Think all you want, we'll make more.

[stakebait]

I've been thinking about scarcity versus abundance. Except I hate the word abundance because it makes me think of "God will make you rich" books. What I mean is, zero sum thinking versus, um, not zero sum thinking. Lots of sums?

Obviously, some things are scarce. Uranium, for example, is not lying around on every street corner. Very few people look like supermodels. Willy Wonka only made five golden tickets.

But it seems to me like some people look at the world as if there were a fixed quantity of most everything, and not enough to go around.

When I was a kid, my father told me I had more than my share of brains, and so I owed it to the world to give back as much as I could. As though I'd scooped the pot unfairly and some poor kid was having trouble in math class because of me. He was joking, but he meant it, too.

I still struggle with feeling obligated and not knowing where, if anywhere, I'm allowed to say "that's enough" giving back, even though most of me knows that there is no finite allocation of brains. It's not that I don't want to give, or help. But I don't want to do it out of guilt or feeling unentitled, like I'm taking up more than my share of the space.

I feel that a lot, and alternate between giving in to it and overcompensating in the other direction. (Why yes, I do take up enough physical space for two people and no, that's not a coincidence and yes, I do talk a lot.)

There's other stuff that strikes me as similar. Taking pleasure when someone else is down doesn't make sense unless you believe there's a set amount of misery in the world. If you do, then them being down is proof that I must, comparatively, be up. We are on a seesaw, so seeing your end down is reassuring because it means my end must be up. Who wouldn't be reassured to know that?

But if you believe that both misery and joy can expand infinitely, then your seesaw is a piece of wet spaghetti. Someone else being miserable is absolutely no guarantee that I'm not miserable too. Someone else being happy, or lucky, or pretty, or successful, does not mean I can't be too.

There might be competition for a specific person/job/apartment/award, but in general we can make more apartments and, to some extent, more jobs and people. We can certainly move the people around. And the people can make more love, too. Part of what poly means to me is this idea that it doesn't have to be about choosing one over the other, it can be about growing to encompass both.

Even more puzzling are the intangibles. While we definitely could be growing more food, there are at least some practical considerations that make it difficult, if not impossible, to build more apartments in Manhattan. However there is literally no restriction on story ideas. Everyone can have one. Everyone can have eight. Everyone can have a thousand. And so I am totally bewildered whenever I see someone reacting to other people's good stories as if there weren't any cake left for them.

I guess the scarce resource is readerly attention? That would make sense, I guess. We can't make more time. Except most readers don't allocate a strict amount of time to reading that never varies. If there are more stories that interest them, they'll find the time from something else. Plus we can attract new readers. Having more good stories available increases the size of the pie. Your good fanfic actually makes more of an audience for my good fanfic, because we need critical mass for archives and mailing lists and communities. You're not taking anything from me. You may actually be giving me something, besides a good story to read.

It's like in Booked to Die, where John Dunning explains how retail districts get started. Five bookstores can flourish where one struggled, because it's *not* zero sum, and if together you offer enough of an attraction, more people hear about it and more people think it's worth the trip.

I think attention was definitely the biggest scarce resource of all for my father. Starting with not getting *his* mother's attention as a child, because his sister was so sick. Like King Haggard in The Last Unicorn, he was saying "I must have all of it, all there is, for my need is very great."

I'm not saying everyone is entitled to as much as they want of everything. At least for the basic necessities, I do think it makes sense to make sure everyone has firsts before we start handing out seconds. I'm just saying that as a first approach, I prefer assuming there can be enough to go around, and then figuring out how to make that happen, to assuming there can't be enough, and the only way to get enough is to grab someone else's, and watch out that they don't grab mine. I find the latter mindset makes a lot of people very sad -- mostly the people who have it. Who wants to spend their lives getting angry whenever they see something beautiful that they don't own? But people do. It must be getting them something.

I've also been thinking a lot about the illusion of sexual scarcity. There's this idea that only the most young and beautiful and socially ept can have access, and the rest have to look through the shop window with longing. Skillfully perpetuated by advertising and the media and all, and also the social structure of high school. But really, it's pretty obvious that sex is one of the least scarce resources on the planet. Everybody's got some to give away. It's certainly true that sex with James Marsters is a limited commodity, but sex in general is plentiful. As with search engines or sending food to countries in turmoil, the problem is not supply, it's connecting the right supply to the right demand.

eBay is both loved and hated for the way it punctured artificial scarcity of some collectibles, dropping their values, and created entire markets for others. I think Google, Vindago, and eBay are the leading edge of an economic phase I don't have a name for, one where matchmaking is the key value, and whoever can mimic the human thought process better wins. Who wouldn't join the dating service that always picked the right mate? Who wouldn't read the reviewer who always suggested the right restaurant, or movie? Use the search engine that found the right web site?

What I like about this eBay model of reality is that it shows how almost everything is valuable to somebody. Whatever it is, no matter how obscure, someone wants it, needs it, loves it, collects it, can't get enough of it. Sure, some things are wanted by a lot more people than others. But there's always room for one more. The more things are sold on eBay, the more people shop there and the more they buy.

I believe there are readers out there for every writer. I believe there are lovers out there for every person who will think they are beautiful, and friends who will think they are funny, and jobs they will do well. Maybe not a million, but we only need one. The problem is only finding them, and we're working on it. I believe my being big does not make you small, and my being small does not make you big. I believe no one can have all there is, and it wouldn't be enough if you did. But if you make more, instead of fearing or resenting others for what they have, then it might be enough. Anyway, it would be more of what you love in the world, and how can that be a bad thing?

Comments

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

I love you because you think these things.

Just so you know.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Awh! Thank you. I love you too.

[porpentine.livejournal.com]

I dunno that I'd say it was pointless rambling. Certainly good things to think about this morning when I'd otherwise just like to crawl back into bed and forget the rest of the world.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm glad, then.

[vaspider]

Beautifully stated and quite thought-provoking. Thank you.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And great icon!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Nice meaty thought-provoking post, thank you. Some initial thoughts in reply.

What I mean is, zero sum thinking versus, um, not zero sum thinking. Lots of sums?

Non-zero-sum sounds good enough to me.

When I was a kid, my father told me I had more than my share of brains, and so I owed it to the world to give back as much as I could. As though I'd scooped the pot unfairly and some poor kid was having trouble in math class because of me. He was joking, but he meant it, too.

I can see both how that's an unfair burden to put on a child and how that could be a warped way of expressing "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" which is not a sentiment I can find it in myself to disagree with.

I still struggle with feeling obligated and not knowing where, if anywhere, I'm allowed to say "that's enough" giving back, even though most of me knows that there is no finite allocation of brains.

I'm trying to remember whose journal I was talking about this in the other day; my conclusion on this one is, giving in ways or to degrees that long-term degrade my ability to keep giving back and maintaining the commitments I have is bad, and that my best criterion for whether something's a sensible way of giving is what other things it would eat for me to do that. Playing from your strengths is a tactical issue, not a moral one.

(Why yes, I do take up enough physical space for two people and no, that's not a coincidence and yes, I do talk a lot.)

There are those of us who definitely regard these as net-positive fatures of the universe. *hug*

Taking pleasure when someone else is down doesn't make sense unless you believe there's a set amount of misery in the world.

I don't know; I think I disagree in the case of seeing deserved suffering come to someone who has been actively malicious.

But if you believe that both misery and joy can expand infinitely, then your seesaw is a piece of wet spaghetti. Someone else being miserable is absolutely no guarantee that I'm not miserable too. Someone else being happy, or lucky, or pretty, or successful, does not mean I can't be too.

I like to think that this should be more tilted in favour of joy, in that I hope that many of the things I take joy in feed back to give other people joy, and that I will then take joy in their joy und so weit.

Part of what poly means to me is this idea that it doesn't have to be about choosing one over the other, it can be about growing to encompass both.

Amen. Though with the caveat that knowing where the limits of your available energy are is an absolutely necessary corollary to that; sooner carry five happy relationships than scrabble desperately to make time for ten strained ones.

While we definitely could be growing more food, there are at least some practical considerations that make it difficult, if not impossible, to build more apartments in Manhattan.

It's too far off the equator for an orbital tower.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

[ continued ]

And so I am totally bewildered whenever I see someone reacting to other people's good stories as if there weren't any cake left for them.

Well, I can see how one might be annoyed with an idea one cared about and was working on, or planning on, being given a treatment, brought into the public eye, and becoming regarded as the definitive treatment of a certain idea, when it's a messy piece of hackwork and you know you could do better. The more so when one isn't operating in the fanfic mindset of being happy to just do one's own version anyway - and even if so, has it never been the case in the worlds of fanfic that a version of a certain story idea has come out first and been widely read enough to become the standard for judging other renditions of the same idea ? At that level I can see it being irritating.

Who wants to spend their lives getting angry whenever they see something beautiful that they don't own? But people do. It must be getting them something.

I truly do not grok this either.

I've also been thinking a lot about the illusion of sexual scarcity. There's this idea that only the most young and beautiful and socially ept can have access, and the rest have to look through the shop window with longing.

Part of that does seem to be a presentation that the only desirable access is to other young and beautiful and socially ept people. I've often felt that being attracted to realistic people has helped me a lot in finding partners, there being so many more of them around than supermodels.

It's certainly true that sex with James Marsters is a limited commodity,

Happy to relinquish any claim on such that might be mine to anyone who wants it.

I think Google, Vindago, and eBay are the leading edge of an economic phase I don't have a name for, one where matchmaking is the key value, and whoever can mimic the human thought process better wins. Who wouldn't join the dating service that always picked the right mate? Who wouldn't read the reviewer who always suggested the right restaurant, or movie? Use the search engine that found the right web site?

Interesting thought - I'm inclined to think that Google's modelling my mind pretty darn well on the last, actually. Can't think of the last time I went looking for something that actually existed and didn't find it in the first twenty hits.

I also think you should read Designing Freedom.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Wow. This post is a good example of why I like hanging out with people thinkier than me.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And also thank you for the word "thinkier", which is my new favorite and I must now go find places to use.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Much food for thought, and I'll comment when I'm done digesting some of it.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to it.

[jolielaide.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely wonderful. Just wonderful, good, hopeful, clear thinking on a really interesting subject. Am bookmarking to read and re-read and think more about, particularly wrt your ideas on the new "matchmaking" paradigm.

Very cool.

Cheers. ;-)

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[mpoetess.livejournal.com]

With schadenfreude, I think it depends on whose life is on the down see-saw. I agree with you about the bizarreness of the classic idea of it, just taking heart in the misery of any random person because at least things aren't as bad for you. Sure, today they might not be...

But the mean-spirited frisson of glee when someone specific who annoys you or has actively harmed you gets what seems to be cosmic justice, that I understand. I don't say it's a particularly healthy or nice thing to do, but I get the reasoning behind it. [Having never, of course, done so myself. Snerk.]

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nodsnods* That's a good point. I definitely have done this, though to really feel like justice it has to be more or less on the same thing they did. You know, the con man gets conned, the commitment phobe gets dumped by a still greater commitment phobe, that makes me giggle a little and hope they've learned some empathy all the at same time. If the commitment phobe gets sick, not so much.

[batyatoon]

Now I want "Think all you want, we'll make more" on a button.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm sure it could be arranged.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You've put your finger on something I believe, but have never managed to articulate in such convincing detail. Thanks.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. And thank you.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

A good generalization is that physical goods are conserved (zero-sum) and spiritual things aren't. And there doesn't seem to be any physical good of which more keeps being better, at least for the individual.

One wonderful thing about Narcotics Anonymous is the realization there that recovery is not a zero-sum quantitity. No one can steal it, and the more you give away, the more you have.

Interesting thoughts about eBay.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Even some physical goods aren't zero sum. Science helps us grow more grain, get more work out of the same fuel, efficiency helps us make more products from the same materials, etc. But yes, the ingredients are zero sum, even if the process is improved.

Good point about physical goods that don't keep getting better!

the more you give away, the more you have

That's lovely.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

You have a sexy brain. *hug*

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*hug* Thanks!

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I believe there are lovers out there for every person who will think they are beautiful, and friends who will think they are funny, and jobs they will do well.

I think this is one of those statements that requires more balance. I think that finding partners is not a "here I am, come get me" stance alone, and that one does have to say "what things about me are offputting? Are they worth changing?" without becoming a doormat.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I suspect it depends on where you're starting from, and that so much of that is built into my defaults that this statement is an attempt to balance that out, more than to be balanced in itself, if that makes any sense.

I also do think, though, that what's offputting to one person may well be appealing to another, so unless it's causing problems for you yourself or hurting the people you already love, I'm more inclined to suggest looking for the people who find it a plus than changing yourself for the people who find it a minus.

There are very few qualities that I think are near universally off-putting. Not listening, maybe. Also axe murder is generally frowned on. But one person's selfish standoffishness is another one's non-stifling independance and laudible self-esteem. One person's witty sarcasm is another's excessive negativity. Etc.

I also think it's very difficult to change something about yourself. It's hard even to change habits. It's taken me years and years in therapy just to gentle down things that were making me miserable. I do think change is possible and can be important, especially if you're encountering the same problem over and over with different people, because that does indicate that the problem lies with you, either in how you interact or in how you choose who to interact with.

But I often think what happens when people try to change what's off-putting about themselves is that, with the best intentions, they actually end up concealing it without changing it. And that causes more unhappiness down the line when they finally stop sucking in their metaphorical gut than it would for them to eliminate prospective partners who were uncomfy with it before either got attached.

[science-vixen.livejournal.com]

Gah..., for a moment there I was afraid to do something fun because I might deprive someone else.
Then I read on...

I think I'll memorize this to re-read sometime in the future. You don't mind getting comments on posts a few days/weeks old do you?

also I just realised that if joy would be a limited commodity, then my anguish about depriving someone balances out my fun so now I can play even more, or not, or something.

::wanders of muttering to himself::

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Hee! No, I don't mind at all.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

That last paragraph is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.

Thank you.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome!

[msagara.livejournal.com]

This is a terrific post.

I think envy makes things difficult for many people. I think entitlement -- the specific flavour, which says "I've suffered therefore I'm owed" -- is another. I think lack of empathy -- the inability to see any suffering that isn't played out in public like a grand debacle -- feeds into that particular entitlement. One always sees one's own pain clearly, but other people's, less so -- and if one believes that suffering = entitlement, resentment of good fortune that isn't accompanied by open suffering is vast.

I also think that people are often raised to be as fair and reasonable as possible, and they take from this, without careful direction, the certain sense that the universe is supposed to be a Just & fair place. It's always a shock, and I think part of coming of age, to realize that this isn't true.

The next step, of course, is to realize that unless you work to make it true, you're only adding to the thing that embitters you.

And last: I think that people are afraid of being happy because happiness is something that they can lose. Affection, love, etc. -- they're things craved because in an isolated individual life, they can be considered rare. This is partly due to blindness, partly due to other factors (like depression, which can cause people who are surrounded by friends who do love and esteem them to still feel unloved and worthless, which leads to things like suicide, among others), and partly due to the sense that "I wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member".

Also: conflation of sex with love is an issue. Wanting the specific love of a specific person, rather than love in general, is also an issue. Scarcity in that situation is an issue that runs up against entitlement (but I love you so much more than that other person) and a sense of universal justice, or injustice.

Ummm, I should add that I'm not supporting any of these positions, only positing answers to some of the general questions here.

[redbird]

I also think that people are often raised to be as fair and reasonable as possible, and they take from this, without careful direction, the certain sense that the universe is supposed to be a Just & fair place. It's always a shock, and I think part of coming of age, to realize that this isn't true.

My feeling is that we need to be fair and just precisely because the universe isn't: if there were a just and hands-on deity making sure that life was fair, it wouldn't matter if someone cheated, because $deity would make sure they didn't benefit from it. But there isn't.

[iswari.livejournal.com]

I'm under the weather, and my brain isn't particularly working...but I wanted to say that I really appreciated this post. Good food for thought!

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And I'm sorry you're under the weather. Stupid weather. ::chases it away with a broom::

[nzlaura.livejournal.com]

Great thoughts, and love the last paragraph especially - made me feel all warm and hopeful, which I kind of needed. Thanks.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Happy to help! Thanks.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Thanks! If you feel like commenting later, I'd still be interested, but if not, no pressure at all. :)

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

Not really directly related to the point you are making, but more a philosophical point about language...

If everyone was pretty, we'd get into the Starbucks approach of descibing people as pretty, very pretty, or super extra pretty. This would obviously make no sense; instead we'd revalue the scale, and reserve the word pretty only for those who were super extra pretty, or at least really quite pretty.

If everyone was happy, then we'd revalue the word happy so that that it only applied to those who at least really quite happy, and perhaps use the word sad to desribe the people who were at the bottom end of the range of happiness.

Or put another way, if everyone were ‘happy’, then the word happy would convey no meaning. Happiness is only meaningful as a concept by contrast to sadness. Without sadness, it just becomes a universal. So whilst I with your sentiment that there isn't a finite amount of happiness to go round, the existence of sadness is necessary in order to define the concept of happiness.

-roy

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Pretty and happy, I think, are somewhat different. Leaving aside the philosophical "do you see blue the same way I see blue" issues, we all mean more or less the same thing by the state of happiness, although it takes different things for us to achieve it. But we *don't* all agree on what constitutes the state of prettiness. It is not a direct experience but the evaluative bottom line of meeting aesthetic criteria, our own or others' - and they're really quite different from person to person, both in the absolute and in which are more or less prioritized.

So while it wouldn't make much sense to say "everyone is happy to someone" I do think it makes sense to say "everyone is pretty to someone."

But yes, I agree, you have to have sadness (or boredom, discontent, something bad) to contrast with happiness. And I suppose you have to have the concept of ugliness to make sense of prettiness. But there's not the consensus on who goes into which box that most people seem to believe there is.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelated - did you get the group email I sent out about Afghani dinner next week? Hope to see you...