Nostr Web Client

Not really what I was saying; economic growth through technological progress is awesome, but as you mention the expectation of every public company is that it must always grow, beat last quarter’s numbers, etc without any regard to the first rule of economics - that scarcity is real and informs everything else that happens in the world as a result.

No amount of profit is ‘enough’, no amount of production is what’s best for the world, no market share or TAM is ‘sufficient’ - there always has to be more, it just is what it is. Even tho it’s known at some point that at some point this has to end when resources run out.

It’s just interesting as a foundational principle built on top of the opposite axiom in this example.

For the fiat example, it’s more glaring imo because fiat is perhaps one of the only things that actually disproves the other principle in the opposite manner.

Fiat definitionally is not scarce, rather it is infinitely summonable into the world on a whim, which is why the system collapses the second that it stops expanding.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

signal_and_rage 2y ago

side note: Putting these post in ChatGPT and asking to argue these statements is a fascinating exercise.

pam 2y ago

Lol, Miles - Brockm debates are the best ...🍿👀

Mike Brock 2y ago

Do you think any complex social system can be axiomatically self-consistent?

SMS 2y ago

The problem to solve is not with system complexity, but social dynamics when temporal orientation becomes like introducing cars.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2vfCSwToh0Am0O4zgHXfn7?si=DoX7e0LRQFKLBXrn_GhAUg&context=spotify%3Asearch%3Afriend%2Bof%2Ba%2B

miles 🌞 2y ago

I haven't thought this through thoroughly enough to have a definitive answer tbh.

I think it's the way the world _should_ work in my opinion, or the way I want it to work, but I'm also very conscious of the fact that we are little flatlanders operating in our realm of an existence that contains dimensions higher than us and which we can't begin to understand.

I see the inconsistency set in OP similar to how I view modern physics. Relativity and Quantum theories are helpful and descriptive in differing scales and instances, just like both premises above describe cross-sections of reality.

But they can't both be true together which is a recurring pattern in the history of science when in fact there is a new paradigm to be discovered eventually that eliminates the preceding incoherence and tension.

When this happens, in retrospect the previous theories and era that centered their worldview around them are often looked back on sympathetically and smugly like you would a developing child.

"Ah those silly humans back then, they actually believed x, y, z about the world." But for them at that point in time it was the best explanation they'd come up with. And almost assuredly it existed in incongruence with one of their other major premises too.

Until a new discovery comes along and a new paradigm emerges. Almost every era has gone through this same progression.

ed 2y ago

>Relativity and Quantum theories are helpful and descriptive in differing scales and instances [...] But they can't both be true together

This isn't strictly correct. They are both very true and accurate within their respective domains. They make valid predictions and provide useful explanations for observed phenomena. The scientific method is very pragmatic.