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Originally Posted by jamesqf
What defines "lower standard of living", though? From my point of view, most of the population of this country has freely and voluntarily chosen to live at a much lower standard of living than they could easily obtain.
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Like how people get majorly into credit card debit ... and then all the Credit Card interest they pay is effectively a lower standard of living they could have lived with the same money otherwise... because having Item A right now is somehow worth Item A +__% Interest payments ... ie A > A ... in some cases that can work, other times , it is just voluntarily paying more for Item A , thus due to the interest payments not being able to latter afford Item B.
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Originally Posted by MPGranger
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Originally Posted by IamIan
The way I see it , conservation has been the primary motivator or cause for the vast majority of innovations in human history ... we want to work less for the same output ( thus conserving our time and our energies ).
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I disagree, I see that many innovations come about as a result of war, competing for resources. Only after a warring period do civilians adapt new technology to industry. |
I would agree conservation efforts are not the only motivator for innovation.
Specifically I do agree that some of those other motivations have been conflict, be it war or just general military... although just being a military innovation does not by itself mean that it is not still a conservation innovation... the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
However ... That doesn't change the existence of those innovations that were the result of conservation... even if that conservation partially motivated by conflict or military ... it was still conservation.
And for my money I think when comparing the total impact of all conservation innovation and all non-conservation innovation ... I'm still going to say I think those conservation innovations are way up there ... if not as a total benefit being the vast majority or dominate from conservation.
But if you think differently ... I'm happy to discuss and compare innovations ... maybe I'm seeing the impact and quantity of different innovations differently than you.
I'll even go first.
Agriculture ( Conservation ) ... what military non-conservation innovation was 'bigger' than agriculture?