Effects of meditative trance

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Ideally. Kinda breaks down when subjective value doesn't match objective (average) value. Which is hard to avoid, given that subjective value depends on the environment and the situation heavily.

No, it's completely false from start to finish. There is no such thing as intrinsic value; value is an estimation of a thing in relation to the needs of a human being, and different human beings have different needs and different circumstances. Because of that, it's possible that value of a to X > value of b to X, but value of b to Y > value of a to Y, which makes it possible for them to exchange X for Y and both be better off. That fact is the whole basis of exchange, trade, and market economics. Without it there would never be any reason to have any of those things in the first place.

Nor is this just a "subjective" estimate of value. Consider two villages, one of which grows wheat, while the other catches fish. Wheat has a lot of calories in relation to its amino acid content; to get sufficient protein, the farmers have to eat huge amounts of wheat. Conversely, fish has fewer calories for the same protein; to get enough calories, the fishermen have to eat a lot of fish. In each case, Liebig's Law of the Minimum comes into play to limit their numbers to those sustainable by the most constraining resource. But if they can trade, the farmers can get more protein from fish and the fishermen can get more calories from wheat, and they both are less limited; exactly the same amount of food can sustain larger populations in both villages, enough to support extra people to provide trade and transportation. In other words, trade functions as a virtual additional food source.

Bill Stoddard