I think that someone from 200 years ago would readily understand that people don’t want to die, and that having a longer life expectancy and dying is still not as good as not dying. Yes, there’s always the possibility that they may think that dying is good, but it isn’t, really; that’s just a sour grapes-type rationalization that we only make in the first place because death sucks.
I’d also point out that nuclear war and NSA spying only can happen in a developed society because it takes a lot of resources to do those things. 200 years ago we were simply incapable of making a nuclear weapon, and even if space aliens had dropped the plans for one in their lap, they wouldn’t be able to build one; it takes a huge infrastructure to make one that does indeed imply having overcome many scarcity limitations.
There’s a lot going on in the conversation right now.
I just want to note that you are having a conversation about a slightly different topic than what army1987 was talking about—I think Eugine_Nier is right that many of your examples are not about scarcity per se.
I think that someone from 200 years ago would readily understand that people don’t want to die, and that having a longer life expectancy and dying is still not as good as not dying. Yes, there’s always the possibility that they may think that dying is good, but it isn’t, really; that’s just a sour grapes-type rationalization that we only make in the first place because death sucks.
I’d also point out that nuclear war and NSA spying only can happen in a developed society because it takes a lot of resources to do those things. 200 years ago we were simply incapable of making a nuclear weapon, and even if space aliens had dropped the plans for one in their lap, they wouldn’t be able to build one; it takes a huge infrastructure to make one that does indeed imply having overcome many scarcity limitations.
There’s a lot going on in the conversation right now.
I just want to note that you are having a conversation about a slightly different topic than what army1987 was talking about—I think Eugine_Nier is right that many of your examples are not about scarcity per se.