4 ms·

Jevons Paradox isn't a law of nature. > we can find additional useful things to do with it Useful for what purpose? > Reducing suffering Yes and no. Existe

Jevons Paradox isn't a law of nature. > we can find additional useful things to do with it Useful for what purpose? > Reducing suffering Yes and no. Existence is suffering (you are already in the Torment Nexus), Gurdjieff spoke of the importance of "conscious suffering" but that's not something I want to get into here, today. In any event, the best way to reduce suffering is to touch Ice Nine to your tongue, but where's the fun in that? Once all the suffering is reduced what then? (Sorry if I seem salty or sassy, I'm really just here for interesting and contrsuctive discussion, I swear.)

spwa4 2y ago
> Useful for what purpose? Replacing other processes. If something can be done for very cheap, we find new uses for it. Any economic activity can be done 100 different ways. If something becomes absurdly cheap, we start using that for a LOT of things it wasn't used for before. For example, construction used to have great problems securing suitable building materials, but had great quantities of labor available. Hence, everything was custom. The name of the game was to use every piece of wood, every stone, every last bit of building material that was available in construction. An extreme example is that in order to keep medieval staircases clean and maintained, they were taken apart twice yearly, the individual pieces of wood cleaned, and the stairs reassembled after cleaning. Labor was worthless, so why not? Today, building materials are very cheap compared to labor. So we have extremes like prefab homes, but generally we use large amounts of building materials just to avoid even small amounts of labor. Today, we replace stairs entirely to avoid maintaining the wood they're made of. Especially if it doesn't have to look good. Just buy a premade stair and throw the old one out.
- carapace 2y ago
  You're missing the point. Economic activity isn't the meaning of life.
  - spwa4 2y ago
    Perhaps sadly, it kind of is. Or perhaps we should put it like this: nobody likes a lack of economic activity.
    - carapace 2y ago
      Tell that to the folks living in the Amazon? They had their lives going for who knows how many thousands of years and then someone comes along and cuts down all the trees to make money. Science and capitalism have delivered technology and wealth, not evenly distributed, yes, but considered as a species we have won history. The goal is not to rearrange atoms until the Earth glows like a lightbulb from our waste heat. Take the long view (and "long" here means a handful of centuries[1]) and lift your sights. [1] https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...

spwa4 2y ago

> Useful for what purpose? Replacing other processes. If something can be done for very cheap, we find new uses for it. Any economic activity can be done 100 different ways. If something becomes absurdly cheap, we start using that for a LOT of things it wasn't used for before. For example, construction used to have great problems securing suitable building materials, but had great quantities of labor available. Hence, everything was custom. The name of the game was to use every piece of wood, every stone, every last bit of building material that was available in construction. An extreme example is that in order to keep medieval staircases clean and maintained, they were taken apart twice yearly, the individual pieces of wood cleaned, and the stairs reassembled after cleaning. Labor was worthless, so why not? Today, building materials are very cheap compared to labor. So we have extremes like prefab homes, but generally we use large amounts of building materials just to avoid even small amounts of labor. Today, we replace stairs entirely to avoid maintaining the wood they're made of. Especially if it doesn't have to look good. Just buy a premade stair and throw the old one out.

carapace 2y ago
You're missing the point. Economic activity isn't the meaning of life.
- spwa4 2y ago
  Perhaps sadly, it kind of is. Or perhaps we should put it like this: nobody likes a lack of economic activity.
  - carapace 2y ago
    Tell that to the folks living in the Amazon? They had their lives going for who knows how many thousands of years and then someone comes along and cuts down all the trees to make money. Science and capitalism have delivered technology and wealth, not evenly distributed, yes, but considered as a species we have won history. The goal is not to rearrange atoms until the Earth glows like a lightbulb from our waste heat. Take the long view (and "long" here means a handful of centuries[1]) and lift your sights. [1] https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...