to use that money for themselves, maybe they spend it investing in food production efficiencies.