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Lumifer comments on Open Thread March 7 - March 13, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: Elo 07 March 2016 03:24AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 07 March 2016 06:20:37PM 4 points [-]

Have you ever been poor?

Comment author: pangel 07 March 2016 11:01:35PM 0 points [-]

No. Thanks for making me notice how relevant that could be.

I see that I haven't even thought through the basics of the problem. "power over" is felt whenever scarcity leads the wealthier to take precedence. Okay, so to try to generalise a little, I've never been really hit by the scarcity that exists because my desires are (for one reason or another) adjusted to my means.

I could be a lot wealthier yet have cravings I can't afford, or be poorer and still content. But if what I wanted kept hitting a wealth ceiling (a specific type, one due to scarcity, such that increasing my wealth and everyone else's in proportion wouldn't help), I'd start caring about relative wealth really fast.