The people I like least

[KrazyHorse]

Is it a startling revelation to him that producing the same with less is more valuable?

[Fake Boris]

I consider the following:

1) The only valid way to measure wealth is by absence of need
2) The less you need the more useful you are to others
3) Extracting a non-renewable resource destroys wealth

[Fake Boris]

I make people pay to consume and I pay them to produce. If they consume while they produce, they pay for what they consume and are paid for what they produce

Of course you do.

The problem then is that you can be paid by making sure others consume, i.e. by demonstrating their poverty.

[Ban Kenobi]

I consider the following:

1) The only valid way to measure wealth is by absence of need
2) The less you need the more useful you are to others
3) Extracting a non-renewable resource destroys wealth

1) The absence of need is simply the absence of suffering. By your definition, dead people are the richest because they need nothing.
I would consider a definition of "wealth" valid if:
- satisfying a need adds to wealth
- making someone happier adds to wealth
- giving a rational individual an additional option they didn't have before never decreases their wealth
2) I would agree that the less you personally consume, the more you can make other people better off.
3) It destroys one form of wealth- natural resources- but that doesn't imply a net reduction in total wealth.

[Fake Boris]

1) The flaw in your counter is that wealth is a substantive and rich a predicate. Being rich only makes sense to living people, whichever definition of wealth you employ.
2) OK
3) That is up to the monetary system to determine

[pchang]

In my sinister evil genius, I will show the world pictures of food when they are hungry. Thereby demonstrating the poverty of the entire world!!!! buahaha!!!!

[Hauldren Collider]

I consider the following:

1) The only valid way to measure wealth is by absence of need
2) The less you need the more useful you are to others
3) Extracting a non-renewable resource destroys wealth

This is incoherent and infantile in its stupidity. It reads like a ninth grader trying to channel Thoreau, who was an idiot by the way. I am particularly amused by the way you make these broad, abstract statements as if they are completely self-evident. I suppose it saves you from having to justify any of your thinking, though I'm starting to wonder if you ever do any thinking. You're like molly, your posts are completely empty and worded to distract from that fact. At least you don't overuse your thesaurus or go off on absurdly irrelevant historical tangents.

Anyway,
1) I don't need an air conditioner but I'd feel poorer without one. There's a lot of stuff I don't need but would like to have. How is that not wealth? I love you just spew **** like this while simultaneously being a hockey fan.
2) Ridiculous. I'm going to read this as, "if you use less resources, you subtract less from society", which I suppose is true, but at the same time, if you make more for society, you add more to it as well, you know there are two sides to this equation, right?
3) I'm sorry, what? How exactly does leaving it in the ground indefinitely make us richer?

Again, all of these things are so ridiculous and completely lacking in critical thought that the most charitable assumption I can make is that you just write down whatever vaguely deep-sounding Walden-wannabe trite wanders through your mind.

[Ban Kenobi]

1) The flaw in your counter is that wealth is a substantive and rich a predicate. Being rich only makes sense to living people, whichever definition of wealth you employ.
2) OK
3) That is up to the monetary system to determine

As far as I know "substantive" and "predicate" are grammatical terms. If you could explain what you mean by these words that would be helpful.

[Fake Boris]

Anyway,
There's a lot of stuff I don't need but would like to have. How is that not wealth?

So I can become wealthy be desiring objects? Thanks for the heads-up

2) Ridiculous. I'm going to read this as, "if you use less resources, you subtract less from society", which I suppose is true, but at the same time, if you make more for society, you add more to it as well, you know there are two sides to this equation, right?

One of which is wrong.

3) I'm sorry, what? How exactly does leaving it in the ground indefinitely make us richer?

It provides us with the security of known reserves. It protects people against externalities without resorting to fiscal incentives and the expensive bureaucracy that comes with them.

[Fake Boris]

Anyway,
There's a lot of stuff I don't need but would like to have. How is that not wealth?

So I can become wealthy be desiring objects? Thanks for the heads-up

2) Ridiculous. I'm going to read this as, "if you use less resources, you subtract less from society", which I suppose is true, but at the same time, if you make more for society, you add more to it as well, you know there are two sides to this equation, right?

One of which is wrong.

3) I'm sorry, what? How exactly does leaving it in the ground indefinitely make us richer?

It provides us with the security of known reserves. It protects people against externalities without resorting to fiscal incentives and the expensive bureaucracy that comes with them.

[Fake Boris]

As far as I know "substantive" and "predicate" are grammatical terms. If you could explain what you mean by these words that would be helpful.

I meant to say that wealth can only apply in relation to living people anyway.

[Felch]

I consider the following:

1) The only valid way to measure wealth is by absence of need
2) The less you need the more useful you are to others
3) Extracting a non-renewable resource destroys wealth

That's so unbelievably stupid.

[Hauldren Collider]

So I can become wealthy be desiring objects? Thanks for the heads-up

I know theoretically as a French Canadian, English isn't supposed to be your first language, but come on, we all know that's bull****. Let's parse sentences correctly, please. Granted, you might consider the pedantic reading of "wanting things is wealth", but the obvious context cues indicate that what it meant was, "having these things = having wealth".

One of which is wrong.

......I am truly at a loss for words, here. What I said was 2+4 = 3+3 kind of logic. At this point you've gone so far off the rails that righting you would involve a desperate search-and-rescue effort for your train of thought.

It provides us with the security of known reserves. It protects people against externalities without resorting to fiscal incentives and the expensive bureaucracy that comes with them.

So, what you're trying to say, is that by not extracting them, we are still able to extract them in the future? Did you ever stop to consider for a moment that the reason we might want to extract them in the future is because they are more valuable when they aren't in the ****ing ground?

[Fake Boris]

Hauldren Caulifielder and Felch probably think that I have never considered their POVs and that I am discovering its existence right now

[Hauldren Collider]

Hauldren Caulifielder and Felch probably think that I have never considered their POVs and that I am discovering its existence right now

I would say that you probably considered it long enough for your pinko teachers at Filosofer School to spoon-feed you some argumentative comebacks to what are otherwise straightforward observations about the economy and the way people behave.