See, the word I would probably use for people who work in order to consume less and maintain the same standard of living is something like "suckers" or "poors".  Little did I know that those people are actually becoming more and more wealthy.

So we have established that wealth is unlimited as long as we work hard and learn to make do with less.

LOL, no.  The reason is that they want to hire fewer maids.  Water costs almost nothing in comparison.


I'd like to see an example of this, if you have one.  I imagine that saving water has more to do with siting than with the actual cost of water.

"Not available in your area"

Guess I didn't pay the telly tax.   

Eve steals John's idea and builds her own factory with less debt and overhead.  Eve undercuts John on price.  John goes out of business.  Eve's cars are sold to third world immigrants who use the savings to have five kids.  The five kids grow up with an inflated standard of living relative to their productive capacity.  John didn't manage to reproduce since he spent all of his time inventing.  Eve realizes that she got the stolen formula wrong and all of her cars disintegrate over time.  The five kids have an existential crisis when they reach maturity and realize that they aren't capable of producing enough to maintain their standard of living, and there aren't enough John's left to redistribute wealth from.  They join the army and invade some other country to rob them of natural resources.

Saying "revenue increases" is utterly meaningless.  Money is a fiction.  As long as there is at least one irrational actor with a womb, consumption will rise to meet supply until supply falters and everything goes pear-shaped.

Do you understand how the world works now?

I think you can agree that wealth is some function of technology, physical resources, and free energy, yes?

And it seems that what you are arguing in this thread is that technology and free energy are *effectively* unlimited, therefore wealth is unlimited.  Is that correct?

But I think it's easy to see that energy is in fact not unlimited.  Stars burn out.  Nuclear and chemical reactions are not perfectly reversible, as limited by entropy.  You're not advocating zero point vacuum energy, right?  Even if you were, in actuality wealth is more directly proportional to power or impulse, not just energy.  And power is limited by Carnot efficiency.  There is lots of energy in a cup of coffee, for instance.  But you can't use it for useful work, even theoretically.

And I think it's also easy to realize that technology, as a function of human effort, is also not unlimited.  Supporting humans capable of creating new technology takes a lot of energy and resources.  And it doesn't always pay off.  In fact it seldom does.  Human society, when considered as a giant Rube-Goldberg-like technology creation device, is probably one of the worst energy investments possible.

So, while I probably can't give you an exact, objective definition of wealth, I do know its limits, and therefore what form it will take.  So I know it exists.  And I can give you a rough outline.

Some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olduvai_theory

Then the line for the frontal lobotomies starts over there ------>

If wealth is subjective and infinite, then just plug yourself in and go back to sleep.

Most of those in the newbie forum were Goons who came here to troll, so they're actually right.  The forum was created specifically for that reason.

Also they're kissing up so that they will be let out early.

Atlas takes the blue pill itt.

This will give you a somewhat more accurate metric.  Though it's still not foolproof.

And what is it you think we're going to just "increase efficiency" of?

Even if you assume something stupidly simple like insulation for houses, there are limits to the returns.  Insulation requires resources to create, distribute, and install.  It has a finite lifespan.  It takes a long time, probably several years, to roll out on a large scale in a cost-effective manner.  And it takes even longer for this investment to pay off.

So, no.  The next time energy prices spike, you're not going to see people rolling up their sleeves to make anything more efficient.  You're going to see wars and people dying.  You're going to see a forced drop in consumption and living standards.  In fact you're probably going to see this pretty soon actually, since absolutely nothing has been done to "increase efficiency" since the last time energy prices spiked, except for a bunch of taxpayer theft and subsidized waste.

Total global energy consumption has never decreased (even temporarily for a period of more than five years) in the history of mankind.

e: Beaten like a CPU miner


Of course *someone* never runs out as long as they can afford it.  But *you* are likely to run out as soon as the price of food exceeds your ability to pay.

Of course animals increase their K.  Every time a cow or chicken poops out a grain seed, it increases it's carrying capacity.  But there is always a limit.

I'm changing my vote to Lindsay Lohan.

This really can't be quoted often enough:

"To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."
-Paul Krugman, 2002

"What do you think of Western Civilization?"

Jesse Ventura would totally be down with Bitcoins.

I fail to see how the price of some good going down is a problem.  Computers go down in price.  Everyone here owns a computer.  Is that a problem?

I have a box of old computer parts that originally cost almost $10,000.  Now they're about $50 in scrap.  Where's my bailout?

And?