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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.

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

> 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.