Recources are unlimited

[WasatchMan]

Resources are not limited, it is only our reach that limits us.

 

For the Universe is one of near infinite space, matter, time, and energy - and it is our home.

 

However we are told that our condition is to live in a limited environment, where the consumption of resources today means less for tomorrow. 

 

It is said we should feel guilty of this, for it is the sin of living.

 

Well to them I say 'look up', the Universe is ours and the key is your mind.

 

So don't crawl back to the cave in fear of an end, reach for the stars and free humanity to the unlimited.

[Wuzzums]

Why are you trying to ruin Peter Joseph's Christmas?

[Alan C.]

Some resources are more abundant than others, and resources can be reconstituted in almost limitless combinations, but I wouldn't say that they're unlimited. However, time is limited and people have to eat. Also, if input exceeds output then you'll get nowhere fast.

 

People who make others feel guilty and ashamed for living (and consuming) are attempting to compensate for their own feelings of inadequacy and have little to contribute to the benefit and well-being of others. In psychology, it's known as a manipulation tactic called 'leveling.'

[Canaan The Tribeless]

Resources are scarce. They are made scarce by the limitations of humankind to access them, not by physical existence.

[ELD]

In what way is my physical existance not limited? I cannot be in two places at once.

[Naer]

We live in a planet of finite resources. That is why it is crucial to shift our focus to more abundant energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and water based

[Justus Ranvier]

"Scarcity" is the most misunderstood term in economics.

 

A scarce resource is anything that is not infinite.

 

As long as it's not possible for every human to have as much of a resource as they could possibly consume with zero time delay, that resource is scarce and must be allocated.

 

Even if you had self-replicating robots that would dig up sand from the beaches and manufacture i7 CPUs from it without charging a price for their efforts, i7 CPUs would still be scarce.

The reason they'd be scarce is that at a price of zero, there would be no limit to the economic demand for them. If those CPUs were free (along with the energy to power them) then suddenly millions of people would want computing clusters the size of cities.

 

If they were free, why not?

 

Unless your self-replicating robots work for free, and also can produce and distribute a truly infinite number of CPUs with zero time delay, then those CPUs will always be scarce and so access to them must be rationed in some way (ideally via price).

[PatrickC]

I think I understand the O/P's sentiments here. Resources are finite in the sense that we are only able to reach a finite amount of them. Some estimates have suggested of oil, that it's quite possible we have only used less than 1% of the planets potential, given that we have discovered more oil as the decades go by. Not that we cannot eventually discover cheaper alternatives.

 

That said, the O/P isn't arguing against scarcity. He's alluding to a more philosophical principle about not constricting ourselves by just the knowledge we know and understand. But freeing ourselves to consider that we can and have proved to be extraordinarily resourceful and should continue to be so.

[Justus Ranvier]

That said, the O/P isn't arguing against scarcity. He's alluding to a more philosophical principle about not constricting ourselves by just the knowledge we know and understand. But freeing ourselves to consider that we can and have proved to be extraordinarily resourceful and should continue to be so.

 

I can see that as a valid interpretation of his post.

 

My day job involves trying to bring clarity to economic misconceptions, so that probably results in me having less patience for terminology misuse than I might otherwise posess.

[Ravate]

A ponderous concept, to a end.

I believe what Wasatchman is trying to say is, "imagine the infinite potential".

Not a very fulfilling pastime, for as long as men are mortal time will always be a precious resource.

In fact every time I look at a clock, each time it ticks I think to myself "closer to death, closer to death, closer to death".

 

His mention of the human population being told to live in a limited environment is rather accurate however, they say to us, save what you can! Recycle! Prepare! Stock up! Etc...

It is a pity that general humanity is so shallow and faithless.

If they really wanted to do something helpful, they should stop speaking. After all the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. What interests me is how many people blindly follow orders, without question, and without even knowing where they come from, or to what purpose it intends.

 

I suppose that's what set's us apart from them, we seek those mysteries.

As for myself, I would say for us humans to use what we have in abundance today, to invest in what we will have in abundance always, thus being renewable resources. Still finite for sure, but a much safer path than the precarious guessing game played by fossil fuel. I'm not saying there is any indicator that we are running up on time for using it, for all we know we could have enough oil in the world to last another 5,000 years. But the main point that is trying to be reached here is, there is a finite amount. Eventually we will run out and then people will be forced to change whether or not they want to. A rather grim perspective, but it's mine & I will gladly open it up to further debate & discussion.

[rpbrothers816]

I might edit this later, but I'll leave it as is. Some of it is relevant, most of it is tangential. A lot of the ideas contained in this are not adequately presented, but whatevs I still spent about 20 minutes making this comprehensible.  

 

Most of the material in the universe is negligible in terms of utility--or-you could fuse a Gold planet with the energy it would take to perform intergalactic transportation. One day energy will overtake mining for some things, especially for elements lighter than iron. It will take longer for the others to be more cost effective to fuse. Scarcity is difficult to avoid but there are definitely unused sources of energy, my favorite is the orbit of the Earth. The Earth has a lot momentum, you can make orbital turbines/centrifuges that can gather energy and and allow the rotation to accelerate for the best momentum. That would not be cheap to do obviously but it will eventually aid in fusion and will still generate lots of energy before the eventual modifications. A centrifuge is also good for making artificial gravity(they have one on the space station already)/space tourism/microgravity and/or highgravity research etc.--I doubt fusion will replace conventional energy sources in my lifetime; the idea that it will overtake mining is unfathomable, so I wouldn't hold out for that potential. However, having totally flexible companies in a free market, while also having a monetary sector, would make it very easy to finance a lot of endeavors which have much slower returns without including the profit of comparative advantage (and buyout potential). Private competing currencies allow for leverage acquisition/rsi to be taken into account within the economy, which can yield much faster returns on spending with enhanced purchasing power---as more people are willing to accept a form of credit, the liquidity is strengthened and the issuer gains a larger share of the total credit supply in buying power. Or-if you have terms of service that apply to the types of credit you are willing to accept in two-way transactions, then you have a subscription system that uses hedge fund principles to valuate currencies within the economy, whose providers maintain their value by their capacity to trade resources for their own money, and the ability to offload their currency onto subscribers.

 

I would also have to say that part of the issue of scarcity is regulatory/unintentionally making supplements less viable by taking stake in the existing structure-which is good at first but is exponentially inertial. Using the state's power of acquisition and dispute resolution is critical to maintaining the necessity of certain commodities. I would expect a lot more renewable materials as supplements in a totally freed system, just because there is no small scale in the monetary sector, since it could be valued in terms of liquidity/level of support/number of subscribers. In such a system, which could potentially yield immediate returns on long positions, it would be in-feasible to prevent the financing of supplemental means to the materials being provided.

 

Another interesting change that will come about in the next century is hedged manufacturing or even open-source manufacturing/ which may allow for intra-day recall and modification of a manufacturing position/that is--allowing for multiple outs in the manufacturing process, which are currently unavailable without 3D printing. This is an approach which emphasizes loss reduction-3D printing can cut down a lot of inertia in market adaptability, and allow you to go into production without being sure exactly what you aim to produce, selecting instead for a set of devices with like materials. It will also make it possible to limit an item's value to a combination of its melt value, the value of converting it into other devices, and the value of those devices averaged, divided by the value of the item prior to reassessment-which unfortunately would not be fixed and would trail that valuation--but it would still be much cheaper than existing manufacturing. So-you would expect that people would still find a way to price items-with the given that this method is preferred and not made obsolete by externalities.

 

It may also allow for better amphibious transit--especially for seafaring city structures where you can carry factories around. Or--you can mine steel for instance and leave with a better vessel by regenerating the vessel on sight with additional materials--or improve existing drills in real-time. The melt/convert/regenerate aspect of 21st century manufacturing will probably be the most rapid advancement in production that has every been developed. The actual cost of the item is one thing--they can pay less to manufacture but it makes no difference if the MPC is the same--however--if you take out the regulations a few things would happen--it is easy to scale down (you have more hard-hitting entrants--which compounded with monetary leverage allows new entrants to have comparable scale to existing giants--more likely:_it would draw out executives and board members from competing institutions or provoke mergers) On the other side of new manufacturing practices is a copyrights issue with a problem very similar to the Napster issue, but it isn't necessarily, unconditionally negative. On the up side, it would greatly reduce restriction of accessibility or concentration of providers, by having unmanageable numbers of copycat providers. It also probably would not hinder innovation, but would work more similarly to software patching, for the immediate conservation returns. Taking a more open-source approach--you have people making patches for their own means of production--ignoring the benefits it provides to others or otherwise concealing specific patches like temporary, vantage-based trade secrets (some uploaded for traffic some kept on drives) it when necessary. One other thing--is that when you have a new material in a melt/conversion paradigm, there is a great incentive to use the cheapest materials for everything, since any patch which replaces a material with a cheaper one--is advantageous to apply, so long as the modification to an existing device exceeds the value of converting it from one schematic to another-either in part or in full. Precisely: you can mine your devices by updating them, replacing the existing device with a device of comparable utility but with cheaper present melt value and with a remainder commodity produced outside the modified device.