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Alsadius comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 26, chapter 97 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: palladias 15 August 2013 02:18AM

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Comment author: Alsadius 18 August 2013 10:12:16PM 1 point [-]

As phrased it's tautological, but my point was the implication - people can choose to value whatever they want, value is not intrinsic to an item. Lack of scarcity does provide an upper cap, though - air will never be valuable on the surface of Earth - so if people have chosen to value something, then scarcity is the remaining factor needed for it to have value. (I phrased it poorly, but I think it's still strictly correct)

Comment author: TobyBartels 22 August 2013 09:28:04PM 0 points [-]

Neither air nor water are scarce on Earth; but clean air and clean water have value.

Comment author: MugaSofer 21 August 2013 05:27:42PM -2 points [-]

air will never be valuable on the surface of Earth

Actually, some cities have featured "air stations" or "air bars" due to smog, historically. I don't know if they still exist, I haven't heard of a contemporary one.