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You chose to sell the apple. The most eager and capable buyer buys it. Capitalism. You could choose to give the apple to the hungry person. You might choose th

You chose to sell the apple. The most eager and capable buyer buys it. Capitalism. You could choose to give the apple to the hungry person. You might choose that because you want their help in a different way. Or because you feel it is right. Or they are your kid. Or you give it to the strong person to have a better alliance. Or you could have the apple taken from you. You might even have more taken, like your life. The other side has a say too! They both might believe that you shouldn't have it and (might makes right, right?) capitalism wont save you there. That we don't (or do) take by force is a social construct. That we choose to instead honor an imaginary dollar tied to the intrinsic ability of our government to service its own debts is a social construct. Or the idea that maybe we should split the apple or plant it to make more apples. I can imagine a parent with two kids: "fine, nobody gets an apple, it goes in the trash since we can't agree." Nothing here is "one natural order." It is what people decide. And why they decide is based on squishy human reasoning. Social constructs.

roenxi 7mo ago
... and then the dust settles and you discover that despite running though 7 scenarios the most any person has is 1 apple. And if one person has an apple, the other persons do not. Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct. I'm on board with people getting excited about living in a society, it is all pretty magical. But affordability isn't some random social construct, it is in great part about physical limits. Unless you want to redefine what words mean which is always an option available to us.
- 9rx 7mo ago
  > Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct. Your strange and desperate attempts to turn this off-topic continue to be recognized, but for those still reading in good faith, it was resource allocation that was said to be the social construct. Who can afford and who cannot afford something is decided by the whims of people and nothing more.
- sethammons 7mo ago
  Scarcity and affordability are different things; that’s the whole point. Scarcity is physical. Affordability is the social mechanism governing who gets it. We choose. Money, property rights, divine right, strength, moral frameworks. All of those are human agreements, not physical laws. Roenxi, you keep conflating the two. Nobody is claiming scarcity is a social construct. The claim is that how we allocate scarce things is. Those are separable questions. Scarcity is a physical phenomenon. Only one $thing exists and more than one person wants it. Scarcity. The agreement to transfer that $thing to someone is based on humans respecting made up rules. Society. Social constructions. How we define affordability is different. You can "pay" in different ways, some that don't have physical mapping t real world like "social standing." The laws of supply and demand and scarcity still apply, yes. But how that plays out is social. People have to agree or fight. "Affordability" is based on what we agree is worth an exchange. You may value the approval of the recipient more than money. What does affordability mean here? To curry favor later with someone else or because your moral framework lets you sleep better (they were a hungry kid and you don't want kids hungry - another kind of scarcity where we define affordability by how hungry you are). Like you said, unless we redefine words. Then you can have affordability and scarcity mean the same thing. Edit: snark reduction

roenxi 7mo ago

... and then the dust settles and you discover that despite running though 7 scenarios the most any person has is 1 apple. And if one person has an apple, the other persons do not. Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct. I'm on board with people getting excited about living in a society, it is all pretty magical. But affordability isn't some random social construct, it is in great part about physical limits. Unless you want to redefine what words mean which is always an option available to us.

9rx 7mo ago
> Suggesting that affordability is not entirely a social construct. Your strange and desperate attempts to turn this off-topic continue to be recognized, but for those still reading in good faith, it was resource allocation that was said to be the social construct. Who can afford and who cannot afford something is decided by the whims of people and nothing more.
sethammons 7mo ago
Scarcity and affordability are different things; that’s the whole point. Scarcity is physical. Affordability is the social mechanism governing who gets it. We choose. Money, property rights, divine right, strength, moral frameworks. All of those are human agreements, not physical laws. Roenxi, you keep conflating the two. Nobody is claiming scarcity is a social construct. The claim is that how we allocate scarce things is. Those are separable questions. Scarcity is a physical phenomenon. Only one $thing exists and more than one person wants it. Scarcity. The agreement to transfer that $thing to someone is based on humans respecting made up rules. Society. Social constructions. How we define affordability is different. You can "pay" in different ways, some that don't have physical mapping t real world like "social standing." The laws of supply and demand and scarcity still apply, yes. But how that plays out is social. People have to agree or fight. "Affordability" is based on what we agree is worth an exchange. You may value the approval of the recipient more than money. What does affordability mean here? To curry favor later with someone else or because your moral framework lets you sleep better (they were a hungry kid and you don't want kids hungry - another kind of scarcity where we define affordability by how hungry you are). Like you said, unless we redefine words. Then you can have affordability and scarcity mean the same thing. Edit: snark reduction