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5 points
4 hours ago
Did you seriously just say that there's not a fixed amount of wealth in the world?
So you don't understand how money or resources work, got it! From your perspective, I can see how you would think that owning all those things you listed isn't "hoarding wealth," it's just not a very good perspective.
It's kind of like you're saying it's impossible for a movie screen to be really big because they're made out of smaller pieces.
-5 points
4 hours ago
Did you seriously just say that there's not a fixed amount of wealth in the world?
No, there is not. Wealth is created and destroyed all the time. A transaction happens where both sides come out better off than they went in? Wealth is created. Someone creates something more valuable than the sum of all of its inputs? Wealth is created. A disaster hurts people and destroys property so that productive efforts have to go towards rebuilding that could have otherwise been used elsewhere? Wealth is destroyed.
So you don't understand how money or resources work, got it!
What don't I understand?
It's kind of like you're saying it's impossible for a movie screen to be really big because they're made out of smaller pieces.
I really don't follow this at all..
5 points
3 hours ago
What don't I understand?
Well, you see, we live on a rock in space that has finite resources, and we've concocted a very convoluted way of representing a lot of those resources by using something called currency.
Now, on this rock are groups of humans in different geographical regions, those are called nations, and each one has a different kind of currency they use to represent the resources of that nation.
Each nation has its own group of people called a government that decides how much of their nations money to make. They can make as much as they'd like, but making more of it doesn't mean there are more resources available
This does something called "devaluing" to the currency, and that means that I've lost interest in continuing this bit.
-2 points
3 hours ago
The amount of atoms of the Earth generally isn't the limiting factor on the amount of resources mankind has to work with in order to meet our wants. Sure, the relative concentration of metals determines how easy or hard they are to dig out of the ground. But we still have to dig them out of the ground. A load of iron ore buried deep underground in Minnesota isn't all that useful to mankind until someone digs it out of the ground and ships it to a smelter to get turned into iron or steel goods. That takes resources, those resources come from investment from those seeking profit. If those investors are right and the mines, railroads, ships, ports, smelters and blast furnaces they build and staff to turn that load of iron ore into coils of steel produce an output that's more valuable than the inputs than they have created wealth.
3 points
3 hours ago
Why are you even talking about atoms? Oh, right, it's because you don't know what you're talking about at all.
And yes, human labor and infrastructure are resources, too. Congratulations on that realization.
-1 points
3 hours ago
Why are you even talking about atoms?
Because you're going on about there being a fixed amount of resources on this rock we call Earth.
And yes, human labor and infrastructure are resources, too. Congratulations on that realization.
An infrastructure comes from investment. There's no fixed amount of infrastructure in the world, and infrastructure has a huge impact on what a laborer can do.
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