True Conservation means conserving BEFORE the resource is scarce.
Again, maybe you didn't get the memo: all resources are scarce. Are you proposing that we should try to conserve all resources equally no matter what their relative abundance is? Do you have any idea how costly that would be?
Prices are the mechanism by which the information about the relative scarcity of resources is transmitted to people all over the world. If the price rises, that means that the resource is become relatively more scarce; if it falls, it is becoming relatively less scarce. If a resource is abundant now, but is foreseen to be less so in the future, the price of the resource will increase to reflect that BEFORE it becomes scarcer. Why? Because people are not stupid and try to forecast what will happen in the future; those forecasts are reflected in the price.
Otherwise we are no better than every other animal on the planet that will expand to consume all natural resources until nature decides to strike back. "Oh, Mr. Lion, you ate all your food and overpopulated? Starve!"
Again, let me repeat... the WHOLE PURPOSE of a price system is to provide a signal to people AHEAD OF TIME, BEFORE resources are completely depleted so that they can do something about it (consume less of the resource, consume it more efficiently, and/or find more abundant alternatives). Your arguments about people blindly consuming properly priced resources right and left until all the resources are gone has no basis in reality.
No. At some point efficiency becomes unprofitable (and operating cleanly is almost always unprofitable) Notice I specified "efficiency only extends as far as profit demands." That is not good enough. That is NOT conservation.
Why should a corporation (or anyone for that matter) try to conserve an abundant resource if it's too costly to do so?
If by 'operating cleanly' you have in mind a factory spewing soot into the air or a power plant dumping waste into a river, then you are talking about mis-specified or incomplete property rights, which is a different subject entirely. In that case, some entity needs to obtain enforceable property rights over the unowned resource; once that is done, the owner (like any other owner of any other resource) will attempt to put the resource to it's best use.
It is "worth it" in the long run.
How do you know?
It isn't, however, "worth it" to short sighted, greedy corporations. The faith you conservative types put into "the market" and corporations astounds me. It is like you have absolutely no ability see beyond your wallets.
Ok, let's clear some things up here. There is no such thing as a 'market'. There is no such thing as a 'corporation'. These are abstract things that human beings have created. A 'market' is just a collection of people interacting with each other. A 'corporation' is a group of people with shared goals: the employees, the owners, and the customers. Corporations aren't 'short sighted' or 'greedy', people are.
And those terms are relative anyway - who made you the grand judge of what is short sighted or greedy? What's the time frame for your judgement of short sightedness? And why is your time frame any better than anyone elses? Could you also explain to us benighted fools your rationale for calling someone greedy?
Basically, incentives matter. Prices provide incentives to people to conserve the things that are priced. There is no faith involved, it's basic logic, and it works. If there's a better system that you know of to ensure that resources are managed in the best way possible, please let us mere mortals know about it and then book your flight to Oslo to pick up your Nobel prize.
"not priced correctly"?? What is the "correct" price of something? The price is whatever the market will bare [sic]. If I have a resource, I am not going to sell it to you for the "correct" price. I am going to sell it for whatever you will pay for it (and still make a profit).
Ok, this is basic price theory. The price that is set by the market is the 'correct' price. If you are successful in selling something to someone, that means that the price of the thing being sold is the correct price - it's higher than the value of the item to the seller, and it's lower than the value of the item to the buyer. You are both better off.
So by selling something for 'whatever you will pay for it', you are working within the market to drive the price to it's proper level. If you have something that is relatively in demand (like bottled water in the desert) then you will demand a higher price for it; the higher price is a signal to the market that the thing you are selling is relatively scarce. People will see the high price and buy less of it (1st Law of Demand). They will also change their behavior accordingly and try to find cheaper alternatives over time (2nd Law of Demand). Presto - instant conservation.
(Notice that in the above example you are not acting altruistically at all - yet the result of your self-interested actions leads to the conservation of the scarce resource.)
Corporations don't care about "best use."
That's ridiculous. Of course they do, at least if they're for-profit corporations.
They just want to sell a product... as much of it as possible. Their drive to be efficient with resources only extends as far as profit demands.
Exactly! And since these corporations are constantly chasing profits, they will try to be as efficient as possible with (i.e. make best use of) their resources so as to maximize profits.
When resources are relatively plentiful and cheap, it is often more more profitable to waste resources than to conserve them.
Obviously. Which is why you don't see people walking around in stillsuits. The cost of conservation of plentiful resources is not worth it.
The problem with that system is that conservation doesn't happen until AFTER the resource starts to become scarce.
That happens when the resource is not priced correctly, which comes about when profit is taken out of the system (usually by government action).
If the resources are owned by people and not governments, then the profit motive of the owners will drive them to steward the resources in the manner that puts them to best use.
Right, but the problem is, if you wait until a resource is scarce, then you've reacted too late in many cases. It's a very risky way to run a society. It's like putting off paperwork to the last minute, it might never affect you under normal circumstances but all it takes in one slip-up and then you're in trouble.
That is a fallacy. First of all, all resources are scarce. Second of all, prices of natural resources don't change in that way. In most cases, there is plenty of time for the price to rise to cause people to look at alternatives. The only way in which a resource would become scarce immediately would be something like a copper mine explosion in Zambia or some other discontinuous disruption of the supply of a resource. And even then, people aren't stupid - they hold inventories if there's a perceived risk that the future supply of something will decrease.
A free price system is by far the best way that human beings have developed to ensure that scarce resources are put to their best uses. There may be a better way that has yet to be discovered or invented, but until then, letting prices move freely will conserve resources, not deplete them.
There's a special place in hell reserved for the people who use Excel spreadsheets as mockups for HTML pages, considering that there are numerous HTML WYSIWYG editors available.
These are the same people who complain when the final HTML page does not look EXACTLY like the Excel version.
Explaining to them the impedance mismatch between Excel and HTML is a pointless endeavor. Banging my head over and over against a doorknob is more enjoyable.
I tried to buy one last week at the Tyson's Corner VA Apple Store, but they said that they were all out of them.
I called back a day later to check on availability and the guy there said that they didn't have the $99 Keystation 49e, but that they did have a shipment of the M-Audio Radium49 in. I put a hold on one and picked it up the next day.
It costs more - $150. It has 49 keys and 16 MIDI presets that you can program. So it's a step up from the $99 version. And they had them in stock.
Unfortunately, I can't help but be reminded of the fate of the dog in Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" whenever I read reports about the Roomba.
Two-fifteen. The dog was gone.
(shiver)
Thanks to high school English class, I may never own a Roomba. Ever.
Slashdot Mirror
True Conservation means conserving BEFORE the resource is scarce.
Again, maybe you didn't get the memo: all resources are scarce. Are you proposing that we should try to conserve all resources equally no matter what their relative abundance is? Do you have any idea how costly that would be?
Prices are the mechanism by which the information about the relative scarcity of resources is transmitted to people all over the world. If the price rises, that means that the resource is become relatively more scarce; if it falls, it is becoming relatively less scarce. If a resource is abundant now, but is foreseen to be less so in the future, the price of the resource will increase to reflect that BEFORE it becomes scarcer. Why? Because people are not stupid and try to forecast what will happen in the future; those forecasts are reflected in the price.
Otherwise we are no better than every other animal on the planet that will expand to consume all natural resources until nature decides to strike back. "Oh, Mr. Lion, you ate all your food and overpopulated? Starve!"
Again, let me repeat... the WHOLE PURPOSE of a price system is to provide a signal to people AHEAD OF TIME, BEFORE resources are completely depleted so that they can do something about it (consume less of the resource, consume it more efficiently, and/or find more abundant alternatives). Your arguments about people blindly consuming properly priced resources right and left until all the resources are gone has no basis in reality.
No. At some point efficiency becomes unprofitable (and operating cleanly is almost always unprofitable) Notice I specified "efficiency only extends as far as profit demands." That is not good enough. That is NOT conservation.
Why should a corporation (or anyone for that matter) try to conserve an abundant resource if it's too costly to do so?
If by 'operating cleanly' you have in mind a factory spewing soot into the air or a power plant dumping waste into a river, then you are talking about mis-specified or incomplete property rights, which is a different subject entirely. In that case, some entity needs to obtain enforceable property rights over the unowned resource; once that is done, the owner (like any other owner of any other resource) will attempt to put the resource to it's best use.
It is "worth it" in the long run.
How do you know?
It isn't, however, "worth it" to short sighted, greedy corporations. The faith you conservative types put into "the market" and corporations astounds me. It is like you have absolutely no ability see beyond your wallets.
Ok, let's clear some things up here. There is no such thing as a 'market'. There is no such thing as a 'corporation'. These are abstract things that human beings have created. A 'market' is just a collection of people interacting with each other. A 'corporation' is a group of people with shared goals: the employees, the owners, and the customers. Corporations aren't 'short sighted' or 'greedy', people are.
And those terms are relative anyway - who made you the grand judge of what is short sighted or greedy? What's the time frame for your judgement of short sightedness? And why is your time frame any better than anyone elses? Could you also explain to us benighted fools your rationale for calling someone greedy?
Basically, incentives matter. Prices provide incentives to people to conserve the things that are priced. There is no faith involved, it's basic logic, and it works. If there's a better system that you know of to ensure that resources are managed in the best way possible, please let us mere mortals know about it and then book your flight to Oslo to pick up your Nobel prize.
"not priced correctly"?? What is the "correct" price of something? The price is whatever the market will bare [sic]. If I have a resource, I am not going to sell it to you for the "correct" price. I am going to sell it for whatever you will pay for it (and still make a profit).
Ok, this is basic price theory. The price that is set by the market is the 'correct' price. If you are successful in selling something to someone, that means that the price of the thing being sold is the correct price - it's higher than the value of the item to the seller, and it's lower than the value of the item to the buyer. You are both better off.
So by selling something for 'whatever you will pay for it', you are working within the market to drive the price to it's proper level. If you have something that is relatively in demand (like bottled water in the desert) then you will demand a higher price for it; the higher price is a signal to the market that the thing you are selling is relatively scarce. People will see the high price and buy less of it (1st Law of Demand). They will also change their behavior accordingly and try to find cheaper alternatives over time (2nd Law of Demand). Presto - instant conservation.
(Notice that in the above example you are not acting altruistically at all - yet the result of your self-interested actions leads to the conservation of the scarce resource.)
Corporations don't care about "best use."
That's ridiculous. Of course they do, at least if they're for-profit corporations.
They just want to sell a product... as much of it as possible. Their drive to be efficient with resources only extends as far as profit demands.
Exactly! And since these corporations are constantly chasing profits, they will try to be as efficient as possible with (i.e. make best use of) their resources so as to maximize profits.
When resources are relatively plentiful and cheap, it is often more more profitable to waste resources than to conserve them.
Obviously. Which is why you don't see people walking around in stillsuits. The cost of conservation of plentiful resources is not worth it.
The problem with that system is that conservation doesn't happen until AFTER the resource starts to become scarce.
That happens when the resource is not priced correctly, which comes about when profit is taken out of the system (usually by government action).
If the resources are owned by people and not governments, then the profit motive of the owners will drive them to steward the resources in the manner that puts them to best use.
Right, but the problem is, if you wait until a resource is scarce, then you've reacted too late in many cases. It's a very risky way to run a society. It's like putting off paperwork to the last minute, it might never affect you under normal circumstances but all it takes in one slip-up and then you're in trouble.
That is a fallacy. First of all, all resources are scarce. Second of all, prices of natural resources don't change in that way. In most cases, there is plenty of time for the price to rise to cause people to look at alternatives. The only way in which a resource would become scarce immediately would be something like a copper mine explosion in Zambia or some other discontinuous disruption of the supply of a resource. And even then, people aren't stupid - they hold inventories if there's a perceived risk that the future supply of something will decrease.
A free price system is by far the best way that human beings have developed to ensure that scarce resources are put to their best uses. There may be a better way that has yet to be discovered or invented, but until then, letting prices move freely will conserve resources, not deplete them.
Hey, I though you were dead!
There's a special place in hell reserved for the people who use Excel spreadsheets as mockups for HTML pages, considering that there are numerous HTML WYSIWYG editors available.
These are the same people who complain when the final HTML page does not look EXACTLY like the Excel version.
Explaining to them the impedance mismatch between Excel and HTML is a pointless endeavor. Banging my head over and over against a doorknob is more enjoyable.
I tried to buy one last week at the Tyson's Corner VA Apple Store, but they said that they were all out of them.
I called back a day later to check on availability and the guy there said that they didn't have the $99 Keystation 49e, but that they did have a shipment of the M-Audio Radium49 in. I put a hold on one and picked it up the next day.
It costs more - $150. It has 49 keys and 16 MIDI presets that you can program. So it's a step up from the $99 version. And they had them in stock.
Unfortunately, I can't help but be reminded of the fate of the dog in Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" whenever I read reports about the Roomba.
Two-fifteen.
The dog was gone.
(shiver)
Thanks to high school English class, I may never own a Roomba. Ever.
I don't know about anyone else here, but I still love playing the old Infocom text adventures which can be obtained from eBay or from other places.
They have no need for fancy 3D graphics cards or the latest speedy processors.
It's very relaxing to play the games. They are quiet. They keep my mind stimulated.
It would be nice if there were a game manufacturer who made new text adventures; I am not aware of any that currently do.