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UnrequitedHope comments on Open thread, Feb. 23 - Mar. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Is there anything on why people prefer to consume, rather than make things themselves?
This thought crossed my mind when my mom bought cookies today. She always buys them, never makes them.
I'm compelled to say something like "lazyness", but I could say this only applies to my mom. But on a larger scale, what makes people consume, but never produce?
(no ad hominem please)
Buying cookies takes about a minute if you're already at the grocery store. Making cookies takes an hour upwards depending on what recipe you're following. Unless your mother is made of free time, paying a small premium in exchange for not having to do it herself makes economic sense -- and even if she is made of free time, there may be other things she'd prefer to do with it.
Economics 101.
There are factories that are really efficient at producing cookies cheaply. Making them yourself takes more effort. For most people in Western society it's more worthwhile to invest effort into their work to earn money to then buy products other people produced.
I'd have thought it pretty much has to be a combination of
I don't think laziness and impatience are necessarily vices in this sense. Sometimes you have very good reason to want something quickly. Sometimes you have very good reason to want something without having to spend a lot of effort on it.
Making a batch of cookies takes maybe an hour of work plus a couple of hours of delay (depending on exactly what sort of cookies). More, if you don't have ingredients to hand. So if you're in WANT COOKIES NOW mode, or if you don't enjoy making cookies, or if you have more important things to do, it's not hard to see how getting them from a shop might seem preferable.
Personally, I love making tasty things and at least 90% of the cookies and cake I eat I've made myself. On the other hand, I have no interest in making clothes or bookcases or houses or cars. I do enjoy making software but am orders of magnitude short of having enough time to make better word processors and web browsers and operating systems than the Usual Suspects. I don't see that any of this is terribly surprising.
There's another answer, which I think is answering a slightly different question from yours: Because it's more efficient. Economies of scale, specialization, etc. -- This doesn't exactly explain why people choose to consume rather than produce, but it explains why society "chooses" to centralize production as it does and why that's a pretty good choice overall.
(Incidentally #1: yes, it was deliberate.)
(Incidentally #2: I am pleased to report that yes, the internet has already invented the term ad mominem, which means just what you think it does.)
Given that the question is put very generally, here are two general answers:
Lack of skill and/or resources and opportunities. I cannot smelt iron ore and forge my own forks.
Cost-benefit considerations: for great many things it's much cheaper (in terms of money, time, and effort) for me to buy them rather than make them.
I can't see how to make this question any more specific, so with that..
An rather pointless thing to hang on to in the grand scheme of things.
I did not mean you have to do EVERYTHING yourself but there are things that you can do it and they do not take a huge amount of effort.
Also, fun theory.
Why aren't you baking cookies?
Good question. How's it relevant, though?
You posted as though there was something wrong with your mother for not baking cookies. I admit that when I first read it, I assumed that she was buying cookies for both you and herself, which may have been a mistake.
Nah what I meant was a general observation that people often consume, but never make themselves.
They use software but have no idea how it's made; they eat food but have no idea about the recipe; they listen to music but don't know how to play even one instrument
Now that's all fine if they DON'T want to do it. But at the same time it's kind of what makes us human. It gives me a sense of being satisfied with the present rather than trying to self-improve, or something like that.
Many of those things aren't even DIFFICULT yet plenty of people do not take even a small endeavor. It's as low-hanging as a fruit can get.
I don't know what you mean.
I suspect you already know the literal answer. People do make, on a very regular basis - it's called a job. It's more efficient for me to sell my code and buy music than for me to make my own music, for all the standard and obvious reasons given above (comparative advantage, division of labour, depth of market, etc). But you've been told this answer and keep asking, which makes me think you are asking something else.
Can you clarify what kind of answer you're after?