teloscientist

I think you are speaking to an essential issue of wealth, trade, and value. Is wealth "stuff" or is wealth the capacity to fulfill our values/goals? Example: I have two pieces of paper. John has two pencils. I trade John 1 piece of paper for one pencil. Conclusion: I suggest that John and I are both richer, even though no new objects come into existence. Example: I am hungry. My refrigerator is empty. Someone shows me that the plants in my back yard that I thought were weeds are actually valuable food. I both eat some of the plants, and sell them to others, making money to buy more food. I give the person who showed me that it was food some of that money. Conclusion: The information was wealth in my hands, but not for people who don't have that plant in their yard. Simply providing information creates wealth, even if it doesn't require work. Values are always valuable to someone for something. Wealth is simply our ability to achieve our values. We can "create" wealth simply by learning or trading for knowledge, or by trading something which is more valuable to you than me, for something that is more valuable for me than you. That is what Bill was speaking to. It might be different than how you were originally thinking about "creating wealth. Or you might recognize, now that you think about it, but this is a stellar example of creating wealth. If it is not "creating wealth," I'm curious what you would call it. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet, but shared vocabulary allows for sharing knowledge about gardening and higher level…

I have a question for an administrator of this site: my email has been banned from this site. I don't understand how that could have happened (I don't flame, and when I contribute, it is reasonable and typically well thought out). Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks Mark