3 ms·
Consumption is good, actually.
by incrudible 2y ago
Consumption is good, actually.
- nicbou 2y agoCan you expand on that?
- Spivak 2y agoClearly it's going against the flow of the thread but this is right. All our salaries are paid not by wealthy patrons but by the flow of money through the economy from people buying things. If people actually stopped purchasing goods and services we would find ourselves in a depression and tech jobs are far far from the last to cut. Seems people didn't pay attention to the v in their macroeconomics class. If people don't spend it on things they actually want then the government has to step in and spend it on things they think people want and I assume folks intuitively grok that keeping the central-planning of the economy to a minimum is a good thing. Anti-consumerism can be a good thing for you as an individual or family but it's a virtue that is only afforded to you because most people don't join you.
- immibis 2y agoSounds like we have to destroy the earth or else we will destroy the earth.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoExcept when it's not. Like CSAM or McMansions or lifted trucks.
- ndileas 2y agoOne of those things is not like the others?
- paulryanrogers 2y agoI was trying to point out an absolute, like consumption always being good, doesn't hold with widely different examples. After all, there is nuance when things are consumed. Perhaps I should have phrased it differently.
- ndileas 2y agoSure; "consumption" in this sense almost always means buying legal goods and services. Some economics would say that someone buying something is by definition proof that it is a beneficial transaction. I wouldn't go that far personally. Seems like you might be approaching this from a different perspective / this is a confusion over the mutual meaning of words. But the GP is basically a slogan or an axiom, not worthy of serious rebuttal.