use Perl

• The customer is always useful. (Score:1)

  by educated_foo (3106) on 2007.07.07 23:40 (#56051) Journal

  Well, in a natural ecosystem everyone (or every gene) is just trying to survive long enough to reproduce a lot. Why do we start decaying at 30? Because we're past our reproductive years at that point, and therefore useless. On the other hand, in an economic system, whoever dies with the most toys wins, so there's no such thing as "enough money."

  As an aside, I think this touches on the biggest mistake people make about large-scale, first-world markets: that they are driven by some sort of diverse consumer tastes. In fact, it is just the opposite. For breakfast cereal, clothing, toothpaste, and many other things, there isn't a difference that makes a difference between the possible options. However, one of them is most profitable to produce, and efficiencies of scale make this option even cheaper. So consumers are told that they prefer whatever is cheapest to produce, and they happily "choose" and consume it. Why do wild animals spread into new ecosystems, while herds stick together?

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:1)

    by Ron Savage (5224)

    > so there's no such thing as "enough money."
    
    Yes. This has been spelled out in the fascinating book:
    Adam's Curse
    Bryan Sykes
    0 552 14989 6
    Eg: Top of page 295
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by educated_foo (3106)

      Thanks for the reference. I will give it a read.