You have now spent three whole posts trying to establish a particular meaning for the word “scarcity”, without either giving a really clear definition or (apparently) persuading your audience to go along with your definition.
If you are contemplating doing likewise for other terms, may I suggest a structure more along the following lines?
“In later posts I’m going to be talking about X. Unfortunately, X has a different meaning in economics from elsewhere. What it means in economics is [PRECISE TECHNICAL DEFINITION] or, in plainer English, [INFORMAL BUT EXPLICIT PARAPHRASE OF DEFINITION]. This is a more useful notion in economics than the usual meaning of X because [REASONS], and it’s reasonable to use X for it rather than making up a completely new term because [EXPLANATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NORMAL AND TECHNICAL SENSES].”
After that, if you think it’s still needed, would be the place for metaphorical illustrations of the economists’ use of X.
So, e.g.,
“Economics is all about the allocation of scarce resources. But that word scarce, here and in my later articles about economics, doesn’t mean quite what you probably think it does. A resource is scarce, in the economists’ sense, when it’s demand at zero cost would exceed its supply at infinite price; that is, when there is use for more of it than can ever be had. This can be true even if we generally consider that there’s plenty of it, and it can be false even in situations where it seems like there’s very little. What actually makes the allocation of a resource an economic problem is simply the fact that we (as individual agents, or considered collectively) have to choose what we do with it. Consider, for instance, gold. Gold is rare and scarce, but in a slightly different world it could be just as rare but not scarce. If no one had any use for gold, no one found it nice to look at, and it didn’t happen to be used as a conventional medium of exchange, it would not be scarce; and no one would care about it and there would be no need to think about how it should be distributed, so economics would take no interest in it. Then if, one day, it occurred to someone that because of its rarity good would be a good substance to make money out of—why, then it would become scarce, without any changes in its rarity, and suddenly economics would apply to it.
“Although rarity and scarcity are not the same, they are clearly related. Things that are rare tend also to be scarce, because most things have uses and because (as with gold in the hypothetical example above) a thing can become useful precisely because of its rarity, at which point it becomes scarce too. But what matters for economics is scarcity rather than rarity, because it is only when there are choices to be made that there is any point discussing how we should or do make them.”
(I an not sure whether the above captures exactly your usage of the term. But then, that’s part of the problem.)
Note that the above takes less space than any one of the three posts so far dedicated to the notion of scarcity in economics.
[Edited for clarity. And to fix a mobile-device text recognition error; thanks to Good_Burning_Plastic for pointing it out.]
Disagree; you’re prematurely optimising. LW is full of dully worthy explanatory articles using the blueprint you describe; an attempt to communicate technical concepts by redundant array of overlapping metaphors is novel and fun even if it doesn’t end up working well.
(Sure, it’s summoned a few bizarre commenting entities, but never mind!)
An interesting perspective—but I don’t get the impression that economy’s actual goal is to make LW more entertaining by posting bizarrely unhelpful metaphorical explanations of elementary concepts in economics. So maybe my advice is good for achieving economy’s goals but bad for making LW a more interesting place overall.
[EDITED to add:] I infer from your other comments that you don’t find economy’s explanations bizarrely unhelpful; so of course we may disagree on what the tradeoffs are here.
Am writing these articles because have reached point in my own research where it became necessary to go back to basics and nail down some fundamental concepts and ideas in very clear way. Was halfway through writing this first sequence before it even occurred to me to post them anywhere, and I will continue to write them even if they fail to find a home. Thus I have already reaped 90% of the benefit I hope to obtain from this sequence (which did already yield one major stunning realization for me). Personal advice would be to see these articles as opportunity to help yourself, not me. Do not mean to suggest not criticizing, questioning, suggesting, etc., but do sincerely mean that “go with flow” “try to understand meaning” attitude will help the readers more than it will help me....
I realize now that it would have been much smarter not to speak of scarcity. I use the word in this way because that seems correct to me, but would just as happily call the concept these articles are trying to describe and evoke tabtab, or unglukgluk, or any other string of nonsense so as to do away with existing preconceptions.
Indeed, if no objections, will do this, will go back and speak of tabtab or unglukgluk instead of scarcity. If one has better name to suggest, now is time to say....
In meantime, can understand concept I am trying to evoke? Ignoring specific sound and letters-order used to label concept? Is the real goal. Robot lacks alternatives, lacks choice; therefore no economics; saying situation tabtab or not tabtab (or whatever label preferred) does not seem to make a difference. But to human choice-maker, big difference between tabtab and not tabtab...therefore, is more logical to say tabtab is only tabtab when tabtab is different from not-tabtab.
Note, by the way, and though it may be my own failing of communication, but above definition of tabtab not my own and basically wrong, and above definition of tabtab insufficient to generate economics. For example, rarity has nothing to do with tabtab, nothing at all...and speaking of demand at zero cost exceeding supply at infinite just wrong...you mean zero price, probably, big difference, and as for demand, will not even speak of it until next sequence! You are ninja wielding nunchucks but not really ready; will hit self on elbow, experience harm cost.
You do also get to tabtab as meaning presence of choice, alternative uses, but given other errors, perhaps I may be forgiven for thinking this correct part of explanation of tabtab perhaps a result of my own articles....
Anyway, tabtab? unglukgluk? Must be something better...or is still necessary, even if clear now that only wish to talk about concept was using “scarcity” to label?
You have now spent three whole posts trying to establish a particular meaning for the word “scarcity”, without either giving a really clear definition or (apparently) persuading your audience to go along with your definition.
If you are contemplating doing likewise for other terms, may I suggest a structure more along the following lines?
“In later posts I’m going to be talking about X. Unfortunately, X has a different meaning in economics from elsewhere. What it means in economics is [PRECISE TECHNICAL DEFINITION] or, in plainer English, [INFORMAL BUT EXPLICIT PARAPHRASE OF DEFINITION]. This is a more useful notion in economics than the usual meaning of X because [REASONS], and it’s reasonable to use X for it rather than making up a completely new term because [EXPLANATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NORMAL AND TECHNICAL SENSES].”
After that, if you think it’s still needed, would be the place for metaphorical illustrations of the economists’ use of X.
So, e.g.,
“Economics is all about the allocation of scarce resources. But that word scarce, here and in my later articles about economics, doesn’t mean quite what you probably think it does. A resource is scarce, in the economists’ sense, when it’s demand at zero cost would exceed its supply at infinite price; that is, when there is use for more of it than can ever be had. This can be true even if we generally consider that there’s plenty of it, and it can be false even in situations where it seems like there’s very little. What actually makes the allocation of a resource an economic problem is simply the fact that we (as individual agents, or considered collectively) have to choose what we do with it. Consider, for instance, gold. Gold is rare and scarce, but in a slightly different world it could be just as rare but not scarce. If no one had any use for gold, no one found it nice to look at, and it didn’t happen to be used as a conventional medium of exchange, it would not be scarce; and no one would care about it and there would be no need to think about how it should be distributed, so economics would take no interest in it. Then if, one day, it occurred to someone that because of its rarity good would be a good substance to make money out of—why, then it would become scarce, without any changes in its rarity, and suddenly economics would apply to it.
“Although rarity and scarcity are not the same, they are clearly related. Things that are rare tend also to be scarce, because most things have uses and because (as with gold in the hypothetical example above) a thing can become useful precisely because of its rarity, at which point it becomes scarce too. But what matters for economics is scarcity rather than rarity, because it is only when there are choices to be made that there is any point discussing how we should or do make them.”
(I an not sure whether the above captures exactly your usage of the term. But then, that’s part of the problem.)
Note that the above takes less space than any one of the three posts so far dedicated to the notion of scarcity in economics.
[Edited for clarity. And to fix a mobile-device text recognition error; thanks to Good_Burning_Plastic for pointing it out.]
Disagree; you’re prematurely optimising. LW is full of dully worthy explanatory articles using the blueprint you describe; an attempt to communicate technical concepts by redundant array of overlapping metaphors is novel and fun even if it doesn’t end up working well.
(Sure, it’s summoned a few bizarre commenting entities, but never mind!)
An interesting perspective—but I don’t get the impression that economy’s actual goal is to make LW more entertaining by posting bizarrely unhelpful metaphorical explanations of elementary concepts in economics. So maybe my advice is good for achieving economy’s goals but bad for making LW a more interesting place overall.
[EDITED to add:] I infer from your other comments that you don’t find economy’s explanations bizarrely unhelpful; so of course we may disagree on what the tradeoffs are here.
Am writing these articles because have reached point in my own research where it became necessary to go back to basics and nail down some fundamental concepts and ideas in very clear way. Was halfway through writing this first sequence before it even occurred to me to post them anywhere, and I will continue to write them even if they fail to find a home. Thus I have already reaped 90% of the benefit I hope to obtain from this sequence (which did already yield one major stunning realization for me). Personal advice would be to see these articles as opportunity to help yourself, not me. Do not mean to suggest not criticizing, questioning, suggesting, etc., but do sincerely mean that “go with flow” “try to understand meaning” attitude will help the readers more than it will help me....
Is that a typo for “price”?
Yes, sorry. Will fix. (Not that there’s so much point since the original author appears to have deleted his or her account. That’s a pity.)
I realize now that it would have been much smarter not to speak of scarcity. I use the word in this way because that seems correct to me, but would just as happily call the concept these articles are trying to describe and evoke tabtab, or unglukgluk, or any other string of nonsense so as to do away with existing preconceptions.
Indeed, if no objections, will do this, will go back and speak of tabtab or unglukgluk instead of scarcity. If one has better name to suggest, now is time to say....
In meantime, can understand concept I am trying to evoke? Ignoring specific sound and letters-order used to label concept? Is the real goal. Robot lacks alternatives, lacks choice; therefore no economics; saying situation tabtab or not tabtab (or whatever label preferred) does not seem to make a difference. But to human choice-maker, big difference between tabtab and not tabtab...therefore, is more logical to say tabtab is only tabtab when tabtab is different from not-tabtab.
Note, by the way, and though it may be my own failing of communication, but above definition of tabtab not my own and basically wrong, and above definition of tabtab insufficient to generate economics. For example, rarity has nothing to do with tabtab, nothing at all...and speaking of demand at zero cost exceeding supply at infinite just wrong...you mean zero price, probably, big difference, and as for demand, will not even speak of it until next sequence! You are ninja wielding nunchucks but not really ready; will hit self on elbow, experience harm cost.
You do also get to tabtab as meaning presence of choice, alternative uses, but given other errors, perhaps I may be forgiven for thinking this correct part of explanation of tabtab perhaps a result of my own articles....
Anyway, tabtab? unglukgluk? Must be something better...or is still necessary, even if clear now that only wish to talk about concept was using “scarcity” to label?