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> Or you'll try to bargain with the merchant, explaining that you're dying of thirst In which case, he'll move on and sell it to the next guy. > Or you'll try

> Or you'll try to bargain with the merchant, explaining that you're dying of thirst In which case, he'll move on and sell it to the next guy. > Or you'll try to take the water by force, since the merchant is obviously being unreasonable. Okay, maybe, if you aren't outmatched. > It also assumes that the merchant is evil, so evil that he will take everything you own in exchange for a single bottle of water when you are dying of thirst This sort of proves my point. People understand that this kind of behavior is wrong, so they don't do it. I was replying to someone saying it's puzzling that people consider this behavior wrong.

pdonis 12y ago
> In which case, he'll move on and sell it to the next guy. Exactly what sort of situation are you envisioning, where there are multiple people who want to buy water (but nobody but you is dying of thirst), yet only one merchant selling it? One can always make up improbable scenarios. > People understand that this kind of behavior is wrong, so they don't do it. That's one possible reason why people don't do it, but not the only one. There are game theoretic reasons why not doing it is adaptive. In any case, if your argument is that people think it's wrong to take all the assets of someone who is dying of thirst, in exchange for one bottle of water, then you've shifted your ground. Your original argument was that people must assign infinite value to necessities like water, because they will pay whatever it takes to get them. Now your argument is that charging whatever the person dying of thirst will pay is "wrong". This is a different argument, and I don't see what it has to do with your original claim. > I was replying to someone saying it's puzzling that people consider this behavior wrong. Huh? The grandparent of my first post in this subthread was questioning your assignment of "infinite value" to water (or anything, for that matter). Perhaps you're thinking of another subthread?

pdonis 12y ago

> In which case, he'll move on and sell it to the next guy. Exactly what sort of situation are you envisioning, where there are multiple people who want to buy water (but nobody but you is dying of thirst), yet only one merchant selling it? One can always make up improbable scenarios. > People understand that this kind of behavior is wrong, so they don't do it. That's one possible reason why people don't do it, but not the only one. There are game theoretic reasons why not doing it is adaptive. In any case, if your argument is that people think it's wrong to take all the assets of someone who is dying of thirst, in exchange for one bottle of water, then you've shifted your ground. Your original argument was that people must assign infinite value to necessities like water, because they will pay whatever it takes to get them. Now your argument is that charging whatever the person dying of thirst will pay is "wrong". This is a different argument, and I don't see what it has to do with your original claim. > I was replying to someone saying it's puzzling that people consider this behavior wrong. Huh? The grandparent of my first post in this subthread was questioning your assignment of "infinite value" to water (or anything, for that matter). Perhaps you're thinking of another subthread?